LITMIR.BIZ

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procedure for cleft pallet repair that’s healing twice as fast.’

      ‘You still doing the community work on Friday down at South Central?’

      ‘Yep. The kids are great, and we’re slipping in one case a week as a teaching case into the OR in Santa Monica.’ He didn’t even want to think about letting the kids down there but he did have a very promising registrar he was hoping he could talk to, and who could possibly take over, before it all went down.

      They turned off the airport link road and in less than five minutes were driving into Simon’s garage. Simon lived across the road from the huge expanse of Botany Bay Rayne had just flown in over. He felt his gut kick with impending doom. Another huge jet flew overhead as the automatic garage door descended and that wasn’t all that was about to go down.

      He’d be on one of those jets heading back to America tomorrow morning. Nearly thirty hours’ flying for one conversation. But, then, he’d have plenty of time to sit around when he got back.

      Simon ushered him into the house and through into the den as he called out to his sister. ‘We’re back.’

      Her voice floated down the stairs. ‘Getting dressed.’ Traces of the voice he remembered with a definite womanly depth to it and the melody of it made him smile.

      ‘Drink?’ Simon pointed to the tray with whisky glass and decanter and Rayne nodded. He’d had two on the plane. Mostly he’d avoided alcohol since med school but he felt the need for a shot to stiffen his spine for the conversation ahead.

      ‘Thanks.’ He crossed the room and poured a finger depth. Waved the bottle in Simon’s direction. ‘You?’

      ‘Nope. I’m not technically on call but my next breech mum is due any day now. I’ll have the soda water to keep you company.’ Rayne poured him a glass of the sparkling water from the bar fridge.

      They sat down. Rayne lifted his glass. ‘Good seeing you.’ And it was all about to change.

      ‘You too. Now, what’s this about?’

      Rayne opened his mouth just as Simon’s mobile phone vibrated with an incoming call. Damn. Instead, he took a big swallow of his drink.

      Simon frowned at him. Looked at the caller, shrugged his inability to ignore it, and stood up to take the call.

      Rayne knew if it hadn’t been important he wouldn’t have answered. Stared down into the dregs of the amber fluid in his glass. Things happened. Shame it had to happen now. That was his life.

      ‘Sorry, Rayne. I have to go. That’s my patient with the breech baby. I said I’d be there. Back as soon as I can.’ He glanced at the glass. ‘Go easy. I’ll still be your mate, no matter what it is.’

      Rayne put the glass down. ‘Good luck.’ With that! He had no doubt about Simon’s professional skill. But he doubted he’d be happy with his friend when he knew.

      Rayne watched Simon walk from the room and he was still staring pensively at the door two minutes later when the woman of his dreams sashayed in and the world changed for ever.

      One moment. That was all it took. Nothing could have warned him what was about to happen or have prevented him, after one shell-shocked moment, standing up. Not all the disasters in the universe mattered as he walked towards the vision little Maeve had become.

      A siren. Calling him without the need for actual words. Her hair loose, thick black waves dancing on her shoulders, and she wore some floating, shimmering, soft shift of apricot that allowed a tantalising glimpse of amazing porcelain cleavage—and no bra, he was pretty sure. A flash of delicious thigh, and then covered again in deceptive modesty. He could feel his heart pound in his throat. Tried to bring it all back to normality but he couldn’t. Poleaxed by not-so-little Maeve.

      Maeve paused before entering the room. Drew a breath. She’d spent the day getting ready for this moment. Hair. Nails. Last-minute beauty appointments that had filled the day nicely. When Simon had told her yesterday that Rayne was coming she’d felt her spirits lift miraculously. Gone was the lethargy of self-recriminations from the last month. She really needed to get over that ridiculous inferiority complex she couldn’t seem to shake as the youngest of four high achieving girls.

      Here was one man who had never disappointed her. Even though she’d been embarrassingly eager to pester him as a gawky teenager, he’d always made her feel like a princess, and she wanted to look her best. Feel good about herself. Get on with her life after the last fiasco and drop all those stupid regrets that were doing her head in.

      She hoped he hadn’t changed. She’d hero-worshiped the guy since the day he’d picked up the lunch box she’d dropped the first time she’d seen him. Her parents’ reservations about Rayne’s background and bad-boy status had only made him more irresistible. At fifteen, twenty had been way out of her reach in age.

      Well, things should be different this time and she was going to make sure they were at least on an even footing!

      Maybe that’s where the trill of excitement was coming from and she could feel the smile on her face from anticipation as she stepped into view.

      That was the last sane thought. A glance across a room, a searing moment of connection that had her pinned in the doorway so that she stopped and leant against the architrave, suddenly in need of support—a premonition that maybe she’d be biting off more than she could chew even flirting with Rayne. This black-shirted, open-collared hunk was no pretty boy she could order around. And yet it was still Rayne.

      He rose and stepped towards her, a head taller than her, shoulders like a front-row forward, and those eyes. Black pools of definite appreciation as he crossed the room in that distinctive prowl of a walk he’d always had until he stood beside her.

      A long slow smile. ‘Are you here to ruin my life even more?’

      God. That voice. Her skin prickled. Could feel her eyebrows lift. Taking in the glory of him. ‘Maybe. Maybe I’m the kind of ruin you’ve been searching for?’

      Goodness knew where those words had come from but they slid from her mouth the way her lunch box had dropped from her fingers around ten years ago. The guy was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. And sexy as all get-out!

      ‘My, my. Look at little Maeve.’

      And look at big Rayne. Her girl parts quivered.

      ‘Wow!’ His voice was low, amused and definitely admiring—and who didn’t like someone admiring?—and the pleasure in the word tickled her skin like he’d brushed her all over. Felt impending kismet again. Felt his eyes glide, not missing a thing.

      She looked up. Mesmerised. Skidded away from the eyes—too amazing, instead appreciated the black-as-night hair, that strong nose and determined jaw, and those shoulders that blocked her vision of the world. A shiver ran through her. She was like a lamb beckoning to the wolf.

      Another long slow smile that could have melted her bra straps if she’d had one on, then he grew sexy-serious. ‘Haven’t you grown into a beautiful woman? I think we should meet all over again.’ A tilt of those sculpted lips and he held out his hand. ‘I’m Rayne. And you are?’

      Moistened her lips. ‘Maeve.’ Pretended her throat wasn’t as dry as a desert. Held out her own hand and he took her fingers and kissed above her knuckles smoothly so that she sucked her breath in.

      Then he allowed her hand to fall. ‘Maeve.’ The way he said it raised the hair on her arms again. Like ballet dancers en pointe. ‘Did you know your name means she who intoxicates? I read that somewhere, but not until this moment did I believe it.’

      She should have laughed and told him he was corny but she was still shaking like a starstruck mute. Finally she retaliated. ‘Rain. As in wet?’

      He laughed. ‘Rayne as in R.A.Y.N.E. My mother hated me.’

      ‘How is your mother?’

      His eyes flickered. ‘Fine.’

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