LITMIR.BIZ

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done, he set his laptop off to the side and turned out his lamp, knowing he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep for a long time. After a few minutes, he pulled the laptop over again, opened his email account and finally sent her a reply, using as few words as he dared.

      Ordered tile. Should be in stock next Wed. Then, at the last second, he couldn’t help adding, Kitchen not done. Maybe that would stall her and he could buy himself some more time. And avoid running into the pretty doctor at all costs.

      * * *

      Julia carried the last box down the stairs from her officer’s quarters and shoved it into the backseat of her red MINI Cooper. How sad was it that all of her personal belongings fit into a car with the cubic space of a safe-deposit box? Well, technically, the attic at the Georgetown house was filled with family heirlooms and photo albums and her parents’ personal effects. Yet none of that had ever really felt like hers.

      Still, she would have to face that mess eventually, or have one of her attorneys face it for her and send her an invoice. She looked at her watch and estimated that the sun would set before she made it to Sugar Falls. She’d purposely timed her move-in day to be more of a move-in evening. That way she wouldn’t have to see Kane Chatterson and risk him asking her in person if she’d gotten a cookbook like she’d promised her Aunt Freckles.

      By the time she pulled onto Pinecone Court thirty minutes later, her stomach was empty, yet she was eager to see what progress had been made on her house. When she saw the Ford Bronco parked along her curb, now sporting a dull gray paint color instead of its usual rust spots, she wanted to throw her gearshift straight into Reverse.

      Instead she took a deep breath and ordered her tummy to quit thrashing around. She would really need to become accustomed to seeing Kane sporadically. After all, she’d hired the guy to remodel her house. She couldn’t very well let her abdominal muscles get all tight and contracted anytime she saw his ugly old car.

      She wasn’t some lovesick nineteen-year-old anymore, thinking an affair with her college professor was the real deal. In fact, technically speaking, she was Kane’s boss. She was a Navy officer, trained to issue orders. And she was an accomplished surgeon, known for her steady hand and her even steadier nerves. If she could command an operating room full of experienced hospital staff, Julia could certainly handle one small-town contractor who barely said more than a few words to her—even if his eyes drank her in as though they knew every inch of her body intimately.

      She parked in the narrow driveway, then grabbed her leather satchel and one of the boxes out of the backseat and made her way up to the front porch and inside. She heard music coming from upstairs and smelled something garlicky drifting out of the kitchen area. She set the box down in the front parlor and climbed the newly finished stairway, uncertain if she should be walking on the freshly stained steps. But then she realized they must be dry, since someone was upstairs and had to have walked on them already.

      She followed the sound of Duke Ellington—her classical cello instructor would’ve frowned at her recognizing the piece—toward her bedroom and stepped into the well-lit area, relieved that the antique chandelier had been installed already. When she got to the bathroom door, she froze. Kane Chatterson, wearing faded jeans and nothing but paint splatters on his torso, was standing behind her claw-foot tub, one well-defined muscular arm poised with a paintbrush above the top sill of the window frame.

      With an effort, she ignored the weakness in her legs and drew in one ragged breath after another.

      Each stroke of his hand matched the swaying tempo of the music coming from the cordless speaker propped up on the bathroom vanity. The muscles of his back moved in an orchestrated rhythm with the jazzy strains of a piano. The darkness outside made his reflection in the window almost mirror-like, and she saw the deep-set focus in his eyes, his concentrated brow and the hard lines of his set jaw. She could also see that he was completely transfixed in his own little world and had no idea she was there.

      The professional in her wanted to cough or turn down the jazz music or do something to draw his attention to the fact that he wasn’t alone. Unfortunately, her body wasn’t behaving so professionally. Desire curled around her, squeezing so tightly it threatened to cut off the oxygen supply to her brain. Thank God the man was focused too intensely to witness her intrusion on his workspace because Julia didn’t think she could’ve taken a step.

      She had no idea how long she stood there, just as absorbed in his movements as he apparently was in his painting. A softer, slower saxophone-based song switched on the moment his eyes met hers, and Julia wasn’t sure if the dizziness in her head was from the paint fumes or from the way he looked at her.

       Chapter Four

      Kane was so engrossed in what he was doing, he had no idea how long Julia had been standing there waiting for him. He struggled to get those old feelings of embarrassment in check before turning away from the window and pretending not to care that she’d caught him completely off guard. Noting her surgical scrubs were covered by a soft purple cardigan sweater, he let out a breath, equally relieved and disappointed that she wasn’t wearing her exercise outfit.

      “Hey,” he said, before coughing and clearing his throat. He set the paintbrush down in the tray and walked over to his iPhone to turn off his playlist. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

      “It’s seven o’clock,” she said, her green eyes round and fringed with spiky lashes.

      Kane pulled his late Grandpa Chatterson’s antique gold watch out of his pocket and snapped it open—more as something to redirect his focus than to actually check the time. “Wow. I must’ve really been in the zone.”

      At least, that’s what his dad called it whenever Kane would tune out the rest of the world to the point that someone could ask him if he wanted a million dollars and he’d ignore the question. His mom called it hyperfocusing. He called it a pain-in-the-butt symptom of his ADHD.

      “I, uh, didn’t mean to startle you,” she said, but he noticed she wasn’t looking at him when she spoke. Correction: she was definitely looking at him, just not at his face. The skin across his bare chest tightened, causing his pectoral muscles to flex slightly. He remembered her list and wanted to suggest she add something about physical attraction as a quality she might appreciate in a man. Not that he considered himself all that attractive, but after several years of playing professional sports and living out of hotels, plagued by groupies and jersey chasers, he knew when a lady was sizing him up. Or at least when he hoped she was.

      “That’s a decently sized incision, there,” she said. Not cut. Not wound. Incision. So maybe the doctor wasn’t sizing him up so much as taking a professional interest in his anatomy. An unexpected feeling of disappointment washed down his torso. “When did you have a full shoulder replacement?” she asked.

      He squinted at his shoulder before looking at her doubtfully. Maybe she did know who he was after all. She’d have to be living under a rock to not know, but the few times he’d met Just Julia, he’d gotten the impression that was where she liked to keep herself hidden. “So you heard about my surgery?”

      “No. I can tell from your incision.”

      Of course she could. Otherwise she wouldn’t have asked when he’d had it. Rather than making himself look like more of an idiot, he tried to concentrate on her words as she kept talking. “Your surgeon used the extended deltopectoral approach, which is normally only suitable for total shoulder replacement with an open reduction and internal fixation of a proximal humeral fracture.”

      He ran his hand across the lower half of his face, but that didn’t make him resent her easy use of fancy medical jargon any less. “You sure like to use a lot of big words, doc.”

      “Here,” she said, walking toward him. He tried not to flinch when she traced her finger along the pink scar tissue. “Your incision extends from the outer end of your clavicle to the coracoid and follows the medial edge of the deltoid muscle.”

      She must’ve

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