Officer, Surgeon...Gentleman!

Than she’d like?

She didn’t want to spend any time with Cole.

None. Never again.

If she’d never met the blasted man that would have been just fine.

Better than fine.

Her life would have been better. Less haunted by twinkling blue eyes and a sexily timbred voice that belonged to a man she’d once idolized. How could fate have been so cruel as to assign him to serve on the same ship?

“Need help?”

She spun, coming face-to-face with the source of her agitation. “Not from you.”

His brow arched.

“Sir,” she added, in deference to his higher rank.

Cole’s gaze narrowed. “That’s not what I was getting at.”

“No? Not tossing around your weight, sir?”

“No.” He said the word slowly, studying her.

Hello, she was not a bug under a magnifying glass and could he please just go jump overboard? Anything, just so long as she didn’t have to look at him, didn’t have to remember.

Her fingers clenched into tight fists. “Then what were you getting at, Dr Stanley?”

He crammed his hands into his pants pockets. “I suppose asking you to call me Cole would be useless?”

“You suppose correctly, sir.”

Her eyes had to be tiny slits of disdain because she was holding back none of her anger, none of her frustration. However, she desperately held back all of her hurt, all of the pain she’d felt at his sudden absence from her life two years ago when he’d been such an integral part of her very being for the majority of her university days. God, how she’d hurt, ached to her very core.

“Amelia.”

“I did not give you permission to call me Amelia.” She did not want to hear her name on his lips. Memories of another time, another place, of him whispering her name echoed through her mind, twisting her insides with feelings she’d denied for so long, feelings she didn’t want. Not then. Certainly not now.

“Actually, you did,” he reminded her, his gaze not leaving hers, pinning her beneath intense blue. “Just because time has passed, it doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten.”

That she understood. Two years certainly hadn’t been enough time for her to forget a single thing about Cole. Sometimes she wondered if forever would be long enough or if she was doomed to spend eternity remembering every detail about the man looking so intently at her.

“We were friends once.” The color of his eyes darkened to a deep blue. “Good friends.”

Gritting her teeth, forcing her breathing to remain even, calm, she busied herself picking up a stack of papers from her desk and thumbing through them, reminding herself that she’d likely be thrown in the brig if she didn’t get her emotions under control. How could he say that after…after…?

“Well, I have forgotten,” she lied for pure self-preservation. “We were never friends. You’re just some joker who had a laugh at my sister’s and my expense and walked away from my family without a backward glance.”

“Amelia,” he began, then sighed, glanced over his shoulders down the narrow corridor leading off the sick ward to the office. When his gaze met hers next, steely determination had settled in. “We need to talk.”

She crossed her arms, glared. He wasn’t going to intimidate her if that’s what he was trying to do. “Was the surgical suite not to your satisfaction?”

“I haven’t been satisfied in years, Amelia.”

“Call me Dr Stockton.” She emphasized each word. “And I fail to see what your lack of satisfaction has to do with me.”

“Don’t you?” he asked softly, laughing with more than a hint of irony.

“Go away.” She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. How dared he bring that up, that crazy night, weeks after the non-wedding, when he’d come to see her and she’d eventually sent him packing? Besides, if he was trying to tell her he hadn’t been with anyone for two years, she’d never believe him. Not in a million years. Which meant he was trying to play her for a fool. Again. She touched the desk, running her fingers over the smooth surface, collecting her wits before glancing up. “I never wanted to see you again.”

“You made that obvious.”

“Yet here you stand,” she needlessly pointed out, riffling through papers as if she was bored with their conversation. Truth was, she needed to get away from him, needed to breathe. She couldn’t breathe with Cole standing so close, with him eyeing her with such intensity.

“Unless orders come stating otherwise, I’m here for the full deployment. Dr Lewis has been assigned landside.”

Six months. That was the usual duration of a surgeon on board a ship. Anything longer than that and their surgical skills might become rusty. Their usual days consisted of elective procedures such as vasectomies or ingrown toenail extractions, with the occasional gallbladder and appendix removal thrown in for good measure. Usually nothing as intense as working in a hospital setting like Cole must be used to.

“Good for you.” She kept her tone level but, as she had for much of the day, inside she screamed. Loud and fierce and full of frustration.

Six months she was stuck working with him. Six whole months. Fine. She could do anything for six months. She was a Stockton.

“Which means we need to work through your anger for me.”

She glanced up, met his gaze. “There’s nothing to work through.”

“You don’t hate me?” He didn’t look convinced. “Because I’m picking up pretty strong vibes that you’d like to dump me overboard.”

He was picking up on that, was he? Good, maybe he’d take the hint.

“You don’t rate that much of my thoughts.” Liar, liar, pants on fire, but she couldn’t admit that she’d thought of him often during the past two years.

Way too often.

“You’ve forgiven me?” He looked skeptical.

“For breaking my sister’s heart and making a mockery of her the night before her wedding?” she asked, laughing cynically. For making me look at you with stars in my eyes and breaking my heart right along with Clara’s? Never. “One thing you should know about us Stocktons, we’re a loyal bunch. We look after our own and don’t take kindly to anyone who messes with our family.”

“I remember. You have an exceptional family.” He smiled as if from fond memories. “Your father is one of the greatest men I’ve ever met.”

“Yes, he is.” No one was more dependable or loyal than her father and Amelia loved him with her whole heart. He deserved her love because a finer man had never lived. John Stockton ruled with an iron fist and expected everyone to jump to his tune. Everyone did, all the Stockton children included. “He thinks you’re a piece of no-good trash.”

Cole flinched, but she felt no pleasure that her barb had hit home. She should be pleased, should want him to feel as much pain and remorse as humanly possible for the cruel way he’d treated her family.

Yet all she felt was the desire to be far away from him, to actually still be in her bunk, fast asleep, to wake up and find Cole’s presence on board to be a horrible nightmare rather than her current reality.

Tiring of whatever game he played, she took a deep breath. “What is it you want, Dr Stanley?”