when is the GPC sending a new surgeon?”
“As soon as possible. They think they can get someone temporary like you were in a few days, no more than a week. Then they’ll round up a doc who can be here for the year. All you have to do is come back until the temp gets here, or a day or two before.”
“I can’t. I just spent a solid year in India and I need a break before I start my new job in the Philippines. I have vacation plans I can’t change.”
She had to wonder what woman those plans might be with. “I don’t believe your vacation is more important to you than your job.”
“Hey, the only reason I worked twelve straight months was to pay for my vacation.”
“Yeah, right.” She made a rude sound in her throat. “Like you couldn’t make tons more money as a surgeon in the U.S., paying for vacations and country club memberships and fancy cars. Nobody works in a mission hospital for the money.”
“Maybe I couldn’t get a job in the U.S.” His normally laughing eyes were oddly serious.
“Mmm-hmm.” She placed her hands on the arms of his seat and leaned forward, her nose nearly touching his. The clean, manly scent of him surrounded her, making her heart go into a stupid, accelerated pit-pat. But she wasn’t about to back down. “So, I never did ask—why do you work exclusively in tiny hospitals all over the world, pulling up stakes every year? Most docs work for the GPC part-time.”
“Running from the law.” His lips were so close, his breath touching her skin, and more than anything she wanted to close that small gap and kiss him one more time. “Murdered my last girlfriend after she followed me to the airport.”
She had to chuckle even as she watched his eyes darken, showing he still felt the same crazy attraction she felt. That she’d felt the first second she’d met him. “I always knew you were a dangerous man, Trent Dalton. I just didn’t realize quite how dangerous.”
Just as she felt herself leaning in, about to kiss his sexy mouth against her will, she managed to mentally smack herself. Straightening, she stepped back.
“So. We have an immediate problem that can’t wait for you to think about whether playing golf or chasing skirts, or whatever you do on vacation, is more important than my little hospital.”
“What problem?”
“We’ve got a seven-year-old boy who’s got a hot appendix. Thomas is afraid it will rupture and says he doesn’t have the skill to handle it.”
“Why does he think it’s his appendix? Even if it is, Thomas is a well-trained tech. I was impressed as hell at the great job he does on hernias.”
“Hernias aren’t the same thing as an appendix, which I think you know, Dr. Dalton. Thomas says he’s sure that’s what it is—that you’re the only one who can do it. And to tell you that the last thing the kid needs is to get septic.”
His brow lowered in thought before he spoke. “What are his symptoms?”
“His mother says he hasn’t eaten for two days. He’s been feverish—temp of one-hundred-point-four—and vomiting.”
“Belly ache and vomiting? Maybe it’s just the flu.”
“The abdominal pain came first, then the vomiting.”
“Has the pain moved?”
“From his umbilicus to right lower quadrant.” She slapped her hands back onto the chair arms. Was the man going to ask questions all day in the hope of still getting away from here? “Listen, Trent. It’s been thirty-six hours. If the appendix doesn’t come out, it’s going to rupture. I don’t need to tell you the survival rates of peritonitis in this part of the world.”
A slow smile spread across Trent’s face before he laughed. “Maybe you should do the surgery. Why the hell didn’t you become a doctor?”
“I can get doctors. I can’t get somebody to run that hospital. So are you coming?”
He just looked at her, silent, his amusement now gone. The worry on his face touched her heart, because she was pretty sure it was on her behalf—that he didn’t want to come back because she might get hurt, which she’d bet had happened often enough in his life as a vagabond doctor.
As though it had a mind of its own, her palm lifted to touch his cheek. “I’ve only known you a few days, but that’s enough time to realize you’re a man of honor. I’m sure you’ll come take care of this little boy and stick it out until we can get someone else. A one-night fling was all it was meant to be for either of us—anything more would be pointless and messy. From now on, our relationship is strictly professional. So let’s go before the boy gets sicker.”
His hand pressed against the back of hers, held it a moment against his cheek then lowered it to gently set her away from him. “You’re good, I’ll give you that.” He unfolded from the chair and stood, looking down at her. “But I can only stay a few more days, so don’t be trying to guilt me into more than that. I mean it.”
“Agreed.” She stuck out her hand to seal the deal, and he wrapped his long, warm fingers around hers. She gave his hand a quick, brisk shake then yanked her own loose but didn’t manage to erase the imprint of it.
It was going to be a long couple of days.
* * *
As the car bounced in and out of ruts on the way back to the hospital, Trent glanced at the fascinating woman next to him while she concentrated on her driving. The shock of seeing Charlotte’s beautiful face at the airport had nearly knocked the wind out of him. The face he’d seen all morning as he’d waited to get away from it.
He stared at her strong, silky eyebrows, lowered in concentration over eyes as green as a Brazilian rainforest. Her thick brown hair touched with streaks of bronze flowed over her shoulders, which were exposed by the sleeveless shirts she liked to wear. He nearly reached to slide his fingers over that pretty skin, and to hell with distracting her from driving.
He sucked in a breath and turned his attention back to the road. How could one night of great sex have seemed like something more than the simple, pleasant diversion it was supposed to have been?
“The road is worst these last couple miles, so hang on to your hat,” she said, a smile on the pink lips whose imprint he’d still been feeling against his own as he’d sat in that damned airport for hours.
“You want me to drive?”
“Uh, no. We’d probably end up around a tree. You stick with doctoring and let me handle everything else.”
He chuckled. The woman sure took her role as hospital director seriously, and to his surprise he enjoyed it. How had he never known he liked bossy women?
“So, where were you headed?” Charlotte asked.
“Florence.” But for once he hadn’t known what the hell he was going to do with himself for the three weeks the GPC gave doctors off between jobs. Getting in touch with one of his old girlfriends and spending time with her, whoever it might be, in London, Thailand or Rio until his next job began was how he always spent his vacation.
“Alone? Never mind. Pretend I didn’t ask.”
“Yeah, alone.” She probably wouldn’t believe it, but it was true. He hadn’t called anyone. He couldn’t conjure the interest, which was damned annoying. So he’d be spending three weeks in Italy all by his lonesome, with too much time to think about the fiery woman sitting next to him. The woman with the sweet, feminine name who preferred going by the name of a man.
Charlotte. Charlie. If only he could have three weeks of warms days and nights filled with her in Florence, Rome and the Italian Riviera—with her sharp mind, sense of humor and gorgeous, touchable body. Last night had been... He huffed out a breath and stared out of the window. Not a good idea to let his thoughts go any further about that right