When One Night

Isn’t Enough

Wendy S. Marcus

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Copyright

About the Author

WENDY S. MARCUS is not a lifelong reader. As a child, she never burrowed under her covers with a flashlight and a good book. In senior English, she skimmed the classics, reading the bare minimum required to pass the class. Wendy found her love of reading later in life, in a box of old paperbacks at a school fundraiser where she was introduced to the romance genre in the form of a Harlequin Superromance. Since that first book, she’s been a voracious reader of romance often times staying up way too late to reach the happy ending before letting herself go to sleep.

Wendy lives in the beautiful Hudson Valley region of New York with her husband, two of their three children, and their beloved dog, Buddy. A nurse by trade, Wendy has a master’s degree in health care administration. After years of working in the medical profession, she’s taken a radical turn to writing hot contemporary romances with strong heroes, feisty heroines, and lots of laughs. Wendy loves hearing from readers. Please visit her at www.WendySMarcus.com.

This is Wendy S. Marcus’s debut book!

Dear Reader

Thank you so much for picking up this copy of my debut Mills & Boon® Medical™ Romance.

I’ve heard it said, “Men marry women like their mothers, and women marry men like their fathers.” Is it true? I have no idea. But my mother-in-law was a nurse, like me, and my husband is an accountant, like my father.

What if your father was an insincere flirt, a womanizer, the absolute last type of man you’d choose to share your life with? Yet you’re drawn to someone just like him, a man who visits your dreams and your nightmares, a man you crave with an intensity impossible to ignore. What then?

In this first book set in the fictional Madrin Memorial Hospital in upstate New York, meet Nurse Allison “Ali” Forshay who faces that exact situation. Haunted by memories of her childhood, Ali is adamant about not repeating the mistakes of her mother. Unfortunately, Dr. Jared Padget is damn hard to resist.

Sometimes life doesn’t follow the plan. As long as you remain open to the possibility, happily ever after is still within reach.

I hope you enjoy Ali and Jared’s story. Look for Ali’s best friend and colleague Victoria’s story, coming soon.

I love to hear from readers. Please visit me at www.WendySMarcus.com.

Wishing you all good things!

Wendy S. Marcus

This book is dedicated to my mom and dad, who taught me to always work hard and do my best. I wish they were here to see the result. And to my sister Dale, for loving me, encouraging me, and never letting me give up. I love you.

Special thanks go out to:

My editor, Flo Nicoll, who worked almost as hard as I did to get this book published. I couldn’t have done it without your guidance, your patience, and your expertise.

My agent, Michelle Grajkowski. With you on my team I feel anything is possible.

My critique partner, Joanne Stewart, who wouldn’t let me skimp on emotion.

My neighbour, Nancy B., who was the first person to ever read and critique my work.

All my writing buddies who cheer my accomplishments, commiserate over my disappointments, and motivate me to get back to work—especially Susan Wilson, Amy Strnad, Regina Richards, Jennifer Probst and Abbi Cantrell.

And last, but certainly not least in my heart, my husband and children, who have supported this endeavour from the start and have never once complained about eating takeout. They make every day worth living. I am truly blessed.

CHAPTER ONE

FLOAT nurse Allison Forshay glanced at the clock on the institutional white wall of the staff lounge in the emergency room, wishing she could accelerate time with the snap of her fingers. Then the eight hours and six minutes that remained of Dr. Jared Padget’s last shift would vanish in seconds.

Along with him.

Hallelujah!

The chorus of sopranos belting out a private concert in her head came to an abrupt halt when the door opened and chatter from the busy outside hallway overpowered her glee.

Ali cringed, keeping her eyes on the patient chart open on the round table in front of her, struggling to maintain focus on her documentation for little Molly Dawkins, her first patient of the night. The three-year-old, blond-haired, blue-eyed terror had tried to bite the triage nurse and kicked at Ali when she’d attempted to expose the girl’s infected big toe. Then Dr. Padget had arrived, complimented the pink polish on Molly’s tiny toenails, the delicate gold bracelets on her ankle and wrist, and the princess tattoo on her hand. In less than three minutes he’d charmed that little girl right out of her sandal, confirming Ali’s suspicions. Women of all ages were susceptible to the man’s charisma.

If there was a vaccine to protect against it, Ali would have opted for a double dose.

The subtle change in the air gave him away, some type of electrostatic attraction that caused the tiny hairs on her arms to rise and lean in his direction, her heart rate to accelerate and her breath to hitch whenever he found her alone.

His blue scrub-covered legs and red rubber clogs entered her peripheral vision. He pulled out the chair beside her and sat down, brushing his arm against hers. No doubt on purpose, the rat.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Dr. Jared Padget said.

“You’re hardly worth the effort it would take to avoid you.” Although, in truth, she was.

“I’m leaving on Monday.”

Yes! Finally! His arrival three months ago had thrown her life into a state of flux. Now, his temporary assignment over, his departure meant she could finally settle back into a normal routine free from his constant badgering at work and “coincidental” encounters on her days off. With a flippant wave of her hand she said, “Here. Gone. Alive. Dead. Makes no difference to me.”

“Come on, Ali Kitten.” He snatched her pen. “You know you’re going to miss me.”

“About as much as I’d miss a painful hemorrhoid,” she said, glaring at him from the corners of her eyes. “And you know I don’t like it when you call me that.”

“Yeah,” he said with a playful twinkle in his peridotgreen eyes and that sexy smile, complete with bilateral dimples that tormented her in her sleep. He leaned back in his chair and clasped his long fingers, and her pen, behind his head. “That’s what makes it so much fun.”

Ali grabbed at her pen, making sure to mess up his neatly styled dark hair. He raised his hand over his head and back out of reach, his expression daring her to come closer.

She didn’t.

He chucked the pen onto the table.

“I hear a bunch of you are going out tonight to celebrate my departure,” he said, making no mention of the fact he hadn’t been invited.

She shrugged, tamping down the other, less joyful, reason for the night out. “It’s as good as any other excuse for the girls to get together. And it’s easier and less fuss than burning you in effigy.”

He moved forward, rested his elbows on the table and leaned in close. “Was that supposed to hurt my feelings, Kitten?” His voice, soft and deep, vibrated through her.

Four hours into a busy twelve-hour night shift, and he had the nerve to still smell fresh from the shower. A picture of him naked, water sluicing down his tall, firm body, slick with suds, forced its way into her mind. It took immense self-control not to pound her fists against her head to get rid of it.

“What’s going on in that pretty little head, I wonder?” he teased, staring at her face as if trying to see behind what she hoped was a disinterested expression.

Heaven help her if he could. For months she’d fought this attraction. First she couldn’t act on it. Now she wouldn’t.

Distance was the only thing that worked so she gathered her charts and stood.

Jared rose to stand directly in front of her, so close she noticed a tiny freckle on the skin exposed by the V-neck of his scrub top, a minuscule droplet of chocolate she wanted to lick clean. He smelled so good, his scent an intoxicant that impaired rational thought.

She stared straight ahead at his clavicle, wouldn’t meet his eyes for fear the way he affected her would show. “Please, move.”

“I think you don’t want me to move, you like me right here.”

“Now you can read minds?” She took a step back. Distance. What she wanted was distance between them. Preferably a continent, but the opposite side of New York State, the site of his next temporary assignment, would have to do.

“Yes, I can.” He tilted his face in front of hers. “And you are thinking some very naughty thoughts, Nurse Forshay.”

“Only if you consider me beating you with the bell of my stethoscope naughty. Now get out of my way.” She pushed his arm. “I’ve got to get back to work, and so do you.”

He turned serious for a change. “Are you ever going to forgive me?”

“To forgive you I would have to care about you.” She looked up and locked eyes with him. “And I don’t. Not one bit.”

“You could if you’d try.”

It was the same old argument. “Why on earth would I want to? From day one of your assignment here, an assignment that your friend, my boyfriend, recommended you for, might I add, you’ve been hell-bent on coming between us.”

“Not at first.” Jared held up his index finger. “Not until I realized neither one of you were happy.”

More like until he’d decided she wasn’t good enough for his friend. “I was happy.” Maybe comfortable was a better word. “And so was Michael. Our relationship was just fine until you showed up.” Wasn’t it? She’d worked so hard to be the type of woman she thought Michael wanted.

“You didn’t love him,” Jared pointed out.

No, she hadn’t. But Dr. Michael Shefford had been perfect for her. Stable. Dependable. Predictable. And in his quiet, unassuming way, he’d treated her well. Maybe she could have fallen in love with him if she’d had more time. Right, Ali, she chided herself. A year wasn’t long enough?

“How I felt about Michael is irrelevant.” She slammed her files onto the table and turned from him. “You took him out, got him drunk and sent him home with Wanda from Pediatrics. You knew she had a thing for him.”

“I didn’t force him into the car, Ali. I didn’t strip off his clothes and push him into her bed, either.”

Heck, there was a visual she could have done without. “And you most certainly didn’t try to stop him. What kind of friend are you?”

Not hers, that’s for sure. She could have had a nice, stable life with Michael, who, until Jared had come to town, never stayed up past eleven unless he was working, never went out drinking with the boys and never showed an interest in any woman but her. She’d have done her best to make him happy, to have the quiet, anonymous life she’d dreamed of since childhood.

“Over the past month we have beat this to death.” With an uncharacteristic disregard for his appearance, Jared ran his fingers through his hair. “If I thought Michael was making a terrible mistake, by all means I would have stopped him. But he and Wanda are good together.”

A point Michael had made four weeks ago, during what was supposed to be his apology for cheating. The one thing Ali would not forgive. Usually sedate, Michael hadn’t been able to tamp down his new-romance exuberance as he’d extolled all the attributes that made Wanda perfect for him, inadvertently identifying all the areas he’d found Ali lacking. No breakup remorse there.

“They’re happy together,” Jared said.

Yeah. The only one not happy was her.

“Michael was a great study partner in medical school,” Jared went on. “He’s a good friend. But he’s the most boring person I have ever met. He’s plain old vanilla ice cream, and you’re chocolate fudge ripple with rainbow sprinkles. He’s high-fiber cereal and skim milk for breakfast. You’re blueberry pancakes with warm maple syrup. You lost your spark when he came around. He’s so dull, he tarnished your shine. Are you so desperate to get married you’d settle for a lackluster, routine, boring life?”

“I am not desperate to get married.” Holy cow. She’d actually stomped her foot. Well, she wasn’t desperate. Really. But after all her unstable mother had put her through, bringing a lineup of losers into their home, dozens and dozens of destined-for-failure relationships, new-romance euphoria followed by bitter breakup histrionics that enticed nosy neighbors out to gawk and brought the police around several times a year; a stable life, free from drama, with one trustworthy, committed man, held great appeal. “And my life is none of your concern.”

“Over time he would have made you miserable. In return you would have made his life a living hell. I’ve seen it happen. Hell, I’ve lived it.”

“The only one around here who’s making me miserable is you, Dr. Padget.”

“You need a real man, Ali. Someone as passionate as you are, not Mr. missionary position, lights off, once a week on Wednesday night Shefford.”

Ali gasped, couldn’t believe Michael had shared that with his friend.

“Let me show you what it’s like to be with a real man,” he said with the cocky confidence that made him so appealing.

He lowered his voice, adding, “And you will never again settle for mediocre.”

God help her, she wanted to take him up on his offer. Every cell in her nervous system tingled with frenetic energy at the thought of spending the night in his strong arms, allowing his experienced fingers full rein over her body. Damn him! She refused to belittle herself for one night of pleasure, to allow him to assuage his lust with her, when any woman would do. “That hey-baby-I-want-to-fill-your-cannoli-with-my-cream personality get you a lot of dates?”

Jared laughed.

Ali plowed on. “If you ruined my relationship with Michael so you could have a crack at me, you’ve wasted your time. Because as wrong as you think Michael was for me, no man is more wrong for me than you.” A man like her philandering father. A flirt. A schmooze. A woo-a-woman-into-bed-using-any-means-necessary man.

The door to the lounge opened, ending their private conversation. Tani, the E.R.'s unit secretary, popped her head in, her jet-black hair an interesting configuration of twirls and curls, in staunch contrast to her pale complexion. “Ambulance on the way. Forty-seven-year-old male, three hundred plus pounds, full cardiac arrest, CPR in progress, paramedics unable to intubate. ETA—four minutes.”

Jared transformed back into a dedicated professional in an instant. “Clear—”

“I’ll clear out Trauma Room One,” Ali finished for him.

“I’ll need—”

“ET tubes, assorted sizes on the tray by the head of Bed One, two pediatric, just in case, IV primed and the crash cart open and ready.”

“Call—”

“Respiratory Therapy and Radiology to let them know what’s coming.” Ali scooped up her charts and headed for the door. “I’m on it.” Their differences aside, they made a great team at work.

Forty minutes later, Jared stood on the stoop in front of the E.R., arms crossed over his ribs, staring out into the dark parking lot, down the tree-lined hill to the distant lights on Main Street. The crisp November air cleared his head, the quiet calmed him. Slowly, his tension began to ease.

“You were supposed to save him!” an irate male teenager yelled, disrupting Jared’s solitude. “It’s your job to save people!”

Jared turned to his left. The fifteen-year-old son of the man he’d pronounced dead five minutes earlier stomped toward him. Baggy pants, long hair and pierced eyebrow aside, the kid looked ready to commit murder.

Jared pushed off the pillar he’d been leaning against, thankful the blame game would be played outside rather than in the crowded E.R. corridor. Through the electronic glass doors he saw Ali with the boy’s distraught mother under one arm and his hysterical little sister under the other, trying to calm them. “I’m sorry,” Jared said.

“You’re sorry?” the boy screamed, his voice cracking, tears streaming down his enraged face. “What good does that do me? My dad is dead because you …” he stopped in front of Jared and poked him in the chest with his index finger “… didn’t do your job.”

Jared took a deep breath, channeling calm, understanding it was easier to blame the doctor, knowing that pointing out the obvious—his patient had been at least one hundred and fifty pounds overweight, smoked two packs of cigarettes per day and led a sedentary lifestyle—wouldn’t negate the fact that a forty-seven-year-old husband and father was dead.

And, despite his best efforts, Jared had been unable to resuscitate him.

“Sometimes,” Jared said, looking down into watery brown eyes, working hard to keep his voice calm so his own anger and frustration didn’t show, “no matter how hard we try, things don’t turn out the way we want them to.” Put those words to a nifty jingle, and they could be the theme song to Jared’s life. “I did everything within my power to save your dad.”

As if someone had stuck him with a pin, the tough teen deflated against him. “I don’t want him to be dead. What am I going to do without him?”

Jared grabbed the boy in a tight hug, holding him upright, which took a good amount of strength. “I’ve been where you are,” Jared said, agonizing over what the kid would go through in the next few days, weeks and months. “You’re going to get through this.” But it wouldn’t be easy, and he’d never forget this day.

“He yelled at me to turn off my music,” the boy said in between sobs. “I didn’t listen. If only I had, maybe I would have heard him call for me. Maybe he’d be alive right now.”

Jared remembered the “if only” scenarios that had run through his head when, at the same age, he’d been alone to deal with his own father’s heart attack. If only his mom hadn’t gone to the store to buy antacids, leaving him in charge of his sick father. If only he hadn’t listened when his dad had told him not to dial 911, the delay the reason the ambulance had arrived too late to save him. If only he’d taken the CPR elective offered the first quarter of his sophomore year of high school. If only he’d run next door to see if Mrs. Alvarez, a nurse, was home, instead of staying by his dad’s side, holding his hand, watching him take his last breath.

“Your dad was not a healthy man,” Jared said, patting the boy’s back. “He suffered a massive heart attack. There’s nothing you or I or anyone could have done to save him.”

“What do I do now?” the boy asked in a small voice.

Jared placed both hands on the kid’s shoulders and took a step back so he could look him in the eye. “You go back into the E.R. You pick up your little sister and reassure her you’re still here, and you’ll look after her just as well as your dad would have. You kiss your mom on the cheek and tell her you love her, and you’re there for her, and you’ll do whatever you can to help her.” Jared shook the kid to make sure he had his full attention. “Don’t just say the words. Mean them. Live them. And no matter what happens, do not let your mother push you away.” If only Jared hadn’t, maybe things wouldn’t have fallen apart.

Maybe he’d have been able to honor his father’s final plea: “Take care of your mother.”

“There you are.” Ali walked over to them. He hadn’t heard the electronic doors open. How long had she been standing there? How much had she heard? “Are you Jimmy?” she asked the boy, who nodded. “Your mother’s looking for you.”

Jimmy turned away from Ali, inhaled a shaky breath and wiped his eyes.

“I’m so sorry about your dad,” Ali said, placing a caring hand on Jimmy’s shoulder.

“Me, too,” he replied, and, with a composed look that earned Jared’s respect he took a deep breath, straightened his spine and walked into the E.R.

Jared turned back to the parking lot, needing a few minutes to regain his own composure, remembering the ride home from the hospital, his mother’s anger, her harsh accusations and the years of being treated as if he didn’t exist that followed.

To quell the painful memories trying to escape the remote part of his brain where he’d locked them, Jared contemplated his favorite topic of recent weeks. Nurse Ali Forshay.

He remembered their first interaction, before he had known she was his friend’s girl, in the close confines of the clean utility room. He’d brushed against her, reaching for a roll of tape, and they’d both gone still, shared a stunned did-you-feel-what-I-just-felt look. More than a tingle, he’d been jolted by an awareness, a powerful attraction that’d had him on the verge of taking her into his arms and kissing her, a women whose name he hadn’t even known.

Soulmate? Maybe.

His type of woman? If he allowed himself to have a type, she’d be it.

Pretty. Smart. Funny.

A great nurse with an unparalleled bedside manner.

If he were free to shack up for a while, she’d be at the top of his I-want-her-in-my-bed list. But he wasn’t free, mentally or legally.

“You okay?” Ali asked, coming to stand beside him.

“Just peachy. How about you?”

“You were great with Jimmy. I’m sorry you lost your dad so young.”

He couldn’t look at her. “It’s why I became a physician, so no kid would have to deal with what I went through. I’m doing a great job of it, huh?”

“You’re not God.” She set her hand on his forearm, sending a flare of soothing warmth throughout his body. He craved her touch with a ferocity that excited him as much as it unnerved him.

“You coded Jimmy’s dad twelve minutes longer than any other physician here would have,” she said. “You did your best.”

He tilted his head down and to his left, and their eyes met, held. Hers conveyed genuine concern, empathy. He’d seen it dozens if not hundreds of times over the months they had worked together, directed at her patients, never at him. Yet, instead of using the moment as an opportunity for a sincere conversation between them, he chose to ignore the unwanted, long-suppressed feelings starting to stir deep in his damaged soul for a chance to play, to forget.

“Careful, Kitten,” he said in an exaggerated whisper, taking care to make sure there was no one around to hear his term of endearment that delighted him as much as it aggravated her. “I might get the impression you’re starting to like me.” His mood lifted. “That as hard as you’re trying not to, you can’t help yourself.”

“Nah.” She looked down at her watch. “The hospital pays me to be kind and compassionate. Lucky for you I’m still on the clock.”

“Good.” He leaned in close to her ear. “Maybe we can go someplace private and you can give me a little more of your commm … passion.”

She pinched him.

Good for her. The girl had spunk. “Ouch.” He rubbed his upper arm. “Where’d the kindness go?”

She looked up at him, her light blue eyes narrowed.

“I’m on the verge of breaking down.” He wiped at his dry lashes. “I think I feel some tears coming.”

She turned and walked back toward the E.R. without giving him a second glance. And she looked just as fine from the back as she did from the front, her lavender scrub pants hugging her perfectly shaped rear, her long brown hair up in a loose knot and sensible little gold hoop earrings curving under her kissable earlobes.

“Don’t women like it when a man shows his emotions?” he called after her.

She stopped. “Lust is not an emotion, Dr. P.,” she answered over her shoulder.

“It sure is. Come over to my place after work and we’ll do a Google search. Whoever’s right gets to choose what we do next. You wanna know what I’ll pick?”

Ali hit the button beside the electronic doors.

As they started to open he called out, “Time’s running out, Ali.”

She hesitated before walking back into the E.R.

Jared waited a minute, trying to contain his smile. He knew she wouldn’t bite, but provoking her was so much fun. No one entertained him like Ali. For the first time in the two years he’d worked as an agency physician, traveling from hospital to hospital throughout New York State, Jared might actually miss someone when an assignment ended. A sure-fire sign it was past time for him to move on.

Relationships, loving someone, getting married, weakened people, made them dependent and vulnerable. His father’s death had crushed his mother’s spirit, left her brokenhearted, angry and unable to find joy. His wife’s deceit, desertion and the resulting legal problems that had him fighting to stay out of jail had almost done the same to him.

No. He preferred to go it alone. No attachments, no expectations, no one for him to disappoint and no one to disappoint him.

Ali took the patient chart her coworker held out to her. “I’m heading down for break,” the other nurse said. “I put a D&D in Exam Room One.”

A drunk and disorderly isolated in a private room at the far end of the inverted T-shaped hallway. “Thanks,” Ali said with mock appreciation.

“His friends are helping him change into a gown.”

Super-de-duper. A bunch of rabble-rousers to egg him on. She glanced at her watch. Four-twenty-two in the morning on the night shift that would not end. Opening the folder, she reviewed the Reason for Visit: patient injured at strip club. Attacked by bouncer during lap dance. Pain in left eye, left cheek, jaw, abdomen and right ribs.

Ali listened outside the door before knocking. All was quiet until a male voice called out, “Come in.”

“My name is Allison,” she said as she pushed the wedge under the door to keep it open. “I’ll be your nurse.” Before entering, she evaluated the room’s four occupants—three visitors with their dress pants and button-down shirts disheveled, two of whom were slumped in chairs, one leaning with his back to the wall. They looked tired. Sedate.

Good. She placed the patient chart on the counter by the sink and walked toward the dark-haired man sitting with his bare legs hanging over the side of the stretcher, his head hanging low, both arms braced at his hips, not quite holding him steady. “Can you tell me how much you’ve had to drink tonight?”

She placed her hand on his wrist to take his pulse and began her assessment. AOB—alcohol on breath.

He looked up. “Enough to make you the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Gee, thanks.” Left eye swollen, partially closed, mild bruising, dried blood in the outer corner. Left cheek swollen and red. Dried blood noted to the left nostril.

He blinked as if trying to clear his vision. “Ali?” He lowered his eyes to her name badge. “Well, hot damn.” He turned to his friends, swayed and latched on to the bedrail for support. “Looks like my chances of getting lucky are on the rise, my friends.”

Hell. A guy she knew from high school. His face battered, she hadn’t recognized him. “Your pulse is fine.” She snapped the plastic covering over the thermometer probe. “Hold this under your tongue.”

“There are other things I’d rather do with my tongue.” He stuck said body part out and flicked it rapidly from side to side. His friends snickered.

“And as soon as you leave the E.R., you can do them all,” Ali replied. “But right now I need you to lift it and hold this thermometer under it.”

He smiled and slid the probe between his closed lips. Slowly.

Ali took a moment to return to the chart to document his pulse rate and learn his name. Robert Braylor. Oh, no.

Bobby “B.B.” Braylor.

A beep sounded. Bobby’s sojourn into silence ended. “Ali here is my favorite backseat cowgirl,” he said. “She likes a hard ride. Isn’t that right, Cream Cheese?”

Cream Cheese. Bobby’s high school nickname for her. Because her thighs were so easily spreadable. As a stupid teenage girl she’d found it amusing. As an adult she recognized it for what it was, a shameful and humiliating moniker for a girl so desperate for affection and love she’d tried to find them in the arms of boys who’d doled them out in ten-minute increments. Usually while half dressed, in the backseat of a car, in the woods, or, if she was lucky, in a bed when no grown-ups were around. Good for sex and nothing more.

Ali considered walking out of the room, letting someone else deal with Bobby. But no. She was a trained professional, skilled at handling every type of patient. So she ignored his rude comments and proceeded with her evaluation. The sooner she finished the quicker she could leave, without shirking her duties.

Removing the blood-pressure cuff from the metal basket on the back wall, she fastened it to Bobby’s upper arm. “After I take your blood pressure I’ll get Dr. Padget. He’ll probably want some X-rays.”

Ali tightened the cuff around Bobby’s arm, ignoring a twinge of dread at the thought of Bobby meeting Jared, the two of them discussing her, Bobby reinforcing Jared’s opinion of her. Instead she listened through her stethoscope, focusing on the beats while she watched the mercury in the sphygmomanometer drop. One eighteen over seventy-four. Ali removed the cuff and placed it back in the basket.

In the few seconds it took to reach over the head of the bed, Bobby stood, grabbed her by the waist and ground himself against her butt. “I’ve got another pressure that needs tending before you go.”

Ali swung her upper body around. They were alone—the visitors had left, closing the door to the room behind them. “Stop it, Bobby.”

“Come on, Ali.” He ran a hand up her belly to her chest and squeezed her breast. Hard. “For old times’ sake.”

“No.” She tried to pull away, did not want this. She was a different person now, didn’t sleep around anymore.

He turned her to face him, pushed her back into the wall, forced his body against hers, making it difficult to expand her chest to take a breath. He jammed his erection between her legs. She tried to move. Couldn’t. Alcohol had not affected his strength one bit. When had he gotten so tall? Aggravation turned to fear.

“I know I was one of your favorites,” he said.

Because ten years ago he’d had a car, a fake ID and a never-ending supply of money for beer and cigarettes. For a wayward fifteen-year-old girl looking to escape her life, he had been the perfect date.

“I need you so bad,” he said, moving one of his hands to the back of her head, crushing her mouth to his so hard she tasted blood. His other hand fumbled with the drawstring of her scrub pants.

“Get your hands off of me,” Ali yelled. She tried to twist away, to lift her knee. Neither worked. So she bit his lip. When he jerked back his head she screamed, “Help! Dr. P. Anyone. Help!” She prayed someone would hear her.

“Quiet, Ali.” He clamped his hand over her mouth. “You know you want it. You always wanted it.”

CHAPTER TWO

JARED was on the computer behind the front desk of the E.R., checking a patient’s lab results, when Ali cried out for help. Without hesitation, he closed down the confidential screen, jumped to his feet, his chair rolling into the file cabinet behind him with a loud bang and ran in the direction of her scream.

The door to Exam Room One, where Ali had gone to admit a new patient, was closed. Jared slammed it open. A tall man, the back of his hospital gown flapping open, exposing his red and blue plaid boxer shorts, had Ali pinned to the wall, one arm clamped around her waist, holding her, while his hips jabbed in her direction and a hand behind her head crushing her lips to his while she fought to turn her head and push away.

“Get your hands off my nurse,” Jared said, keeping his voice deadly calm, trying not to escalate the situation.

“Easy, Doc,” the assaulter said with a minimal slur. “Ali and I go way back. We were just getting reacquainted.”

Ali struggled in his hold. “We were not. Let go of me, Bobby.”

“I’d listen to the lady,” Jared said, walking into the room, one careful step at a time, letting the door close behind him. “Or you’re going to find yourself flat on your back on that stretcher, in four-point restraints, with a garbage bag full of ice on your groin.” He walked up next to Bobby, close enough to smell the booze on his breath and see the lust in his bloodshot eyes. “Here in the emergency room, that’s the only treatment we offer for swollen genitalia.”

“Come on. Give me a break,” Bobby said, still holding on to Ali. “I’m getting married in a few hours.”

“Lucky girl to score a winner like you,” Jared said, hoping the patient would come after him, provide justification for him to fight.

It worked. Sort of. The patient turned to Jared, must have loosened his hold because Ali broke free, stumbled toward him, into his waiting arms. Eyes locked with the sexual predator, he held her and murmured, “You’re okay.”

She nodded against his chest and inhaled a shaky breath.

The second she moved to step away from him, Jared released her, not wanting her to feel at all restricted. And as if she hadn’t just been attacked, she gave him her report. “Twenty-five-year-old intoxicated male involved in an altercation with a bouncer at a strip club. Suffering from facial trauma, abdominal and rib pain. Vital signs within normal limits, documented in his chart.”

“I’ll take it from here, Ali. Go take a break.” Jared didn’t want any witnesses when he “helped” his patient onto the stretcher.

“I’m fine,” Ali said. But her voice trembled.

Jared wanted to take her back into his arms, to hold her, comfort her, let her know she was safe, that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. But he needed to deal with the deviate first. “Can you climb on to the stretcher alone, or do you require my assistance?” Jared asked, more than willing to “assist.”

In what was probably his first good decision of the early morning hours, the man climbed on to the stretcher.

Jared walked over to Ali, keeping the man in his sight. “Your lip is bleeding,” he whispered, lifting her chin to get a better look, hating that a remnant from her altercation marred her beautiful face. “Go clean it. You don’t know where his foul mouth has been.”

With a surprised look, Ali reached up to touch her swollen lower lip.

“I’m guessing in your condition …” he looked at the man’s tented hospital gown “… you’ll have a hard time giving me a urine specimen, which means I’m going to have to insert a catheter into your bladder to obtain a urine toxicology screen.”

Nah. He winked at Ali. Let the idiot sweat for a few minutes.

“Like hell you will,” Bobby said. “Where are my clothes? I’m getting out of here.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Jared said, channeling composure. “Not until the police get here. You see, I have zero tolerance for men who mistreat women.”

“Let’s not make this into a big deal,” Ali said.

“I’ve treated too many sexual assault victims to let his behavior slide.”

“Sexual-assault victim?” Bobby piped up. “Are you nuts? It’s only Ali. She was playing hard to get. No harm.”

“He’s right, Dr. P.” Ali looked defiant, but he’d seen the flash of hurt at Bobby’s cruel words, the glitter of tears in her eyes as she turned to leave. “It’s only me. No harm.”

“You …” Jared pointed to the drunk “… stay put. Do not leave that stretcher.” Then he followed Ali. “Ali, wait.” Halfway to the staff lounge she stopped, but didn’t turn to look at him.

When he caught up to her she said, “We knew each other in high school. Leave it alone, it’s over.”

“You need to teach that man a lesson. He needs to know the way he treated you is not okay.”

“What I need,” she said wearily, “is to clean my lip, shake this off and get back to work. And what Bobby needs is to be examined, treated and discharged so he can go get married.”

Like Jared would let him off that easy. “You don’t want to stand up for yourself, fine. I’ll do it for you. I’m calling the police.”

Fire blazed in her eyes. Good. With all of her negative energy directed at him, she wouldn’t focus on how vulnerable she’d been, on how that punk had disrespected and degraded her.

“Tomorrow you’ll be gone, Dr. Padget. I, on the other hand, live in this town. If you call the police, I’ll be stuck dealing with the fallout, the questions, the rumors and people dredging up Bobby’s role in a past I’m not all that proud of.”

“Your past has nothing to do with what happened tonight. A man tried to force you.” His voice cracked. He couldn’t say the words, wouldn’t consider what might have happened if he hadn’t heard her scream. “If you don’t want to press charges, fine. But I can’t overlook this. I have to report the incident. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, you are.” She looked up at him, not a tear to be found in her angry blue eyes. “A sorry excuse for a man I thought wanted to be my friend.” And she stormed down the hall into the lounge.

He’d made her mad. Nothing new there. But deep down it bothered him. He didn’t want her to hate him, didn’t want to leave on bad terms. Huh. Never bothered him before. Why did she matter when no one else did? “No. More. Tequila,” Ali insisted that evening when their waitress walked over with her second, no, third tray of the Sunday night special: Watermelon Margaritas. “I have a nice buzz going. Next stop sloppy drunk.”

“Says the woman who rarely orders anything stronger than seltzer with lime. What’s going on with you?” asked Victoria, Ali’s best friend since eleventh grade and the head nurse on 5E. Short dark hair and makeup flawless, her taste in clothes impeccable, she looked more ready for dinner at the country club than a night out with the girls.

The waitress set each of the four drinks she carried on the table then cleared off the empty glasses.

“Come on, Ali,” her friend Polly, a fellow E.R. nurse, slurred. “We’re shelebrating.”

“Soon you’re going to be puking if you don’t slow down,” said Roxie, a nurse from 5E, a medical surgical floor, as she wiped up the spillage when Polly wobbled her glass on the way up to her mouth. Roxie was tan, tall and thin to Polly’s pale, short and chubby. Roxie was loud and outgoing to Polly’s quiet and shy. Roxie was the bad girl to Polly’s good girl. The two couldn’t be more opposite, yet they’d been best friends since Ali, who floated between the two units, had introduced them last year.

“We didn’t order these,” Victoria said, always the pragmatic one.

“Maybe we did and we don’t remember,” Roxie rationalized. “I say we drink ‘em.”

“They’re from him.” The waitress pointed to a man at the far side of the bar.

O’Halloran’s Tavern, a favorite hangout for Madrin Memorial Hospital personnel, served delicious food and trendy drinks in a casual atmosphere that offered something for everyone. Small groups of onlookers crowded around both pool tables in the back, where a mini-tournament was in progress. A few guys she recognized from work guzzled beers while throwing darts in the corner, thankfully in the opposite direction from where Ali and her friends sat listening to the jukebox. A football game played on a large television screen beside the bar.

From their spot along the side wall, all four women scanned the bar, glasses raised in homage to their mysterious benefactor.

Dr. Jared Padget. Who, with a cunning grin, raised his beer mug in their direction.

Ali almost broke the stem of her glass in two. He picked a bad night to make his final move. She sipped her cocktail as she watched him, doing nothing to hide her blatant perusal. His black leather jacket gave him an air of bad-boy toughness that attracted her even more than the tight-fitting scrub pants he wore at work.

The hairs on her arms lifted, her body softened, remembered how it felt to be wrapped in his arms, to feel the solid wall of his chest against hers.

As the ten-year anniversary of her mother’s death, the other reason for girls’ night out fast approached, she could barely control the tumultuous feelings churning inside her. Prior to her second drink, she’d actually considered a screaming run through the streets to release the building pressure.

Sadness that her self-absorbed mother had been so consumed by trying to find a man she could love as much as Ali’s father, she had spent little time tending to the unplanned result of their dysfunctional union. It hurt that she had never been able to earn her mother’s love, and now it was too late.

Anger at her playboy father for getting her mother pregnant and, despite claiming he’d loved her, refusing to marry her. Rage that he flitted in and out of their lives when it had suited him, giving her mother false hope that each time he’d returned he’d been there to stay.

Thanks to Dr. P.'s arrival she added lust, frustration and disappointment to the unstable concoction. Lust for his body, frustration she couldn’t knock that cocky grin from his face and disappointment, in herself, for wanting him even though he was the worst sort of man.

She felt on edge, needed an outlet, a way to vent.

“Ignore him,” Victoria said.

“And he brought you these.” The waitress returned to their table and placed a white bakery box in the center.

Roxie pulled open the top. “Cannolis! I love cannolis!” She picked one up and took a bite of a chocolate dipped end.

I want to fill your cannoli …

Damn him. Ali gulped down the rest of her drink in an attempt to stop the smoldering desire she’d been battling for weeks from engulfing her in flames.

“Try one. They’re delicious.” Roxie passed around the box.

Ali locked eyes on Jared. He gave her a wicked smile, ran his fingers through the condensation accumulated on his mug and brought the tips to his lips. His full, sexy, perfectly puckered lips.

And Ali lost it. An uncontrollable lust like she hadn’t felt in years surged inside her. He’d pushed and pushed, pursued her with a relentless focus, wore her down until she craved the release he offered. She hated him for it. Hated herself for not being strong enough to resist him.

“I know that look.” Victoria leaned close to her ear. “Don’t do this, Ali. You’re going to hate yourself in the morning.”

“She’s right, Ali,” Polly said. “Don’t let him get to you. Tomorrow he’ll be gone and you’ll never think of him again.”

Wrong. He’d invaded her thoughts and dreams. She needed to exorcize him from her brain and knew only one way to do it. Take sex between them from abstract to reality. Take control, take what she wanted and be done with him.

She called out to the bartender. “A parting shot. Tequila for my friends.” She narrowed her eyes and pointed to Dr. Padget, whose surprised expression indicated he sensed a change in the dynamic between them. “And him.” Ali turned and smiled at the irony. A parting shot. That’s what she was about to give him.

The waitress delivered their shots.

Ali tossed hers back, swallowing it in one gulp, not wasting time with salt or lemon. She slammed her empty glass on the table and stood. “I’ll see you all tomorrow. There’s something I need to do.”

“Ali, please,” Victoria said.

She forced a fake smile. “Don’t worry about me, Vic. I always come out on top.” Again she smiled at the irony, because on top was where she planned to be in a few short minutes.

Her body throbbed, part tension, part arousal, as she started to cross the bar. Posture erect, shoulders back, she feigned a confidence she didn’t feel. With each click of her heels on the hardwood floor, each step closer to her destination, Ali’s nervousness doubled. She’d never propositioned a man before. In her youth, they’d always come looking for her. Palms sweaty, she stuck them, one at a time, into her jacket pockets to wipe them off.

About ten feet away from him, she hesitated, considered ordering a drink from the bar instead of continuing. Was Victoria right? Would she hate herself in the morning? She glanced in his direction. Their eyes met. Locked. She drew power from his stare, gave in to the pull of attraction between them, taking the final steps toward him without a second thought.

Ali slid in next to his stool, making sure her breasts rubbed against his arm as she did, and dropped a cannoli on the bar in front of him. A few crumbs scattered. It would have been more impressive to drop the entire box, but Roxie had refused to relinquish it. “This is about sex, right?” she asked, maybe a little louder than she should have. “Okay.

Let’s go.”

Jared didn’t move, actually looked a touch shocked by her boldness. Good!

“Come on, Doc. Time’s running out. You said so yourself. You want to have sex or not?”

Someone tapped Ali on the shoulder. A deep male voice behind her said, “If he doesn’t, I do.”

“Thanks for the offer,” Ali answered, without looking at who spoke, refusing to be mortified despite a full-body heated flush of embarrassment. “But I’ve got my sights set on this one.” The first man in years to rattle her self-control, to make her want to say yes to anything. Everything. She leaned in close and said, “Come now or don’t come at all.” Pun intended. She swallowed a laugh. “This one-time offer is about to expire.”

For a few seconds, after the front door closed behind her, she thought he hadn’t followed. Her bravado wavered. Maybe he wasn’t interested in her after all. Maybe it had all been an act, a game. When the door opened again, she glanced back and smiled. After making sure he saw her, she darted down the alley to the small parking lot behind the bar.

“You are in no condition to drive,” he yelled from behind her.

No. She wasn’t. But adrenaline pumped through her system, making her feel capable of anything. It felt so good. She sidestepped the shadow of a garbage can and pushed off the brick wall on her right to avoid crashing into it. “Come on, Dr. P. There’s something I want to show you.” A good time. She giggled to herself, running past the cars into the dark, down the grassy incline to the bench tucked in behind a bunch of trees. Moonlight guided her way. Her limbs feeling loose and floppy, how she didn’t trip and fall was a mystery.

Out of breath, she plopped onto the old wooden bench, lost herself in the moonlight swirling on the slow moving river while she waited.

“Ali,” Jared said as he burst through the trees, his shadowed form looming above her. “Let me take you home. It’s late. It’s cold.”

If it was cold, she didn’t feel it. “Sit,” she said.

He hesitated but did.

“This is where I bring the guys I pick up at the bar.” Actually, it’s where she and her gramps liked to feed the ducks. Gramps, who’d taken her in when her father hadn’t, who’d nurtured and encouraged her, taught her about respect, for herself and others. Gramps, the person she loved most in this world, his heart attack the reason she’d returned to town after college. Gramps who would be so disappointed if he knew what she was about to do.

Ali pushed Gramps from her mind.

She needed this. Had to have it. Now.

In a quick move she’d perfected long ago, Ali lifted her skirt to her hips and straddled Jared’s lap, the sensitive skin of her inner thighs brushing his jeans, effectively pinning him in place. Of course he could move if he wanted to, but in her experience no man wanted to escape their present position. “You were right about me, Dr. Padget,” she said, whispering in his ear, forcing her breath out hot and steamy as she rocked her hips, moving rhythmically over the denim covering his growing erection. “I’m a tramp who doesn’t deserve a good man.”

He stiffened beneath her. “Ali, I never said that.”

She ignored his statement. He may not have said the words, but his actions had implied them. “If you’re cold, I’ll warm you up.” She kissed down the side of his neck. “I’m real hot inside.” She opened the sides of her jacket and rubbed her body against his. “You want to feel me on the inside, Doc?”

“Call me Jared.” He reached under her skirt, beneath her panties, and gripped the bare skin of her butt with his large hands, pushing her down while lifting his hips, grinding his erection where she needed him most. God, it felt good.

He rocked against her again and again. She reveled in his strength, the intensity of his desire. In his masculine scent, the feel of his firm body beneath her, around her.

“Please, Ali. Call me by my name.”

Nope. Too personal. She sucked on his neck, tasting a mixture of salt and soap. The thing about controlling a situation was not to get too personal. “Not in a truck or in the muck or for a buck.” She giggled.

“You’re drunk.”

Buzzed—definitely. Giddy—oh, yeah. She was on the verge of acting out a fantasy. But drunk? No. “How did you expect I’d be after a girls’ night out? Isn’t that why you came looking for me?” She reached between them to unbutton his jeans, lowered his zipper and released him, took his hard length into her hand. Even though her back blocked the moonlight, making it too dark to see, he looked down, tried to watch.

She cupped her hand around his thick, hard shaft and began a leisurely slide along his hot, silky skin. “Didn’t you figure you’d have more luck getting some skin-on-skin action after I’d had a few drinks?”

He let out a frustrated breath. “I can’t do this.” He palmed her ribs like he planned to lift her off of him. Didn’t make any attempt to remove her hands, she noticed. “Let me take you home.”

So she would have to live with the memory of them together in her bed? Absolutely not. Right here. Right now. Or not at all. “Don’t worry about me.” Her knees resting on the bench at either side of his hips, she lifted up, slid her panties to the side, and lowered onto his impressive length. They were not leaving this bench until she got what she came for. “We experienced girls can get off anywhere.”

He sucked in a deep breath.

Slowly Ali sank down, moved up a bit then down, again and again, as her body stretched to make room for him, until she took him all. Aaaahhhh. Exactly what she needed.

Jared sat perfectly still, his head back, moonlight illuminating his handsome face, a face she wouldn’t mind waking up to, morning after morning, year after year, if he were anyone else. His eyes closed, his features relaxed, there was no sign of the dimples that seemed to wink at her every time he smiled. His hands dropped to her waist, held her loosely.

Physically, he was everything that attracted her in the opposite sex. Tall. Firm. A commanding presence. And he filled her like no man had before, touched something so deep, so unexpected and thrilling she didn’t want to move for fear she’d never feel such a perfect union again. Like he’d been made for her and her alone. Sublime.

She’d waited her entire life to feel this connection with a man. Why did she have to find it with him?

She started to move.

He groaned. “This is so wrong. You’re Michael’s …”

Suddenly he’d developed a conscience? “Not anymore.” Thanks to him. “Right now I’m yours. Now show me what you’ve got.”

With a growl he did just that, holding her tight, plunging into her like a man who had gone too long without intimate contact. “I knew you’d feel this good.” One hand found her breast, teased her nipple. A flare of arousal exploded inside her, her jaw went tingly, her eyes fluttered closed.

His words echoed in her thoughts. I knew you’d feel this good. Pleasure. The letters floated through her brain, the sensation traveled to every part of her body. Jared Padget, a strong, confident, uninhibited man; a caring, competent doctor who made her body sing like a soloist belting out a sustained high C.

She flopped onto his chest, matched each of his thrusts, moved her hips harder, faster, driving painful memories of her mother’s suicide from her brain, seeking release, sweet oblivion. Salvation.

“I’ve dreamed about this. About us,” Jared said between panting breaths, his hands roaming the bare skin of her back.

Me, too.

“It’s so much better than I ever imagined.” Oh, yeah.

“You’re so beautiful.”

So are you.

“But I have to stop.”

What? Ali sat up. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she insisted, leaning back to place her hands on his knees, swiveling her hips, driving him into her. “You have tormented me for weeks, teased me, flirted with me. We are not stopping. Not yet.” She was so close. “I don’t have a condom.”

Usually those words would have ground the action to a halt. Ali didn’t take chances. Yet here she was, already at risk, so intent on keeping Jared close, on taking the sexual and emotional release she so desperately needed, she hadn’t even considered birth control. The higher her blood alcohol concentration climbed, the lower her capacity for rational decision-making plunged into the abyss of irrationality.

“I don’t care.” She arched her back, took him deep, then relaxed. “You said you’re a real man. Don’t real men have control?” Arch. Relax.

He expelled a huge breath as if trying to muster some of that “real man” control.

She leaned forward, rubbed her lips over his. “Please,” she whispered then kissed him, thrust her tongue into the warm confines of his mouth.

He turned his head. “Ali, I’m … We shouldn’t …” He tried to push her away.

“No,” Ali cried out, throwing both arms around his neck, holding him tight. “Don’t leave me,” she begged, willing to do anything to keep him there, to not be alone. She squeezed her inner muscles, trying to hold him inside her. “Stay with me,” she whispered in his ear, slowly tipping her pelvis forward then back. “Love me. Make me forget.”

Jared moaned in surrender and began to move beneath her, gradually increased his pace until he rocked into her with a power that matched her own.

Ali’s head started to spin, scattering her thoughts as effectively as a centrifuge. All but one. Perfection. The ultimate satisfaction was within reach. “Do. Not. Stop.”

“I won’t, Ali. I want to make you feel so good.” His hand slipped between her legs.

“I do. Oh …” With a few flicks of his talented fingers a surge of ecstasy flooded her system. It was different, intense, freeing. It wiped her mind clear, and a blissful contentment spread through her. A dark, satiated calm engulfed her, until the chime of the big clock at the top of the town hall echoed through the thick haze of her mind.

Ali counted. Twelve.

Approximate time of death—midnight, November 23rd.

Her tequila-soaked defenses failed, allowing the memory of that fateful day to seep into cognition.

Sophomore year of high school.

Ali’s mother and her married high-school principal caught doing the nasty on his desk, the act broadcast on the wall-sized movie screen in the auditorium during a full school assembly. In surround sound.

Girls looked at her with more disdain than usual that day. The boys kept their distance. Even her teachers turned away rather than look her in the eye.

Storming into the house after school, Ali had one purpose—to find her mother and make her feel as bad as she was feeling. How much was a fifteen-year-old girl expected to take? This time her mom had gone too far.

Ali pounded up the stairs, down the hallways, craving confrontation, in desperate need of an outlet for the anger and frustration raging inside her. She found her mom in the last place she looked, on the back porch. She must have heard Ali calling out, slamming doors, yet she hadn’t moved from her sprawl on the cushioned wicker couch. She just stared off into the backyard, seeming oblivious to Ali’s arrival.

“Mom,” Ali yelled.

With awkward, sluggish movements, her mom repositioned herself, slowly turning toward Ali, getting tangled in the multicolored afghan covering her. An empty wine bottle slid off her lap, crashed onto the wood decking and rolled under the coffee table. In hindsight, Ali should have taken pity on her mom, drunk in the afternoon, her eyes droopy, her face devoid of makeup and emotion, her hair an unwashed, blond, scraggly mess in need of a dye touch-up.

But Ali’s anger had overtaken rational thought, her adolescent angst-ridden brain focused solely on her pain and anger, and how her mother’s actions had caused both. “You have ruined my life,” she screamed at her mother. “I hate you.”

Ali had been poised for battle. She’d needed it.

But her mother seemed unaffected by her outburst. Calm as could be, she said, “Right back atcha, kiddo.”

Ali stood immobile, her urge to fight replaced by a cold, empty feeling.

“If I had to do it all again,” her mother went on, staring off into the distance, her slurred speech doing nothing to conceal the malice in her tone, “I would have given you up instead of giving up my dreams to keep you.”

Her mother’s last words to the daughter she’d blamed for every bad thing that had happened in her life, the daughter she had never wanted or loved.

Jared’s lungs were heaving, his skin tingling, his mind clogged by post-orgasmic fluff, following the best, albeit the only, sexual encounter he’d allowed himself in years, as he fought to make sense of what he’d just done.

He’d had sex with Ali. Without removing a single piece of clothing. Without a condom. He felt sick. He’d pulled out just in case she wasn’t on birth control but still … He’d driven into her like an animal. On a park bench, for God’s sake. According to Bobby, who had refused to shut up about his history with Ali, Jared had treated her no better than the jerks from her high school.

He felt like the lowest form of life, a maggot living on a rotting corpse at the bottom of a filthy dumpster.

Jared thought about Bobby and couldn’t help but wonder how often Ali had to fend off the unwanted sexual advances of men she’d known as a teenager. If last night had been the first time one of them had used force? If the reason she’d been willing to settle for a man like Michael was for the protection being married might offer?

Something balled up at the back of his throat, making it difficult to swallow.

Bobby had taken pleasure in sharing his high-school nickname for Ali. And in explaining why. But Jared didn’t care about her past. Ten years ago he’d been a different person, too. Present-day Ali, the smart, sassy, thoughtful woman, the kind, compassionate, skilled practitioner, was all that mattered. And she deserved so much more than the man he’d become. Jaded. Distrustful. Unwilling to love.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair.

She didn’t respond.

Back before he’d gotten married, before Typhoon Cici had blown through, nearly destroying his life, when Jared had dated, he’d enjoyed making women feel special. Flowers. Candy. Dinner at fancy restaurants. He’d complimented their outfits and hair, acted the perfect gentleman, waited for them to invite him in. He’d never, ever, had unprotected sex in the middle of the woods. Never, ever felt guilty after a sexual encounter. Until now.

And yet he couldn’t bring himself to regret one minute of it.

Ali lay slumped against his chest, her head wedged in the nook between his neck and shoulder, the only indication she was alive the puffs of warm air on his skin when she exhaled. She’d fallen asleep. He appreciated the quiet disturbed only by the movement of water from the stream, the rustle of dried leaves, an occasional car pulling into or out of the bar parking lot.

He had no desire to talk, or move. So he sat, with her still straddling his lap, in no hurry to leave, enjoying the feel of her in his arms, which he tightened around her, slipping his hands under the bottom of her sweater to warm them. They fit together like two distinct halves purposely manufactured to become one seamless whole, a feeling he wouldn’t soon forget.

What a mess. He hadn’t intended to take things this far, hence the lack of condoms. He never should have shown up at the bar where he’d known Ali and her friends would be.

But he’d been at odds with himself. After a few hours of sleep, he’d packed his life into his rolling duffel then prowled around his apartment with nothing to do but think. Of Ali, and how he wanted to see her one last time. A smiling Ali, not the angry one who’d scowled at him when the police officer had shown up at the E.R. Or the one who, when her shift ended, had left the hospital without so much as a glance in his direction.

Break them up before Michael proposed. That had been the plan. One glimpse of the fire in Ali’s eyes the first time they’d touched, of her temper when she’d joined a young mother’s fight against Child Protective Services, and Jared had known she’d never achieve Stepford wife status, no matter how hard she tried. Yet, in Michael’s presence, she’d transformed herself into the soft-spoken, malleable woman Michael wanted in a bride.

The ultimate deception, a relationship based on pretense.

Having suffered through one, Jared had every intention of sparing his friend the heartache, and legal problems, he’d experienced.

Jared’s plan:

Stage One: flirt. Reveal what he sensed was Ali’s true nature. Evoke her passion, a passion Michael wasn’t man enough to satisfy. A passion she’d tamped down with rigid control. Until tonight.

Stage Two: tease, taunt and prod. Point out Michael’s shortcomings. Joke about them. Give Ali a chance to vent her frustration with Michael’s routine tendencies, to realize what a mistake it would be to marry him. Instead she had praised and defended Michael, never saying an unkind word. Deep down, Jared longed for the day a woman spoke with such conviction in support of him.

When Ali had proved too strong to manipulate, Jared had implemented Stage Three, turning his energy to Michael. A few carefully chosen words, a “chance” encounter at a bar with a woman Michael thought highly of, and the deed was done with remarkable ease. It turned out Michael had harbored a growing concern about Ali’s malleable nature when she’d tried to change up their bedroom routine.

Now Michael, one of the few friends who’d stood by him during the DEA investigation, was genuinely happy with his equally boring new girlfriend. While Ali, a woman he barely knew, a woman who had tried to con his friend, was anything but happy. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did.

So he had amended the plan, adding a Stage Four: make Ali forget about Michael by turning her focus onto him. Who’d have known he’d enjoy her so much? Their banter over the past month the most fun he’d had in years.

Since the day he’d said, “I do.”

Jared stretched out his legs. His feet were cold. He reached down to touch Ali’s bare thighs. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t shivering. He shifted her weight. “Come on, honey. It’s time to go.”

She didn’t budge.

“Ali.” He kissed the top of her head, her soft hair tickling his chin. Nothing.

He took her by the shoulders and pushed her off his chest. Her head hung down between them. Great. Now what the heck was he supposed to do?

CHAPTER THREE

Five weeks later

THE storm dubbed The New Year’s Eve Nor’easter raging outside had no effect on the festivities or attendance at the Madrin Memorial Hospital New Year’s Eve Gala.

“No champagne?” Victoria yelled to be heard over the dance music blaring from the DJ’s speakers immediately to the left of their table.

Ali shook her head. Not that she was ever a big drinker, but she hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since her park-bench encounter with Dr. Padget. Didn’t trust herself. Waking up in her bed with no clear memory of how she’d gotten there, or what she’d done after straddling his lap down by the river, was an effective motivator for maintaining sobriety.

“You’re missing out on some primo bubbly,” Roxie called out, chugging down the contents of Ali’s flute after the waiter topped it off.

“Who’s driving you home?” Ali asked Roxie, who scanned the crowd.

“I haven’t decided,” Roxie answered with a mischievous smile and a wink.

Polly slapped Roxie’s arm. “You are so bad.” She leaned in close to Ali. “We came together. I’ll be driving Roxie home.”

Ali scanned the dance floor packed with her smiling coworkers and wanted to shoot off a champagne cork or two into the crowd. No. Just because she was in an awful mood it didn’t mean she begrudged her friends a good time. But having no one to kiss when the ball dropped, and watching everyone who did, was not on her agenda for the night. Excuses that would get her home before midnight started to take form.

Stomachache? A possibility. Menstrual cramps? She wished. Itchy rash? Headache?

Back when they’d been dating, she and Michael had talked about getting engaged prior to the New Year. Michael made good on the plan, proposing to Wanda on Christmas Eve in front of the Christmas tree on the pediatrics floor. It’d been the talk of the hospital. Ali could have done with a bout of sudden-onset hearing loss.

No such luck.

So she smiled and told everyone she wished the sickeningly happy couple well. In private she researched how to make voodoo dolls. Three of them. And stockpiled enough pins to start her own clothing line.

The DJ took a break, blessing them with some quiet background music, and Lyle Crenshaw, the catering manager on staff at the hospital, took the opportunity to approach their table.

Three years ago, after a major expansion and renovation to upgrade facilities, hospital management had left space in the rear of the building for class and conference rooms and a large party room for hosting fundraisers, staff appreciation luncheons and the occasional hospital celebration. While the outside of the building screamed hospital, the inside could have been the lobby of any four-star hotel. The transformation from abandoned medical services departments to premier catering hall was so significant; people in the community had expressed an interest in holding their weddings, communion parties and the occasional Bat Mitzvah at the hospital, creating an unanticipated stream of income and making Lyle Crenshaw a bit of a hero in town.

“Hello, there, ladies,” Lyle said with his trademark southern drawl. “I’d like to invite ya’ll on a tour of my office later this evening. I’ve brought some Southwestern charm to the Northeast, and I’m eager to show it off.”

“Do you want us all at once?” Roxie asked with a twinkle in her eye, her voice taking on a seductive tone. “Or one at a time?”

“Well, I’ll take you any way you want, sugar.” Lyle smiled, well aware of Roxie’s antics after her behavior at last week’s new IV pump in-service held in the large conference room.

Roxie batted her eyelashes and smiled back.

“Is that who I think it is?” Polly asked, pointing at the main entrance to the ballroom.

Ali turned to see Jared Padget decked out in a tux, looking too handsome to be a real flesh-and-blood man, and her heart skipped a beat. A few beats actually, allowing the blood to drain from her head. At the same time her lungs ceased to function, and she held on to the table to keep from falling to the floor.

Shame and embarrassment did not begin to cover her feelings at that moment. She’d accosted him in a bar, forced herself on him, and proceeded to pass out immediately following the finale. And the signs he’d been in her bed had not boded well for her going right to sleep upon returning home. Despite the lack of blood flow to the upper reaches of her body, her face felt on fire.

While she regretted her choices that night five weeks ago, her gramps had taught her there’s nothing you could do about your past so focus on your future. Ali had put their interlude behind her, didn’t allow herself to think about it, or him. And had no desire to revisit either.

Voilà! The perfect reason to blow this party, before the horns and noisemakers. “I’m out of here,” Ali said to Victoria as she stood, stooping a bit, trying to blend in with the people milling around the dance floor.

Victoria knew what had happened between Ali and Dr. Padget. At least the parts Ali remembered. “We’ll head him off,” Victoria said, sending Polly one way and Roxie the other.

Ali ducked behind the DJ, watched her friends make their way through the crowd. Roxie reached him first, grabbed at her throat, pretending to choke, and collapsed to the floor at his feet. Ali smiled at the scene, Dr. Padget dropping to his knees to render first aid, a crowd gathering, Victoria and Polly off to the side, laughing. As if sensing her watching, Victoria motioned for Ali to get moving. Which she did, heading for the rear hallway, planning to loop around, pick up her coat and boots at the coat check and hop into one of the designated driver cars, coordinated by the hospital, lined up outside.

No sooner had she entered the brightly lit hallway of closed doors than she saw an entwined Michael and Wanda leaning up against the wall of her planned escape route. While she no longer had feelings for Michael, and had conquered her anger at Wanda, she preferred to avoid seeing the two of them together. Or alone for that matter. So she turned, only to see Jared walking in her direction. The hairs on her arms rose and leaned in his direction. Ali scanned the hallway, looking for an alternate route. When she saw none, she tried the doorknob for the main conference room on her right, ecstatic to find it unlocked, and slipped inside before he spotted her.

In the safety of darkness, Ali leaned against the closed door, allowed her breathing to slow and her eyes to adjust to the shadowed interior.

A few minutes and she’d peek outside. If she skipped the coat check she could duck out the rear exit and be home in five minutes.

The doorknob at her right hip turned with a click. Had Dr. P. found her so quickly? And if not him, how would she explain standing alone in the dark in an empty conference room?

“Michael,” she heard him say just outside the door. “Have you seen Allison?” She froze.

“Hey, Jared,” Michael answered. “I heard you were coming back.”

What had he heard? And why hadn’t she heard?

“Four weeks this time,” Jared said.

Joining the traveling nurse corps was looking better and better.

“Have you seen Allison?” he asked again.

Ali didn’t wait to hear the answer. Instead she took off in a rapid tiptoe, as quietly as she could, into the black, cave-like conditions at the far end of the rectangular room. Feeling along the wall, she found the rear door that led to Lyle’s office, and slipped inside just as the door to the conference room opened.

Ali didn’t want to risk making any noise so she rested the door against the frame rather than pulling it closed.

Aside from knowing where it was, Ali had never been inside Lyle’s office before. It was darker than the conference room. There didn’t appear to be any windows, just a thin strip of light at the base of the door on the far side of the room. She stood perfectly still, willing her eyes to adjust, wishing she hadn’t left the protection of her friends and cursing the impractical trendy stilettos that pinched her toes.

“I don’t see anything but darkness,” Allison heard Wanda say, her deceptively sweet voice too close for comfort.

Allison didn’t know which was worse, looking like she was stalking Michael and Wanda or being found by Dr. Padget. She took a step back, preparing to duck behind the door if necessary, and bumped into what felt like a tall filing cabinet. Apparently Lyle was not as conscientious as he appeared because the file drawer he’d failed to secure in place, the one her right hip connected with, shifted the few centimeters necessary to click closed, the top corner snagging a section of Ali’s skirt in the process.

“Does Lyle really have an award-winning cactus in his office?” Wanda asked. “Or did you plan to get me alone so you could have your wicked way with me?” Wanda giggled.

Wicked way? Yuck!

And a cactus was the little bit of Southwestern charm Lyle had invited them to his office to see? Exactly when would his tours begin?

Ali tugged at the drawer to find it locked in place. She yanked on the beaded mesh of her ridiculously expensive dress. It didn’t budge.

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