Sleeping With The Enemy

Every other weekend she served as an E.R. resident at the Berkeley County Hospital, but this past weekend had been particularly rough as she’d had to pull a double shift to cover for a colleague away on holiday. After that, she only had a four-hour break before starting her own second shift of the weekend. Sneaking what little sleep she could manage during the occasional lull, she’d made it through the roughest forty-eight hours she could remember since her early intern days. Her plans to sleep until noon, however, had been effectively derailed by her new upstairs neighbor.

Her very handsome and sexy new upstairs neighbor, with wavy black hair, eyes such an interesting shade of blue they looked almost lilac. Add in the sweet musky scent that clung to his skin, and her dormant feminine instincts had awakened from slumber.

Just what she didn’t need. Or want.

At first she’d tried to write off her physical reaction to the newcomer as nothing more than sheer exhaustion. So what if she’d experienced an accompanying thrum of anticipation when she’d first looked into his intense gaze. She’d had an extraordinarily busy weekend and probably only slept seven out of the last sixty hours. As dog-tired as she’d been, was it so unusual for her to feel a rush of longing when a tall, gorgeous stranger asked to borrow her phone?

For her, yes. He made her uneasy, in a man/woman, sexual desires running in high gear sort of way. As far as explanations went, she couldn’t find one worthy enough to rationalize the way her heart had ricocheted around in her chest when he’d laid his hand on her hip as he squeezed past her in the kitchen, or the way her thighs had tingled when he’d brushed against her.

No doubt about it. Coach Bracken made her hot.

Too bad a cool shower, followed up with a steaming cup of herbal tea and a crispy toasted bagel slathered with her favorite strawberry cream cheese, did nothing to alleviate the sneaking suspicion that sexual deprivation, not lack of sleep, was her problem.

At five minutes before noon, she pulled into the rear of the clinic and parked beneath the voluminous shade of an ancient elm. After locking her used Honda Civic, she followed the concrete path along the side of the building to the front door. There wouldn’t be any patients waiting for her, with the exception of Erma Dalton, whom she hoped to send home soon, which would give her time to get caught up on paperwork.

She climbed the wooden steps of the old Victorian where the Cole Harbor clinic was housed. The bottom floor had been converted to a medical office over sixty years before by the first Doc Claymore, with the living quarters taking up the two top floors. Three generations later, the clinic still existed, but the gruff old buzzard Dee put up with was the last of his line.

She pushed open the door and breathed in the sterile scent of disinfectant mingled with the more tantalizing aroma of the mulberry scented candle burning in the reception area. Netta, the clinic’s receptionist, was just pulling her oversize canvas bag from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet.

“Good afternoon, Netta. Any messages?”

Netta, who dressed like a twenty-two-year-old, although Dee and Lucille both swore she couldn’t be a day under thirty-five, dropped her bag on the desk. She gave the short hem of the black knit skirt hugging her ample bottom a tug, followed by a dramatic put-upon sigh. The receptionist’s job was to take messages and schedule appointments. In Dee’s opinion, they were lucky to get that much from the five-foot-two bottle blonde, and had learned early on anything more taxing than answering the phone was asking for trouble. If it was up to Dee, Netta Engels would be history and she’d hire a real front-end person capable of taking the administrative load off the shoulders of Lucille, the registered nurse who’d worked for Doc Claymore the last twenty-five years. The decision wasn’t Dee’s, however, and for reasons that defied common sense, cantankerous old Claymore liked Netta.

As did ninety-eight percent of the male population of Cole Harbor, Dee thought with disgust, certain Netta’s talents went far beyond the kind best put to use in an office.

Two more months, Dee told herself. Provided she came to a decision about where she wanted to practice medicine once her contractual obligation with the government ended. One thing she knew for certain, no matter which offer she accepted, it’d be in a very large metropolitan area where she’d just be another face in a very large crowd. She had managed to narrow her choices down and was seriously entertaining offers from Presbyterian Hospital in New York, Boston’s Massachusetts General and a rather lucrative offer from a private, smaller bed facility in Miami, which would include a gradual partnership buy-in with stock options. Since living on the Atlantic Coast, she decided she preferred the eastern coastal regions to those on the Pacific, and was even beginning to like the idea of a white Christmas, a feature which would effectively eliminate Miami from her list. So, she wasn’t sure she was quite ready to narrow her choices just yet.

Netta thrust a small stack of pink messages in front of her, then sashayed around the counter in an overpowering cloud of perfume. “I have a lunch date,” she said, her big brown eyes filled with impatience. She slipped out the door before Dee managed to flip through all the notes.

Nothing out of the ordinary, she decided, except no call from the lab at County with pathology results from the Dalton delivery.

Dee made a mental note to call for the results as the bell over the door rang again. She looked up from the messages in her hand. Her heart stuttered beneath her breast, then resumed at a pace worthy of a few concerned bleeps from a heart monitor. Everyone in Cole Harbor knew the clinic was closed from noon until two.

Everyone, that is, except its newest resident…the incredibly sexy Chase Bracken.

3

NOT IN A MILLION YEARS would Chase ever place surgical scrubs under the heading Erotic Attire. That is until he’d had the distinct pleasure of seeing firsthand how the burgundy cotton played hide-and-seek with his neighbor’s curves. Since he had more than a hint of just how curvy she was under the boxy top and drawstring cotton pants, he considered himself a minor authority on the subject.

She set the pink scraps of paper she’d been reading when he’d walked through the door facedown on the desk. “The clinic doesn’t open until two,” she said. Her delicately arched eyebrows pulled together over a distrustful gaze filled with just enough curiosity to keep him encouraged.

His own curiosity was also piqued, and it had little to do with the case. Thoughts of what those enticing curves would feel like beneath his fingertips, without the cotton barrier, had occupied his mind the past two hours. Fantasies, rather than focusing on his purpose for even being near her, occupied his mind.

Fantasies better left unexplored.

Fantasies that had his body in an aching state of awareness.

He flashed her a grin and held up a white paper sack. “I figured I owed you one. Just wanted to drop by and say thanks for being neighborly, neighbor.”

Distrustful, curious or just plain cautious, he couldn’t care less because interest resided at the top of the list. He didn’t miss the way her fingers tightened around the back of the secretarial chair as if she had to force herself to concentrate on something solid instead of…what? Him? The way his body had felt brushing along hers as he’d slipped behind her this morning? The way his fingers had pressed into her hip? The way his thighs had grazed her bottom?

She had plenty of reasons to be cautious of him, but instinct told him her apprehension had more to do with the sexual awareness arcing between them than any suspicion about what he was really doing in Cole Harbor. Still, he had to get close to her, and the best way to do that was to set every single one of her suspicions aside, one by one until nothing lay between them except naked trust.

“I really don’t have—”

“It’s okay,” he said, rounding the corner of the low partition standing between them. “I’m not staying. Where’s your office?”

She let go of the chair and shifted to face him. Clasping her hands behind her back, she drew the cotton fabric tight over her breasts. “You’re not staying?”

“’Fraid not, Doc.” It took every ounce of willpower to keep his gaze focused on hers when he really wanted to look his fill elsewhere. “I’d like to stick around and share lunch, but I need to be heading over to the high school for a faculty meeting.”

“I didn’t mean you weren’t welcome, it’s just that—”

“You’re busy,” he finished for her. “I know. I just wanted to say thanks for helping me out of a jam this morning.”

And had she ever, he thought. Especially since he was pretty sure she hadn’t a clue how much trouble it was to obtain a legal wire tap.

She made a sound that might have been a laugh, but he couldn’t be sure. She tilted her head slightly to the side, causing her unbound sable hair to skim over her right shoulder and tease the gentle slope of her breast. “Why are you doing this?”

“Like I said, you did me a big favor this morning.” He held up the bag and wiggled it back and forth. The heavy aroma of fried burger and French fried potatoes wafted between them. “Office?”

A tentative smile curved her mouth before she reached up and gingerly took the bag from his hand, as if trying not to make physical contact. She almost reminded him of the stray dog he’d found one summer as a kid. The poor animal had been teased and tormented by the neighborhood bully and as a result, had grown fearful of a human’s touch. He’d worked for months trying to get the dog to trust him, and by the end of summer, he’d finally managed to win him over. For twelve years Hobo, as Chase’s foster mother had named the mutt, had taken up residence on the Mitchells’ back porch and had been Chase’s staunchest protector.

He hoped he’d be able to win over the pretty doctor just as thoroughly.

“I don’t have an office,” she admitted, then opened the bag and inhaled deeply.

She looked up at him and offered him a smile brighter than anything he’d seen in a very long time. Too long, but he rapidly quashed that stray thought. Unable to stop himself, a satisfied grin tugged his lips in response to the pure pleasure lighting her intriguing eyes.

“Really? You’re the town doc, and you don’t have an office?” Boy, wait until Pelham gets a load of this daily report, Chase thought smugly. He’d have Pelham and the rest of the superior bastards scratching their heads in wonder with the progress he was making after only two hours of initial contact with the subject. They’d think twice about stuffing him behind a desk for the duration.

“It’s a long story,” she said. She set the bag on the blotter protecting the wood grain surface of the desk. A wry grin eased across her sweet-looking mouth. “I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details.” He’d read the files. There wasn’t a single detail about her he didn’t know.

No matter how much he wanted to stay and test the getting-to-know-you waters, he figured he’d better continue to play it smart and put some distance between them. He wanted to build trust, not spook her by coming on too strong.

“Enjoy your lunch,” he said. “And thanks again.” He cut across the reception area to the front door. There really was a faculty meeting scheduled for the coaching staff and he was already at risk of being late. Not quite the kind of first impression he wanted to make, even though he had a good feeling about the kind of impression he was making on the formerly illusive Dr. Destiny Romine.

He paused at the door, his hand on the knob and looked over his shoulder at her. “Oh, and for the record, Doc,” he said, not bothering to contain the cocky grin, “I’m certain there isn’t anything about you that would bore me.”

DEE CRUMPLED THE LAST of the lightly wax-coated paper and tossed it in the white bag. As much as she hated admitting it, her new neighbor’s thoughtful gesture was very much appreciated. How he knew she adored grilled onions on her cheeseburger was as much a mystery as to why, after years of practically ignoring the opposite sex, did he have to be the one to reawaken her dormant feminine senses.

Her insistent feminine senses, she thought.

From the number of charts stacked up on the corner of Netta’s immaculate desk, Dee had a slew of patients to see before the end of the day. A welcome distraction, she decided, from the more intriguing thoughts of her sexy new neighbor that had been battering her senses since she’d found him on her doorstep this morning. His parting shot hadn’t done a thing to help curb the more base thoughts demanding attention, either.

She shoved him from her mind. She had work to do and suspected Lucille was keeping watch over Erma Dalton and the newborn until Dee released them. She certainly didn’t want to perform an exam with something so offensive as onions on her breath.

After quickly perusing the charts and list of patients with scheduled appointments, she made her way into the staff’s private bathroom to brush her teeth then slipped into her white lab coat. Before she could head upstairs to see about discharging mother and child, the telephone rang. The stack of messages Netta had left her hadn’t included one from the County lab. She’d feel much more comfortable about discharging Erma and the baby after getting word that the path report was indeed clear.