the naval hospital he and Richard had worked at together, but Amelia’s ears roared, blocking out the details.
Cole. Was. On. Her. Ship.
No!
Oblivious to the turmoil he was creating in Amelia’s safe, tight-knit world, in her mind and entire body—just as he’d always done—he acknowledged Tracy.
The nurse practically fell over herself batting her lashes and blushing up a storm. Puh-leeze. Tracy could do so much better. Any woman could. Sure, Cole came in an eye-catching package—and how!—but so did most poisonous snakes.
Cole Stanley was a low-down, belly-crawling snake of the worst kind. Yes, Amelia had once thought he’d hung the moon and walked on water, but her eyes had been opened.
Lastly, he turned to her, acknowledging her salute. He hesitated only the slightest of seconds, making her wonder if perhaps she’d been wrong, if perhaps he did know how his being there affected her, that perhaps he was equally as affected by seeing her after all this time.
“Dr Stockton.” His gaze sought hers, searching, but for what she wasn’t sure. Did he expect her to welcome him? Not after what he’d done to her, to her sister, surely?
Still, her heart sped up and stalled all at once when their gazes tangled for the first time in two years. Memories from the past assailed her. Memories of her and Cole, laughing, working, devouring pizza while he quizzed her, caring for patients together during residency. Memories of Clara, Cole and herself spending hour after hour together back during Cole and her sister’s last year at medical school. They’d been two years ahead of her.
Clara.
Amelia sank her teeth into the soft flesh of her lower lip, welcoming the pain, the metallic tang of blood.
A tentative smile cut dimples into Cole’s cheeks. “It’s been a while since our paths have crossed, too.”
Not long enough. Not nearly long enough. Oh, Cole, what are you doing here?
His eyes were still bluer than the sea. His light brown hair still streaked with gold, as if the sun hadn’t been able to resist reaching out and touching him. Clara had called him Dr Delicious. Amelia and Josie had agreed when they’d met Cole. After all was said and done, though, they’d dubbed him Dr Disastrous.
Cole was here. On board her ship. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Tainting her first real deployment.
Oh, yeah, Dr Disastrous fit and she suspected she was headed for the biggest disaster of her life. The Titanic of disasters. Especially since she wavered between wanting to punch his handsome face and…she wasn’t sure what the other emotion battling for pole position was, but either way she didn’t like the uneasy fluttering in her chest.
“You know him?” Tracy asked from beside her, nudging her again, much to Cole’s obvious amusement. “You never said anything about knowing Dr Evans’s replacement.”
Taking a deep breath and reminding herself she was a lieutenant in the United States Navy, the middle daughter of Admiral John Stockton and a force to be reckoned with under any set of circumstances, Amelia shifted her gaze to her nurse.
“Dr Stanley graduated from Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences with my oldest sister, Clara, two years ahead of me.” She kept her face stoic, kept her tone even, emotionless. “With the last names so close, they were constantly thrown together and became acquainted. I met him during that time.”
“Oh,” Tracy said, her curious gaze going back and forth between them. “I see. Thrown together. Acquainted.”
Cole’s eyes flashed, hinting at the fire that burned beneath the surface, at the fact he’d known he’d be seeing her even if she hadn’t known of his arrival.
“How is Clara?”
Despite the tight rein she always held on her emotions, Amelia’s eyes narrowed. How could he ask that question? She wanted to scream, wanted to rip out his hair and kick him in the solar plexus. He’d been her big brother, her friend, her biggest crush, her sister’s fiancé.
And then he’d walked away.
“She’s fine.” Not really, but I’d never let you know how you hurt her, how you hurt me! Oh, God, why was breathing so difficult? “She’s serving as a flight surgeon with an air wing unit in the Middle East and has been commissioned there for about three months.”
He studied her much as she scanned a blood smear beneath her microscope, looking at each individual cell, searching for anything outside the norm. “I’d heard that.”
Did you hear how she went a little crazy after you left her? How she volunteered for the most dangerous assignments? How I’ve wondered if I played a role in my sister’s unhappiness and have had to live with that guilt?
“Josie and Robert? Are they well?”
As if he really cared how her vivacious younger sister and daredevil brother were. Oh, please. Why was he making the conversation between them so personal when the crew watched? Did he know that if they were alone she’d give him a piece of her mind? That she’d tell him where he could go and she’d happily buy him a one-way ticket? Her family had taken him in as one of their own and all he’d left them with was fragmented relationships and hearts.
She despised Cole for what he’d done to her family.
Except that he was her superior officer and as such she had to pay him respect, whether she felt one iota of it or not.
Life could be so unfair.
“Robert is serving on board the USS George Washington as the senior medical officer and Josie is doing field training exercises at a combat support hospital. She earned her nursing degree. They’re both fine. They’re Stocktons.”
His smile deepened at her last comment. It was a given all four Stockton children would succeed in life and medicine. Even when jerks like Cole came along and pulled the rug out from under their feet.
After her experience with Cole, Amelia had vowed never to give her heart to any man. Never did she want to feel the pain her devastated sister still hadn’t recovered from.
Just look at how much she had been hurt, too, and she had simply had a hero-worship crush on Cole, not been in love with him. Thank goodness.
When a Stockton gave their heart, they gave it forever.
“I’m glad to hear they’re doing well,” Cole said, pulling Amelia back to the present, moving closer to where she and Tracy stood.
Although she couldn’t possibly really smell him, she’d swear her nostrils filled with the musky scent of his skin, a scent once so familiar to her that, again, she was swamped by unwanted memories of when he’d starred in a daily role in her life.
“Your parents must be proud.”
Amelia didn’t answer. All four Stockton children had been raised to never show weakness to the enemy. Clara had put on a good front when Cole had dumped her, but privately her overachieving sister hadn’t been able to “Suck it up and move on,” as their father advised in any given situation. If she had, she’d have moved on, dated. Clara hadn’t. There’d been no one since Cole. Amelia’s heart ached at the enormity of her sister’s pain, and her role in it. At her own pain. All at the mercy of this man’s careless hand.
The others in the sick ward eyed them as if observing a ping-pong match. Cole’s gaze bore into Amelia, waiting, but for what she didn’t have a clue. For her to melt under his intense blue laser vision? For her to tense to the point she cracked into a thousand pieces?
Ha, he could wait until hell froze over.
She’d had enough.
“We’ve patients to see,” she reminded the crew. “A full schedule this morning.” She turned to the corpsman who eyed Cole with a