he was proud, stubborn and macho. He wouldn’t take kindly to any comfort offered. Besides, she wouldn’t treat him any differently than her other patients. She didn’t make hugging a habit—unless they were children.
And he was definitely not a child. His wide, bare chest with the masculine sprinkling of hair testified to that. Last night in the ER it had been safe to acknowledge her attraction. She’d never expected to see him again. But here she was. Still attracted. Maybe more so. Her strong reaction to this particular patient convinced her that she needed to proceed with caution.
She retreated behind her trademark sassiness. “Hi, Simon.”
“Megan. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“Pat’s my friend. If I can save her the hassle of a nuisance malpractice suit—” She shrugged.
“I wouldn’t have sued.”
“We’ll never know. I’m surprised you answered the door.”
“Because you predicted I’d be flat on my back—if I made it home at all?”
“I thought you’d be out practicing for a world record in the walking-wounded Olympics.”
“You just caught me. Another second or two and I’d have been out the door for a training hobble.” His mouth turned up at the corners.
Unfortunately, it didn’t make him look any less battered. Even more unfortunately, his words picked up where he’d left off last night—charming her.
Coming here was a really bad idea.
But the first nurse Pat had sent hadn’t worked out and Megan had heard about his ultimatum. Her boss had coaxed and cajoled, then when all else failed, she’d brought out the big guns and called in a personal favor. Pat had given Megan a job when she’d desperately needed one. Megan had gratefully told her—if you ever need anything… So here she was, but with great personal misgivings.
She looked up at him—way up. “You’re a tall one,” she commented, the first words that came to mind.
“I’m the same height I was last night.”
“But you were flat on your back then.”
“Until I jumped off the gurney and you propped me up,” he reminded her.
“So I did. Although ‘jump’ is a pretty ambitious description.”
She’d tried to put the encounter out of her mind and couldn’t, which meant she’d probably lost her mind. What she needed to do was look at this as an opportunity to sort out and put to bed the feelings he’d evoked.
Looking past him, she noticed the entryway floor was distressed wood. That suited Simon Reynolds, she thought wryly. She could see a stairway going up and one going down. The town house had three levels. And she knew it was a block from the Pacific Ocean. An expensive piece of real estate. His paperwork from previous admits had said he was an engineer. Apparently, it was a lucrative line of work.
“May I come in?” she asked.
“Sorry. I guess last night’s little spill has put me off my manners.” To let her pass in front of him, he started to back up on crutches he was quite obviously unaccustomed to navigating.
“Don’t move,” she cautioned, fearing he would topple backward. “You get points for good intentions, but let’s save the backing up and parallel parking for another lesson. Until you get the hang of it, I suggest you move in a forward direction only.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.”
“Like I believe that.”
Megan smiled. She couldn’t help it. One minute, she was secure in the knowledge that her defenses were squarely in place; the next, he said something cute. The further she got into this opportunity, the worse it looked.
But she didn’t have a choice so she simply moved past him. Close enough to feel the warmth of his body. If she hadn’t been wearing a sweater against the cool November weather, her arm would have touched his—bare skin to bare skin. She was suddenly jittery. The close contact, his disarming grin—so attractive and so unexpected, the sheer masculinity of his unshaven jaw all combined to mobilize her hormones. If there was an antidote to his powerful appeal now was the time to take it. But she couldn’t think of a single course of treatment to slow her reaction.
God help her—she was smack-dab in the devil’s domain.
“Go sit down before you fall down,” she ordered. “If that happens, no way can I scrape you off the floor by myself.”
He winced at the words. “Falling’s not high on my to-do list, either.”
“What are you really doing up?”
She watched him hobble into the living room and slowly, carefully and painfully—if the tight, tension-filled look on his face was anything to go by—lower himself into the corner of his green-and-blue-plaid couch. He rested the crutches beside him, against the coordinating wing chair.
After letting out a long breath, he met her gaze. “I was thirsty.”
She shook her head in exasperation. “This is exactly what the doctor was afraid of.”
“Specifically?”
“Neglect.”
Megan put her bag of medical supplies on the oak coffee table and left him sitting up on the couch. She walked through the town house dining room, past an ornately carved oak table and eight chairs, past the matching hutch and into the sunny kitchen. To her right was a circular dinette with four chairs. Behind it, in the corner, a bottled-water dispenser.
To her left was a long expanse of room with a refrigerator on the left, countertops and cupboards on the right. At the end was the stove and a built-in microwave. After pacing the distance of the room, she looked down the hall that led back to the living room. She noted the pantry and the powder room across from it, then retraced her steps. Taking a glass from the top cupboard closest to the water dispenser, she filled it and walked back to him.
“Here.”
“Thanks.”
He drank greedily, and she watched his Adam’s apple move up and down. When he was finished, she couldn’t help noticing the way drops of water clung to his firm, well-shaped lips. What would they feel like against her own?
Holy cow! Why should the perfectly ordinary sight of a man drinking water make her think about that, then go weak in the knees and steal the breath straight out of her lungs? There was a perfectly reasonable explanation. She was a ninny, of course. If researchers came up with an anti-ninny inoculation, she’d be first in line for human testing.
He held the glass out to her and she took it, mortified to see that her hand was shaking.
“I’ll get you some more,” she said, turning on her heel.
“That’s okay. It was enough. I’ll just have to—”
“Yes, I know. But your body needs hydration.
