LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Guilty,” he murmured, eyes wicked. “But I’m glad.”

      “Glad?”

      “That Sweet ‘n Sassy isn’t batting for the other team.”

      Slapping a hand over her eyes, she blurted out, “Oh, my God!” She wished the ground would open up and swallow her. “Please, please, stop talking.” She gave a laughing groan and pointed a finger in his direction. “And forget you heard that. In fact, forget the last ten minutes altogether because... Oh, great,” she muttered, catching sight of a couple of co-workers at the entrance, gesturing at her to hurry up and pointing at their watches. “Gotta go.”

      She was about to step into the road when she was brought up short against a warm, hard—extremely hard—chest as a car whooshed past. “Careful,” he murmured in her ear and for the second time in ten minutes Dani experienced that full-body shiver.

      Yeah, Dani, she lectured herself silently as her knees wobbled. Great advice. She’d be wise to heed it.

      Fortunately it gave her the impetus she needed to mutter an apology and limp across the road toward the employee entrance. Safely on the other side, she felt inexplicably drawn to look over her shoulder—only to find him watching her retreat, a small baffled smile curving that incredibly sexy mouth. As though he couldn’t believe what he’d just experienced.

      “Thank you,” she called out, ignoring the niggling feeling in her gut that she was walking away from something good. Something exciting and...terrifying.

      His mouth curved. “Any time.”

      She paused again, unsure why she couldn’t seem to walk away, because she was pretty sure she should be running.

      For long seconds they eyed each other across the wet road, until he finally gave a low laugh and asked in a rough, deep voice that slid into places she hadn’t known were lonely, “Are you sure you won’t reconsider your embargo?”

       Was she?

      “Nope,” she said firmly, shaking her head with jerky exaggerated movements that should convince him—or was that her? So for good measure she added; “I most definitely will not.”

      Liar. You so would.

      He was silent for a long beat, his gaze searching, before finally nodding. “My loss,” he said and dug his keys out of his pocket. “See you around, sweet thing.”

      The sentiment that just fifteen minutes ago had made her want to gag filled her with a warm pleasure that no doubt came from hitting her head. Then her brain finally caught up and she gave herself a mental head-slap.

      He hadn’t meant anything by that parting shot, she told herself as she reluctantly turned away. Men flirted all the time. It was a kind of pastime...like drinking beer, burping and cheating. Besides, she had enough problems without adding a tall, sexy stranger with a kind streak to her things to obsess about.

      The most pressing thing, she decided as she hobbled up the ramp, being that she was late for her shift and looked as if she’d been moonlighting as a mud wrestler.

      * * *

      Dylan St. James found himself smiling as he headed toward his Jeep. There hadn’t been a whole lot to smile about lately but the hot little mess he’d just walked away from had done what no one else had in far too long. She’d taken him out of his head and made him smile—laugh, even—which was a miracle considering everything that had happened in the last two years.

      He’d lost his grandfather after a long, protracted battle with esophageal cancer and a friend to a climbing accident—all in the space of two months. Reeling from the double whammy, he’d accepted a temporary commission on a West African Mercy Ship, thinking the change would help him deal.

      He’d immersed himself in doing what he loved: helping people—kids especially—get to live relatively normal lives with his skill as an orthopedic reconstruction surgeon. Helping those who usually didn’t have access to modern medical care.

      He’d met some great people and had fallen into a casual relationship with an on-board coordinator—a relationship that had been more about propinquity and convenience than any deeper feelings, on his part at least. It didn’t say much for him but he’d thought they were friends with on-again, off-again benefits—right up until Simone had dropped her bombshell...she was pregnant.

      Yeah. Big shock that, considering that they’d lately been more off than on and he’d never had unprotected sex. Ever. Still, that hadn’t been the worst of it, because although he’d been willing to face up to his responsibility—without getting married to someone he didn’t have deep feelings for—she’d had other ideas.

      Ideas that had emerged one night when he’d finished surgery earlier than expected and headed over to the mess hall for dinner, inadvertently overhearing Simone and an Australian nurse discussing him—or rather his family’s money. Simone had been bragging that she’d managed to catch herself a rich Canadian doctor—her sole reason for working in such God-forsaken countries on a boat that didn’t even have a swimming pool.

      As if that was important on a hospital ship.

      He’d been about to reveal himself when he’d heard something even more enlightening—that the baby she was trying to pass off as his belonged to a Mercy Ship colleague. A married colleague.

      To say she’d been shocked when she’d looked up and seen him standing there was an understatement. There’d been tears, pleas, threats and hysterics but in the end he had been done. He’d finished his contract and come home.

      She wasn’t the first woman who’d thrown herself at him after learning that his family owned the largest shipbuilding company in the Pacific Rim and she probably wouldn’t be the last. He’d just have to be more careful, that was all. Besides, he wasn’t interested in marrying someone he couldn’t see himself growing old with.

      Not that he was against marriage. He wasn’t. But he hadn’t found a woman who wanted him rather than what his family’s money could do for her. Hadn’t found a woman with whom he could build the kind of relationship his parents and grandparents had.

      He sometimes wondered if he ever would.

      Arriving at his Jeep, he keyed open the door and slid inside. About to shove his key into the ignition, he realized he was still holding the condom. Tossing it into his console, he chuckled at the horrified embarrassment on the woman’s face and her insistence that it wasn’t hers.

      Now, there was a feisty little bundle of contradictions, he thought, picturing her huge gray eyes as she’d blurted out that she was taking a break from anything with a Y-chromosome, stirring up all kinds of mixed emotions he hadn’t been ready to feel.

      Shaking his head at himself, Dylan cranked up the engine. Reversing out of the parking bay, he drove toward the exit, feeling much more cheerful than when he’d landed a few hours ago. He had a few days to catch up with his family and then he’d be back in the saddle at St. Mary’s as a consultant.

      And if the thought of seeing a certain hot little doctor again made him smile with anticipation he chalked it up to the long flight, three days without much sleep and eight months of celibacy.

       CHAPTER TWO

      DYLAN FELL BACK into the hospital routine as if he’d only been gone for a week. His old partner, Steve Randall, had been so delighted to have him back that he’d cleared his calendar and headed for the South Pacific, leaving Dylan to handle any upcoming surgeries that couldn’t be postponed.

      Although he’d have liked to say he was too busy to think about the sweet little brunette from the parking lot, it was kind of disconcerting to discover that he was as susceptible as the next guy to a pair of soft gray

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