tion>
âYouâve Called Me Callie All Evening,â
she murmured, looking thoughtful. âWhy? Is your not calling me by my last name part of your effort to work things out professionally?â
âI donât always call you by your last name.â
âYou did until today.â
Trey flinched. When had she become âCallieâ and not âSheelyâ to him?
A good question. Callie appeared only in his steamy, erotic dreams, while dependable, sexless Sheely remained the perfect helpmate in the OR.
But at some pointâhe couldnât exactly pinpoint whenâthe sexy nighttime dream girl and his faithful daytime partner had fused into one and the same woman. A woman he admired and relied upon.
A woman he wanted.
Dear Reader,
This Fourth of July, join in the fireworks of Silhouetteâs 20th anniversary year by reading all six powerful, passionate, provocative love stories from Silhouette Desire!
Julyâs MAN OF THE MONTH is a Bachelor Doctor by Barbara Boswell. Sparks ignite when a dedicated doctor discovers his passion for his loyal nurse!
With Midnight Fantasy, beloved author Ann Major launches an exciting new promotion in Desire called BODY & SOUL. Our BODY & SOUL books are among the most sensuous and emotionally intense youâll ever read. Every woman wants to be lovedâ¦BODY & SOUL, and in these books youâll find a heady combination of breathtaking love and tumultuous desire.
Amy J. Fetzer continues her popular WIFE, INC. miniseries with Wife for Hire. Enjoy Ride a Wild Heart, the first sexy installment of Peggy Morelandâs miniseries TEXAS GROOMS. This month, Desire offers you a terrific two-books-in-one valueâBlood Brothers by Anne McAllister and Lucy Gordon. A British lord and an American cowboy are look-alike cousins who switch lives temporarilyâ¦and lose their hearts for good in this romance equivalent of a doubleheader. And donât miss the debut of Kristi Gold, with her moving love story Cowboy for Keepsâitâs a keeper!
So make your summer sizzleâtreat yourself to all six of these sultry Desire romances!
Happy Reading!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
Bachelor Doctor
Barbara Boswell
BARBARA BOSWELL
loves writing about families. âI guess family has been a big influence on my writing,â she says. âI particularly enjoy writing about how my charactersâ family relationships affect them.â
When Barbara isnât writing and reading, sheâs spending time with her own familyâher husband, three daughters and three cats, whom she concedes are the true bosses of their home! She has lived in Europe, but now makes her home in Pennsylvania. She collects miniatures and holiday ornaments, tries to avoid exercise and has somehow found the time to write over twenty category romances.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
One
Operating room one was crowded with observers watching Dr. Trey Weldon, neurosurgeon extraordinaire, at work. The patientâs condition had been deemed hopeless until his referral to Dr. Weldon, who had offered a ray of hope in a daring yet promising experimental procedure developed by the gifted surgeon himself.
âItâs mobbed in here today,â a wide-eyed medical student murmured to no one in particular. âThis is the hottest show in the entire med center. Everybody wants to observe the master at work.â
âYeah. Dr. Weldon rules!â enthused another awestruck med student.
âQuiet!â A nursing student reprimanded the pair. âDr. Weldon is speaking.â The name was said with hushed reverence.
Dr. Trey Weldon, in the midst of explaining the intricacies of AVMs or arteriovenous malformationsâtangled or malformed arteries or veins in the brain that over time became dilated, exerting pressure or burstingâoverheard the students and automatically lifted his eyes to meet the eyes of his chief scrub nurse, Callie Sheely.
Their gazes connected for only a fraction of a second, but it was long enough for Trey to see a flash of humor light those big dark eyes of hers. He knew she had overheard the students, too, knew that she was smiling beneath her surgical mask.
His lips twisted into a smile behind his own mask. Heâd known Callie would find the studentsâ overexaggerated hype as amusing as he did.
There had been a time, not very long ago, when he wouldnât have seen the humor in such remarks. Of course, he wouldnât have considered the studentsâ adulation to be overexaggerated hype, either. Over the years he had grown so accustomed to lavish praise that he simply accepted it as a given.
Until Callie Sheely. From her heâd come to view certain thingsâlike extravagant complimentsâfrom a different angle. Trey thought back to that fateful time heâd spied Callie grinning in the background while some junior colleagues expressed their excessive admiration of him, to him.
When he asked her about it later, sheâd snickered, unrepentant. It amused her to hear people fawn over him, sheâd said. Listening to his minions try to outdo each other while shoveling theâ¦praise, invariably gave her a hearty chuckle.
Minions? Shoveling? Trey well remembered his own astonishment at her frankness. No one had ever made such a remark to him before, and only Callie Sheely continued to make similar impertinent jests about him, to him.
But instead of being irkedâTrey admittedly didnât tolerate frivolity or nonsense very wellâhe had found himself seeing the humor. Sharing her amusement.
âOf course, they genuinely do admire you,â sheâd also assured him, and Trey had found himself snickering, a rare event in itself. As a rule he did not snicker.
However, Callieâs warm assertion had touched a humorous, previously unstruck, chord within him. As if he cared whether he was admired by junior toadies, as if he needed anyoneâs assurance about anything! The very idea was laughable.
And now whenever anyone laid on the compliments or the hero worship a tad too thick, he looked at Callie, and they would share a silent, mutual moment of mirth.
Trey continued performing the operation, explaining the procedure to his audience while he worked, all the while contemplating Callie Sheelyâs irreverence toward his lordly reputation.
He had been blessed with the ability to think and do several different things simultaneously, while keeping each separate and exact. It was a gift he took for granted, having always possessed it.
He flicked his finger slightly, and Callie immediately handed him what he wanted, a small sharp scalpel, an instrument