looking down into the intelligent, and still fuming, eyes of the woman who was to be his boss at the clinic for the next three months’ worth of Saturdays.
You used to like women.
Oh, but he definitely still did. He just wasn’t used to being looked at as if he was pond scum, especially by a wildly attractive woman with steam coming out of her ears.
Absolutely too long without sex.
“You’re still not ready,” she said exasperated.
Deciding there should be a law against facing a furious woman before having a cup of coffee, no matter how lovely she was, he shook his head. The question was, would he ever be ready for a day full of aromatherapy and yoga? God save him. Despite his to-the-bone-fatigue, his lips quirked. “I need more than sixty seconds.”
Her gaze appeared to be riveted on his chest. “We don’t have more than sixty seconds,” she murmured.
He’d stumbled half-naked out of bed to get the door earlier, and now, given the way she looked at him, he glanced down to make sure his sweats covered all the essentials. Yes, he was covered, but if she kept staring at him like that, as if he was a long, tall glass of water and she was dying of thirst, those essentials were going to make themselves known regardless of his irritation.
“Here.” Carmen materialized from behind him and wisely shoved a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. He nearly cried in gratitude, and might have actually hugged her, but then she said to Faith McDowell in apology, “Give him until the coffee’s gone. Two minutes tops, he’ll be human again. I promise.”
“Oh.” Faith smiled sweetly. At Carmen, not Luke. “Yes, I understand. Thank you.” Kindness and genuine caring poured from her. Her voice, light now that it was directed at someone other than him, was the most amazingly sweet, musical voice Luke had ever heard.
It reminded him of…sex. Unbelievable, what sleep deprivation could do to a man.
Carmen and Red—her hair was whipping around her shoulders, long and wild—watched him with twin expressions of expectation, waiting for his coffee to work the miracle that wasn’t going to happen, not to day. “I’m going upstairs now,” he said carefully. “To get showered and dressed.”
“Is that going to take more than five minutes?” His new boss glanced at her watch, quivering with impatience.
“Ten,” he said, then paused as if he really cared what she thought. “Is that okay?”
She considered this. Considered him. “Just remember, the patients are counting on you.” Her voice was cool again. The wind picked up, and with a sound of annoyance, she tossed back her wild hair. Her sweater, thin and ineffective against the chill, slipped off one shoulder, revealing the fact she was…chilly.
In an odd reaction, considering he didn’t like her, Luke felt a physical stirring at the sight.
Sleep deprived, he reminded himself. A dangerous thing.
Shrugging back into the sweater, Faith crossed her arms over her chest. “This is really a two-way street, you know. I’ll be helping you, too.”
“How, exactly, is that possible?”
“You’ll be practicing—and hopefully improving—your people skills.”
It was one thing to be so tired as to be lusting after a woman who thought him an insensitive idiot, but it was another thing entirely to let her think he needed her in any way. He needed no one, and he certainly didn’t need help with his people skills.
“You might not realize this, but one of the basic people skills is charm. I can help you there.”
Carmen laughed at that, but when he whipped around with a murderous expression, she vanished into the kitchen.
“In order to charm,” Faith said. “You need to stimulate the people around you. Can you do that?”
He thought of the inexplicable way his body had reacted to her. “Stimulation isn’t a problem,” he managed with a straight face.
“Good, because this is very important. The clinic is very important, and we have so much to do. Today alone we have babies to deliver, allergies and sinus infections, healing bones and…”
Luke’s mind drifted back to her body. How was it she looked so good in those scrubs? But she did, she looked soft and curvy, and—
“Dr. Walker?” Hands on her hips, she cocked her head. “Are you still listening to me?”
Oh yeah. “Stimulate.”
Looking suddenly a bit wary, she backed out of his house.
Yeah, Red, I advise you to run like hell.
“Well, I’ll let you get on with getting ready….” She bit her lip as once more she ran her gaze down his body.
And this time, his body definitely reacted.
She took another few steps, backing down his porch now. “I’ll…uh…be waiting.”
It should have really ticked him off, but suddenly, that threat seemed far more like a promise. “Okay then,” he said, and wondered why maybe, just maybe, he’d be looking forward to it.
FAITH DROVE AROUND THE back of Healing Waters Clinic and parked, then glanced in her rearview mirror.
Yep, Dr. Luke Walker was still following her in his fancy car that screamed success. She’d heard so much about him before this morning, but no one, not a single soul, not a single article, had ever mentioned his see-through light blue eyes, his fiery expression, the incredible, drool-inducing body that brought to mind far too many things that had nothing, nothing at all, to do with doctoring.
Grabbing her purse, she took a quick moment to inhale a long, calming breath. She was an expert in long, calming breaths, and yet the technique utterly and completely failed her now.
Hell of a time to give up chocolate, as she could use it now. A vicious craving for the secret stash of almond Hershey Kisses in her glove box overcame her. Just one, she thought, and nearly reached for them….
But she heard his door shut and hastily straightened, getting out of her car to greet him with a cool, distant smile on her face that absolutely had better hide her thoughts—her desperate need for that chocolate, her unthinkable, ridiculous attraction to him—because the bottom line was, beneath that amazing flesh and sinew, beneath his remarkable talent, beat the cold heart of a man who’d blindly put down her clinic to untold hundreds.
Her success was important to her. After all, everyone in her family succeeded. It was sort of a McDowell requirement. But more than that, she wanted this for all the people out there she was convinced she could help in a way conventional medicine couldn’t.
And she wanted Luke to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t the only one who could make a difference in others’ lives. She could too. And she’d prove it by showing him how invaluable the clinic could be.
Luke’s own face was unsmiling as he moved toward her, but it wasn’t even close to distant. He was still hot under the collar,
