frantically as she stumbled over the uneven surface of the road. The next instant she collided with the bumper behind her and went down like a felled cypress.
Knocked from her hand, her phone went one way and her shoulder bag the other, spilling its contents across the asphalt.
Stunned, and spluttering with shock at finding herself sprawled in the road, Dani closed her eyes for a dozen rapid heartbeats, wondering what the hell she’d done to deserve this day. She felt movement in the air around her and opened her eyes to see a pair of concerned moss-green eyes looking down at her from about a foot away.
Whoa. Where did he come from?
Pretty sure she wasn’t dead, she blinked up into a face so ruggedly beautiful it might easily have graced the silver screen—or her most private fantasies if she hadn’t been taking a kind of permanent hiatus from the entire male race.
Even so... She couldn’t prevent her fascinated gaze from taking in a high, broad forehead surrounded by thick dark glossy hair, high cheekbones, strong nose, square jaw and a firm, masculine mouth perfectly framed by a couple-hours-past-five-o’clock shadow.
The stubble gave his square jaw a toughness that suggested he was Alpha to the bone and didn’t care who knew it. For a split second she had an overwhelming urge to reach out and trace his sculpted mouth, maybe feel that rough, obvious sign of masculinity...but that would just be the shock talking.
Her fingers tingled, as though she’d given in to the impulse to touch his jaw, and it took another couple of beats to realize he was talking.
“You okay?”
The rough tones slid across her senses like a mini-orgasm and she froze as unwelcome tingles spread to places deep inside her that had been dead for three long years. She looked down, expecting to see her clothes melted right off her body or maybe steam rising from the soaked fabric because he was hotness personified.
Panic immediately gripped her throat at the realization.
Oh, no, she instructed herself firmly. Absolutely no tingling for anything with a Y-chromosome. You’re done with the whole male race, remember?
Done. Finished. Finito.
“Ma’am, did you hit your head?”
Ma’am? Seriously? Since when was she a “ma’am” to a hot guy? She wasn’t that old and, looking at the fine laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, she was pretty sure she was a good bit younger than he was.
Realizing that she was staring up at him like an idiot, she opened her mouth to say I’m fine, because that was her mantra, and was mortified when a rasp emerged instead. It looked as if her breath had been knocked out along with her remaining brain cells.
Desperate to regain her dignity, she shoved dripping hair out of her eyes and sat up, biting her lip to prevent a moan from emerging when pain radiated out from her hip and elbow.
Before she could stand, he dropped a large warm hand on her shoulder—probably to stop her from throwing herself at him, because she could totally see that happening to him.
With other women, she amended hastily. Not her. Nope, she was made of much sterner stuff and she’d given up on his species.
“Stay there a moment,” he ordered but he needn’t have bothered.
She’d spent her entire marriage being ordered around and she was done taking orders from anyone not responsible for her salary. Besides, she was sitting in a cold puddle of rainwater that was soaking into her jeans and sweater, finding its way into some pretty uncomfortable places.
“Um...” Great—now she was speechless. “I don’t think so,” she muttered, scrambling to her feet and wincing as a host of places hurt. Chief among them her pride.
It was then she realized that he was holding her shoulder bag in one large tanned hand and gathering up its scattered contents. He should have looked ridiculous but the feminine accessory just made him appear more masculine, if that was possible.
Balanced effortlessly on the balls of his feet, he reached for an unopened box of tampons and had her groaning in embarrassment—although she had no idea why. She was a doctor, for heaven’s sake, and it wasn’t as if it had burst open, scattering tampons all over Vancouver.
Sunglasses followed, and when he picked up the latest Janet Evanovich novel that she’d bought a couple days ago instead of groceries, he paused, turning to the back so he could read the blurb.
She tried to grab it but he held it out of reach until he’d finished. “Two hot guys?” he queried curiously, as though she was the crazy fictional character hooked on a hot cop and an even hotter bounty hunter.
Rolling her eyes, she grabbed the book, her bag and began stuffing everything inside. What she didn’t see was her phone or her wallet, which made her panic because it held her last twenty dollars in change. Dani glanced around to find her rescuer holding the battered leather wallet and checking out her hospital ID badge—the one with the picture where she looked like a complete psycho—tilting his head as he studied the photo.
He looked amused, damn him.
With a sound that resembled a panicked squawk, she snatched it from him and stuffed it into the depths of her bag, ignoring the grin and the one arched brow that filled her with irritated envy because she’d have killed to have had that talent during her marriage. A talent that conveyed a whole host of emotions from disbelief and skepticism to outright condescension.
His was filled with a masculine amusement that threatened to derail her thought processes.
Out of the corner of her eye she finally spied her phone, and had to get down on all fours and really stretch to retrieve it from under a nearby car. With it finally in her hand she turned—in time to catch him staring at her backside.
She must have made a sound of protest—okay, more of a protesting squawk—because his teeth flashed as his green gaze slowly rose up the front of her dirty, soaked sweater to linger on her mouth before lifting to her eyes.
And, wow. Look at that, she thought with horror as her nipples tightened into painful little points of arousal. Seemed her body wasn’t dead after all.
“I’m taking a break from anything with a Y-chromosome,” she blurted out, and wanted to crawl back under the car when his low chuckle slid across her senses like rough velvet, sending goose bumps skittering across her skin.
Heat rose up her neck into her cheeks and she gave in to the urge to cover her face in the guise of shoving her hair off her face. Oh God. What the heck was wrong with her mouth today?
“Good to know,” he drawled. “Though it does explain the expiration date.”
Huh? Peeking through her fingers, she found him holding up a square foil package that looked suspiciously like...a condom? Her eyes widened and she backed away from it as though it might bite.
“Um... I...uh,” she stuttered, looking around frantically for an escape route while fighting a hysterical laugh—because she hadn’t needed one of those in so long she probably wouldn’t know what to do with it. “That’s not...” She shook her head desperately and backed
