LITMIR.BIZ

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acted like an accelerant on a fire.

      He’d soon realized how quickly some ladies made assumptions about having a future with him and how easily feelings could get hurt. So he’d done his best to avoid involvement. Until recently...

      “Women never leave you alone,” his uncle commented.

      “Some of them do.” Especially the one I didn’t mean to drive away.

      And there she was, waiting by the elevators, freshly scrubbed after surgery. Wavy brown hair tumbled around nurse Anya Meeks’s sweet face, but her full lips no longer curved when Jack appeared and her intense brown eyes avoided his even while she’d been smoothly assisting him in the operating room.

      He should have followed his own rules about not hooking up with a coworker. Yet something about Anya had drawn him to her from the start—her dark, humorous gaze, her quirky energy when they joked and the anecdotes she’d shared during operations about helping raise the younger siblings in her large family. After growing up longing for a stronger family connection, Jack had found those stories especially fascinating.

      Which was why when he’d run into her at a New Year’s Eve party five weeks ago and learned she was ready to go home before her designated-driver roommate, he shouldn’t have offered her a ride. He’d been well aware of an undercurrent of attraction between them. Still, because they lived in the same apartment complex, the suggestion had made sense. But then he really shouldn’t have walked her to her door, and then walked through her door, and then noticed the leftover mistletoe and claimed a kiss and then...

      The experience of being with her had been so unexpected and powerful, he’d wanted to proceed with caution. Plus, Anya had urged him to leave before her roommate came home. “Let’s just keep this light, okay?” she’d said.

      Jack had agreed. After all, they were still coworkers and neighbors, and too much closeness too soon could spell disaster. He did want to see her again, but he’d figured they’d gravitate to each other naturally and let whatever happened, happen. But she’d avoided him ever since. During the past month, he’d done his best to throw himself into her path, but that had led exactly nowhere.

      Anya pushed the down button, which was already lit. Jack searched for a casual opening that might persuade her to turn around. Nothing occurred to him that wasn’t unbearably clunky.

      “Got any plans for the weekend?” Rod asked him.

      Jack didn’t want to answer such a question in Anya’s presence, even though his schedule was extremely boring. “It’s only Thursday.”

      “The lady next door mentioned baking pies with the apples her sister gave her,” Rod continued. “I think she was hinting. With a little encouragement, you could...”

      “She’s a real-estate agent,” Jack said between gritted teeth. “She thinks we’re rich doctors and she can sell us a house.”

      Anya kept her back to them, but he saw her shoulders hunch. Didn’t Rod realize she could hear every word?

      Jack wasn’t trying to put the moves on her. He simply regretted that, for some unknown reason, she’d taken a dislike to him after what he’d considered a thrilling encounter that had left them both deliciously sweaty and breathless. She’d moaned louder than he had, he’d be willing to testify.

      Scratch that. No testifying. No public testimonials of any sort.

      Anya pressed the button again. This floor didn’t show the lights from all six stories, so they had no idea where the cars were.

      “Must be a lunchtime holdup,” Rod remarked. “There’s always a chatterbox who can’t stop gossiping with her coworkers.”

      Anya turned, finally. “Why do you assume it’s a she?”

      “Women usually have the best gossip,” Rod replied without hesitation. “Heard anything good lately?”

      Long dark lashes swept her cheeks as she glanced down. “This is ridiculous. I’m taking the stairs.”

      Before she could leave, Jack said, “Why don’t you drop by for dinner tomorrow night? I’m broiling pork chops with an orange-rosemary dressing.”

      Rod stared at him, then spread his hands in a what-the-hell-gives? gesture.

      “Tempting, but no,” Anya replied, flicking the tiniest of glances at Jack but otherwise keeping her eyes on the ground. “See you around, doctor.”

      Off she went, a cute figure in that blue-flowered uniform. Even cuter without it...

      Stop that, Jack reprimanded himself and started after her. He caught the heavy door to the stairs before it could close in her wake. “Hold up!”

      She halted. “What?”

      “I...” Think fast. “I want to apologize if I’ve offended you. I didn’t call you...afterward...because, well, you gave me the impression you wanted to take things slow.”

      “That’s right,” she said.

      “You’re not mad?”

      “No, and thanks for the African violet. Zora and I will give it a suitable burial.” She began her descent.

      Jack paced alongside. “You killed it already?”

      “Not yet, but the light in our unit is terrible,” Anya said. “Also, I know you don’t usually do laundry on Sunday mornings, so don’t pretend otherwise.”

      “I ran into you by accident.” Weak, Jack, weak. “Spilled stuff on my clothes the night before.”

      “While cooking?” Beside him, she lifted a dark eyebrow. Much more effective than when Rod did it. He had no quick comeback with her.

      But he’d better speak before they reached the bottom, which was coming up fast. “New recipe. Kind of exploded.”

      “Sorry I missed the fun.”

      “So everything’s normal between us?”

      “Why wouldn’t it be?” With that nonanswer, she shouldered the exit door.

      Although not completely reassured, Jack hoped that in a few days she might reconsider joining him for dinner. He wanted to be alone with her, to have her bright spirit focused solely on him.

      One problem: he’d have to get his uncle out of the apartment. Jack supposed he might encourage Rod to go out with their Realtor neighbor or join an internet dating site. One lousy marriage shouldn’t sour the guy on women forever.

      “If you’re headed for lunch, we could share a table,” he said to Anya just as a muscular guy in a dark blue nurse’s uniform materialized. He had dark hair, a confident swagger and a couple of tattoos extending from beneath his short sleeves.

      The bar pin disclosed the stud’s name as Luke Mendez, RN. Jack had never seen him in surgery or labor and delivery, so most likely he worked in the adjacent office building.

      “Hey,” the man said to Anya. “New developments. You won’t want to miss this.”

      “Miss what?” Jack asked.

      “Nothing important,” Anya told him. “See you around.” Off she went with Nurse Tattoo in the direction of the cafeteria.

      Well, damn. Briefly, Jack considered buying lunch at the cafeteria, too. He wouldn’t sit at the nurses’ table, of course; the only doctors who did that were married to nurses, and even then they usually respected each other’s separate social circles. Still, he was curious about what he might overhear.

      Don’t be an idiot. She’d said everything was fine between them. Furthermore, having been up since before dawn, he could use a nap. The shortage of office space at Safe Harbor forced newcomers like Jack to see their patients on evenings and weekends in shared quarters. It was after one o’clock now, and he had to return by five.

      Why should he care

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