with tanks and smart bombs and scud missiles?”
The men exchanged grim looks. “It’s possible,” the manager replied, “although, of course, we have faith that His Majesty will find a way to avoid further bloodshed—at least that of our people.”
“You need not worry for your own safety, Doctor,” Arturo hastened to add. “Every measure possible has been taken to make sure you and your fellow volunteers are not injured.”
“In the meantime, whatever you require, you need only ask,” Francetti assured her.
Kate took a deep breath. She might have stepped through the looking glass, but she was here to work around the clock to save lives, not indulge herself in luxury. “At the moment all I require is a cool shower and an hour’s nap to shake some of this jet lag,” she said as she dropped her leather backpack onto the nearest chair. “After that, I, too, would like to see the hospital.”
An hour later the elaborate clock radio on the bedside table woke her from a deep sleep. Her senses still fuzzy, she slipped from the warm, lavender scented sheets and padded barefoot into the sinfully opulent bathroom, where an outrageously sexy tub fashioned of a solid block of black marble beckoned.
Feeling a lot like Cleopatra before she did the snake thing, Kate adjusted the gold taps to one notch below scalding, added a scoop of deliciously scented bath beads, then stripped out of her new underwear. Her drowsiness slowly turned to a decadent lethargy, tempting her to linger, but the images she’d seen on TV were a vivid reminder that she was here to work, not shamelessly indulge herself.
Fifteen minutes later, dressed in one of her new wraparound skirts, silk camp shirt and strappy sandals, she was slipping her favorite surgical clogs into her tote bag when she heard water running next door.
A smile curved her lips at the thought of seeing Dr. Hunter again. Next to her father, her good friend Sarah’s dad was her favorite male. Kate hadn’t seen him since he and his wife Helena threw Sarah a surprise birthday party last February.
When the sound of the shower ceased, she glanced at the phone, then decided to say a quick hello in person before calling for Arturo. After running through a mental checklist of all the articles she might need at the hospital, and finding she’d forgotten nothing, she slung her tote over one shoulder and pocketed the key card Signor Francetti had left on the breakfast bar.
Quiet elegance welcomed her again as she left her suite to rap on the door next door. Her lips already curving, she waited a few beats, then knocked again, louder this time.
“Hang on, I’m coming,” a muffled—and decidedly irritated—male voice called from within. An instant later the door opened, and she found herself looking directly at a man’s muscular, broad-shouldered, bare chest.
Water droplets glistened in a ragged triangle of golden chest hair spread over superbly developed pectoral muscles. Below a corded midriff, a dark blue towel was slung low on narrow hips, held in place by one large hand wearing a wide golden wedding band.
Acutely embarrassed, she reluctantly lifted her gaze to the man’s face. Stretched taut over sharp bones and hollowed planes, his skin had a patina of bronze from a burned-in tan. Heavy blond stubble added harsh texture to a jaw that was decidedly square. Deep lines framed a mouth that was well-shaped, but set in bitter lines.
“Well?” he demanded impatiently, and from beneath sun-bleached brows, green eyes fringed with brush-thick golden lashes bored into hers.
Her first reaction was hurt that Sarah’s dad would deliberately omit to mention that Elliot was one of the doctors he’d been contacting. Her second was a wild—and wholly unexpected—joy at seeing her first love again.
“I…when Signor Francetti said Dr. Hunter was next door, I naturally assumed it was your father.”
Suspicion tightened the muscles around eyes that she saw now were badly bloodshot. “You know my father?”
“Well, of course I—” She broke off when she realized he was still glaring at her as though she were some kind of rudely aggressive stranger. “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe it,” she said with a choked laugh. “That makeover must have really done a job.”
His gaze narrowed to a near squint, then turned dangerously impatient. “Look, lady, I have a raging headache and a real short tolerance for riddles. In two seconds I’m closing this door, so if you have something to say to me, get to it, or go the hell away.”
Heat suffused her face and her breath hitched. “You rude, self-involved…jerk! I can’t believe I once thought you were the kindest person I’d ever met.”
His mouth twisted into a sardonic sneer. “Maybe that ‘didn’t we meet someplace before’ baloney works on some guys, honey, but I’m damned sure I would remember a hot little number like you.”
A hot little number? Of all the unmitigated gall! And yet the purely female part of her psyche felt a little thrill. Her last semiboyfriend had dropped her after three dates because he considered her a cold fish.
“A thousand dollars donated to charity says we have indeed met—and more than once,” she retorted with a new recklessness that both frightened and exhilarated her.
Disgust deepened the bitter lines bracketing his mouth and made his deep voice raspy. “You’ve got a talent for bluffing, I’ll give you that.”
It cost her, but she lifted her chin and offered him a taunting smile. “Oh, I get it, you’re as chintzy as you are rude.”
A dark and savage emotion flared in his eyes. She refused to step back, though the protective instincts in her reptilian brain had already tensed her muscles and shot a hot bolus of adrenaline into her system.
At twenty-one Elliot’s body had been a magnificent example of well-conditioned, superbly developed male anatomy. A twelve on the hunkability scale she and Sarah had worked up during a sleepover in their sophomore year—not that Sarah had agreed, of course, but a sister couldn’t be expected to be objective.
Now, at thirty-one, he seemed taller and far more muscular and a thousand times more formidable. She locked her knees and forbade herself to show fear. Or anything else, for that matter.
“Five thousand to the San Sebastian Victims Relief Fund says we’ve never laid eyes on one another,” he challenged in a voice that had gone even harsher, though she would have thought that impossible.
Oh, she was going to enjoy this, she thought in a burst of anticipatory pleasure.
“Done,” she declared before she lost her nerve. In fact, some imp inside her prompted her to extend her hand. “Shall we shake on it, Doctor?”
He hesitated, then removed his right hand from the doorjamb where it had served to prop him up. He had beautiful hands, his long fingers supple and sensitive, his wrists thick with muscle, his grip strong enough to hold a scalpel steady for long, painstaking hours. As his fingers curled around hers, she noticed that his wide palm was rimmed with calluses that hadn’t been there ten years ago.
The inner shiver caused by the friction of his skin against hers was expected. After all, the last time he’d touched her had been in the heat of passion, and the body remembered, even when the mind forgot.
“Ball’s in your court, lady,” he challenged as the handshake ended.
