Luke

“Faith McDowell,” she said, trying really hard not to notice all his corded muscles and sinews, all his smooth, tanned skin. For some reason the sight of him, up close and personal and practically naked, made her feel a little insecure.

“Well, Faith McDowell, what do you want?”

“I…” What did she want? Oh, yes, her clinic, her life. Her lioness claws came back out. “I came to drive you to the clinic, because clearly, your car isn’t working, which would explain why you didn’t show up at the clinic an hour ago when you were supposed to.”

He just looked at her.

She tried valiantly not to look at her watch or rush him along. “We have patients scheduled for you, remember?” Tell me you remember.

“I remember.” He said this in a voice that assured her going to the clinic was the last thing he wanted to do, right after, say, having a fingernail slowly pulled out. “I just wish I didn’t.”

“So…your alarm neglected to go off?” This time she didn’t hold herself back and purposely glanced at her watch. And then nearly panicked at the time.

“It isn’t time for it to go off.”

“Right, because as a doctor, you can breeze into the clinic more than an hour after it’s opened, with no concern for how that would throw off our schedule.” How could she have forgotten the arrogant God complex of doctors? “Look, I’m sorry you don’t want to do this, but we have a full load of patients today. Thanks to your tardiness, we’re already far behind. The longer I stand here waiting for you, the worse it’s going to get.”

“My tardiness?”

“If we get much more behind before lunch, trust me, it’s not going to be pretty.”

He ran a hand over his jaw, and the dark shadow there rasped in the morning silence. “I was told 9:00 a.m.”

“Seven.”

“That’s not what I was told.”

A misunderstanding then. Fine. Annoying, but they could get past this. “I’m sorry, but you were told wrong.”

He scratched his chest, the one she was trying not to gape at. Obviously, he did something other than treat patients all day long because that body of his was well-kept, without a single, solitary inch of excess.

“I wouldn’t have agreed to seven,” he said. “Seven is too early.”

“Well, for three months’ worth of weekends, get used to it.” Surely, it had to be against the law to be so mouth-wateringly gorgeous and such an insensitive jerk at the same time. It was his fault he was in this spot. People were waiting for him right this very second, though she imagined that was the story of his life. Dr. Luke Walker had been born to heal, or so leg end claimed at South Village Medical Center, one of the busiest hospitals in all of Southern California. His hands held and delivered miracles every single day. His patients worshipped him because of it.

The people who worked with him; the other doctors, nurses, staff—everyone understood and respected that extraordinary gift, but according to gossip—and there was never a shortage of that in her field—there weren’t many who held a great love for him personally. Faith knew much of that was simple pettiness and jealousy. After all, he was only thirty-five, and the rumors predicted he’d be running the hospital by the time he hit forty.

If they could fix his habit of speaking his mind, that is.

Because while he was astonishingly compassionate and giving and tender with his patients, he did not generally extend those people skills to anyone else, such as the people he worked with. Faith had heard the stories and figured he didn’t mean to be so gruff and hurried and impatient, he just didn’t suffer fools well.

But now, she had to wonder if maybe he was just missing the be-nice-to-people gene. “I realize this isn’t important to you, working at the clinic, but you promised.”

He let out a rough sound that managed to perfectly convey his annoyance, and for Faith, it was the last straw.

“And really, this is your own fault anyway,” she pointed out. “If you hadn’t made that statement that got out to the press saying you thought our clinic was worthless, you wouldn’t be stuck paying penance for three months’ worth of Saturdays. You could be out golfing—”

“Golfing?” His eyes widened incredulously. “Golfing—”

“Or whatever it is you rich doctors do with all the money you make off your patients.”

“My God, you have a mouth on you.”

Yes. Yes, she did. It had gotten her into trouble plenty of times, but damn it, this was important to her.

Still, what was it her mother had said…You could catch more flies with honey? With a sigh, she swallowed her pride. “I’m…sorry.” Not words she used often. “It’s just that we really need you.”

With his arms crossed over that bare chest, and a frown still masking his chiseled-in-stone face, he looked far more like a thug than a doctor. A beautiful thug, but still a dangerous, edgy one. He let out a disparaging noise, shoved his fingers through his dark hair, making it stick up all the more. “I’d like to get one thing straight here. I never said the clinic was worthless. What I said was I didn’t understand why the hospital gave your clinic money when—” He took in her humor-the-jerk expression and broke off. “Okay, forget it. I’ll be there soon.”

“I’ll just wait and drive you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“I think it is.”

“Why? Is there an emergency waiting for me right now?”

“Uh…”

“Are you in need of medical attention of any kind?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then I’ll be there. On my own. Soon.” He actually turned to go inside the house, dismissing her.

Without stopping to think—a personality disorder she’d been saddled with since childhood—Faith slapped a hand on his front door and held it open. “I’d really rather wait for you.”

Still turned away, Dr. Walker let out a long-suffering sigh, which brought her attention upward past the sleek, powerful flesh and sinew of his back to the widest, most tension-filled shoulders she’d ever seen.

Unfortunately, he turned then, and caught her in the act of ogling him. Not a word came out of his mouth, but no words were necessary, not when his highly vexed expression did all his talking for him.

She cleared her throat and tried to ignore the blush that crept over her face. Another redheaded curse. “You do understand the clinic’s already full—”

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes, then lifted his hands to his temples. The untied sweatpants shifted down an inch or so on his hips, revealing more flat belly.

A hot flash raced through her body. That pesky tropical virus again. It had to be.

“I don’t get it.” He sounded baffled. “Why do you even want me there? You know I’m into conventional, modern medicine. The good, old-fashioned, scientific stuff. So—”

“Actually, the alternative means of medicine that we use is the good, old-fashioned way, thousands of years old in some cases. So really, your ‘conventional’ medicine, at only a couple hundred years old, is the baby.”

His jaw ticked again. “I still don’t see what massage therapy, aromatherapy, acupressure, yoga and herbs have to do with me.”

“The alternative practices can be blended in with the more conventional ones, and with that, we can offer people something more. Something better.”

“But I don’t know how to treat people that way.”

“It’s just a way of life,” she said. “You’ll have plenty to offer. Mostly credibility at first, but…” She broke off when he put his hands on his hips.