Every time she laid eyes on Josh it was like receiving a healing salve. Her eyes were still glued to the X-ray, but she knew if she only turned her head she was just a blink away from perfection.
She sucked in a breath. Not anymore! No one and nothing was picture-perfect. Life had a cruel way of teaching that lesson.
“Are you ever going to turn around?”
His words tickled her ear again. The man clearly didn’t believe in personal space when his wife was trying to divorce him.
“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?” Katie wheeled round as she spoke. Her breath was all but sucked straight out of her as she met those slate-blue eyes she’d fallen so deeply in love with. It had been a long time since she’d last seen them up close and personal. A really long time.
She fought the sharp sting of tears as she gave a quick shake of her head and readjusted her pose. She could do nonchalant while her world was being rocked to its very core. She was a McGann, for goodness’ sake! McGanns were cool, analytical, exacting. At least that was what she’d told herself when her parents had swanned off to another party in lieu of spending time with their only daughter. McGanns were the polar opposite of the West family. The Wests were unruly, wayward, irresponsible! Invigoratingly original, passionate, loyal...
Her teeth caught her lower lip and bit down hard as her brain began to realign the Josh in her head with the one standing in front of her. Thick, sandy-blond hair, still a bit wild on top and curling round his ears, softening the edges of his shirt collar. No tie. Typical Josh. He rarely did formal, but when he did...
She swallowed and flicked her eyes back up to his hair to miss out on the little V of chest she knew would be visible. No hat. Natch. Why follow the same advice you’d give your patients? There were a few flakes of snow begging to be ruffled out of the soft waves. Her fingers twitched. The number of times she had tucked a wayward strand back behind one of his ears and given in to the urge to drop completely out-of-character sultry kisses along his neck...
No! And double, triple, infinity no! No Josh West. Not anymore!
“Didn’t the agency tell you?”
The expression on his face told her he knew damn well it hadn’t told her. The twinkle in his eye told her he was enjoying watching the steam beginning to blow out of her ears. Typical. He always had been spectacular at winding her up and then bringing her to a whole other plane of happy—
Stop it, Katie McGann. You are not falling under his spell again.
“Tell me what?”
“No need to grind your teeth, darlin’.” He tsked gently. “It’ll give you a headache.”
“Headache?” Maddening and headache-inducing didn’t even begin to cover the effect he was having on her. “Try migraine.”
“Good thing I’m around, then.”
He gave her one of those slow-motion winks that had a naughty tendency to bring out the...the naughty in her.
“Those things can knock you out flat.”
An image of a shirtless Josh slowly lowering himself onto her...into her...blinded Katie for an instant. The muscled arms, the tanned chest, slate eyes gone almost gray with desire and lips shifting into that lazy smile of his—the one that always brought her nerves down a notch when she needed a bit of reassurance.
She scrunched her eyes tight and when she opened them again there it was in full-blown 3-D. The smile that could light up an entire room.
“Josh, I can’t do this right now. Our locum hasn’t bothered to show, and as you can see—” her arms curled protectively around herself as the sliding doors opened to admit a young man with a child “—I’m busy. Working,” she added, as if he didn’t quite get the picture.
Never mind the fact he’d come top in the class above hers at med school, so clearly had brains to spare. Or the little part about how she was standing there in a lab coat in the middle of an ER. A bit of a dead giveaway. Urgh! If she used coarse language, a veritable stream of the colorful stuff would be pouring forth! Why was he just standing there? Grinning?
“What’s the game here, Josh? Yuletide Torture? Our last Christmas together wasn’t horrific enough for you?”
His expression sobered in an instant. She’d overstepped the mark. There was no need to be cruel. They’d both borne their fair share of grief. Grinding it in deep wasn’t necessary. They would feel the weight of their mutual loss in the very core of their hearts until they each stopped beating. Longer if such a thing was possible. Forgetting was impossible. Surviving was. But only just. Which was exactly why she needed him to leave. Now.
“Sorry, Kitty-Kat. You’re stuck with me. I’m your locum tenens.”
To explain why he was late for his first shift, Josh could have told Katie how his car had spun out on some black ice on the way in, despite it being a 4x4 he drove, and the all-weather tires he’d had put on especially, but from her widened eyes and set expression he could see she had enough information to deal with. The latest “Josh incident,” as she liked to call his brushes with disaster, could be kept for another time.
“No. No, I’m sorry, Josh—that’s not possible. We can’t...”
He heard the catch in her voice and had to force himself to stay put. In his arms was where his wife belonged when she was hurting, but it was easy enough to see it was the last place she wanted to be.
He flexed his hands a few times to try and shake the urge. With Katie right there, so close he could smell her perfume... It would be futile, of course, but one thing people could always say about Josh West—he was a man who never had a problem with attempting the impossible. How else could he have won Katie McGann’s heart? Cool East Coast ice princess falling in love with the son of a Tennessee ranch manager, scraping his way through med school with every scholarship and part-time job he could get his callused hands on? It was when he’d finally got his hands on her—man, they’d shaken the first time—he’d known the word “soulmates” wasn’t a fiction.
“Dr. McGann?”
Both their heads turned at the nurse’s call, and the strength it took to keep his expression neutral would have put a circus strongman out of work.
So. Katie had gone back to her maiden name.
Another nail in the coffin for his big plan, or just another one of Katie’s ways of ignoring the fact they belonged together? That everything that had happened to them had been awful—but survivable. Even more so if they were together.
“Can you take this one? Arterial bleed to an index finger. He says it’s been pumping for a while. Shannon’s in with him now.” The nurse held out a chart for her to read.
“Absolutely, Jorja. How long’s a while?” Katie asked, taking the three strides to the central ER counter while scanning the chart, nodding at the extra information the charge nurse supplied her.
Josh took the chance to give his wife a handful of once-overs—and one more for good measure. It had been some time since his eyes had run up those long legs of hers. Too long. He’d been an idiot to leave it so long, but she had been good at playing hide-and-seek and he’d had his own dragons to slay. A small flash of inspiration had finally led
