LITMIR.BIZ

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showing me the pictures first? He might be hard, but he’s not a sadist.” Her face softened then. “He wouldn’t hurt you after what you’ve already been through, Tal. And neither would I.”

      It took all he had to not grit his teeth. “Thanks, but you can leave the pity at the front door,” he drawled.

      “Pity? For what?” Her slumberous eyes blazed with the flaming aliveness that had always made her a goddess in his eyes, no matter what her weight happened to be at the time. “You chose your path, like all of us did when we joined the Nighthawks—I’m sorry you’ve paid the price for your dreams, but you did what you love best. Yes, I hurt for what happened to you, but I don’t pity you—and why would I hate you for marrying Ginny? There were no promises between us, just a lot of dreams on my part.” She sighed. “And even if Nick hadn’t shown me the pictures, I never had hang-ups about physical perfection. I was a nurse—and with my childhood, I can’t afford to judge people by their looks. I’m not Ginny. You should always have known that.”

      The mention of his ex-wife released a store of anger buried deep beneath lazy mockery for months. “Oh, I don’t know. You both did a runner when life didn’t work out the way you wanted.”

      She tilted her head, utter perplexity now mingled with the dark flash in her eyes. “What reason would I have to hang around home, except my parents? I had college to finish, a job in the city, friends, someone to love me.” Her hands fluttered up. “We used to be best friends, Tal. I thought you’d be happy for me.”

      She spoke the words with genuine confusion, but they hit him like a careless blow right to the gut, and his heart—what was left of it. That was the crux of it: he’d never spoken the words. All the promises he’d wanted to give her remained locked inside a boy’s heart, filled with dreams of their future. His father’s son, all right. He’d never had the gift of the gab like Kathy, who’d been the only O’Rierdan to escape the family’s introverted, take-it-on-the-chin genetics.

      The name jabbed at him, an uppercut he took in silence with the other blows life punched out. His cute, funny little sister was gone and he’d lost Mary-Anne, the only girl who’d just—

      No use thinking, or feeling. He heaved to his feet. “You’re right. I was happy for you. Okay, I’m yours for the afternoon, for the minimal fee of one hundred dollars per hour including tax.” He picked up his Akubra, jamming it over his head—keeping one side of his face in shadow.

      “You know, you could earn that much an hour working as a doctor—or back in Search And Rescue with the Nighthawks—and you’d get a lot more job satisfaction,” she said softly.

      He wheeled around on her, his throat burning like the sudden prickling heat behind his eyelids. Damn it, didn’t she know he had to fight the longing every day? “Don’t go there.” His voice was harsh and as tortured as a crow in a bird-catcher’s trap. “I’m not coming back. Anson can go to hell.”

      “Why, you want him to join you?” She stood him down, defiant, lovely in radiant emotion, and, like a flicked switch, a compass turned north, he was where he needed to be, with her—and it turned him on even more. “So it seems your lifelong hatred of self-pity suddenly looks good from the other side of the fence?”

      He almost flinched, remembering his careless, thoughtless, get-over-it remarks about her size—then he understood. The unaccustomed gibes were deliberate, designed to make him think, feel—and fight back. “Call it self-pity if you like. I call it accepting life as it is.” He took a few steps. No hiding the limp. No exaggerating. “SAR operatives run, free-fall out of choppers, climb down cliffs and belay into caves. They climb trees to hide from the enemy and drop out of them to attack. I’m what you might call ‘out of shape.’ I don’t do that anymore.”

      He finally obtained his first objective: she turned away.

      In the awkwardness of sudden silence, laughter filtered from the other end of the beach from kids splashing, families playing together in the tropical warmth of the late-summer day. The scent of frangipani and fallen coconuts filled the air. It was picture-perfect, a secluded tropical paradise, and she was finally here—yet he felt so damn alone. Aching, needing to reach out, to have the sweetness of contact with her for the first time in more years than he could count.

      She tugged at an errant curl dancing in the warm breeze. “So you’re just giving up? Leaving the life behind that once meant everything to you?”

      The darkness unleashed…the trembling started deep inside, the damn-fool useless longing to go back. All he’d ever wanted was to be a doctor, to help those in desperate need.

      The flash of agony ripped through his leg, the faceless enemy, the constant reminder that his life was over.

      He had to get out of here before he fell down.

      He tipped up her face, denying the searing heat that raced through him with the simple touch. He couldn’t afford to think about it. “Don’t go there,” was all he said—but even he heard the anguish, the need, and he didn’t have a clue which need it was right now, to have his life back or to have her.

      Didn’t matter: his dreams were gone and he couldn’t have them back. He dropped his hand, ready to run.

      Limp, his mind corrected in sardonic self-mockery.

      The tender touch on his face halted him with the force of a Mack truck. She’d always had that way with her; her power all the stronger because she had no idea what she did to him. “Tal,” she whispered, holding him captive with warmth and caring. “Don’t go. Please.”

      He turned his face back to hers and aching hunger ripped through him: the need to fall inside her arms, lips and body—and just maybe, lost inside her, he’d find himself once again.

      “We’ll talk tomorrow.” Desperate, his voice sounded thready now, weakening under the relentless jagged hell in his thigh.

      He couldn’t face her like this. When he could walk again—when he’d got his head together, drowned the roaring need under the force of a few cold showers—he’d feel more in control.

      “All right.” Then both hands touched him, cupping his face. Her silky-soft fingers trailed over his scars, unconsciously erotic on the exquisitely sensitive skin. “You didn’t lose it all. Dreams change shape. You can still help. You can be so much more than you are now.” And the soft brush of her mouth on his shocked him to the core. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

      He swallowed down the ball of hot gravel in his throat. What a man—he wanted her like hell, but could barely stay on his feet. He couldn’t stand for her to see— “Just go, okay?”

      As if she knew, she dropped her hands. “Okay. But we have to talk. Consider your services hired for tomorrow—all day.”

      With a massive effort, he grinned. “I’ll look forward to that, Miss West.”

      Already walking away, she flicked a strange, intense look over her shoulder. “I hope you still feel the same when you know what services the world requires from you—Dr. O’Rierdan.”

      When she’d gone, he grabbed the walking stick he kept hidden behind the deck chair near the wooden shack he called his home-office. Gritting his teeth, he hobbled slowly into his cabin. As soon as he was inside he fell to the bed, pulling his legs up, fighting the fisted knuckle-punches gutting him from the inside, from thigh to groin. When he could finally pull it together, he rolled to the bedside table and grabbed the full syringe he kept there and injected his leg, right beside the scars.

      He forced himself to lie flat on the bed, waiting for relief. He only took enough to take the edge off, never often enough to get addicted. But when it came, he had two choices: this or puke and pass out where he landed. If he was flying when the pain hit, he settled for a local anesthetic until he got back here.

      At least he had a choice today: he could feel sorry for himself or think about why Mary-Anne was here…why she’d gotten mad with him, why she’d touched him—kissed him.

      Could

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