toothpaste and wet, angry male teased her nostrils. Her senses wobbled a little before she regained control.
“Actually, I’m not really sure, but…” She paused, deliberately prolonging her private exhilaration.
“I thought so, you little—”
“…but my mother told me once that your mom brought you next door to see me a few days after I was born. Of course, I doubt you would remember that, since you were practically a baby yourself. I certainly don’t. What I do remember, however, is crashing my new red trike into the plum tree in your backyard one Christmas morning, then screaming bloody murder when you offered to sew up the cut on my chin with your mom’s petit point needle. I think I was four at the time, which would have made you five.”
Shock splintered his eyes. His gaze narrowed, skimmed like lightning to her toes, then moved slowly upward until it zeroed in on her face. Holding her breath, she watched recognition settle into those familiar eyes, followed by something very like guilt.
“My God! Katie? Is it really you?” Now his voice was rough, as though forced through a constricted throat.
Ah, revenge truly was sweet, she thought, her lips forming her coolest smile, the one she’d practiced in front of the mirror for weeks before trying it out on smugly superior male colleagues during her residency.
“That’s Dr. Remson to you, Doctor.” She felt a rush of pure vindication. “You can leave the receipt for the donation with the desk clerk.”
Feeling empowered and deliciously militant for the first time in her life, she turned and stalked off, her sandals slapping the carpet with each proudly furious step.
Behind her she heard an angry curse, followed by the unmistakable sounds of pounding footsteps. She quickened her pace, but refused to sprint.
“Stop running away, damn it,” he all but growled in her ear a split second before he grabbed her arm and, with an ease that infuriated her, jerked her to a halt.
Her leather soles slipped on the carpet’s thick pile and she skidded sideways. Her hip collided with his hard thigh before she found her footing. He jerked back as though scalded. The towel flipped open, exposing one muscular thigh and, for a brief instant, more intimate parts of his anatomy.
A sizzling heat started in the vicinity of her throat and melted downward to pool in the intimate parts of her anatomy. God, was she actually panting?
Scrambling to regain her dignity, she straightened her spine and glared at him. “Let me go, or I’ll scream so loud the king himself will hear me,” she ordered through a stiff jaw.
“Not unless you promise to listen!” His grip eased, but his hand remained coiled around her arm. For all his good-natured affability, Elliot had a stubborn streak as unyielding as tempered steel.
“I’ll give you sixty seconds.” She made a show of glancing at her watch, the old-fashioned kind with the sweep hand. “Starting now.”
“You’re right, I behaved like a jerk,” he grated, his jaw rigid.
It was difficult to look down her nose when she was looking up, but Kate leaned back far enough to make a stab at it. Anything was preferable to standing with her nose all but buried in that sexy chest hair. “And your point is?”
“I’m apologizing, damn it. That’s my point.” He looked thunderously angry—and yet, buried deep in his eyes was the same black emptiness she’d seen on the day he’d buried his wife and child.
Death was no stranger to those in the medical profession, especially surgeons and technicians involved in high risk cases. Over the years she’d grieved at every loss as though it were her own child, and as a matter of personal choice remained involved with helping parents come to grips with their own grief.
But never, in all the years since that bleak gray day in October, had she seen anyone suffer the way Elliot had. Her heart expanded and she nearly reached out to him before she remembered how easily he had shredded both her heart and her secret dreams.
“Katie, I’m truly sorry,” he said when she remained silent. “I shouldn’t have dumped my foul mood on you.”
“I agree completely, and your time is up.” She directed a pointed look at the large sinewy hand still holding her captive.
His brows lowered. “You’re still ticked off.”
“No, I’m in a hurry to get to the hospital, Doctor. I have patients to attend to!”
“Point taken.” Finally he let her go. The sensory imprint of those strong, callused fingers lingered, but she refused to indulge the need to rub away even that reminder of his touch. “I’m heading back myself. If you give me five minutes to throw on some clothes, I’ll go with you.”
Her self-possessed poise was beginning to fray. For the sake of her pride—and her peace of mind—she had to put some distance between the two of them.
“I don’t have five minutes, Doctor. And if I did, I wouldn’t waste them on you.”
Anger simmered for an instant in his eyes before fading. “Seems you’ve changed more than your looks, Kate,” he said quietly.
The whisper of hurt in his voice struck her as the worst kind of hypocrisy. He wasn’t the one who’d walked out of the pool house ten years ago, a pathetic basket case. Who hadn’t been able to get out of bed for a week. Who’d come close to hating herself for the humiliating spectacle she’d made of herself. Worst of all, who hadn’t been able to let a man touch her for years afterward.
“If you mean I’m no longer a…hmm, let me see if I can get this right. Oh yes, I remember now, ‘a stupidly naive little girl on some misguided mercy mission,’ you’re completely correct.”
He winced, then raked his free hand through his hair, leaving it tousled. Beneath the sun-bleached brows his eyes searched her face. “I hurt you more badly than you let on, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you hurt me, but I also realize I was as much to blame for what happened as you were. Let’s just leave it at that.”
He bowed his head, his free hand pinching the bridge of his nose. When he glanced up again, regret shimmered in his eyes like tears. “Katie, it’s not that I didn’t appreciate—”
“I’m not going to discuss the past with you, Elliot,” she interrupted, her voice bordering on shrill. She took a breath and tried to ignore the conflicting emotions in her chest. When she spoke again, she had her voice—and herself—under control again. “You and I are here to do a job, not walk down memory lane. I’m sure we can treat each other with appropriate courtesy on those few occasions when we’re forced to spend time in one another’s company.”
The disbelief in his eyes had her teeth grinding together. Clearly, Golden Boy wasn’t used to being rejected.
“Is that what you really want, Kate?”
“That’s what I want,” she said in her firmest tone. She felt a sharp stab of satisfaction. Less than admirable, perhaps, but completely human.
He hesitated, then sighed heavily, his big chest rising and falling mightily. Then, as she made herself hold her gaze
