Sizzling Nights with Dr. Off-Limits (3 page)

“Honestly, I don't expect you to say anything. Nor did I mean to say it. The words just slipped out, but they are true. You do smell good. You always did.” His breath brushed against her temple with soft, moist heat that prickled her skin with goose bumps. Why was he holding her so close? Why was she letting him?

She took a step back to put distance between their bodies. She hated that she reacted to him in any way.

If only every nerve cell in her body had quickly bored with Lucas.

“I didn't ask you for the walk down memory lane.” The last thing she wanted was more memories. “You're the one who has instigated all this. You have no one to blame but yourself.”

“That's true.” His palm rested at the curve low on her back and pulled her close to him as they moved gently to the music. “I am the one who instigated our dance.”

Emily's eyes narrowed. Had he bribed the emcee to announce the date-winner dance? Looking at him, she knew he had requested the dance.

“Why?” Did she even want to know? Probably not, but at least if she knew what he was up to, she could prepare a defense. She needed a defense.

“I could beat around the bush, but that's never been my style.”

No, he'd always been blunt about whatever was on his mind. Like when he'd told her to move out of their apartment, for instance.

“This job at Children's is important to me.”

His job. Of course this was about his job.

“I want everything to go as smoothly as possible, for nothing to stand in the way of my accomplishing the greatest good for our patients.”

“You think I'd stand in the way of our patients getting good care because of you? How dare you imply that I'd ever not put my patients' needs before our petty past.” She quit dancing. Probably because her feet felt heavy as concrete blocks. Her jaw dropped somewhere near the basement floor of the high-rise building. She stared up at him, wishing she could erase the past month, erase his having reentered her life. She'd been fine without him. She'd been good, healthy, content in her Just Okay Land relationship.

Lucas's gaze didn't waver from hers. “I don't think you'd intentionally do anything that would put our patients at risk.”

“You think I might do something unintentionally?” she asked incredulously.

“No. What I think is that how you feel about me influences how you respond in front of our patients and coworkers. That could be problematic. That's why I bought your date, so we could talk and forge some type of friendship between us.”

“You're crazy.” He was crazy. Crazy to be at Children's. Crazy to be at the fund-raiser. Crazy to have bid on her auction. Crazy to be on the dance floor with her in his arms. Divorced people didn't do this. She was sure of it. “You and I will never be friends.”

“We at least need to forge some type of coexistence. There's too much tension and you run every time I come near.”

“Perhaps you failed to get the memo, but I don't like you. Of course I leave when you're near.”

“You think others haven't picked up on the tension between us?”

Why would anyone have paid attention to how she reacted to the new doctor? Before tonight. Now, after he'd bid such a stupid high amount, she suspected lots of people would be watching them to see if any sparks developed on their “date.”

“I don't want you here,” she snapped, wondering if anyone would notice if she stomped her high heel into his toes. His absurdity deserved a little pain. A lot of pain.

“I understand that,” he clarified. “Knowing you were at Children's was my only hesitation. A mistake from five years ago shouldn't stand in the way of my dream job. I want to make peace with you.”

She laughed. A louder than it should have been, close to hysteria laugh. “Let me get this straight. You bought my date because you want to make peace with me because of your dream job?”

His jaw worked back and forth. “Something like that.”

Her hands went to her hips. “What if I already had my dream job and you pursuing your dream job is ruining mine? Why should I have to give up my dream job so you can pursue yours?”

“It's not as if I expect you to give up your job, Emily. Listen to what I am saying. I want us to coexist, maybe become friends.” As if to prove his point, he pulled her back to him and began to sway to the music. She let him for the sole reason that standing in the middle of the dance floor with her hands on her hips squaring up to the man who'd just bought her date was just asking for people to stare. Anyone paying the slightest attention to her and Lucas was the last thing she wanted. Already, Richard couldn't take his eyes off them.

Obviously, Lucas didn't see a thing wrong with what he was saying. Or doing. That he was turning her world topsy-turvy. He thought it was okay to slow dance with his ex-wife and suggest they become friends.
The nerve.

She closed her eyes, prayed she'd wake up and find the past month had just been a bad dream. “I cannot believe this.”

“Why is it unbelievable that I want us to be friends?”

“We can never be friends,” she hissed.

“Why not?”

“We were never friends to begin with.”

“We were.”

She shook her head. “You were never my friend.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, because once upon a time you were my best friend.”

His words gutted her and every cell in her body weighed down with lead, making movement almost impossible.

“Why couldn't you have just stayed in the past?”

“Because Children's offered me the position of medical director of the traumatic brain injury unit.”

“I was here first.” Even to her own ears her words sounded whiny and childish.

“I'm sorry that my being at Children's is problematic for you.”

Two apologies in less than a minute. Wow.

“I'm not trying to force something on you, Emily. I just want the opportunity to make peace to where there isn't tension on the unit.”

“I'm professional enough that I can hide my tension.”

He sighed. “Then do it for me, please, because apparently I'm not.”

“I owe you nothing,” she stated.

“Then do it for our patients. I'm good at what I do. This position gives me the opportunity to do more. Let me.”

As if she could stop him.

No hospital would give up a talented pediatric neurosurgeon just because a nurse, no matter how good she was, used to be married to him.

“Please.”

Her gaze lifted to his and his sincerity surprised her. He didn't need her approval. They both knew it. So why did it matter? Why was he saying please? She didn't want to think he'd changed. She needed to keep him categorized in the “bad guy” box.

“None of this matters. What I think, what I want, doesn't matter,” she reminded him. “You want this position, it's already yours. Just because I was here, loving my job and my life without you in it, doesn't matter to you. Nothing does except you getting what you want.”

“This isn't just about me getting what I want. It's about doing the right thing, about what's best for all involved.”

“Me coexisting with you is what's best for all involved?”

“You know it is.”

She knew no such thing. Just being in his arms was driving her crazy, the feel of him, the smell of him, the sound of his voice. Okay, so her mind and body had gone a little mushy, but that was nostalgia, right? He'd been her first lover, her husband, her fantasy. Once upon a time, he'd been the center of her world and she'd have done anything to make him happy.

Her body had had a momentary lapse in memory, had responded to his spicy male scent, the feel of him against her, and, yes, she'd melted a little. A lot. But that was just old chemistry rising to the surface.

All she felt for him now was loathing.

Liar.

She squeezed her eyes shut and took another deep breath before meeting his gaze again with steely resolve. “This is ridiculous. You are ridiculous.”

“Your heart is racing against mine, Emily.”

He was right. Her heart was racing and was next to his, but what that had to do with anything, she wasn't sure. When had they moved so close that her body fully pressed against his as they swayed to the sultry beat? But she wasn't alone in being affected by the other one's presence. His heart was racing, too.

“Hearts race for a lot of reasons. Fear being one of them.” Was that why his raced? She couldn't imagine Lucas ever being afraid of anything.

“Fear?” He looked taken aback. “I never gave you a reason to be afraid of me. Never.”

He meant he'd never hit her or physically abused her in any way. He hadn't. The ways Lucas had hurt hadn't left visible scars, just jagged ones on the inside.

“Not any reason that could be physically seen.” Emotionally, he'd beaten her to a pulp. She needed to remember that, to focus on how getting involved with him had devastated her whole world. She couldn't coexist with him. Not without severe consequences.

“You weren't the only one hurt by our marriage falling apart.”

His words stung. He'd been hurt, too? Somehow she couldn't bring herself to believe him. He'd lost interest in her, in their marriage, long before the night he'd told her to leave.

How could he have hurt by losing something he'd no longer wanted? By losing something he'd not even known about because he hadn't wanted to know?

Hadn't wanted, period. Had accused her of depression when in reality she'd been... No. She wasn't going there. She wasn't.

She glanced around the dance floor. No one was paying much attention to them. No one except Meghan, who gave her a thumbs-up when their gazes met.

Oh, Meghan, if you only knew.

She resumed scanning the crowd. Her gaze connected to Richard's again. She was going to have to do some explaining when she returned to the table.

Resentment built up in her and threatened to spill free.

“If you hurt, too, then why are you here opening up old wounds, Lucas? I've healed, am happy and could do without the twisted walk down memory lane.”

She felt more than heard him swallow.

“I told you why I'm here.”

“You and I will never be friends, Lucas. Leave me alone.”

With that she stepped out of his arms and made her way back to where Richard waited. Richard, who clearly had a hundred questions waiting to spring from his mouth.

She didn't want to explain why she was upset about a shared dance with a man she worked with.

She bypassed the table and headed to the little girls' room.

Oh, yeah, she was happy.

CHAPTER THREE

“H
I
, C
ASSIE
. I'
M
D
R
. C
AIN
,” Lucas introduced himself to the little girl he'd be doing surgery on soon if all went as expected. He'd spent a lot of time reviewing her medical records. She'd been diagnosed with a noncancerous brain tumor that had been increasing in size despite treatments to shrink the mass.

His true love within his field was traumatic brain injury, but he dealt with a lot of brain tumors and other brain maladies, too.

“Hi,” the six-year-old answered, staring at him with big brown eyes that filled with uncertainty and a lack of trust.

No doubt over the past few months she'd been poked and prodded, tested and treated repeatedly to where she felt on constant guard long before his being asked to consult on her case by Dr. Edwards.

“What're you doing there?” He gestured to the puzzle she worked on.

She resumed scanning the puzzle pieces. “My mom says I need to do more puzzles. That it will keep my brain sharp.”

“Your mom is a smart lady.” He sat down at the table next to her. “Can I help?”

She shrugged. “If you want to. I'm not sure all the pieces are here. It's just a puzzle I found here, but it wasn't put together when I started.”

Here being in the hospital playroom. A large room equipped with kid-sized tables, video game stations, toy centers and table activity centers.

He sat at the table, seeming to search for a place to fit the puzzle piece he'd picked up. In reality, he studied Cassie, watching her movements, her facial expressions, how she moved her hands, her body. How she grimaced repeatedly when she tried to focus on what she was doing, how she squinted her eyes and had a slight tremor to her movements.

“Does your head hurt, Cassie?” The answer seemed obvious, but sometimes asking a child an obvious question, even one he already knew the answer to, could help break the ice. He wanted Cassie to trust him.

“Yes, but sometimes not too bad.”

Her headaches were the first symptom that had clued her parents in to the fact that something wasn't right with their little girl. Never had they imagined they'd be told she had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball. Fortunately, Cassie's tumor wasn't cancerous, but, due to the size and the fact it was growing, she'd begun to have more and more problems. Visual changes, hearing changes, speech changes, motor-skill changes. She'd started falling for no reason other than poor balance. Because the mass was taking over vital brain tissue and causing increased pressure in her head.

Although it would be tricky due to where it was located within the brain and the amount of tissue it encompassed, Cassie needed surgical excision of the mass.

Lucas was the doctor who was going to perform the surgery.

“Are you going to take my blood?”

At the child's suspicious question, he shook his head. “No, I'm not here to take your blood, Cassie.”

“I don't kick and scream,” she told him, not looking up from her puzzle. “I used to, but I don't anymore.”

“That's good to know, but I'm not going to take blood.”

She cast him a dubious glance. “What are you going to do?”

“Right now? Help you put this puzzle together and talk about your headaches.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes it feels like my head wants to blow up.”

No doubt.

“I'm a pediatric neurosurgeon. My job is to make your head stop hurting.”

The child looked up and squinted at him. “Can you do that?”

He nodded. “I've consulted with the neurologist you've been seeing, looked over your imaging tests. It's not going to be easy, but, yes, I believe I can make your headaches go away.”

The child glanced toward her mother, who was sitting in a rocking chair watching their interaction. Looking tearful and tired, the woman nodded.

“I'd like my headaches to go away,” the girl said.

“Me, too.” He told the truth. Unfortunately, a lot of his cases weren't things he could correct or effectively treat. Once he removed the tumor, Cassie should get great relief.

Of course, nothing about brain surgery was ever that easy.

With removal of her tumor came a lot of risk. A lot of worry about what type of residual effects she'd have from his having removed a portion of her brain. Her tumor wasn't small and hadn't responded to the chemotherapy meant to shrink it. There was a chance Cassie would be permanently brain damaged after the surgery, that she wouldn't be able to do the things she currently did.

There was an even bigger chance that, at the rate her tumor was growing, the mass would take over her good tissue and cause more and more damage and eventually death.

Those were things he'd discussed with her parents in private already. They'd wanted to schedule surgery as soon as possible. He'd wanted to meet Cassie, to interact with her and to do a consult with a trusted pediatric neurosurgeon colleague to be sure he agreed with how Lucas intended to proceed with Cassie's care and predicted outcome.

He popped a puzzle piece into place. “Let's see if we can get this thing figured out.”

She nodded and handed him another puzzle piece.

* * *

Emily stopped short when she entered the hospital playroom and saw Lucas sitting in one of the small chairs at a table where Cassie Bellows worked on a puzzle.

Emily took all her patients to heart. Cassie was no exception. Emily had instantly felt a connection to the little girl and her parents.

Especially Cassie's mother. Maybe because the woman was the same age as Emily. Maybe because of the gentle spirit she sensed within Cassie.

She'd known Lucas had been consulted on the case, knew that he'd likely do surgery on the child.

What she hadn't known or expected was to walk into the playroom and see a highly skilled pediatric neurosurgeon sitting at a child's table helping his patient put a puzzle together.

She'd worked in this department for years and that was one sight that had never before greeted her. If someone had told her she would see that, never would she have believed that neurosurgeon would be Lucas.

Lucas might have gone into pediatrics, but he'd given her the distinct impression during their marriage that he didn't like kids. Too bad he hadn't let her know that before...before... She sank her teeth into her lower lip.

He laughed at something the child said, then popped a puzzle piece into place, earning a “Good job” from Cassie. The girl studied the connected pieces and quickly found another fit.

Lucas high-fived her, compensating when the little girl's movements were off from a sure smack of their hands.

Old dreams rattled inside Emily's chest and her eyes watered. A metallic tang warned she'd mutilated her lower lip.

Darn him. She didn't want to see him being nice. How was she supposed to keep him behind those “bad guy” walls she'd spent years erecting if he went around acting like a good guy?

It was an act. Had to be. He didn't even like or want kids. Not that he'd ever said he didn't like kids, but he'd reacted so poorly when she'd told him she wanted to have a baby. He had said point-blank he didn't want children and for her to stop talking about it. If only she could have. By that point, he had taken anything she said to him the wrong way, and she'd quit talking to him. Talking had led to crying and crying to arguing and arguing had led to more and more distance between them.

Currently, distance between them was what she desperately needed.

Having him at Children's was pure torture. Every time she saw him, she was taken to the past. She just wanted to forget the past. All of it.

Especially the end and the heart-wrenching events that had followed the night she'd left Lucas.

If only she could forget.

Why was he putting a puzzle together with Cassie? He didn't have to interact with the child. All he had to do was examine her, talk to her parents, get surgical releases signed and then do brain surgery. No. Big. Deal.

No interaction required.

He needed to stick with the program of how he was supposed to behave.

Instead, he played with the little girl while her mother watched them as if he were a superhero. If Lucas cured Cassie with minimal negative effects of removing the tumor, she supposed Mrs. Bellows would find her views justified.

Emily knew better. He wasn't a superhero, he was...

She stopped.

He was an ex-husband who was apparently a phenomenal pediatric neurosurgeon, and perhaps even a nice guy to his patients if the vision before her could be believed.

Which she still didn't quite buy.

But Lucas was right about one thing.

If she was going to stay at Children's, she had to let go of the personal. She couldn't let patients like Cassie and her parents pick up on her animosity toward Lucas.

What if she caused them to doubt him? What if her feelings toward him somehow influenced a patient in a negative way and delayed or prevented needed care?

She'd told him she was a professional. She was. But even professionals could have broken hearts blinding them from time to time.

She couldn't allow her personal biases about Lucas to bleed over to her patient care in any way. Not and remain proud of the type of nurse she was.

She'd not seen him since Saturday night at the fund-raiser. She'd managed to slip back into the ballroom and convince Richard she'd developed a headache and would like to go home. He'd looked relieved.

The headache had served as reason to send him home, as well. That hadn't left him looking relieved. Quite the opposite.

He'd acted as if he suddenly wanted to stake his claim.

Perhaps she should have let him stay.

She cared about him, had been thinking they'd have a nice life together. He never made her cry.

But that night she hadn't even been able to tolerate the idea of Richard kissing her. Nor had she been able to stomach the idea of him kissing her since.

She wasn't sure she'd ever want him to again, because just-okay-ever-after might not be good enough, after all.

Darn Lucas and the turmoil he'd caused. Saturday night and last night she'd dreamed about him, dreamed about the past. Not the tears or fights, but about the one part of their relationship that had been magical.

Sex.

She'd had no previous experience and sex had never been as mind-blowing since. How good things had been between them could only be credited to his skills. He'd made her feel amazing, loved, completely over the moon and satiated.

One touch of his hand had made her squirm with desire. One kiss from his lips had made her need him with a ferocity that had never failed to surprise her. One time with him and she'd been hooked like an addict with a potent new fix.

He'd been her drug.

Only, not long after their marriage, he'd bored of sex with her. Had he actually cheated on her?

She didn't think so.

Despite their flawed marriage, she didn't think he'd taken their vows that lightly. He'd told her to leave before he'd gone that far. Maybe she was being naive, but she truly didn't think he had.

In the days since their divorce, she didn't fool herself that he'd been abstinent. He'd enjoyed sex too much for that.

Darn him that just seeing him sitting and playing with a child had somehow morphed into thinking about sex. She wouldn't be having sex with Lucas. Not ever again.

Which was a shame in some ways, because he'd certainly made her feel things physically she'd not felt since. Richard really wasn't the guy for her. She needed to look for someone else, someone who wanted the same things out of life that she did, but was also good at sex.

Did such a mythical creature exist? So far her experience had been one or the other, but never the twain had met. She'd thought so with Lucas, but everything had fallen apart and left her devastated. So much for young love.

“You want to help with our puzzle?”

Emily blinked. Darn. He'd caught her staring at him and no wonder with how long she'd stood watching him, reminiscing about the past. Oh, yeah, Lucas being at Children's was affecting her professionalism, and she hated it.

“Sorry.” Sorry she'd gotten caught. Sorry her cheeks were on fire. Sorry her mind had wandered. Sorry she couldn't be immune to him. Sorry her body flushed when he was looking at her as if he somehow knew what she'd been thinking. “I need to check on Cassie. She's due a vitals check.”

The child looked at her suspiciously. “Are you going to take my blood?”

Focusing on her patient and doing her best to ignore the man watching her, Emily shook her head, hating that this was always the first question Cassie asked. Poor kid. “No. I'm going to take your temperature, your blood pressure, your heart rate, your oxygen saturation. Those kinds of things. But no needles.”

Cassie digested her answer, then lifted her little chin bravely. “I don't cry anymore when my blood is drawn.”

“That's a very big girl,” Emily praised, wanting to wrap her arms around the child. “But it's okay to cry sometimes.”

Cassie blinked. “Do you ever cry?”

She'd cried an ocean's worth of tears over the man sitting across the table from Cassie. Until Saturday night after she'd returned home from the TBI fund-raiser, she'd not cried in a long time.

She'd watered up on the anniversary of the day she'd left, but even then she'd managed to choke back the tears and keep herself distracted from the grief she knew she'd carry to the grave.

Unfortunately, a few days later, she'd broken down and cried bucketfuls. That had been the last day she'd cried. Maybe she'd always cry on that particular date. Oh, how much she'd lost.

“I used to cry a lot,” she answered honestly. Lucas had hated her tears, had begged her not to cry, but usually that had left her only more tearful. “But I rarely cry these days.”