“You better,” he said with a mock snarl, tugging her lip with his teeth, “if befriending Phillips doesn’t kill me first.” Emitting a growl, he wandered her throat before gently biting her earlobe, obviously to let her know he wasn’t thrilled with her demands. “But you can’t blame me if he spits in my eye.”
“He won’t,” she said with an assurance she felt deep in her soul. “Cam’s a reasonable man, Ben, so all you have to do is dig down for some of that hidden charm you’ve buried beneath the surface like gold. And I know it’s there, Dr. Doom, or you wouldn’t have stolen my heart like you did.”
He grunted, tugging her back on his lap after sitting back down. “Yeah? Well you might have to do some pretty heavy convincing, Miss Perky, before I’m ready to share any charm.” He burrowed his lips in the crook of her neck, making her squeal while his mouth wandered her throat.
“Well …” She chuckled, twisting to do a little ear-tugging of her own. “Look at it this way. You won’t just be doing it for your future wife, you’ll be doing it for Karen,” she said softly, reminding him of the struggle he’d overcome to forgive his ex-wife. “And yourself, Ben, since making amends to her brother will finally put all your demons to rest.”
He pulled back to pierce her with his trademark Ben Carmichael glare, as if the significance of her statement had just hit him square in the chest. Inhaling deeply, he expelled it again in one long, arduous sigh of surrender. “I just hate to admit when you’re right.”
She feathered his ear with the softest of kisses before her mouth trailed to caress the bristle of his jaw. “I don’t know why, Dr. Doom,” she whispered, her chuckle lost in the sweet depths of their kiss. “I love you so much more when you do.”
Chapter Eleven
“So, Serena … how do you stay busy when there are no patients?” Sam tossed a syringe and empty vial of Glucagon into the disposal receptacle. He glanced at his watch, the six-year-old boy he treated for hypoglycemia long gone to the cafeteria with his teacher for needed sustenance. “Our patient won’t be back for a few hours, so how does Jack kill time?”
Serena paused as she wiped the examination table with disinfectant, eyes sparkling with interest. “Jack likes to stay busy, so he goes wherever he’s needed—the fishing dock, stables, basketball court, or ball field, and then I call him when necessary. He’s even been known to jump in the lake for a quick swim.”
Sam stared at her as if she’d just told him Jack swam buck naked. “In the lake?” He didn’t have to fake the shudder that rippled through him, the memory of almost drowning in a scummy algae lake at the age of ten shivering his skin. He wouldn’t be here today if his foster mom hadn’t finally dragged him out while her creep of a husband laughed and belched his beer. To this day, just the smell of a river or lake tainted Sam’s tongue with the vile taste of dirty water, as polluted as the foster families to whom he was just a paycheck. “No, thanks—I prefer my water with chlorine, if you don’t mind.”
“Well, then …” She paused with a tilt of her head, a definite invitation in her tone. “I play a mean game of rummy if you care to take me on, Doc, or we also have every board game known to man.”
Sam chuckled as he took off his Superman jacket, pretty sure Jack wouldn’t want him playing games with a volunteer nursing student, rummy or otherwise. “Thanks, Serena, but since this is my day off, I’d really like to get outside for a while, so how about a rain check?” Flashing a smile to assuage the disappointment he saw in her face, he strolled to the closet, gaze flicking out the windows to an azure sky tufted with clouds. His adrenalin immediately started flowing at the thought of helping out on a challenging and vigorous activity that would get his heart pumping.
Baseball.
Basketball.
Shannon O’Bryen.
His smile eased into a grin because that was definitely one woman who gave him a real workout in even attempting to be her friend. But Sam had never shied away from hard work or a challenge a day in his life, and he wasn’t about to start now. Even though Shannon made it perfectly clear she wanted nothing to do with him, a fact that only intrigued him all the more. Because she was one of the few single women he actually felt comfortable with and whose company he enjoyed without the thought of anything more.
The memory of their kiss in the car flashed in his mind, and heat scorched through his body with a fury that both shocked and annoyed. He’d been drunk, that’s all, a vice that always enhanced attraction for him, so it was no big deal. His brows dug in, creasing the bridge of his nose as he slipped his coat onto a hanger. Sheer gratitude for Shannon’s help and input on Jazz and nothing more.
The thought of Jazz suddenly dimmed his good mood, and closing the door harder than intended, he vowed to find a way to win her back. His gaze snagged on a volunteer schedule tacked to the wall, and a slow smile curved on his lips as he scanned the list.
Outdoor Basketball—2:00-3:00 PM—Shannon O’Bryen and Lauren Miller.
Basketball? Being petite, gentle, and shy, Shannon hadn’t struck Sam as the killer athletic type, which somehow made friendship with her all the more appealing. Of course, his chest still had dents in it from her stilettos, so he’d obviously misjudged her, no matter how angelic she’d appeared. But a basketball court was the perfect place to forge a friendship with a woman whose brain he could pick regarding Jazz without messy complications. A woman he could trust. A woman who was honest. And a woman who wasn’t attracted to him, a situation that didn’t sting quite so much once he realized how valuable it could be.
“I’ll be back.” He offered a smile and a salute to Serena, then strode down the hall and out the front doors of what he fondly referred to as “the big house.” Relishing the sunshine that soaked into his navy Polo, he followed the distant sound of a basketball. Making a left at the stables, he found her, she and another girl surrounded by a group of pre-teen kids while she demonstrated a perfect lay-up. Fascinated, he watched from a distance, her body poetry in motion as she dribbled several times before bounding off one foot to sweep the ball into the air. It swished into the net as neatly as she’d swished him out of her life with the jab of her heels.
No one noticed when he came closer. Hip cocked to the chain-link fence, he studied Shannon while she demonstrated the shot a few more times. Her instructions to the kids impressed him as much as her skill with omelets—not to mention hot pink basketball shorts that revealed beautifully toned legs, making his mouth go dry.
“Okay, guys, if you can shoot a free-throw, you can easily learn a lay-up,” she told them, “and it’s important to know how because they’re hard to defend, as Lauren and I will demonstrate.” Taking her position, she backed up and took a few dribbles while Lauren—all of four-foot-eleven, maybe—tried to counter, but she was no match for Shannon, whose ball glided in as if the net were calling it home. “See? A good lay-up is really hard to stop.”
“True, but there are ways.” Sam strolled onto the court, fingers twitchy to get his hands on the ball.
Shannon spun around along with the others, her messy ponytail as off-kilter as the look on her face.
“Doctor Sam!” one of the boys shouted, a prior patient who gashed his lip on a slide to home plate last Wednesday. “I’ll bet you can stop her.”
“Well, I’d sure like to try if Miss Miller doesn’t mind?”
A volunteer who looked to be in her thirties, Lauren Miller gracefully stepped aside with a wide smile. “Have at it, Doc, because I need all the help I can get with Slam-Dunk here.”
“Slam-Dunk, huh?” Sam’s gaze met Shannon’s, grinning when her lips pursed in a polite smile. “That’s what they used to call me in college.” He winked just to get on her nerves. “And some nurses at Memorial still do.”
“All right, everyone,” she said, turning her back on him to address the group. “Not only will I demonstrate how easily you can get by the defense with a lay-up, but I’ll show you how to put another ‘player’ in his place.” She got into position,
dribbling the ball while she seared him with a look. “And I use the term literally.”
He chuckled as he took his stance between Shannon and the net, body loose while he addressed the group with hands held high in defensive mode to block her shot. “Okay, guys, the trick is to prevent the guy with the ball from getting under or even close to the basket like th—” His words died on his lips when she gave a slight fake to the left and slid by him so fast, the ball whooshed over his fingertips into the net before he could even jump.
“Nice trick, Doc,” she said with a smirk, bobbling the ball back and forth while she resumed her position. “Got any others?”
“Just one, hotshot.” Returning to his position, he pinned her with a narrow gaze, ready to close off the side she favored for her turn, which had been on the right all three times. Before she could get the shot off, he blocked her right side, forcing her to the left. He grinned when the ball bounced off the rim with a beautiful clunk. Snatching it mid-air, he turned back to the kids. “Whenever possible, you want to block whichever side the player favors to make them go in another direction.” He bounced the ball several times before tossing it back to Shannon with a wink. “Because you always make them adjust to you,” he said with a cocky grin, pinning her with a penetrating look.
“Can you play a game with us, Doctor Sam?” his former patient asked, and Shannon cut him off at the pass with a glance at her watch.
“Sorry, guys, but our time’s almost up, and Miss Myra will have my head if you’re not cleaned up in time for chapel, so we’ll play a game next Saturday, okay?”
Groans filled the air as the kids—a motley mix of pre-teen boys and girls—trudged from the court while Shannon gave Lauren a hug. “Thanks for filling in for Cat, Lauren—you were a huge help, and I think the kids had a lot of fun with a game between the guys and the girls.”
Lauren tugged the basketball from Shannon’s hands before shooting Sam a smile. “My pleasure, Shan, but I think the fun started when the real competition arrived. I’ll put the ball back in the gym closet for you so you can head out early for that special dinner you mentioned.” She tossed a wink over her shoulder. “Have fun.”
“Thanks, Lauren.” Without a word to Sam, Shannon marched to the fence where a backpack hung over the post. Looping it over her shoulder, she took off for the parking lot, forcing Sam to catch up.
“Special dinner, huh?” he said with an easy grin, falling in step beside her. “Sounds like a hot date. Hope you’re not wearing stilettos …”
She whirled around with a tight-lipped smile, which he realized was her version of a scowl. “Are you following me?”
“Bite your tongue,” he said with an innocent lift of brows, hand to his chest. “I’m a player, not a stalker, remember?”
“Same difference,” she muttered, turning on her heel to practically sprint to her car. “Both put the fear of God in me.”
“Well, lucky for you we’re friends, right?” He reached to take her backpack, grinning when she screeched to a halt to play tug-of-war in the middle of the lawn. “Come on, Teach, let me carry your books for you, will you?”
She sighed and let go, mouth clamped as she picked up her pace. “Thank you.”
“Hey, where’d you learn to play hoops like that?” he asked. “You’re good.”
The tiniest crack of a smile appeared as she tramped over the lawn, eyes straight ahead. “When you’re the quiet twin with an overly competitive jock for a sister and an older brother who hates to lose, one becomes adept at holding her own.” She gave him a cursory glance. “Survival of the fittest.”
He grinned and rubbed his chest. “Yeah, I know, and I have the holes in my chest to prove it.”
She peeked at him out of the corner of her eye, her pace slowing as she gnawed at her lip. “Did I really hurt you?”
“Only my pride,” he said with a smile, grateful she was actually talking to him at all. His mouth took a right. “Oh, and my backside, but I won’t show you that bruise ’cause it ain’t pretty.” He made a great show of rubbing the back of his head. “Not to mention the lump on my skull that, amazingly enough, lingered long after the bruises on my face.” He adjusted her backpack on his shoulder. “Which kind of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘head over heels,’ you know?”
A smile squirmed on her lips despite the haze of color that dusted her cheeks as she picked up speed, eyes trained on the parking lot like a heat-seeking missile.
“Hey, I have a proposition for you,” he said, loping after her while her backpack bounced on his back.
She never missed a beat as she hit the pavement of the parking lot, homing in on her car. “You want me to teach self-defense to the women you date?”
“Cute, but no.” He waited while she fished her keys out of the backpack and opened her car, leaning in to start it so she could roll down the windows. “I’d like to pick your brain as a woman about how to get Jasmine back because I’m obviously doing something wrong.”
She slacked a hip, arms in a fold as her smile tipped off-center. “You think?”
“Yes, Miss Smarty Pants, I think. Wednesday’s my day off, and I know you get through here about three, so how about a quick coffee consult after—say, four at Cutter’s Point? Because I need a coach, and you’re perfect.”
“Because I’m immune to your charm and see all your faults?”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, her casual assessment stinging more than it should. He rubbed at his chest as if those stupid heels had spiked him all over again. “But I’d wish you’d sugar-coat it a little more, kiddo, because I’m starting to get a complex. So … are you free next Wednesday afternoon at four?”
“I don’t sugar-coat, Sam.” She reached for her backpack, attempting to tug it off his shoulder. “Or coach anything but basketball and softball.”
He tightened his hold on the backpack, giving her the half-lidded smile that usually worked wonders on the nurses at Memorial. “Come on, Shannon, one hour of your time over a cup of coffee is all I’m asking—is that so difficult?”
“With you, yes,” she said with a pull of her backpack, which didn’t budge beneath Sam’s iron grip. “Sorry, Doc, but I’m allergic to players, so I can’t because I’ll break out.” She gave the backpack another yank.
He held the backpack out of her reach, reduced to begging. “Shannon, please? I need you bad, and I’ll pay whatever price you say.”
One perfectly shaped brow jagged high. “A little privacy, maybe?” Heels digging in, she tried to wring the pack from his grasp. “Sorry, Sam, I’m not your girl, so I’ll thank you to give-me-my-backpack …”
“Nope, not till you say yes,” he quipped, digging in some heels of his own.
“Over-my-dead—” She gave one final wrench that sent her and the backpack flying backwards, her butt hitting the pavement hard.
“Backpack?” he finished for her, pouncing on a number of papers that went flying before the wind could carry them away. He added them back to a packet of sheets he picked up, all fanned out on the ground, then extended a hand to help her up. “Sorry, but this is just another reason you should say yes, because now we’ll have matching bruises.”
Ignoring his hand, she popped up a lot quicker than he had the night she’d kicked him out of her car, a hint of her Irish temper flaring for the very first time. “No-no-no-no!” she said in a near hiss, emphasizing each word with a hasty pluck of papers, one batch at a time. “Don’t force me to get a restraining order, Cunningham, because I will.”
She took a stab at grabbing the final bunch in his hand, but he snatched it away, his mouth dropping open when he realized what it was.
Love Everlasting
A novel.
“Oh my gosh,” he said with a chuckle, speed-reading the first page, “you’re writing a romance novel?”
“Give-me-that-now!” she said, her words clipped while she jump-shot in the air, trying to snatch the papers he held over her head.
“‘True Love
. An oxymoron if ever there was,’” he read in a sappy voice, continuing on with a chuckle while she clobbered his chest. “‘Olivia Brighton issued a rare grunt as she stormed up the stairs to her apartment, desperate to get inside before anymore tears leaked from her eyes.’”
Shannon whacked him hard, leaving an impression of her fist to match the holes from her heels. “Give-me-those-papers-right-now-or-so-help-me-I will-knee-you …”
He backed away a healthy distance, laughing as he waved the papers. “I’ll tell you what, Angel Eyes, for the sweet and shy twin, you sure are feisty.” He rifled through a few more pages, his grin growing with every line. “Whoa … and sexy, too, you little vamp! Who knew?”
That apparently did it. Hurling her backseat door open, she yanked out a bat, chasing him around the car till his sides ached from laughter. “Your knee caps are in trouble, mister, if you don’t give that back right now.”
“Okay, okay,” he said with a grin, taking great precaution in handing the manuscript over. “But I sure never figured you for writing a …” He paused, face in a scrunch as he tried to remember what Jazz called the racy books she read with bare-chested men on the covers. He snapped his fingers. “A bodice ripper, that’s it.”
“It is not a bodice ripper,” she muttered, stuffing the papers back into her backpack. “It’s a sweet romance where people are fully clothed. And it’s not mine.”
He squinted at her, hands low on his hips. “You didn’t write it?”
Her mouth compressed.
“Ah-ha! You did write it, but you don’t want anybody to know, do you?”
She expelled way too big of a sigh for such a little girl. “I’m a ghost writer, okay? But I signed a secrecy clause and nobody knows, so you can’t breathe a word.”
A grin inched across his face. “Nobody?”