Her soft laugh bubbled out. “All right,” she said, feeling mighty reckless. Bad though he might be, he was good medicine for her weary psyche. “Thank you.”
He had left his car in the parking lot just outside the E.R. entrance, so they walked back the way they had come. Kelly, Mary’s replacement, had indeed arrived and things still didn’t look too busy. Maybe the worst of it was over. There would be another rush tonight after the bars closed, but thankfully, several other doctors had volunteered their time for that shift.
She was going home on the arm of a rakish, unpredictable stranger. While it probably shouldn’t be giving her the thrill that it was and afterward her life would return to its normal placidity, she was still just happy to be going home.
As they passed the doctors’ lounge, Victor, who was relaxing on a couch with a cup of coffee, looked up. He caught sight of Mary, still arm in arm with Chance, and his eyebrows shot up before his fine-boned face went carefully blank.
Yes, she thought resignedly, he was surprised.
She suspected she might have some explaining to do.
MARY stepped outside, and Chance followed her. The early evening was beautiful, the wide sky clear and the distant, rolling trees hazed in sunlight.
Going from the hospital’s air-conditioned coolness into eighty-degree weather was an abrupt shock, though. It was making her heart pound, she decided, pausing to swipe tawny bangs off her forehead. The ponytail had slipped farther, and she dragged out the rubber band, shook out her thick, wavy mane of hair and swiftly put it up again. It wasn’t so much blond as tricolored, darker underneath but streaked so light by the sun it was almost platinum in places.
Chance watched, eyes gleaming, the fine lines at his eyes deepening as he squinted in the sun.
She frowned, trying to ignore her self-consciousness from being so closely observed, and asked, “So—how long have you been teaching?”
He indicated which way they were to walk, and they started across the parking lot. Foraging gulls scattered. Even though it was miles from the lake, the hospital nearly always had gulls around. “Ever since I came back to the States and decided to stay in one place for a while.”
“How long have you been back in the States?” she asked curiously.
“Just under a year.” He smiled at her crookedly, eyes twinkling. “And I’ve been meeting the most intriguing people.”
They reached a black Jeep Cherokee and Chance moved to the passenger door to unlock it. Mary watched the way his hair curled under at the nape of his neck, the balletic fluidity of the muscles in his wide, strong back and shoulders. His legs went on forever. Next to him, she felt very small and inexperienced. Maybe he wasn’t so much flirting, but teasing her, as she thought he might be. It was a horrible supposition.
She had no illusions about what she was. Bookish, gawky, she always felt like a duck out of water at any of the social gatherings her family was invited to because of their standing in the local community and their money. Maybe Chance’s offer to take her home was how he would treat a baby sister.
By the time Chance had swung around to face her again, she was frowning up at the sky, apparently watching a gull with fierce intensity.
He peered up at the sky, as well, then back down at her. Something curious was going on inside her; it showed in her transparent features. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up, Doc?”
Her attention came back to him, and she blinked. He was watching her with that crooked, sexy smile. She didn’t know why the corners of her mouth drooped.
“Are you teasing me, or flirting?” she burst out, and was immediately mortified. Her cheeks flamed, and she glanced down at her hands. She was holding her purse in front of her like a barrier, shoulders hunched.
Chance regarded her for a moment in fascination. Such a defensive, artless little thing she was. This bundle of awkward nerves was a world apart from the self-assured young doctor who earlier had told him so authoritatively to get out of her way. He had an innately cynical way of viewing the world, but she was outside his definitions. He doubted she could lie to save her own life.
She had removed her white coat, and what she wore underneath were simple buttercup yellow dungarees and a white T-shirt with a scooped neckline. The outfit was bright, cheerful and unsophisticated. The scooped neckline showed collarbones as fragile and as gracefully formed as butterfly wings.
He took a step forward and slid long, hard fingers lightly under her chin, tilting up her face. The shock of the touch was unmistakably intimate. “Oh, I’m definitely flirting,” he murmured, unable to resist rubbing the ball of his callused thumb across those velvet-soft, astonished lips.
She gaped at him, sensual alarm bells in her body clanging wildly. His thumb stroked her mouth unhurriedly, hazel eyes gleaming with pleasure. Every sensible notion inside her flapped away on the breeze, and she stood shivering, open to any possibility.
He was going to kiss her. He was going to devour her. How incredibly, frightfully delicious…He dropped his hand and stepped back, opening the car door for her. She blinked, breathing hard and still trembling. It was time to get in the car. The car, Mary. Going home, Mary. Remember? With a crash of air castles and expectations, she got into the seat. The Jeep sat high off the ground, and it was an unexpected stretch up. She practically had to climb to get in.
As Chance prowled around the back of the Jeep to the driver’s side, she numbly fumbled for her seat belt. Her fingers seemed made of putty, while a sense of anticlimax leadened her mind.
She didn’t know the rules of this game. She’d never played it before. Why hadn’t he kissed her? Because he was just flirting? But she had wanted him to flirt earlier, flirting being far better than teasing. What the hell was the matter with her?
Chance slid smoothly into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. Mary watched him and wondered what it would feel like, to have his mouth on hers.
His head angled toward her, eyes gone dark. All hint of amused lightness was gone, and he was shuttered, withdrawn. He took a pair of sunglasses from the visor and slipped them on. “Where do you live?”
Her brows twitched together. What was this? Absently, she gave him directions, and he backed the Jeep out of the parking space.
The Newman estate was located about twelve miles out of town, in a quiet, wooded stretch of land that Mary’s great-grandfather had bought at the turn of the century. Hugh Newman had determined early in his life to establish a dynasty and had made his fortune in the shipping business. He had passed the business on to his son, Wallis, and had died a contented man, secure in the knowledge that he had fulfilled his dream and that his descendants were going to continue being a major power in the country indefinitely.
Four generations later, it was an entirely different story. Mary’s entire family consisted of her fourteen-year-old brother, Tim, and her grandfather, Wallis, who was in his mid-eighties and in delicate health. Wallis sold the shipping business when his son and daughter-in-law died, and has spent the latter years of his life devoted to his two grandchildren.
Chance navigated smoothly through the crowded downtown streets, swung past the university complex, and they quickly reached the highway that skirted the bay. Half of the trip home was conducted in silence. Mary stared out the window at the familiar scenery, the sparkling blue water to her right and the rolling hills on the left, unable to shake a sense of letdown.
I’m tired, she thought. That’s all it is. No sleep the night before, and now I have to decide if I have the energy to go to the fireworks like I promised Tim. The thought of spending several hours in the company of Victor and her younger brother was vaguely depressing.
Chance glanced at her broodingly. The sound