LITMIR.BIZ

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uncomfortable than his injuries. Clay could always call in another dermatologist—a male one—and risk bringing Tessa’s wrath down on his head. But that wasn’t fair, either. Tessa was a doctor, and to send her away just because she was a woman made something stick in the lower regions of his gut. So he came up with another solution instead.

      “How about if we do this? We’ll keep your hospital gown where it is, and I’ll cover you with the sheet like this.” Clay arranged the folds so that it draped over his waist and created a little “U” of exposed skin. Only the skin lesion was visible. Nothing else. They’d have to examine the rest of him to see if there were any other suspicious areas but they could do that while he was under anesthesia for his leg, if tests showed he was strong enough to even have the operation.

      The head of the bed had been cranked up so that Mr. Phillips could see what Clay was doing, and the man visibly relaxed. “I guess that would be okay. But don’t let her pull it any farther.”

      Clay gave him a grave nod. “You have my word.”

      “Well, okay, then.”

      “Tessa? Could you step back in here?”

      The man turned his head sharply. “I have a daughter named Tessa.”

      “Well, see there? That must be a sign.”

      Tessa came over to stand by the bed. “Did I hear you right? You have a Tessa at home?”

      “Well, not at home. She’ll be forty-nine next week. Lives in Montana with her husband and three horses.”

      “Do you have any other family members you want us to call?”

      Even as she spoke, her eyes were already on the skin lesion, and Clay could see her mentally sizing it up in her head.

      “My wife’s been gone for ten years and my two kids—Tessa and Jeremy—live a long way away.”

      Clay’s gut tightened. Maybe Mr. Phillips should think about moving closer to them. But that wasn’t up to him. It was up to his family. “Did you give the front desk a way to reach either of them?”

      “Yes.”

      Tessa rounded the exam table until she stood across from Clay, although she didn’t look directly at him. Instead, she kept her gaze on their patient. “Thank you for letting me see the spot. We’ll need to take that off, maybe even while Dr. Matthews fixes your leg. Would that be all right?”

      “I s’pose so. As long as you keep your eyes where they’re supposed to be, young lady.”

      Tessa smiled. “Absolutely. I give you my word.”

      The man’s head fell back onto the pillow, the pain lines deepening. “Then what d’you say we get this show on the road.”

      An hour later—with an EKG and bloodwork confirming that Mr. Phillips had the constitution of an ox, even if he had the bones of the eighty-year-old man he was—Tessa shared an operating room with Clay for the very first time.

      And the very last time, if she had her way. Her hands might not be shaking, but the rest of her certainly was as Clay stood across from her, working on the broken femur as she excised the skin tumor on the man’s other leg. “It’s not as deep as it could be,” she said, unable to prevent herself from talking as she worked, something she’d always done. No one had seemed to mind it in the past. And Clay didn’t seem to mind it now.

      But for his part he’d been mostly silent as he worked on drilling holes for the pins that would hold the ends of the patient’s bone together and allow it to heal.

      Once she’d gotten clear margins, Mr. Phillips would have to undergo a PET scan to see if the cancer had spread. The tumor was large enough to make her uneasy, but things like this had surprised her before. She could only hope for the same good outcome. She glanced up. “How does his other leg look?”

      Clay paused for a minute, before meeting her gaze. “I think he’s got a good shot, if he’s careful.”

      Keeping true to their word, Clay had made sure that Mr. Phillips’s private parts were covered at all times, even though the man would never know the difference. And it made something inside her warm to know that Clay cared about his patient’s dignity.

      He was a good man. Even if he wasn’t the right one for her.

      And he wasn’t. She’d done a lot of thinking over the past four years about her actions. Her temper—or maybe it was her pride—had gotten the best of her, and she’d ended their relationship in the worst possible way, mailing his gift back to him and basically telling him to get lost.

      Yes, maybe someday she would find a way to apologize for that. She wasn’t sure when or how, but now that they were working together, surely it was a sign that Fate was giving her an opportunity to make things right. Maybe they could at least become colleagues, even if they could never be friends.

      She screwed up her courage, finding it took a lot more cranks of the handle than she’d expected. But she finally took a deep breath and succeeded in opening her mouth. “Do you want to go grab something to eat once we’re finished? Unless you’ve already had dinner.”

      He eyed her for a second as if not completely trusting her motives. “Where did this come from?”

      “If you’d rather not…”

      Okay, now she felt like an idiot, but it wasn’t as if she could withdraw her invitation.

      “Tessa, Tessa…” He clucked his tongue. “I didn’t say that.”

      So what was he saying? That he wanted to go after all?

      Before she could ask, he went on, “Molly’s staying at my folks’ house tonight, in fact. So dinner it is.” He put his head down and went back to work as if that was that.

      The reminder of his daughter brought home the fact that Clay had a child with another woman. A supermodel, from the looks of his ex. What had happened between them, anyway?

      Maybe he’d tried to buy her one too many gifts. Except the former Mrs. Matthews didn’t look like the type who would have any trouble accepting gifts or anything else from him.

      No, that was just her. Stupid, prideful Tessa, who just had to do everything on her own. She’d come to terms with Clay’s parents and had come to appreciate everything they’d done for her. So why couldn’t she do the same with their son?

      Because she’d wanted to be his equal. Had wanted so badly to know that she could live and survive and thrive on her own, as her parents had done after moving to the United States. That she was every bit as smart as they’d been.

      And then Clay had come along with his easy charm and old-fashioned attitude that said it was okay for him to want to take care of her… when she had still been learning how to take care of herself.

      Was it his fault that he’d been born into a wealthy family?

      No. But it wasn’t her fault that she’d been born into a family who’d had to work hard for every single thing they had, either. And Tessa had wanted to prove that she was cut from the same cloth. That she could work just as hard and achieve just as much as they had. All on her own.

      It wasn’t rational. She would be the first to admit it. But it was what it was.

      She finished up the sectioning of the tumor and dropped the last piece into the collection tray to be taken to Pathology. “How are you getting on?”

      “Almost done.” He glanced over at her surgical site to find her putting in the sutures. “I’m probably fifteen minutes behind you, if you want to go get cleaned up.”

      “Do you mind if I watch?” She smiled. “After all, you got to watch me a few days ago.”

      She wondered if he’d even remember what she was referring to, when he’d stood on that observation deck and made her feel so nervous. She’d started out today as a bundle

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