the first flight home.
Locating an empty parking space near the entrance, he whipped the big motorbike between a faded red truck and a dark blue sedan and brought it to a halt.
Dropping one booted foot to the ground, he killed the engine, released the kickstand and rose to his full six-four height. Shoving up his visor, he stripped off thick leather gloves and turned to survey the parking lot in a move he recognized as a habit left over from a decade in the military. He wasn’t concerned about being paranoid—it had saved his ass countless times over the years—but he still had to remind himself that Spruce Ridge wasn’t a war zone.
He figured he’d eventually get better at remembering.
Reaching up, he tugged off his helmet and shoved a hand through his hair, ruffling the thick coffee-colored strands. After tucking his gloves in the helmet, he dropped everything into a side storage compartment then headed for the entrance.
People sent him wary glances and Luke smiled and shook his head as they scuttled out of his way. He knew the black leather made him appear the big badass biker, but he’d seen enough accidents involving motorbikes that he wouldn’t consider getting on one without wearing all the proper gear.
Reaching for the big zipper tab, he pulled it down and thought about his favorite leather bomber jacket a certain siren had been wearing the last time he’d seen her.
The memory of huge stormy gray eyes framed by a thick fringe of dark lashes, long ropes of sopping red-gold hair and a lush pink mouth flashed into his head and brought a different smile to his lips. That mouth had breathed life back into a young man’s lungs and had featured hotly in Luke’s dreams last night.
Stepping through the automatic doors into the air-conditioned foyer, Luke pulled off his aviator shades and slid the earpiece of one arm into the neck of his T-shirt.
He gave a silent chuckle. Okay, so the memory had also included long naked legs and some spectacular curves covered in skimpy leopard-print underwear. He was a guy and hard-wired to recall stuff like that. Besides, in the months he’d been home he hadn’t seen anything remotely as impressive or intriguing as the woman who’d stripped in public and dived into a freezing lake to save someone she didn’t even know.
That had taken a lot of guts, and Luke was a great admirer of guts.
Entering the nearest elevator, he punched the button for the fifth floor and watched as the doors slid closed. It was his weekend off but he’d decided to check on last night’s drowning victim before heading for the marina.
The elevator bell pinged and the doors opened onto a brightly lit corridor. Luke stepped out and the nurse on duty at the ward station looked up as he approached. Her gaze widened and she blinked a few times as her mouth opened and closed. “D-Dr. Sullivan?” she stuttered. “I didn’t … I almost didn’t recognize you.” Then she hurriedly straightened her white and navy top and flipped her hair in a move Luke couldn’t fail to recognize. “Can I help you?”
“I heard the drowning survivor was brought up here last night,” he said, propping his elbow on the counter and aiming a crooked smile in her direction.
“I … um … drowning survivor?”
“Yeah, Trent something-or-another.”
“Oh, him.” She gave a husky laugh and slid her gaze all over him like he was a mega-sized chocolate snack and she was contemplating a sugar binge. “We heard all about his dramatic rescue this morning. Everyone’s talking about what a hero you are.”
“I didn’t do anything,” he denied, straightening from his slouch. He was used to attracting attention from the opposite sex, but felt like she’d stripped him naked right there beneath the bright fluorescents. He frowned. Sometimes he wondered if the interest had more to do with his father’s money or the fact that he’d been discharged from the army with full military honors as well as a Purple Cross. Some women liked that kind of thing. “I wasn’t the one who saved his life.”
“That’s not what I heard.” She smiled as though he was being modest, and pointed down the corridor. “Just follow the noise. I’m sure Trent and his friends will be thrilled you stopped by.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh, by the way, Dr. Sullivan?” she called as he headed down the corridor. “Have you seen the morning papers?”
He paused with a puzzled look over his shoulder. “No, why?”
She winked and fanned herself. “You really should check them out.”
He shrugged and said, “Okay,” although he had absolutely zero interest in the tabloids. He’d spent enough time as a kid trying to live down his mother’s publicized exploits or dodging the paparazzi to care about reading whatever had the nurse looking like she was having a menopausal moment.
Approaching the noisy private room, he slowed his pace and came to an abrupt halt in the doorway. The private room was filled with young studs all vying for the attention of a woman propped beside the window. She was flushed and laughing, looking as young and carefree as a college sophomore. Luke recognized her instantly. Those long ropes of tousled red-gold curls were hard to miss, as were the soft, full curves beneath the lilac tank top. And the long legs encased in snug denim were unmistakably those of the woman who’d absconded with his favorite bomber jacket.
Dr. Lilah Meredith.
Lilah rolled her eyes and laughingly declined her fifth invitation for a date. It had been a long time since she’d been around noisy, energetic twenty-year-olds and she couldn’t help feeling old—despite their assurances that she was a total “babe” or that she was only a few years older.
Besides, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on a “real” date, let alone how to behave if she went on one with a couple of babe-crazy students.
Movement near the door distracted her from the disturbing image of herself as a lonely cougar—at twenty-nine—and Lilah sucked in a startled breath when she recognized the figure filling the doorway.
The last time she’d seen him he’d been standing head and shoulders above the crowd wearing nothing but low-slung jeans, a scowl and looking like the poster boy for Heroes R Us. The last time she’d seen him she’d thought he was just some hunky hot guy who’d been in the right place at the right time. Instead, he was a colleague—a guy from a world she wanted nothing to do with.
Granted, she’d only been working ER for a short while and had never actually been on rotation with him, but she’d heard enough about Luke Sullivan and seen him from a distance that she should have recognized him. But, then, she’d been too busy to pay attention to more than deep green eyes and big warm hands.
Now the sight of him dressed in black leather and looking all big and bad and dangerous reminded her of long muscular legs, mile-wide shoulders and a body made for underwear ads—underwear for real men, that was, and not the pretty boys they usually featured.
There’d been that brief glimpse of him last night in wet black boxer briefs that still gave her heart palpitations when she recalled the way they’d molded to … well, everything.
Pushing away from the window with a breezy “Well, boys, it’s been fun,” Lilah reached for the shoulder bag she’d dropped on the bedside cabinet.
She
