of addiction, about how she was determined to keep her eyes focused on her career.
“Does my reason matter?” she asked instead.
“Obviously, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Good point. “You aren’t my type.”
“Male?” His eyebrows waggled in a Groucho Marx imitation.
She rolled her eyes heavenwards and kept walking.
“Good looking?”
She bit the already sore spot on her lip. The man was really too much.
“Smart?”
This time she snorted, fighting to keep from smiling. She did not want to smile. Lord knew, he didn’t need any encouragement.
“Really hot in bed?”
Stopping in mid-step, Joni turned to gawk. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” The way he said the word left her in no doubt that he really was. No doubt her Egyptian cotton sheets would blaze if his naked skin ever brushed against them.
“Let me show you.”
There went the smile. The one Mrs. Sain had so accurately described. The one that was making her want to say, Okay, show me, O Lucifer.
“That’s not what I meant,” she said instead, shaking her head, mostly because she wanted to shake loose her crazy thoughts. She was not the kind of woman who had sex with a man just because he was self-professedly “really hot in bed". “I was referring to your question in the sense of did you really just say that? Not as in ‘Are you really hot in bed?'.”
“Yes to both.” His grin kicked up another notch, digging dimples deep into his cheeks and making laugh lines appear at the corner of his eyes. Oh, yeah, the man was Satan personified, tempting beyond belief.
“And so humble, too.” She was stronger than this, better than this. Turning away from his potent smile, she began walking toward the elevator again, knowing her peace of mind lay with getting far away from him as quickly as possible. “My answer is no to both.”
“Why?” he asked, easily matching her step for step.
Because you are too much like the man who broke my heart.
Because if I let you close you will break my heart, too, and I’m not ever going through that again.
Now, where had that come from? She didn’t usually wear Mark as a protective shield. She usually didn’t have to. No man tempted her to veer from the path she’d chosen for herself. She had responsibilities, to herself and to her mother.
“You have to ask that after what you just said to me?” she replied flippantly, not liking it that her thoughts had turned to her past. “I’m not interested, Dr. Bradley. Go be God’s gift to women with someone else.”
His smile slipped a little, and he sighed. “Am I coming on too strong? Is that the problem?”
Taking a deep breath, she tried a different tactic. “We both work at the hospital. You shouldn’t be coming on at all.”
“There aren’t any hospital rules against employees dating. I checked.”
Why didn’t that surprise her? “I’m sure you did, several dates ago,” she bit out with a little more snarkiness than she’d intended.
His brow arched. “Oh, really?”
Heat flooding her face, Joni shrugged. “I just meant that I know you’ve gone out with a few hospital employees.”
“You know that?” He looked intrigued by her response, which she found very irritating. Everything about the man irritated her.
“I know.”
His lips twisted with amusement, annoying her further. “Who is it I’m supposed to have gone out with?”
Hot faced, Joni named the women who had been linked with him. She wanted nothing more than to race the rest of the way to the elevator and escape him.
They took several steps in silence before he said, “You know I sponsored a team in the golf tournament, right?”
No, she hadn’t known that. “What golf tournament?”
“The one the Lions’ club is putting on next month.”
She vaguely recalled hearing something about the event, just hadn’t paid much attention as she knew next to nothing about golf. “Oh.” Then she frowned. “What does a golf tournament have to do with our conversation?”
“It’s a co-ed tournament.” His smile was lethal. “Do you know who my teammates are?” He punched the elevator down button.
She shook her head, waited for the elevator doors to slide open, and stepped inside the car, wishing by some miracle he wouldn’t follow her.
Along with the hospital’s medical director, he named the two women who she’d been told he was dating. The two women she’d just named.
Was he saying he hadn’t dated either? Or that he’d just dated them due to the contact they shared with being teammates for the golf tournament?
“You are the only woman I’ve asked out on a date since I’ve moved to Bean’s Creek.”
Her heart spit and sputtered in her chest.
“You don’t need to tell me any of this,” she began, not quite sure why they were having this conversation or why his response made her want to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him. “For that matter, why are you telling me? What you do outside the hospital is of no consequence to me.”
“See,” he mused, pressing the door closed button and holding it in. His gaze held hers, refused to let her do anything more than stare back into the twinkling blue. “That’s the problem. I want what I do outside the hospital to be of consequence to you.”
CHAPTER TWO
SINCE when had Grant become so desperate that he had to corner a woman in an elevator to try to convince her to go on a date with him? Since when had he had to try to convince a woman to go out with him, period?
Since Joni had said no to him and he’d realized the curvy, auburn-haired beauty wasn’t going to change her mind.
He’d wanted to ask her out the moment he’d arrived in Bean’s Creek and met the always-smiling ICU nurse. Unfortunately, he’d learned a hard lesson about jumping into a relationship too fast. He’d wanted to be sure before he asked anyone out in Bean’s Creek. To make sure he wasn’t dealing with anyone mentally unstable or with addiction problems. He couldn’t deal with another Ashley in his life. He’d had too much unfinished baggage to settle prior to starting a new relationship.
So he’d put his personal life on hold while he established his new practice, resolved the relationship issues he’d left behind
