What was on her little mind?

She looked like she was about to jump out of her skin. And he needed to know why.

“So why you’d ask me over?”

Avery’s fork fell and clattered against her plate.

“I just wanted to follow up … about what happened … on New Year’s.”

He didn’t need a reminder. The heat between them had been undeniable, so strong he’d pulled her into the nearest private spot—a supply closet. He’d waited three years to have her, and the memories of that night still played out in his dreams.

“What exactly requires follow-up?” he asked.

She didn’t look at him. “Well … it, um, turns out we didn’t, um … dodge the bullet.”

It took him a minute to figure out what she was saying. Then he felt something deep in his gut. “You’re … pregnant?”

She pulled a narrow plastic stick out of her pocket. Two lines showed in the window. Then she met his eyes. “You’re going to be a daddy.”

* * *

Those Engaging Garretts!: The Carolina Cousins!

Two Doctors & a Baby

Brenda Harlen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

BRENDA HARLEN is a former lawyer who once had the privilege of appearing before the Supreme Court of Canada. The practice of law taught her a lot about the world and reinforced her determination to become a writer—because in fiction, she could promise a happy ending! Now she is an award-winning, national bestselling author of more than thirty titles for Mills & Boon. You can keep up-to-date with Brenda on Facebook and Twitter or through her website, www.brendaharlen.com.

This book is dedicated to all the real-life doctors, nurses, EMTs and others who work in the medical field—because you make a difference, every single day. Thank you!

Contents

Cover

Introduction

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

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

After six years at Mercy Hospital, Dr. Justin Garrett knew that Friday nights in the ER were inevitably frenzied and chaotic.

New Year’s Eve was worse.

And when New Year’s Eve happened to fall on a Friday—well, it wasn’t yet midnight and he’d already seen more than twice the usual number of patients pass through the emergency department, most of the incidents and injuries directly related to alcohol consumption.

A drunken college student who had put his fist through a wall—and his basketball scholarship in jeopardy—with fractures of the fourth and fifth metacarpal bones. A sixty-three-year-old man who had doubled up on Viagra to celebrate the occasion with his thirty-six-year-old wife and ended up in cardiac arrest instead. A seventeen-year-old female who had fallen off her balcony because the Ecstasy slipped into her drink by her boyfriend had made her want to pick the pretty flowers on her neighbor’s terrace—thankfully, she lived on the second floor, although she did sustain a broken clavicle and had required thirty-eight stitches to close the gash on her arm, courtesy of the glass vodka cooler bottle she had been holding when she fell.

And those were only the ones he’d seen in the past hour. Then there was Nancy Anderson—a woman who claimed she tripped and fell into a door but whom he recognized from her frequent visits to the ER with various and numerous contusions and lacerations. Tonight it was a black eye, swollen jaw and broken wrist. Nancy wasn’t drunk, but Justin would bet that her husband was—not because it was New Year’s Eve but because Ray Anderson always hit the bottle as soon as he got home from work.

More than once, Justin had tried to help her see that there were other options. She refused to listen to him. Because he understood that a woman who had been abused by her husband might be reluctant to confide in another man, he’d called in a female physician to talk to her, with the same unsatisfactory result. After Thanksgiving, when she’d suffered a miscarriage caused by a “fall down the stairs,” Dr. Wallace had suggested that she talk to a counselor. Nancy Anderson continued to insist that she was just clumsy, that her husband loved her and would never hurt her.

“What did she say happened this time?” asked Callie Levine, one of his favorite nurses who had drawn the short straw and got stuck working the New Year’s Eve shift beside him.

“Walked into a door.”

Callie shook her head. “He’s going to kill her one of these days.”

“Probably,” Justin admitted grimly. “But it doesn’t matter that you and I see it when she refuses to acknowledge what’s happening.”

“When she lost the baby, I honestly thought that would do it. That her grief would override her fear and she would finally tell the truth.”

“She fell down the stairs,” Justin said, reminding her of the explanation Nancy Anderson had given when she was admitted on that previous occasion.

Then, because talking about the woman’s situation made him feel both frustrated and ineffectual, he opened another chart. “Did you call up to the psych department for a consult?”

“Victoria Danes said she would be down shortly,” Callie told him. “Did you want her to see Mrs. Anderson?”

“No point,” he said. “I just need her to talk to Tanner Northrop so we can figure out what to do there.”

“Is that the little boy in Exam Two with Dr. Wallace?”

“Dr. Wallace is still here?” He’d crossed paths with Avery Wallace earlier in the evening when he’d sneaked into the doctor’s lounge for a much-needed hit of caffeine and she’d strolled in, wearing a formfitting black dress and mile-high heels, and his eyes had almost popped right out of his head.

She’d barely glanced in his direction as she’d made her way to the women’s locker room, emerging a few minutes later in faded scrubs and running shoes. It didn’t matter that the more familiar attire disguised her delectable feminine curves—his body was always on full alert whenever she was near.

She’d moved to Charisma three and a half years earlier and started working at Mercy Hospital. Since then, he’d gotten to know her pretty well—professionally, at least. Personally, she wouldn’t give him the time of day, despite the definite sizzle in the air whenever they were around each other.

Although she wasn’t on the schedule tonight, she’d assisted him with a procedure earlier in the evening because they were short staffed and she was there. He’d expected that she would have gone home after that—making her escape as soon as possible. Apparently, he was wrong.

Callie nodded in response to his question. “She’s teaching the kid how to play Go Fish.”

He smiled at that, grateful Tanner had some kind of distraction. The eight-year-old had dialed 9-1-1 after his mother shot up a little too much of her favorite heroin cocktail and wouldn’t wake up. She still hadn’t woken up, and Tanner didn’t seem to know if he had any other family.

“Send Victoria in to see Tanner when she comes down,” he said. “I’m going to see how Mrs. Anderson is doing.”

“Good luck with that.”

Of course, it was his bad luck that he’d just opened the door to Exam Four when the psychologist appeared.

“What’s she doing here?” Nancy Anderson demanded.

“She’s not here to see you,” Justin assured her. Then, to Victoria, “Exam Two.”

“Thanks.” The psychologist moved on; the patient reapplied the ice pack to her jaw.

“Are you planning to go home tonight?” Justin asked her.

“Of course.”

“Do you need someone to call a cab for you?” he asked.

Nancy shook her head. “Ray’s waiting for me outside.”

He scribbled a prescription and handed her the slip. “Pain meds—for the wrist.”

She had to set down the ice to take it in her uninjured hand. “Thanks.”

There was so much more he could have said, so much more he wanted to say, but he simply nodded and left the room.

“Dare I hope that things are finally starting to slow down?” a pretty brunette asked when he returned to the nurses’ station. She’d only been working at Mercy a couple of months and he had to glance at the whiteboard to remind himself of her name: Heather.

“I wouldn’t,” Justin advised. “It’s early yet—still lots of champagne to be drunk and much idiocy to be demonstrated.”

She laughed. “How did you get stuck working New Year’s Eve?”

“Everyone has to take a turn.”

“Callie said it was Dr. Roberts’s turn.”

He shrugged. It was true that Greg Roberts had been on the schedule for tonight. It was also true that the other doctor was a newlywed while Justin had no plans for the evening. He’d received a couple of invitations to parties—and a few offers for more personal celebrations—but he’d declined them all without really knowing why. He usually enjoyed going out with friends, but lately he’d found himself tiring of the familiar scene.

“What’s going on with the guy in Exam Three?” Heather asked. “Are we going to be able to open up that room pretty soon?”

He shook his head. “Suspected alcohol poisoning. I’m waiting for the results from his blood alcohol and tox screens to confirm the diagnosis.” In the interim, the patient was on a saline drip for hydration.

“Speaking of alcohol,” Heather said. “I’ve got a bottle of champagne chilling at home to celebrate the New Year whenever I finally get out of here.”

“You plan on drinking a whole bottle of champagne by yourself?”

Her lips curved in a slow, seductive smile. “Unless you want to share it with me.”

What he’d intended as an innocent question had probably sounded to her as if he was angling for an invitation. But honestly, his thoughts had been divided between Nancy Anderson and Tanner Northrop, and Heather’s overture was as unexpected as it was unwanted.

“I’ve got the rest of the weekend off and my roommate is in Florida for the holidays,” Heather continued.

“Lucky you,” he noted.

She touched a hand to his arm. “We could be lucky together.”

He stepped back from the counter, so that her hand fell away, and finished making notes in the chart before he passed it to her. “Sorry,” he said, without really meaning it. “I’ve got other plans this weekend.”

“What about tonight?” she pressed. “Surely you’re not expected to be anywhere when we get off shift at two a.m.?”

“No,” he acknowledged. “But it’s been a really long night and I just want to go home to my bed. Alone.”

The hopeful light in her eyes faded. “Callie told me that you always go for the blondes.”

He wasn’t really surprised to hear that he’d been the subject of some conversation. He knew that the nurses often talked about the doctors. He also knew that some of them weren’t as interested in patient care as they were in adding the letters M-R-S to their names. But the fact that Callie had been drawn in to the discussion did surprise him, and he made a mental note to talk to her. If he couldn’t stop the gossip, he hoped to at least encourage discretion.

“My response has nothing to do with the color of your hair,” he assured Heather. “I’m just not interested in partying with anyone tonight.”

She pouted but turned her attention back to her work.

As he was walking away from the nurses’ station, a call came in from paramedics at an MVA seeking permission to transport multiple victims to the ER. Justin forgot about the gossip and refocused his mind on real priorities.

* * *

Avery Wallace rolled her shoulders, attempting to loosen the tight muscles that ached and burned. She was an obstetrician, not an ER doctor—and not scheduled to work tonight in any event. But she’d been on her way to a party with friends when she got the call from her answering service about a patient who was in labor and on her way to Mercy. She knew the doctor on call could handle the birth, but the expectant mother—a military wife whose family lived on the West Coast and whose husband was currently out of the country—was on her own and incredibly nervous about the birth of her first child.

Avery hadn’t hesitated to make the detour to the hospital. After texting a quick apology to Amy Seabrook—the friend and colleague who had invited her to the party—she’d exchanged her dress and heels for well-worn scrubs and running shoes.

After Michelle was settled with her new baby, Avery headed back to the locker room with the vague thought of salvaging her plans for the evening. She didn’t make it far before she was nabbed to assist Dr. Romeo—aka Justin Garrett—with a resuscitative thoracotomy in the ER.

While she might disapprove of his blatant flirtations with members of the female staff, she couldn’t deny that he was an exceptional doctor—or that her own heart always beat just a little bit faster whenever he was around. He stood about six feet two inches with a lean but strong build, short dark blond hair and deep green eyes. But it was more than his physical appearance that drew women to him. He was charming and confident, and not just a doctor but also a Garrett—a name with a certain inherent status in Charisma, North Carolina, where Garrett Furniture had been one of the town’s major employers for more than fifty years.

After more than three years of working beside him at the hospital, she would have expected to become inured to his presence. The truth was exactly the opposite—the more time she spent with him, the more appealing she found him. She respected his ability to take control in a crisis situation as much as she admired the compassion he showed to his patients and, as a result, she’d developed a pretty major crush on him—not that she had any intention of letting Dr. Romeo know it.

When the patient had been resuscitated and moved to surgery, he’d simply and sincerely thanked Avery for her help. That was another thing she liked about him—he might be in command of the ER, but he never overlooked the contributions of the rest of the staff.

She’d barely discarded her gown and gloves from that procedure when she was steered to the surgical wing to help Dr. Bristow with a femoral shaft fracture. She passed through the ER again on her way out, and that was when she saw Dr. Garrett hunkered down in conversation with a little boy. The child’s face was streaked with dirt and tears, but it was the abject grief in his eyes that tugged at her heart and had her slipping into the room after the ER physician had gone. She chatted with him and played Go Fish until Victoria Danes arrived. Once she was confident that he was comfortable in the psychologist’s company, she headed back toward the locker room. And ran straight into the one person she always tried to avoid.

“Good—you’re still here.”

Her heart bumped against her ribs as she looked up at Justin, but she kept her tone cool, casual. “Actually, I’m just on my way home.”

“We’ve got two ambulances coming in from an MVA—one carrying an expectant mother.”

“Dr. Terrence can handle it.”

“He can, but Callie asked me to find you.”

“Why?” she wondered.

“The pregnant woman is her sister.”

* * *

According to the report from the paramedics, the taxi in which Callie’s sister and her husband were riding had been broadsided by a pickup truck that had sped through a red light.

Avery watched the clock as she scrubbed, conscious that each one of the five minutes she was required to spend on the procedure was another minute the expectant mother was waiting. Dr. Garrett was already working on the pregnant woman’s husband, who had various contusions and lacerations and a possible concussion.

When Avery finally entered the OR, she was given an immediate update on the patient’s condition.

“Camryn Ritter, thirty-one years old, thirty-eight weeks pregnant. Presenting with moderate bleeding and uterine tenderness, BP one-ten over seventy, pulse rate one-thirty, baby’s rhythm is steady at ninety BPM.”

The numbers, combined with her own observations, supported the diagnosis of placental abruption with evidence of fetal bradycardia, which meant that delivering the baby now was necessary for the welfare of both mother and child. Thankfully, Dr. Terrence had already requested that the anesthesiologist give the patient a spinal block, so she could start surgery almost right away.

She’d lost count of the number of C-sections that she’d performed, but she’d never considered a caesarean to be a routine surgery. Every pregnancy was different and every baby was different, so she was always hypervigilant, never taking anything for granted. But at thirty-eight weeks, both mother and baby had a really good chance as long as she could get in before anything else went wrong.

“Where’s Brad?” the patient asked worriedly.

Avery glanced at Callie, who was holding her sister’s hand. Ordinarily she would have banned the nurse from the operating room because of the personal connection, but in the absence of the woman’s husband, she was counting on Callie to help keep the expectant mother calm.

“Brad’s her husband, my brother-in-law,” Callie explained. Then, to her sister, she said, “He was a little bumped up in the taxi, but Dr. Garrett’s checking him over now and running some tests.”

“He was bleeding,” Camryn said. “There was so much blood.”

“Head injuries bleed a lot,” Callie acknowledged. “Remember when you got hit with a baseball bat in third grade—while you were wearing my pink jean jacket? It took mom three washes to get the blood out.”

Her sister managed a weak smile. “So he’s okay?”

“He’s going to be fine,” Callie promised, more likely to soothe the expectant mother’s worries than from any certainty of the fact. “Dr. Garrett’s one of the best doctors on staff here. Dr. Wallace is another.”

“Brad really wanted to be here when the baby was born.”

“I’m sure neither of you expected that your baby would be born tonight, under these circumstances.”

The anesthesiologist was near the head of the bed, monitoring the mother’s vital signs and intravenous levels. He nodded to Avery and, after confirming that her patient could feel nothing, she drew the scalpel across her swollen abdomen.

A planned caesarean usually took between five and ten minutes from first cut until the baby was lifted out. In an emergency situation like this one, an experienced doctor could perform the procedure in about two minutes.

Dr. Terrence—who had scrubbed in to assist—worked to keep the surgical field clean, swabbing with gauze and holding the incision open while she worked. They were approaching the two-minute mark when she reached into the uterus. Clear fluid gushed around her gloved hand as she cradled the small skull in her palm and carefully guided the head, then the shoulders, out of the opening.

Her hands didn’t shake as she lifted the baby out of the mother’s womb. Her hands never shook when she was under the hot lights of an operating or delivery room. She didn’t let herself feel any pressure or emotion while she was focused on a task. Her unflappable demeanor was, she knew, only one reason some of the staff referred to her as “Wall-ice.”

The baby’s color was good, and when Avery wiped his mouth with gauze and gently squeezed his nostrils, she was immediately rewarded with a soft cry.

“Is that—” Camryn’s voice hitched. “Is that my baby?”

“That’s your baby,” Avery confirmed.

“He’s a boy,” Callie told her sister, watching with misty eyes as the cord was clamped and cut. “You have a beautiful, perfect baby boy.”

“I want to see him,” the new mother said.

“You will—in just a moment.”

“Seven pounds, five ounces, nineteen inches,” another nurse announced from the corner of the operating room, after the newborn had been wiped, weighed and swaddled.

Camryn wiped at a tear that spilled onto her cheek as the baby was placed in her arms. “Where’s Brad? I want to see him. I want him to see our baby.”

“He’ll be here as soon as he can,” Callie soothed.

While the nurse and her sister talked quietly, Avery continued to work, suturing up each layer of abdominal tissue. But even as she focused on her task, she was thinking of the awe and wonder on Camryn’s face when she saw her baby for the first time—and immediately fell in love with him. Avery had seen it happen countless times, but it never failed to tug at her own heart.

Half an hour later, when she finally left the new mom with her baby, she again crossed paths with Dr. Garrett in the hall.

“How’s dad?” she asked, referring to the baby’s father whom he’d been working on in the adjacent room.

“Aside from two broken ribs, a punctured lung, mild concussion and a head laceration that required twenty-two stitches to close, he’s doing just fine.”

“Twenty-two stitches? I just put in more than twice that number and delivered a baby.”

“Competitive, aren’t you?” Though his tone was teasing, his smile was weak.

“Maybe a little,” she acknowledged.

“Boy or girl?”

“Boy.”

He slung a companionable arm across her shoulders as they headed down the hall. “Good work, Wallace.”

“You, too, Garrett.”

They walked together in silence for a few minutes, until Avery caught him stifling a yawn. “I imagine it’s been a very long night for you,” she said.

“It’s New Year’s Eve,” he reminded her.

“Was,” she corrected.

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “What?”

“It’s after midnight now.” Afterward, she would wonder what caused her to throw caution and common sense to the wind. But in the moment, it seemed perfectly natural to lift herself onto her toes and touch her lips to his cheek. “Happy New Year.”

She could tell he was as startled by the impulsive gesture as she was, but when he looked at her, she saw something more than surprise in his eyes. Something that made her heart pound harder and faster, that made her weary body ache and yearn. Something that warned her she’d taken the first step down an intriguing—and potentially dangerous—path.

He took the next step, pulling open the nearest door—to a housekeeping supply closet—and tugging her inside. She didn’t balk or protest. For more than three years, they’d danced around the attraction between them. They weren’t dancing anymore.

“Happy New Year,” he echoed, then crushed his mouth down on hers.

Chapter Two

His kiss was hot and hungry and demanding. She kissed him back, just as hotly and hungrily, responding to his every demand and meeting them with her own. If she’d been able to think clearly—if she’d been able to think at all—she might have drawn back. But the moment his lips touched hers, all rational thought slipped from her mind. In fact, her brain seemed to have shut down completely, letting the hormones that flooded through her veins lead the way.

And they were leading her to a very happy place. A place where his hands were all over her, touching and teasing, giving her so much pleasure and still making her want so much more.

He eased his lips away from hers. “I like the sparkly things in your hair, Wallace—they really dress up your scrubs.”

“What?” She frowned as she reached up, startled to realize that her hair was in a fancy twist instead of her usual ponytail. So much had happened since she’d left home, she’d almost forgotten about the party and the decorative pins she’d impulsively added to her updo for the occasion. “Oh.”

“You were out celebrating the New Year,” Justin guessed.

“I never actually made it that far,” she told him.

“I’m sure your date was disappointed.”

“It wasn’t a date,” she said. “Not really.”

“Good.” He slid his hands up her back, drawing her closer, and lowered his head to nip playfully at her bottom lip.

This was dangerous. He was hardly touching her and her resistance was melting. He wasn’t her type. Not at all. He was a player and a doctor and everything she didn’t want in a man.

But right now, she didn’t care about any of that. Right now, she did want him. Or at least her body wanted to feel the way she knew he could make her feel, the way he was making her feel.

“But I am sorry your plans were ruined,” he said.

“They were actually Amy’s plans—and I was kind of relieved to escape another blind date.”

“Then you weren’t planning to ring in the New Year with wild, sweaty sex?”

“The thought never crossed my mind.” His hands grazed her breasts as they skimmed up her sides, making her breath hitch. “Until now.”

“Really?” He smiled against her lips. “You’re thinking about it now?”

She slid her hands beneath his scrub top, over the smooth, taut skin of his abdomen. “Yeah, I’m thinking about it now.”

“If you want to hold that thought, I’m off shift in a couple of hours.”

She scraped her teeth lightly over his jaw. “I’ll change my mind in a couple of hours.”

“I definitely don’t want you to change your mind.” He whisked her scrub top up over her head, unveiling her pink lace bra, and his brows lifted. “You sure you didn’t put this on for your date?”

“Forget about my date,” she suggested. “And focus on me.”

“I’m focused,” he promised, his thumbs stroking over her rigid nipples through the delicate fabric. “Very focused.”

Her head fell back against the door as arrows of sensation shot straight to her core. Her body was on fire. She was burning with want, with need. Desperate, aching need. She was so tightly wound up she was practically vibrating.

Then he dipped his head and found her breast with his mouth, suckling her through the lace. She slid her fingers into his hair, holding him against her as waves of exquisite sensation washed over her.

His mouth moved to her other breast as his hand slid down the front of her pants, his fingertips brushing over the aching nub at her center. The light touch made her gasp and shudder. He parted the soft folds of skin, groaning his appreciation when he found that she was already wet.

“You do something to me, Wallace,” he admitted gruffly.

“Do something to me,” she suggested, reaching a hand into his pants to wrap around the hard length of him, making him groan again. “Do me.”

“I will,” he promised.

But for now, he continued to touch and tease her. She bit hard on her lip to keep from crying out, her palms flat against the door to hold herself upright as her knees quivered and her body shuddered.

She was gasping and panting and on the verge of melting into a puddle at his feet when he pushed her panties down to her ankles with her pants, then shoved his own pants and boxers out of the way. Finally he covered her mouth with his and thrust into her, kissing her hard and deep as he took her body the same way.

She was ready for him. More than ready. But it had been a long time, and she’d almost forgotten how good it could feel. How exquisitely and blissfully good.

It was pretty much a consensus among the female contingent of the hospital nursing staff that Dr. Garrett could satisfy a woman’s every want and need, and he lived up to that reputation now. He used his hands and his lips and his body to drive her to the ultimate pinnacle of pleasure and far beyond, soaring into the abyss with her.

When she finally floated back to earth, her body was still pinned against the door, still intimately joined with his. She took a minute to catch her breath as he did the same.

“I think I might need the paddles to restart my heart, Wallace.”

She forced herself to match his casual tone. “Then it’s a good thing you’re a doctor.”

But even while her body continued to hum with the aftereffects of pleasure, her mind was beginning to remember the hundred and one reasons that giving in to the attraction she felt for Justin was a bad idea. The number one reason was the MD that followed his name; the hundred other reasons were the hundred names of other women he’d undoubtedly pleasured in a similar manner.

He brushed his lips against hers—the kiss surprisingly tender and sweet on the heels of their passionate and almost desperate coupling.

“Do you ever wonder how we didn’t end up here before now?” he asked her.

Her brows lifted. “Mostly naked in a housekeeping supply closet?”

“I was focused on the mostly naked part,” he said. “And thinking that I’d like to take you back to my place and progress from mostly to completely naked.”

She shook her head and pushed him away so she could pull up her pants and gather the rest of her discarded clothing. “Not a good idea.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because we have to work together.”

“We’ve always worked well together,” he noted. “And now we know that we play well together, too, and—”

She touched a hand to his lips, silencing his words as she shook her head. “No.”

He frowned. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she insisted, refastening her bra.

“You’re just going to walk away?”

She tugged her shirt over her head. “Well, someone is eventually going to need something from this closet, so it’s probably not a good idea to stay here.”

“You know I’m not referring to the closet but what happened between us,” he chided.

“It was an impulse, Garrett. Nothing more than that.”

“An impulse,” he echoed.

He sounded oddly hurt by her characterization of their actions—but she was probably just imagining it. After all, Justin Garrett didn’t do emotions or involvement. He moved in and then moved on, and she thought he would appreciate that she didn’t want anything more than that.

“It was an intense situation in the ER tonight and we both worked hard to ensure a young couple had reason to celebrate rather than mourn the start of the New Year.”

“You think that what just happened between us only happened because of adrenaline?” he asked incredulously.

“And proximity,” she allowed.

“So this is normal postoperative procedure for you?”

“No!”

“Then it was out-of-character behavior?” he pressed.

“Very,” she admitted.

“And probably an inevitable result of the fact that you’ve been denying the attraction between us for more than three years.”

Probably. Although she had no intention of admitting it. To Avery’s mind, it was bad enough that she’d succumbed to the attraction she’d tried so hard to ignore without giving him the additional satisfaction of knowing that she’d harbored those feelings for so long.

But he was right—she’d been attracted to him from the beginning. The day she interviewed with the chief of staff at Mercy Hospital, the first time she’d met Justin, he’d smiled at her and her pulse had skyrocketed.

She wasn’t unfamiliar with attraction, but she couldn’t remember ever having it hit her so immediately and intensely. On her first day of work, he’d flirted with her a little, and she’d flirted back.

And then, later that same day, she’d seen him flirting with someone else. The day after that, it was someone different again. It had only taken three more days—three more shifts at the hospital—for her to realize that Justin Garrett, aka Dr. Romeo, was not her type. He’d continued to flirt with her—or try to—when their paths crossed, but she’d given him no encouragement.

Not until she’d kissed him.

“I have to go.”

He slapped his hand against the door to prevent her from opening it. “And you’re still denying it,” he noted.

“Let me go, Garrett.”

“I’m not holding you hostage. I’m just trying to have a conversation.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. You got another notch to add to your bedpost—isn’t that enough for you?”

“I don’t have bedposts,” he said. “Which I’d be happy to prove to you if you come home with me when I get off shift.”

“No,” she said firmly.

He brushed a loose hair off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear, the light touch of his fingertips on her skin making her shiver and want him all over again. Damn him.

“What did I do wrong?” he asked her. “Aside from taking you against the closet door with all the finesse of a horny teenager, I mean.”

She wished she could blame him for that, but she’d initiated everything. She wished she could dismiss the experience as unsatisfactory, but the truth was, despite the setting and the pace of the event, her body had been very thoroughly satisfied.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.

“Then why are you pulling away?” Justin asked, sincerely baffled by her reaction.

Before she could respond, his pager started beeping.

Mentally cursing the untimely interruption, he scooped it up from the floor, where it had fallen when he’d dropped his pants. He glanced at the display and sighed. “Two ambulances are on their way from another MVA.”

But there was no response.

Avery was already gone.

With a sigh, Justin tucked the pager back in his pocket and headed to the ER.

He wouldn’t be a good doctor if he couldn’t set aside personal distractions and do his job. But after he’d finished stitching up another head wound, helped cast the broken arm of a screaming, squirming four-year-old, checked on the college student with alcohol poisoning and confirmed that Tanner Northrop was in the temporary custody of Family Services, it was almost two hours past the end of his shift.

He went to the locker room, physically and mentally exhausted, and let the water of the shower pound down on him. When he finally came out of the shower, he wanted nothing more than his bed.

Then he thought about Avery in that bed, warm and willing and naked, and his body miraculously stirred to life again.

The pretty baby doctor could believe whatever she wanted and make whatever excuses she wanted, but he knew that what was between them wasn’t even close to being done.

* * *

Avery’s apartment was dark and empty when she got home from the hospital, the quiet space echoing the hollow feeling inside her. The physical pleasure she’d experienced in those stolen moments with Justin Garrett had already faded away, leaving her aching and ashamed.

She should never have kissed him. She certainly should never have let him drag her into the closet. And she most definitely should never have succumbed to the lustful desires that stirred deep inside whenever she was near him.

Dropping onto the edge of the sofa, she buried her face in her hands, thoroughly mortified by her own behavior. She had a reputation for being cool and untouchable, but she’d been so hot and desperate for Justin that she’d let him screw her in a housekeeping supply closet.

What if someone found out?

Her cheeks burned with humiliation at the possibility. No doubt the hospital grapevine would love to know that the charismatic Dr. Romeo had succeeded in melting the frosty Dr. Wall-ice.

Of course, the more than two years that had passed since she’d last had sex might have been a factor, too. She missed physical intimacy. She missed the sharing of close personal contact with another person, the rising tension, the exhilarating release. But she’d never been good at sex outside of a relationship, which explained why it had been such a long time since she’d had sex.

Prior to the scheduled setup with Nolan tonight, she couldn’t even remember the name of the last guy she’d dated. Was it Simon? Or Mike? Simon was the real estate agent who lived on the ninth floor of her building. Dark hair, darker eyes, sexy smile—but a sloppy kisser. Mike was one of the cameramen on Ryder to the Rescue, her brother’s TV show. Shaggy blond hair, hazel eyes, great laugh and—she was informed by her brother after she’d agreed to meet Mike for coffee—engaged to one of the show’s producers.

Or maybe it had been Kevin. She’d almost forgotten about him. They’d met on the Fourth of July, having struck up a conversation while they were both in line at the Fireman’s Picnic—a charity barbecue for the children’s wing of the hospital. He’d asked for her number and he’d even called a few times after that, trying to set up a date, but they’d never actually made it to that next step.

Her life really was pathetic.

Spending time with Amy and Ben, she sometimes found herself wondering if she would ever find that once-in-a-lifetime kind of love that her friend shared with her husband. The kind of love that she’d once believed she shared with the man she’d planned to marry.

Avery had met Wyatt Travers at med school, when she was in her first year and he was in his third. Even then, she’d had reasons for not wanting to get involved with a doctor, but he’d swept her off her feet. Two years after they met, he put an engagement ring on her finger, and six months later, they moved in together.

Their lives were undeniably busy and they were often going in opposite directions, but whenever they had time just to be together, they would talk about their plans for the future, where they would set up a medical practice together, when they would start a family and how many children they would have.

Then he’d decided to go to Haiti as part of an emergency medical response team. Avery had wanted to go with him, but she was just finishing up her residency, so Wyatt went alone. He was gone for six months and when he finally came back, it was to tell her that he’d fallen in love with someone else. When Avery reminded him that he was supposed to be in love with her and that their wedding was scheduled for the following summer, he admitted that he hadn’t just fallen in love with Stasia—he’d married her.

Avery had immediately packed up and moved out of their apartment, because it seemed a little awkward to continue to live with her former fiancé and his new wife. She’d crashed with a friend for a few weeks until she figured out what she wanted to do with her life now.

It had taken her a long time to get over Wyatt’s betrayal. He’d argued that she couldn’t blame him for falling in love with someone else, but she could and she did. If he’d really loved her, he wouldn’t have fallen in love with Stasia—and since he’d fallen in love with Stasia, it proved that he’d never really loved her.

Either way, what it meant for Avery was that there wasn’t going to be a joint medical practice or a wedding in August or a baby born two and a half years after that. Not for her, anyway. Wyatt, on the other hand, had accelerated the timeline he and Avery had mapped out for their life together, becoming a father five months after his return from Haiti.

That was when Avery realized she needed to make some changes, and when her brother, Ryder, was offered a contract to do a cable television show, she decided to go with him to Charisma. She was immediately charmed by the small town and grateful that it was far enough from Boston that she wouldn’t worry about running into Wyatt or Stasia at the grocery store. Because as unlikely as that might seem in the city, it was a risk she didn’t want to take.

She threw herself into her career and focused on proving herself to the staff at Mercy Hospital. She’d succeeded in building an impeccable reputation, and she’d also made some really good friends, including Amy Seabrook. She even went out on the occasional date, but she hadn’t fallen in love again.

And when she went home at the end of the day, it was always to an empty apartment. She tried to convince herself that she liked it that way—that she was glad she didn’t have to worry about anyone leaving wet towels in the bathroom or dirty socks on the floor; that she appreciated the freedom of choosing whether she wanted to listen to music or watch TV or simply enjoy the quiet solitude.

But deep in her heart, she couldn’t deny the truth: she was alone and she was lonely. She wanted a partner with whom to share her life and build a family, but she was growing increasingly skeptical about either of those things ever happening for her.

In the past six months, she’d attended three bridal showers, four baby showers and two first-birthday parties. All of her friends and contemporaries were at the point in their lives where they were getting married and having babies, and she was sincerely happy for them. But she was a little envious, too.

She was thirty-two years old and her life was so far off track she couldn’t see the track anymore. She was so desperate for physical contact with a man that she’d turned to Justin Garrett.

Not that he ever bragged about his conquests—he didn’t need to. The women he bedded were only too happy to add their names to the extensive and ever-growing list of those who had experienced nirvana between his sheets.

Now Avery was one of them—one of the nameless, faceless masses who could say that she’d slept with Dr. Romeo. Except that she hadn’t actually slept with him; she hadn’t even been horizontal with him. No, she’d been so willing and eager, she’d gotten naked with him in a supply closet. Or mostly naked, anyway.

She’d just wanted to feel as if she wasn’t completely alone for a few minutes. And while it was true that he’d helped her feel not just connected and desired but incredibly good, now that she was home again she had to face the truth: those stolen moments in the closet didn’t change anything.

She was still alone.

But at least there was no one around to see the tears that slid down her cheeks.

Chapter Three

Wellbrook Medical Center was a privately funded clinic that provided medical services primarily to unwed mothers and their children. One of Avery’s jobs at the clinic was to talk to young women about the importance of safe sex—reminding them to protect themselves not just against unwanted pregnancies but sexually transmitted diseases. For those who missed coming in for that talk, the clinic also offered the morning-after pill, testing for pregnancy and STDs, and prenatal care.

Avery was making notes in a patient’s file when Amy set a mug of coffee on her desk. She glanced up. “Did you say something?”

“I said you seem a little preoccupied today.”

“Sorry—I was just wondering how Callie’s sister and her baby are doing. I think I’ll stop by the hospital to check on them when I’m finished here.”

“If we ever finish here,” Amy noted.

“Brenna and Tess are coming in at two,” she reminded her friend.

Amy lifted a hand to cover a yawn. “Why does two seem so far away?”

“Maybe because you had such a good time last night,” Avery teased.

Her friend smiled. “What time did you escape from the hospital?”

“It wasn’t long after midnight.”

“It didn’t take you that long to deliver a baby.”

Avery shook her head. “No, but the ER was crazy, so I stuck around for a while to help out, which is how I ended up delivering Callie’s sister’s baby, too.”

“You missed a great party,” Amy told her.

“I’m sure I did,” she acknowledged.

Her friend sighed. “You could at least sound a little disappointed—I really think you would have liked Nolan.”

“You say that about every one of Ben’s friends that you try to set me up with.”

“And I remain optimistic that, one of these days, you’ll actually go out with one of them.”

“I’m focusing on my career right now.”

“I get that, but your focus shouldn’t be to the exclusion of all else.”

“It’s not.”

“When was the last time you were on a date?” Amy asked, then she shook her head. “No—forget that question. When was the last time you had sex?”

Last night.

Not that she was going to admit as much to her friend. Of course, even if she did tell Amy the truth, it was unlikely her friend would believe it. Because Avery Wallace didn’t have casual sex, and she definitely didn’t succumb to the obvious charms of sexy doctors like Justin Garrett.

“Why is it that everyone wants to talk about sex today?” she countered, in an effort to divert her friend’s attention.

“Because a lot of people got a little crazy and a little careless last night,” Amy admitted. “I don’t understand it—we give out condoms for free at the front desk. Why aren’t people using them?”

“Don’t you remember what it was like to be a teenager? All of the emotions and the hormones?”

“I remember the heady thrill of first love and the exciting rush of sexual desire,” Amy acknowledged. “But I was never so overcome by lust—or so intoxicated—that I would have had sex without a condom.”

“If everyone was as smart as you, we wouldn’t have patients in the waiting room,” Avery countered.

“And since we do, I guess we’d better get back to work.”

So they did, and a steady stream of patients kept them both busy until Brenna and Tess arrived shortly before two. Avery was almost disappointed when their colleagues showed up, because now she would have time to think about the hard truths her earlier conversation with Amy had forced her to acknowledge.

Most notably that it wasn’t only teenagers who made impulsive and stupid decisions about sex—otherwise responsible and intelligent adults could sometimes be just as impulsive and stupid. As she and Justin had proved last night.

* * *

Justin often felt as if he spent more time at the hospital than he did in his own apartment, which made him question the amount of rent he paid every month for his apartment overlooking Memorial Park. For the past few years, his parents had been urging him to buy a house—“an investment in real estate”—but Justin didn’t see the point in paying more money for more rooms he wasn’t going to use.

Besides, his apartment was conveniently located near the hospital—which he particularly appreciated when he had the early-morning shift. And the late-evening shift. And especially after a double shift.

When he was home, he felt comfortable in his space. It was his sanctuary from the craziness of the world. Four days into the New Year, he was enjoying that sanctuary—until his phone rang, indicating a visitor downstairs. He scowled when he glanced at the monitor and recognized the young woman in the lobby, curiously looking around the foyer as she waited for him to respond to the buzzer.

“Yeah?” he said, his tone deliberately unwelcoming.

“Girl Scout cookie delivery,” she responded cheerfully.

“If you expect someone to buy that story, you should wear the uniform,” he told her.

“Is that what it takes to get an invite to your apartment—a short skirt and a sash?”

“Jeez, no. I’m not a perv.”

“You’re also not opening the door,” his unexpected visitor pointed out.

With a barely suppressed sigh, he punched in the code to release the lock so that she could enter. A few minutes later, there was a knock on his door.

“What are you doing here, Nora?”

His half sister moved past him into the apartment. “You’re not a believer in traditional Southern hospitality, are you?”

“Please, come in,” he said, his sarcasm contradicting the invitation of his words. “Let me take your coat and offer you some sweet tea.”

Ignoring his tone, she took off her coat and handed it to him. “Sweet tea would be nice.”

He hung her coat on one of the hooks behind the door. “Sorry, I’m all out.”

“A glass of wine?”

“Are you old enough to drink?”

“You know I’m only eleven years younger than you.”

He snapped his fingers. “That’s right—I was playing Little League when my father was screwing your mother.”

“Which isn’t my fault any more than it’s yours,” she pointed out.

He sighed, because she was right. And because he knew his mother would be appalled if she ever found out that Nora had come to visit and he’d been less than welcoming.

His mother was another innocent devastated by her husband’s infidelity, although she had forgiven John Garrett a long time ago—before anyone knew that the affair had resulted in a child. And even after learning about the existence of her husband’s illegitimate daughter, Ellen had gone out of her way to make Nora feel she was a part of their family—efforts that the woman in question had mostly resisted.

“Red or white?” Justin asked her now.

“Red, please.”

She followed him into the kitchen, settling herself on a stool at the island while he uncorked a bottle of Napa Valley merlot. He slid a glass across the counter to her and decided—what the hell?—he wasn’t on call, and poured a second glass for himself.

“Thank you.” She took a tentative sip, then set the glass down. “I’m looking for a job.”

“And you want to cash in your DNA results for a cushy office at Garrett Furniture,” he guessed.

She shook her head. “I have no interest in your father’s company.”

“Isn’t he your father, too?”

“Well, yes, but that was more by accident than design.”

He nodded in acknowledgment as she sipped her wine again.

“Besides, an office job would bore me to tears,” she told him. “I like to work with people—that’s why I became a registered physical therapist.”

Which he already knew but had no intention of revealing to her, because she’d then want to know how and why he knew it, and he didn’t intend to share that information. Yet.

“Where’d you go to school?” he asked, pretending he didn’t know the answer to that question, either, as he lifted his own glass to his lips.

“The University of Texas at San Antonio. Graduated with honors.” She opened her purse and took out an envelope, offering it to him. “My résumé.”

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“Look at it and, if you think it’s warranted, consider writing a letter of recommendation for me.”

“Why me?”

“Because there’s an opening at Mercy Hospital and the Garrett name carries a considerable amount of weight there.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t go straight to my mother,” he commented. “If you’ve done your homework, you’re aware that she’s on the hiring committee.”

“I’m aware,” she admitted.

“So why didn’t you knock on her door?” he challenged.

She traced the base of her glass with her finger. “Because a part of me was afraid she’d refuse to give a recommendation...and another part was afraid she would give it.”

He shook his head. “Every time I think I have you figured out, you say or do something that surprises me.”

“I don’t need you to understand me—I just need a letter.”

“I can’t give you that without some understanding of who you are and whether or not you’ll fit in with the rest of the staff.”

She slid off her seat. “Then I guess I should be going.”

He stepped in front of her, blocking her path to the door. “Why Charisma? Why Mercy?”

“Why not?”

“You didn’t come here just for a job.”

She met his gaze evenly. “I have family here.”

“Speaking of family, what do Patrick and Connor think of your decision to move to North Carolina?”

Her eyes narrowed at the mention of her brothers. “What do you know about Patrick and Connor?”

“Quite a lot, actually,” he told her. “Patrick is twenty-seven, single and a deputy in the Echo Ridge sheriff’s department. Connor is twenty-eight, a graduate of the Thurgood Marshall School of Law currently employed as a prosecuting attorney, which is probably why he’s trying to keep his relationship with a certain young woman who works as a public defender under wraps.”

“You had my family investigated?” she demanded, her question filled with icy fury.

“Does that bother you?” he challenged. “Does it seem wrong that some stranger could come along and meddle in the lives of the people who matter the most to you?”

“Touché, Dr. Garrett.” She reached past him to pick up her glass and tossed back the rest of her wine. “I guess that means I’m not going to get a recommendation.”

“I’m not saying no,” he told her. Because he was a firm believer in the old adage about keeping friends close and enemies closer, and he wasn’t yet sure which category his half sister fit into. “I just want some more information.”

“My life’s an open book—and one that you’ve apparently already read.”

He ignored her sarcasm. “Can you meet me at the hospital tomorrow?”

“What time?”

“Two o’clock. By the fountain in the courtyard.”

She nodded. “I’ll be there.”

He followed her back to the foyer and plucked her coat off the hook just as another knock sounded. Since no one had buzzed from the lobby, he assumed that it was probably Lianne from across the hall. For a woman who was always baking something—muffins or cookies or banana bread—it baffled him that his neighbor never had all of the ingredients she needed. His brother, Ryan, liked to tease that Lianne asking to borrow sugar was code for her wanting to give him some sugar, but her flirtations were mostly harmless.

But when he opened up the door, it wasn’t Lianne on the other side. It was Avery Wallace.

“You’re on your way out,” she said, noting the coat in his hand.

He shook his head. “It’s not mine.”

Her eyes flickered past him to Nora, then to the island with the bottle of wine and two glasses. Her color went frosty and her tone, when she spoke again, had chilled by several degrees. “I’m sorry—I obviously should have called first.”

He turned to hand the coat to Nora, whose gaze was openly curious as it shifted from him to his new guest and back again. Clearly she was hoping for an introduction, but he wasn’t inclined to make it.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Avery said, already turning away.

He caught her arm. “You can stay. Nora’s on her way out.”

Thankfully, Nora didn’t have to be told twice. She slipped past him. “I’ll see you at two o’clock tomorrow.”

He nodded, pulling Avery through the door before closing it.

She tugged her arm out of his grasp, looking uncertain and slightly disapproving. “She’s a little young for you, isn’t she?”

“I don’t know,” he said mildly. “How young is too young to be my sister?”

“Your—” she looked back at the door through which Nora had departed “—sister?”

He nodded.

She frowned. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“Neither did I until seven months ago.”

“Sounds like there’s a story there,” she mused.

“I’d tell you about it sometime, but you barely stick around long enough to finish a consult never mind an actual conversation.”

She flushed but did not respond.

“So why are you here?” he asked. And then, because he couldn’t resist ruffling her feathers a bit, he said “Did you come to count the notches on my bedposts?”

She sent him a scathing look. “You said you don’t have bedposts.”

“Because I don’t,” he confirmed. “Which I’d be happy to prove to you if you come down the hall with me and—”

She cut him off by shoving an envelope against his chest. “This is why I’m here.”

He held her gaze for a long minute before he opened the flap and pulled out a single page. He immediately recognized the logo of Charisma Medical Laboratories at the top, then saw her name in the “patient name” box. “What is this?”

“You did get that MD behind your name from medical school, didn’t you?”

“Okay, I guess what I should have asked is ‘why is this?’”

“New Year’s Eve.”

His brows lifted.

She huffed out a breath. “I should have figured you’d make me spell it out. We didn’t just have sex, Garrett. We had unprotected sex.”

Justin nodded soberly. While he had no objections to casual sex, he was never careless about protection. Not since that one time when he was a teenager. That one time—one forgotten condom and one terrifying pregnancy false alarm—had been enough to scare the bejesus out of him and make him swear that he would never be caught unprepared again.

And he never had—until he’d found himself in a hospital supply closet with Avery. Then everything had happened so fast, and his desperate need for her had overridden everything else.

“I’m sorry,” he said, because although the words were grossly inadequate they were also true.

“Obviously neither of us was thinking clearly that night or what happened between us never would have happened,” she said.

He wondered how it was that—despite all the other thoughts screaming in his head—he could be amused by such a prim remark delivered in her characteristically cool tone. Wanting to shake some of that cool, he stepped closer to her.

“We had sex, Avery. Incredible...mind-blowing...ground-shaking sex.”

“I was there,” she acknowledged, her gaze remaining fixed on the ceramic tile floor. “I know what happened.”

He tipped her chin up. “So why can’t you say it?”

She jerked her head away. “Because I’m embarrassed.”

“Why?”

“Because I used to take pride in the fact that I was one of probably only a handful of women on staff at the hospital who had not slept with Dr. Romeo—and I can’t say that anymore.”

He’d grown accustomed to the nickname so that it didn’t bother him anymore. Not that he would acknowledge, anyway. “Honey, I haven’t slept with that many women who work there.”

“I don’t care,” she insisted. “Or I wouldn’t care, except that now I’m one of them.”

“It’s not as if I’ve been walking around wearing a sign—I Melted Dr. Wall-ice.”

She glared at him. “This isn’t funny.”

“I agree,” he said. “Nor is it anything to be ashamed of. We’re two unattached, consenting adults who gave in to a mutual and compelling attraction.”

“We had unprotected sex.”

He nodded. “My bad. I’m not in the habit of carrying condoms in my scrub shirt,” he said, attempting a casualness he did not feel. “But that still doesn’t explain—” he held up the lab report “—this.”

“I wanted to reassure you that there’s no reason for you to worry—” she bit down on her lower lip “—on my side, I mean.”

“But you’re worried about mine,” he realized.

He couldn’t blame her for being concerned. He was well aware of his reputation around the hospital—and well aware that it had been greatly exaggerated. That knowledge had never bothered him before, but now, seeing Avery’s misery and distress, he wished he’d clarified a few things. Or a lot of things.

Of course, it was too late now. She’d obviously made up her mind about him and nothing he said was going to change it. He put the lab report back into the envelope and returned it to her. “Most of the other women I’ve been with just want to cuddle after sex.”

“Most of the other women are why I’d like some quid pro quo.”

He nodded. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

Chapter Four

In retrospect, Avery probably could have handled the situation better, but the whole experience with Justin was way outside her comfort zone. She wasn’t great with personal relationships in general, and men like Justin—not that there were many men like Justin—flustered her beyond belief.

He was so totally confident and unapologetically sexy, and completely aware of the effect he had on people. Especially women. It was why, for most of the three and a half years she’d worked at Mercy Hospital, she’d put as much distance between them as possible.

Of course, distance wasn’t always possible. There were times that they needed to consult and collaborate with respect to the care of patients, and at those times, she did what had to be done, careful to maintain a calm facade and professional demeanor. But when she had a choice, she chose to stay far away from his orbit, because she didn’t trust herself to resist the magnetic pull that he seemed to exert on women without even trying. She hadn’t been able to resist it on New Year’s Eve. She hadn’t wanted to resist him.

When she’d realized that they’d had sex without a condom, she’d panicked a little. Or maybe a lot. And then she’d started to think about all the possible repercussions of having unprotected sex with a man who’d had numerous other sexual partners. As a doctor, she would have been irresponsible to ignore his history, especially after she’d already been irresponsible in having unprotected sex with him.

She didn’t see much of Justin over the next few days after her visit to his apartment, which wasn’t unusual. Depending on their schedules, she might cross paths with him numerous times in a day or not at all for several shifts. What was unusual was that she found herself looking for him, wondering when she might see him and even the wondering filled her stomach with an uncomfortable fluttery feeling.

When she did see him, his demeanor toward her was nothing but professional, and she strove to treat him with the same courtesy. But her awareness of him was heightened now, and whenever he was near, her body stirred with not just memories but longing.

Friday afternoon, she’d just finished a consult regarding the course of action for a multiple pregnancy when he caught her in the conference room.

“I’ve got those test results you wanted,” he told her.

She’d been so focused on her work that it took Avery a moment to realize what he was talking about. But when she did, the knots that had been in her belly since New Year’s Day tightened.

She looked at him expectantly. His statement suggested that he intended to share the results with her, but his hands were empty. “Are you actually going to let me see them?”

“Of course,” he agreed. “At dinner tonight.”

She sighed. “Dr. Garrett—”

“Dr. Wallace,” he countered, his tone amused.

“I’m not going to have dinner with you.”

“Yes, you are,” he said confidently. “Because you want to hold the lab report in your hands and meticulously scrutinize every letter and digit.”

She did, of course. Because she needed to be sure. But she didn’t believe he, as a medical professional, would really hold back the results. Certainly not if there was any reason for her to be concerned.

“You’re clean,” she decided, feigning a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “You wouldn’t be playing games otherwise.”

“And if I’d told you I was clean, that our romantic—” she snorted derisively at that, while he narrowed his gaze and continued “—liaison was the first time I’ve forgotten a condom since I was a horny, fumbling seventeen-year-old, would you have believed me?”

“Probably not,” she admitted.

“Which is why there has to be a tiny niggling of doubt in your mind,” he said. “Barely a seed right now, but if you don’t hold those results in your hand, that seed will grow...and grow.”

She glared at him, because dammit, he was right. “What time did you want to eat?”

His smile was smug. “Seven o’clock. Valentino’s.”

She shook her head. “Seven o’clock works, but I’ll cook.”

“I’d be flattered by your offer to cook for me if I didn’t suspect your true motivation is that being seen in public with me might damage your reputation.”

“I suspect you’re just as worried about your own, considering that I’m not your usual type.”

“And what is my usual type?” he asked curiously.

“Ready, willing and able.”

“You’ve got me there,” he acknowledged. “But then it’s not really true to say you’re not my type, because you were all of those things when we were in SC together.”

She frowned. “SC?”

Despite the fact that they were alone in the room, he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I decided that should be our code for the supply closet. That way, if anyone overhears us talking, they’ll think we stole away to South Carolina together rather than a six-by-eight utility room.”

“No worries,” she told him. “We’re not going to be talking about it. Not after tonight.”

“Seven o’clock at your place?” he prompted.

She nodded and gave him her address.

“You’re not worried that being alone with me will tempt you to jump my bones again?”

“I didn’t ‘jump your bones’ the first time,” she denied hotly.

“You made the first move.”

“It was a kiss. Simple, casual, friendly.”

“It was a spark,” he countered. “And considering how skillfully you’ve dodged me for more than three years because of the red-hot attraction between us, you had to know that one little spark would ignite a firestorm.”

Thankfully, he didn’t stick around for a response, because she didn’t know what to say to that. He was right—for more than three years, she had dodged him and the uncomfortable feelings he stirred inside of her. And as soon as she got through this dinner tonight, she would go back to dodging him again.

It was the only way to ensure that the red-hot attraction didn’t lead to her getting burned.

* * *

Justin immediately recognized the address that Avery had given him because it was on the opposite side of Memorial Park from his own place. He knew their dinner wasn’t technically a date, but he picked up flowers for her, anyway, and had the bouquet in hand when he buzzed her apartment at precisely seven o’clock—just as she rushed in through the front door.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I got caught up at the clinic so I’m running a little bit behind schedule.”

“That’s okay,” he said.

She fumbled with her keys. “Why don’t you come back in half an hour?” she suggested. “By that time, I should have everything well under way for dinner.”

“Because I’m here now and I can help,” he told her.

“I invited you to eat dinner not make dinner,” she pointed out, clearly unhappy that he wasn’t going away and letting her control the timetable.

“I don’t mind.” He followed her into the elevator, where she stabbed a finger at the button for the fifth floor.

It was a corner unit of the U-shaped building, with a view of the tennis courts and pool. The interior was exquisitely—and he suspected professionally—decorated, with comfortable furniture in neutral colors, framed generic prints on the walls and a bookcase filled with medical texts. They were no personal touches in the room. No magazines or candles or decorative vases or bowls.

She went directly into the kitchen and, when he followed, he saw that the galley-style cooking area was equally pristine—the cupboards were white with simple steel handles. The white quartz countertops were bare of clutter except for a single-serve coffeemaker. The deep stainless steel sink was literally spotless, without even a spoon or a cloth in sight.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.

“What are you having?”

“Water.” She opened a cupboard to take out a glass and filled it with ice then water from the dispenser in the door of the refrigerator.

“That works for me,” he said.

She turned to hand him the first glass—and nearly dumped the contents all over him when she discovered that he was directly behind her.

Thankfully, he caught it before it tipped too far. “Relax, Avery.”

She managed a strangled laugh as she filled a second for herself, drinking down half of it before setting it aside.

“We can go out if you’re not comfortable with me being here.”

“It’s not you—or not specifically you,” she amended. “It’s just that I’m not used to other people being in my space.”

“Apparently,” he noted, offering her the bouquet.

“Oh.” She looked at the bright blooms as if she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them.

“They probably want some water, too,” he told her.

“Of course,” she agreed, moving to the cupboard above the fridge to pull down a clear glass vase.

She seemed more comfortable when she was doing something, and she kept her attention focused resolutely on the task while she filled the container with water, trimmed the stems of the flowers, then arranged them in the vase.

“These are really beautiful,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She carried the vase to the dining room and set it in the middle of the table. When she returned to the kitchen, she pulled a plastic container—neatly labeled and dated—out of the fridge, then dumped the contents into a glass bowl. He glanced over her shoulder at the thick red sauce with chunks of sausage and peppers, onions, mushrooms and tomatoes.

“That looks really good,” he said.

“I don’t always feel like cooking when I get home from work, so a couple of times a month I go on a cooking binge where I make all kinds of things that I can throw into containers in the freezer for quick meals later on.”

“What do you make besides pasta sauce?” he asked.

She bent to retrieve a large pot from the cupboard beside the stove, then filled it from the tap and set it on the back burner. “Enchiladas, jambalaya, chicken and broccoli—”

He must have instinctively cringed at that, because she laughed, the unexpected outburst of humor surprising both of them and easing some of the tension.

“You don’t like broccoli?” she guessed.

“Much to my mother’s everlasting chagrin,” he admitted.

“That’s too bad, because my chicken and broccoli casserole is delicious.”

“Well, it’s been my experience that the right company makes any meal taste better, so it’s possible I could change my mind if you wanted to make it for me sometime.”

She smiled at that. “Let’s see if we get through this meal before making any other plans.”

He sipped his water as she went back to the fridge and retrieved various items for a salad. She washed the head of lettuce under the tap, then spread the leaves out on a towel to dry. It was apparent that she had a system and she lined up her ingredients and utensils on the counter as if they were surgical instruments.

“I know how to chop and dice,” he told her.

She glanced up. “What?”

“I’m offering to help make the salad.”

“Oh. Thanks, but it’s not really a two-person job.”

And he could tell that the idea of letting someone else help—and mess with her system—made her twitchy.

“You’re right,” he agreed. “So why don’t you let me handle it while you go do whatever you usually do when you get home from work and don’t have someone waiting in your lobby?”

She hesitated a minute before admitting, “I was hoping for a quick shower.”

“So go take a shower,” he suggested.

“I will,” she decided. “After I get this finished—”

He took her by the shoulders and turned her away from the counter. “Go take your shower—I’ll take care of this.”

She still looked skeptical. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Of course, I don’t mind. But if you’d rather I forget about the lettuce and come wash your back—”

“I can wash my back,” she interjected. “You handle the salad.”

As he tore up the leaves, he tried not to think about Avery down the hall in the bathroom, stripping out of her clothes. As he chopped up celery and peppers, he ordered himself not to envision the spray from the shower pouring over her sexy, naked body. As he sliced cucumber and tomato, he didn’t let himself imagine any soapy lather sliding over her breasts, her hips, her thighs.

But damn, all the not thinking, envisioning and imagining made him hot and achy. He shoved the finished salad back into the refrigerator and put the cutting board and utensils in the dishwasher. He could still hear the water running in the bathroom, and the mental images he refused to allow continued to tease at his mind.

Desperate for a distraction from his prurient fantasies, he decided to give himself a quick tour of her apartment. There was the spacious and stark living room, which he’d glimpsed upon entry into her apartment, then the kitchen and the dining room that was connected to the kitchen. The first door in the hall was a second bathroom. Like the kitchen, white was the color scheme in here, dominating the floor tile, the fixtures, even the towels and the liquid soap in the dispenser on the pedestal sink.

Beside the bathroom was a spare bedroom that she’d set up as a home office. Two walls were covered in bookshelves made of pale wood and neatly filled with yet more medical texts and journals. Her desk, also in pale wood, was just as ruthlessly organized—with pens, pencils and highlighters neatly lined up in distinctly separate containers.

The Twilight Zone theme started to play quietly in his head. There were no real personal touches anywhere. No indication of her interests or hobbies or insights into her personality, and if he didn’t know better, he’d think her career was the sum total of who she was.

But he did know better. He’d kissed her and touched her, and she’d responded with a passion that had taken his breath away. She’d wrapped herself around him as he’d thrust into her body, shuddering and sighing and completely coming undone. Yeah, there was a lot more to Avery than the impersonal and sterile environment of her home indicated.

A spot of green caught the corner of his eye, and he smiled when he noted the stubby plant on the windowsill, recognizing it as some kind of cactus. Even her plant carried the same hands-off vibe that she did. Except that beneath her prickly exterior, she was warm and soft and shockingly uninhibited.

The challenge, of course, was getting past that exterior, and Justin suspected that scaling her walls once would only make a subsequent breach that much more difficult. He also realized he didn’t want to breach her defenses—he wanted to tear them down completely.

He turned away from the cactus in the window to return to the kitchen. That was when he saw it. Another bookcase tucked into an alcove beside the door. He moved in for a closer inspection. The books here were mostly classical literature and popular fiction, with some surprisingly racy titles in the mix, all of them arranged alphabetically by author.

On top of the bookshelf was a framed photograph—the only one he’d seen in the whole apartment—of a little boy and a little girl. The picture had been snapped from behind as the two children walked, hand in hand, away from whoever was in possession of the camera and toward the iconic castle at Disney World. He instinctively knew the children were Avery and her brother, Ryder, even before he looked closely enough to see their names embroidered on the matching Mickey Mouse ears they wore.

It was a snapshot of her childhood, a brief glimpse of a happy moment somehow made more poignant by the realization that she couldn’t have been more than eight years old in the photo and there were no other, later pictures to be found anywhere else in her apartment—or at least in any of the rooms he’d visited so far.

“What are you doing in here?” Avery demanded.

He glanced over, his heart doing a slow roll inside his chest when he saw her standing in the doorway, looking so naturally beautiful and sexy. Her face was scrubbed free of makeup, her hair had been released from its habitual ponytail and skimmed her shoulders. She’d dressed in a pair of black yoga pants and a long, fuzzy V-neck sweater in a pretty shade of blue that almost exactly matched her eyes. Her feet were bare, her toenails painted a bold crimson color that seemed out of character for her but which he knew was not.

“I was looking for you,” he finally answered her question.

She arched a brow. “You didn’t trust I’d find my way back to the kitchen?”

“No, I meant I was looking for a glimpse of you somewhere—anywhere—in this sterile apartment.”

She didn’t blink at his criticism. Nor had he expected her to. It wouldn’t be nearly as much fun to ruffle her feathers if they ruffled easily.

“Remind me not to give you the name of my decorator,” she responded lightly.

“I didn’t think the white was your choice.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked, in a deliberate change of topic.

“I think I did.” He held up the photo.

She took the frame from his hand and carefully set it back into place on the bookshelf. “Dinner will be ready in—” she glanced at the watch on her wrist “—six and a half minutes.”

He smiled. “Precisely six and a half? Not six or seven but six and a half?”

“The pasta takes twelve minutes to cook and I dropped it into the pot approximately five and a half minutes ago.”

“What would happen if you forgot to put the timer on and cooked it for—” he gasped dramatically “—thirteen minutes?”

“Then we’d have to eat overcooked spaghetti,” she said matter-of-factly, but she frowned at the prospect.

He shook his head. “Where did you go to medical school?”

She seemed startled by the abrupt change of topic but, after a brief hesitation, she responded, “Harvard.”

“Figures.”

“I actually wanted to go to Stanford, but my parents thought Harvard was more prestigious.”

“I bet you graduated summa cum laude, too, didn’t you?”

“So? I worked hard and studied hard.”

“I’m sure you did,” he agreed. “And I have no doubt you’re a better doctor because of it. But sometimes, instead of blasting a tunnel through a mountain, you should climb to the top and enjoy the view.”

“If you have a point, I’m not seeing it,” she told him.

“My point is that you’re obviously dedicated, focused and driven, and those are great attributes in the practice of medicine. But when they carry over into your personal life, it suggests that something happened that compels you to rigidly and ruthlessly control every aspect of your life.”

“You’re reading an awful lot into the fact that I use a kitchen timer when I cook my pasta.”

“It’s not just the pasta,” he told her. “You have your highlighters aligned in the spectrum of the rainbow.”

“I didn’t realize being organized was a character flaw.”

“I’m the same way when it comes to every examination and procedure I perform in the ER,” he admitted. “But when I walk out of the hospital at the end of my shift, I let that go and relax.”

“Good for you.”

“You should let go a little, too,” he suggested. “You’re wound up like a torsion spring and one of these days, all of the energy trapped inside of you is going to let loose. Or maybe that is what happened in the supply closet.”

“That’s a better explanation than anything I could come up with,” she acknowledged. “And maybe, after more than two years, it was time to let loose a little.”

His brows lifted. “Are you telling me that it was more than two years since you’d had sex?”

“I’m sure it’s not some kind of celibacy record.”

“Sorry, it’s just that—wow. Two years.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine.”

She rolled her eyes. “We both know you can’t imagine—that’s why I wanted the test.”

Chapter Five

“Right. The test.”

For a few minutes, Justin had forgotten the reason he was here—the only reason Avery was making dinner for him.

As if on cue, a buzzer sounded from the kitchen.

“That’s the pasta,” she said, automatically turning away.

He caught her hand, halting her before she reached the door. She glanced over her shoulder, a quizzical expression on her face.

“I just wanted to say thanks—for offering to cook for me tonight.”

“You’re welcome,” she said cautiously.

“I know that you don’t really approve of me—”

“And I know you aren’t really concerned about my approval.”

He lifted a shoulder. “But you should know that only about half of the rumors that circulate around the hospital are true.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.

“And while I can’t control what other people say, I don’t kiss and tell. Ever.”

“I know,” she admitted.

The timer in the kitchen buzzed again.

“I really need to get that pasta off the stove.”

But he still didn’t release her hand and there was a mischievous glint in his eyes that made her uneasy.

“The noodles are going to be overcooked,” she said again, and that was when she realized what he was doing. “You’re stalling me on purpose.”

“Why would I do that?” he asked innocently.

“To wind up my torsion spring.”

“People don’t actually have torsion springs—I only said you were like a torsion spring.”

“If you don’t let me get back to the kitchen right now, I’m going to let loose all of my tension in your direction.”

He grinned. “Promises, promises.”

But this time when she turned away, he let her go.

She had a colander in the sink and a distinctly unhappy look on her face when he returned to the kitchen. She dumped the noodles into the bowl and carried them to the table she must have set when she got out of the shower.

“If dinner is ruined, it’s your fault,” she told him.

“Dinner is not ruined,” he promised, retrieving the salad from the fridge.

But she still looked skeptical as she scooped penne out of the serving bowl and into her pasta bowl. She ladled sauce on the top and waited until he had done the same before she picked up her fork.

“Did your mother teach you how to cook?” he asked, after he’d sampled his first mouthful.

She shook her head. “My mother is a senior research supervisor at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta—she can isolate a pathogen but I doubt she knows how to pound or purée.”

“So who taught you how to cook?”

“I took a few recreational cooking classes at a small culinary institute in Boston while I was doing my residency.”

“Did you graduate with top honors from there, too?”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t for grades, it was for fun.”

“For fun?” he asked skeptically.

Her lips curved, just a little. “It was more fun than starving.”

“Well, your pasta gets top marks from me,” he told her.

“The sauce was good,” she allowed. “The noodles were overcooked.”

“Maybe by about thirty seconds,” he acknowledged, smiling at her.

She smiled back, a wordless acceptance of the truce he’d offered. “Okay, maybe I could learn to relax a little bit.”

“I’d be happy to teach you.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to be that relaxed.”

He chuckled, unoffended.

“I didn’t make anything for dessert, but I do have ice cream,” she told him.

“I don’t think I have room for dessert—even ice cream,” he told her.

“It’s cookies ’n’ cream,” she said, in a tone that suggested no one could refuse her favorite flavor.

But he shook his head. “No, thanks.”

When she started to stack the dishes, he pulled the lab report out of his pocket and slid it across the table to her.

Avery’s heart pounded as she unfolded the page.

Her eyes skimmed the document quickly the first time, then again, more slowly. She’d been right. Just as she’d suspected, his results were all clear.

She exhaled a grateful sigh. There was nothing to worry about. But she’d needed to be sure—just in case there were other repercussions from that night.

“That’s it, then,” she said, almost giddy with relief as she pushed away from the table to help clear it. “There’s no need for either of us to ever again mention what happened on New Year’s Eve.”

He leaned back against the counter, holding her gaze for a long moment before he finally asked, “Are you sure about that?”

She hugged the salad dressing bottles she carried closer to her chest and eyed him warily.

“There are other potential consequences of unprotected sex,” he reminded her.

She nibbled on her lower lip, as if she didn’t know where he was going with the conversation. Because she hadn’t expected him to go there, she hadn’t expected the possibility to cross his mind. And maybe it hadn’t. “What do you mean?”

He continued to hold her gaze, his own unwavering. “I mean a baby,” he told her. “Is it possible you could be pregnant?”

She shook her head as she turned away from him to put the dressings back in the fridge. “I don’t think so.”

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