Crossing the Line
Lori Wilde
The perfect bedside manner? When deliciously handsome Dr Dante Nash joins the staff of private medical facility Confidential Rejuvenations he’s certain to make waves. Especially for nurse Elle who can’t seem to keep her eyes – or her lusty thoughts – off him!But Dante is more than a dreamy doctor who makes Elle weak at the knees. He’s also undercover for the FBI, ready to expose sinister goings-on at the clinic. Now it looks like it isn’t just Elle and Dante’s sizzling-hot affair that’s about to get out of control…!
“Who are you?”
For the briefest of moments, their gazes wed.
Dante’s eyes glinted as if he knew exactly what Elle looked like stark naked…and he approved. The intimate suggestion in his stare caused her to catch her breath.
Nature had packaged him in a hard muscular frame. Then Elle spied something that completely rattled her. There, at his wrist, circled the hint of dark blue ink.
A tattoo. Talk about out of place.
Who was he really?
The look that passed between them was weighted with a meaning Elle couldn’t begin to unravel. Her cheeks tingled. How embarrassing—she was blushing!
What was happening to her? One minute she’d been minding her own business, and the next minute this sharply dressed, broad-shouldered stranger had her locked in some kind of sensual hold.
She didn’t trust a man who could make her feel so aroused with just a look.
Or could she?
Available in November 2009
from Mills & Boon
Blaze
BLAZE 2-IN-1
Drop Dead Gorgeous by Kimberly Raye & Come Toy with Me by Cara Summers
Crossing the Line by Lori Wilde
Reckless by Tori Carrington
Lori Wilde is the author of forty books. She’s been nominated for a RITA
Award and four Romantic Times BOOKreviews Reviewers’ Choice Awards. Her books have been excerpted in Cosmopolitan, Redbook and Quick & Simple. Lori teaches writing online through Ed2go. She’s a registered nurse trained in forensics, and she volunteers at a battered women’s shelter.
CROSSING THE LINE
BY
LORI WILDE
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/)
To Candy Halliday—dear friend and medical cohort.
Keep writing, Candy. The world needs more of
your unique perspective.
Chapter 1
FROM ITS STATELY EXTERIOR overlooking the bucolic Colorado River just outside Austin, Texas, Confidential Rejuvenations—a small but criminally expensive medical treatment facility for the crème-de-la-crème—exuded an atmosphere of supreme tranquility.
The lush green lawns were perfectly clipped, as were the bountiful privacy hedges. Ivy-twined trellises shaded genteel redwood park benches. The profusion of petunias, pansies, daisies and daffodils in full bloom undulated in the breeze, testifying to the exemplary gardening skills of the groundskeepers.
A luxurious flagstone walkway led toward the discrete front entrance in one direction. The other fork wound its way to an elaborate hand-carved gazebo positioned on a bluff above the sensuous curve of the river.
Confidential Rejuvenations was a favorite recuperation spot for southwest politicians, actors, musicians and other VIPs seeking various cures for addictions, aging and crisis of identity.
But Dr. Dante Nash wasn’t fooled by appearances.
Beneath the serene surface, behind the healing promises made in the glossy full-color, trifold brochure resting on the passenger seat beside him, beyond those stately vinecovered walls, lurked a shadowy menace.
Careers lay on the line. Fortunes stood to be lost or gained. Lives hung in the balance.
And Dante was the catalyst. Sent undercover by the FBI to find out exactly who at Confidential Rejuvenations was trafficking in a very potent sex drug.
The designer party drug, street named Rapture, had been popping up on the club scene and college campuses around the Southwest for the past several months. It was being blamed for a dozen senseless deaths, and the FBI had traced the genesis of the substance to this quaint boutique hospital, partially owned by Dante’s former college roommate, Dr. Mark Lawson.
For the past three years, Dante had worked for the Bureau as a plastic surgeon, giving new faces to people entering the Witness Protection Program. This was his first actual undercover assignment; he’d been hand selected for the project due to both his skills as a surgeon and his connection to Mark.
Dante didn’t know if his ex-roommate was involved or not, but if Lawson was, he would take the man down without a moment’s hesitation. Nothing was going to stop Dante from getting those drugs off the street. Ultimately, he was doing this to avenge Leeza’s death.
He winced at the thought of his murdered sister. Of all the things they had suffered together. Sense memories of his miserable childhood rolled over him. The stench of sour mash whiskey on his father’s breath. The feel of a leather strap slapping against his skin. The taste of fear on his tongue. He thought of the beatings he’d taken. Both from neighborhood thugs and his old man, until he had learned to fight back, learned how to protect his baby sister.
Painfully he recalled the way Leeza had looked the last time he’d seen her, strung out on drugs, eyes red, unwashed hair matted to her head, track marks running up and down her arms as she carried that hopeless, helpless air of the damned.
He’d tried to help her. Had gotten her into rehab twice, and she’d run away both times, unable to resist the seductive allure of heroin and the dangerous pull of her mobconnected boyfriend, Furio Gambezi.
Dante’s desire to save his sister was the motivating factor in his decision to join the FBI after he’d completed his residency in reconstructive cosmetic surgery. Itwas the burning need to see justice served. His hunger to even the score.
Patience.
His body tensed, fingers tightening around the leather steering wheel, his mind on full alert.
Dante stopped the Porsche Carrera GT—the FBI had provided it as a prop—at the security guard station and rolled down the window. The car had been seized during a drug bust. After the mobster who’d owned it had gone to prison, the FBI had been allowed to keep it for use in undercover operations such as this one.
He had to admit he took some satisfaction in driving one of the world’s most expensive sports cars, especially since it had been confiscated from a gangster. The sensuous purr of the engine, the luxurious feel of the butter-soft leather, the illicit thrill. It put him in mind of truly great sex.
Unfortunately, it had been so long since he’d had truly great sex he was a bit fuzzy on the details of exactly how good it did feel. His job didn’t allow much time for developing intimate contacts and he’d never been proud of his brief, meaningless affairs.
“Morning, sir,” the security guard on duty greeted him.
“Good morning.”
“You here to visit?” The guard eyed him. “Or are you a patient checking in for treatment?”
Dante wore high-end sunglasses and a dove-gray silk Armani suit. His cologne was exotic, his hair fashionably clipped and his fingernails manicured to a high sheen. A purple orchid boutonniere nestled in the buttonhole of his outrageously priced suit.
Nothing about the slick exterior represented the real Dante. His inner soul was much darker, much grittier, much more tortured than the glitzy image he projected. He was playing the part of an upscale young plastic surgeon with an ego bigger than God. It was his duty to embody the role. Insecurities and vulnerabilities had no place in this plan. Nor was there any room for mistakes.
“I’m the new physician, Dr. Dante Nash,” he said with an air of aloof entitlement, and presented the man his driver’s license.
The security guard checked Dante’s credentials against a list on his clipboard. “Ah, yes, here you are. Welcome to Confidential Rejuvenations, Dr. Nash.”
“Thank you.” Dante glanced at the man’s name badge.
He might have to play the arrogant, rich doctor, but he could still be civil. “Freddie.”
“Have a nice day, sir.”
“You do so as well.”
The guard pressed a button that opened the wroughtiron gate onto a red cobblestone driveway. Dante followed the road around more privacy hedges and white rock retaining walls. The breeze was cooler up here in the hills than it was in Austin. He kept the window rolled down and flipped off the air conditioner. The fresh smell of spring floated into the car.
Leeza had died in the spring and he hated the season for it. Dante clenched his teeth.
Three years had gone by since her death, but he was still having trouble letting go of his anger. Still haunted by the fact he’d been unable to save her.
Don’t think about Leeza. Not now.
A quaint, hand-carved wooden sign directed him to the physicians’ parking area. He parked the Porsche, rolled up the windows and got out. A punch of a button on the keypad locked the doors and activated the alarm.
Another sign along the sidewalk pointed to the private entrance to the emergency department open exclusively to Confidential Rejuvenation’s elite clientele. It was closer than walking around to the front entrance so he went in that way. Stepping through the pneumatic doors, he walked into the plushiest emergency waiting room he’d ever seen.
The place was spotless. The couches and chairs were made of sage-colored leather and looked brand-new. The televisions mounted on the walls were all forty-two-inch plasma screens and came equipped with TiVo. They were turned on and playing to an empty room.
The potted ficus tree was real and the complimentary coffee was gourmet. Polished metal on the fleet of well maintained wheelchairs stowed along the far wall gleamed brightly underneath the recessed lighting.
Even more impressive was what was missing.
No gory blood stains. No suffering moans. No acrid smell of gunshot residue. No distraught family members sobbing their hearts out.
No question why it was so damned clean. Clearly emergency medicine wasn’t a specialty of Confidential Rejuvenations.
He paused to take it all in.
There had to be a reception desk around here somewhere. The thick double doors before him were locked. A sign instructed visitors to ring the bell for service. Dante glanced up and spied the small, discreet surveillance cameras mounted at all four corners of the entryway.
He was being watched.
Dante pressed the button. A pleasant disembodied voice greeted him. He identified himself. A buzzer sounded and the doors swung open.
More signs.
Lab and Radiology and Surgery to the right. Admin and the cafeteria lay straight ahead. The actual emergency exam rooms themselves were to the left.
And not a single soul in sight.
Weird.
He was beginning to regret not walking around to the front entrance. This whole place was spooky as hell. Where did they keep the woman who’d buzzed him in?
Maybe it wasn’t a real woman at all, he thought, but a robotic recording.
Suddenly, feeling as if he’d wandered onto a movie set of Stepford Hospital, he had a compelling urge to find a living human being. Pushed along by his anxiety, Dante turned left, rounded the corner andwalked into a nightmare.
The reception area he’d been searching for was in utter chaos. Papers were strewn across the room, equipment knocked over, glass broken. Three sobbing nurses sat huddled on the floor behind the desk. Two people in street clothes lay bleeding profusely on the white tile floor. One of them was an elderly woman.
Like a splash of cold water doused in his face, shock was the first thing that hit Dante. It was quickly followed by a jolt of adrenaline. The air around him seemed to turn stale, heavy. His blood pounded sluggishly in his ears.
Another nurse, this one with a calm, brave expression on her face, was talking softly to a wild-eyed young man wearing a patient gown and pajama bottoms spattered with blood. Torn cotton restraints dangled from his wrists like extra appendages.
The man stood between the soft-spoken nurse and the huddled women. In his hand, he clutched a bloody bowie knife.
Even in the midst of the crisis, there was something about the nurse that commanded Dante’s attention. She looked so…earnest—in a job that quickly made cynics of most—like a new graduate clinging to her ideal that healing the sick was the highest of callings.
Dante envied her.
And simultaneously lusted after her.
The lust surprised him. The feeling was so completely out of context and it had been such a very long time since he’d felt anything akin to this sudden need.
What the hell was wrong with him?
“Please, put the knife down.We canwork this out. I know you really don’t want to hurt anyone,” the nurse cajoled.
“Stay back or I’ll kill them all,” the deranged patient threatened, his voice high and reedy.
Anger seized Dante then. Furrowed his brow, tightened the corners of his mouth and narrowed his eyes. He had been caught in the grip of this feeling many times. It was an old but dangerous friend.
Like the trained FBI agent he was, he sprang into action without hesitation. In two long-legged strides he was across the room, slapping one hand around the man’s wrist and spinning him backward.
The red-haired nurse was screaming at him, but he was so intent on the task at hand that he couldn’t process what she was saying.
Blow his cover or not, he would not allow this scumbag to harm another soul.
Determination, fear, anger, excitement slid thickly through his veins, rolling, crashing, thundering. Dante hooked the crook of his elbow around the assailant’s neck and squeezed tight.
Surrender the knife, you bastard, or die.
ONE MINUTE ELLE KINGSTON, RN, and her emergency room nursing staff were role-playing a hostage standoff scenario, and the next minute, this sharp-dressed, broadshouldered stranger had her orderly—who was portraying the hostage-taker—gripped in a deadly chokehold.
The orderly made a strangling noise. His face was red, his eyes bulging. His fingers loosened and he dropped the rubber bowie knife smeared with a theatrical solution simulating blood. The knife bounced harmlessly against the tile.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Elle demanded of the stranger, her body shot full of fear. “Let go of Ricky before you kill him.”
The stranger’s gaze pierced her so thoroughly she felt a breath-stealing blur of heated intensity.
“It’s a drill.” Elle glowered and laid her hands on her hips. “You’re suffocating my orderly.”
“Oh.” His shoulders lowered, and for the briefest of moments the stranger looked sheepish.
He let Ricky go.
The orderly bolted across the room, hand to his neck. “Not cool, dude,” he croaked. “Not cool.”
The nurses behind the desk rose to their feet, dusting off the seats of their scrubs pants. The two “bodies” on the floor sat up. One was the E.D. front desk ward secretary, sixty-eight-year-old Maxine Woodbury, who loved Confidential Rejuvenations so much she ignored the fact that she was past retirement age and just kept on working.
The second “murder victim” was the affable hospital janitor, Carlisle Jones. Carlisle was the father of five, and he frequently moonlighted as an extra in Austin-based movies and television commercials. He’d appeared in three of Sandra Bullock’s films and was on a first-name basis with Matthew McConaughey. Carlisle was always up for a starring role in Elle’s disaster-preparedness plans.
Everyone eyed the stranger speculatively.
“I didn’t realize it was a drill,” he muttered.
“So you think you’re what?” Elle folded her arms over her chest and assessed him with a glare. “TheArmaniAvenger?”
He cracked a smile, albeit a brief one. “I subdued the attacker.”
“You caught him by surprise. Do you know how irresponsible that was? Ever heard the adage that a gentle word turns away wrath? If Ricky had been a real patient and the nurses real hostages…” Elle shook her head.
The stranger put a hand to the left side of his chest. It was a quick, slight gesture, barely noticeable. But Elle, who had grown up the daughter, sister, granddaughter and niece of cops, had the strangest feeling he was wearing a shoulder holster underneath that fancy, dove-gray pinstripped silk suit. It was a gesture that said if the hostage situation had been real, he would have shot the suspect.
But her instincts about him and the image he projected didn’t fit.
Oh, the man looked like he could be a cop—he possessed the right posture, the right air of self-assurance, the “no bullshit” eyes. Like he’d seen too much of the world, knew too much to ever really trust anyone again.
What didn’t jive were the suit and the hair and the platinum watch and the way he seemed to be biting his tongue to keep from saying what was really on his mind.
She hated to admit it, but he intrigued her.
Plus, he was exceptionally handsome. Not that she let good looks sway her opinion of someone.
He leaned toward her, narrowing the gap between them. His gaze was level and she felt it again.
Something oddly exciting.
The chemistry surged up. A rush of hormones that told her sex with this man would be very good indeed. She experienced the knowledge in her lungs, in the pit of her stomach, between her legs.
It was more than his coal-black, stylishly cut hair. More than the tawny eyes and the angular bow-shaped lips she was already imagining grazing softly across the nape of her neck. More than the sexy cleft in his hard, masculine chin. Nervously she raised a hand to her hairline and averted her eyes from his face.
He felt it, too.
She saw it in the almost imperceptible quickening of the pulse at the hollow of his throat. Elle flicked her gaze back to his.
His eyes narrowed, but his pupils widened. He was struggling for control, trying to recover without her noticing he’d been affected, trying to hide that he was interested.
Very interested.
“My goal was to defuse the situation as quickly as possible,” he said, finally answering the question she’d posed. “Ever hear the adage that actions speak louder than words?”
He was throwing her words back at her. Giving as good as he got. Cop talk. He sounded like her parents and her brothers and her grandfather and her uncles.
“Do you always act first and ask questions later?”
“If need be.”
“Seems like a dangerous way to live.” She raised an eyebrow. It was almost as if he knew she’d pegged him. A cop trying to slip into someone else’s skin. Was he undercover? But why would there be an undercover cop at Confidential Rejuvenations? Could it have anything to do with the series of unfortunate events that had been going on at the hospital?
Nah, she was jumping to conclusions, reading something into his behavior that wasn’t there. Probably he was just like her—raised around policemen and steeped so long in the culture of law enforcement he behaved like a cop even when he wasn’t one.
“A flaw of mine.”
Now that definitely wasn’t coplike, readily admitting a shortcoming. But she found it appealing. Mark had never once admitted he was wrong, not even when she’d caught him red-handed with Cassandra. Her ex-husband had tried to turn it around, make his cheating Elle’s fault by saying she’d been too absorbed with her work.
The jackass.
“And,” the stranger continued. “I apologize for disturbing your drill.”
Admitting a fault and apologizing for it? From an alpha guy like this? She didn’t buy it. He was trying too hard to make her like him.
Why?
“Who are you?” She cocked her head upward and crossed her arms over her chest again.
“Dante,” a voice from behind Elle boomed. “You made it!”
Elle didn’t have to turn to see who was speaking. She’d spent five years of her life listening to that voice. A voice that had made promises he never intended on keeping.
The voice of her rat bastard ex-husband, Mark Lawson.
Elle gritted her teeth and tried to tamp down her resentment. A year ago, just when she thought Mark was finally ready to start a family, after she had put him through medical school, worked double shifts while he completed his residency in psychiatrics, he had dumped her for one of his patients. A twenty-one-year-old actress named Cassandra Roberts.
Cassandra, bless her little heart, couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. But she was blond, beautiful and one shade above anorexic. Plus, her daddy was a big-wheel movie exec, and Mark had always been enamored of money, glitz and glamour.
Mark moved around Elle as if she didn’t exist and clasped the stranger in a bear hug. “Dante, man, you look great.”
So this was Dante Nash. Mark’s college roommate, and the newest surgeon to join the staff of Confidential Rejuvenations.
Just her luck.
Back when she and Mark were married and he would occasionally get drunk and chatty, he would reminisce about his college days at the University of Texas. During those times he’d tell of the antics he and Dante had gotten into, recounting tales of their prowess on the football field.
And in the bedrooms of sorority houses.
According to Mark, Dante was something of a player. This explained the suit and the haircut and the Rolex and the brooding charm. Elle lumped him into the same category with her ex-husband.
Untrustworthy skeeve.
In her book, anyone who was a friend of Mark’s was an enemy of hers.
Now, Elle, chided her good-girl side. You only diminish yourself when you think like that. Not giving Mark power over your feelings is the best revenge. No need cluttering your mind with negativity.
Maybe so, but it didn’t seem as satisfying as the fantasy of slashing the tires on Mark’s new Mercedes. She was still driving the compact Chevy she’d bought after she graduated from college ten long years ago.
Thank heavens for her two best friends, Vanessa and Julie. They also worked with her at Confidential Rejuvenations. In an attempt to deal with the stress of their professions and the secrets that the job forced them to keep, they’d formed an after-hours club where they could get together and vent. Sharing their hopes, dreams and fantasies with one another.
Her friends had been there for Elle during her divorce and they understood her even when her own family didn’t. The group was meeting on Wednesday night and she couldn’t wait to tell them what had happened in the E.D. with the new surgeon.
Her family thought she was crazy for staying at Confidential Rejuvenations, considering she had to see Mark on a daily basis. She would admit it was particularly difficult when Cassandra Roberts showed up, dangling adoringly from his arm.
But this was the best job Elle had ever had. For one thing, she was extremely well paid. She couldn’t go anywhere else and make the same kind of money. Plus, she was given lots of autonomy and she adored the staff. The VIP patients could be challenging at times, simply because they were VIPs, but Elle enjoyed taking care of people. Being a caregiver, however, had its drawbacks. For instance it prevented you from making a voodoo doll of your ex-husband and sticking sharp pointy things through it.
“Come on, let me show you to your office,” Mark said. Without even bothering to introduce the new doctor to the staff, he slung an arm around Dante’s shoulder and propelled him toward the door.
Typical Mark. No thought for anyone except himself.
As her ex-husband dragged the new physician past her, Dante’s elbow accidentally grazed Elle’s breast.
Sharply she inhaled as the shock of the unintentional contact spread out through her nerve endings.
She saw Dante glance down at her from his imposing height. He had to be at least six-three, almost a foot taller than her own five feet four.
For the briefest of moments, their gazes wed.
His eyes glinted as if he knew exactly what she looked like stark naked and he approved. The intimate suggestion in his stare caused Elle’s knees to weaken.
Nature had packaged him in a hard, muscular frame. He was meaty but not bulky. At once both supple and strong. His hands were big and square, his fingernails manicured. Nothing odd there; lots of surgeons babied their hands. Then she spied something that completely rattled her. There, at his wrist, from underneath his Rolex, curled the hint of dark-blue ink.
A tattoo.
Talk about out of place.
Who was he really?
The look that passed between them was succinct and yet weighted with a meaning she couldn’t begin to unravel.
She felt heavy and light at the same time.
Elle’s cheeks tingled. She was blushing!
God, how embarrassing.
What was happening to her? One minute she’d been minding her own business, doing her job as the nursing director of the E.D. and the next minute this sharp-dressed, broad-shouldered stranger had her locked in some emotional chokehold.
She didn’t trust a man who could make her feel so breathless with just a look.
Not one little bit.
Chapter 2
AS MARK ESCORTED HIM from the emergency department, Dante couldn’t help swiveling his head for one last look at the feisty red-haired nurse.
She glowered, hands on her hips, watching him go.
Her eyes narrowed. The woman didn’t like him. But could he blame her? He’d messed up her disaster drill, and in the process he could very easily have blown his cover. He’d already made her suspicious.
Not good.
Dante could tell from the way she’d scolded him that she thought he was a bulldozing hothead, and he’d given her plenty of reasons to draw that conclusion. He’d have to be more careful. He threw her the most disarming grin he could conjure before turning his attention back to Mark. Behind him, he heard her snort indignantly. He wasn’t winning her over that easily.
“The medical staff is waiting in the doctors’ lounge,” Mark was saying. “We’re throwing you a little welcome party.”
Ah crap, he hated this sort of political meet-and-greet, but he knew it was necessary. Suck up to the old guard if you want to fit in, and he had to fit in to gain their trust. He’d done it well enough in college. He could do it again.
“Who’s the redhead?” Dante asked, the words popping unexpectedly from his mouth.
“Redhead?”
Dante jerked his thumb in the direction of the emergency department.
Mark wrinkled his nose and his smile disappeared. “Word to the wise, steer clear of Elle.”
“Any particular reason?”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“She’s my ex-wife.”
“For real?”
“We were married for five years.”
Surprised, Dante tightened his chin. Elle wasn’t Mark’s typical type. She was solidly built for one thing—wellrounded hips, sturdy legs, the generous look of a true earth mother. She also had quick, intelligent seashore-blue eyes. Unless his college roommate’s tastes had changed, Mark went in for thin, leggy, big-breasted blondes with wide eyes and a minimum of brain power.
Dante resisted the urge to look back down the hallway again. “What happened?”
“Things happen. People change.”
“Bad breakup?”
Mark shook his head. “Don’t ask.”
She’s available.
It was the wrong thought to think. He should have been wondering what had caused their breakup, but it was too soon to ask probing personal questions of Mark. Tread lightly and trust no one. It was, after all, his lifelong motto.
He had to forget the redhead. The fact that she’d rattled his concentration bothered him almost as much as the rattling itself. He was not a man easily swayed from his objective.
It was the memory of his sister and the filthy alley where her body had been found that had him steeling his mind, clenching his fists. She’d overdosed on heroin, but the medical examiner had found that her death was not accidental. Ligature marks on her wrists had told the tale. She’d been tied up and forcibly injected. She’d been murdered and Dante had never forgiven himself for not protecting her.
As part of his penance, Dante would do whatever it took to bring the bastard responsible for putting Rapture in the underground drug pipeline to justice, and if Mark was that bastard, then so be it.
“Here we are.” Mark pushed through the frosted-glass double doors marked Doctors Only.
Behind the doors was a collection of well-heeled doctors mingling in an atmosphere of opulence. This room, with its designer draperies, Persian rug, a marble waterfall and chic modern furniture, was a far cry from the sparse, functional doctors’ lounge at the county hospital in Dallas where Dante had done his internship.
“Here he is,” Mark called out to the gathered contingency. “Our newest plastic surgeon and my old college roommate, Dante Nash.”
There was a polite smattering of applause. Someone gave Dante a new scalpel and told him to cut the cake that read in neon-blue buttercream icing, Welcome to Confidential Rejuvenations, Dr. Nash.
He felt like rolling his eyes at the pomp, but in the spirit of cozying up to his new colleagues, he forced a grin. Unsheathing the blade, he then made a precision slice right through the middle of the N in his last name.
Someone else handed him a flute of champagne. He felt awkward as hell standing there with a glass of Dom Perignon at nine o’clock in the morning, but he had to act as if he expected such treatment. He forced himself to take a sip.
Mark took him around the room, introducing him to the people gathered.
Dr. Jarrod Butler was the chief of staff. He had a lanky build and a leisurely way of speaking that reminded Dante of Gregory Peck’s classic role of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Dante guessed Butler was in his early sixties; he was the most senior person in the room.
The chief of surgery, Wilson Covey, was a few years younger than Butler. He had the square, muscular build of a boxer and wore his salt-and-pepper hair slicked back off his forehead. He had a broad smile and a booming voice that seemed more suited to coaching basketball than practicing medicine.
Together Butler, Covey and Mark co-owned Confidential Rejuvenations. Dante had already met Butler and Covey during his initial interview. Both doctors hailed from a long line of money, and they looked the part. Dignified, impeccably dressed, well-mannered and reserved. They wielded a subtle but undeniable power. What Dante hadn’t been able to figure out was how Mark had managed to swing a partnership with these guys.
Beyond those three, there were thirteen other doctors in the lounge, five women, eight men. They held a variety of specialties, particular to a private facility like Confidential Rejuvenations, ranging from psychiatry to substance abuse to antiaging. They were dressed like celebrities in their high-end fashions and designer suits. Clothing targeted at impressing their discerning clientele. The most memorable of the group was a fellow surgeon, a young Latina woman named Vanessa Rodriquez.
Vanessa possessed a firm handshake, cautious eyes and a penetrating way of looking at him as if she knew exactly who he was and what he was trying to hide. Her stare was unnerving because he could not peg her. Her nails were perfectly manicured, her makeup as flawless as a runway model’s. The woman was a beauty with her raven hair and sultry black eyes, but Dante had a thing for redheads. In spite of the care this woman took with her appearance, there was something about the defensive tilt to her shoulders that told him she wasn’t entirely comfortable in this group.
Did she have a past she was trying too hard to deny? What was her background? Why was she, at her age, working at a cushy place like Confidential Rejuvenations when she would get so much more experience at a county hospital? The questions intrigued him. He was going to keep a very close eye on Dr. Rodriquez.
She held out a slender hand. He noticed she wasn’t having any champagne. “It’s nice to have you here, Dr. Nash. And it’s encouraging that we’re attracting such distinguished talent, especially after what’s been happening.”
“Excuse me?” Dante raised an eyebrow. “What’s been happening?”
She looked surprised. “Mark didn’t tell you?”
“About what?” He’d been there less than an hour and already he felt the energy of a dozen hidden secrets.
Vanessa shot a glance at Mark who was deep in conversation withWilson Covey. “That was unfair of him not to tell you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’ve been some…” She paused a moment before finishing with, “unusual occurrences around here lately.”
“Unusual occurrences?”
She shrugged and gave him an enigmatic smile.
“Are you always this cryptic?” he asked. “What’s the big mystery?”
She ducked her head, lowered her eyes. “I work at Confidential Rejuvenations. As our motto goes, ‘You do it, we keep it strictly confidential.’”
“That’s the motto?”
Dr. Rodriquez shrugged. “If you have questions, you should talk to Mark. Anyway, welcome aboard. It was nice meeting you, but I’ve got surgery in thirty minutes.” With a wave of her fingertips, she was gone.
Twenty minutes later the welcome reception began breaking up as the doctors wandered off to make morning rounds.
“Come on,” Mark inclined his head toward the back exit. “I’ll show you to your office.”
Dante set down his champagne glass and followed Mark out into the corridor. He was ready to get to work.
They left the hospital proper and took the flagstone path to the physicians’ offices at the back of the property. Inside the clean, glossy building Mark introduced him to the perky young receptionist named Hailey. She looked barely out of high school, had a subtle tattoo of a blue butterfly on the inside of her wrist and she blushed when Dante shook her hand.
“Here we are.” Mark stopped outside the fifth office on the left and handed Dante a key. He clamped a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t tell you how good it is to have you at Confidential Rejuvenations. Feels like old times.”
“It’s great to be here,” Dante said. It wasn’t a lie. It was great to be so close to catching the low-life scum who was poisoning people with dangerous designer street drugs.
“I’ll let you get settled in,” Mark said. “If you need anything, just ask Hailey. I’ve got rounds, but I’ll be back at noon and we can grab some lunch and do a little reminiscing about our football glory days at UT.”
He nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
Mark closed the door after him, leaving Dante alone in the office that was three times the size of his office in Quantico. He ran a hand along the polished mahogany desk, spun the leather swivel chair, thickly padded and handstitched. His feet sank into the opulent Karastan carpet patterned in a burgundy, black and beige paisley. He walked over to flip the special-order wood blinds covering a wide picture window behind the desk, and his gaze traveled to the built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases, chock-full of medical tomes, lining two of the four walls.
The place was too cushy, too plush. A doctor could get very soft here. Dante curled his lip in distaste. Was that what had happened to his ex-roommate? Had he gotten so accustomed to living the good life that greed had driven him to start producing Rapture?
You don’t know for sure that Mark is involved. It could be anyone. Covey, Butler, Dr. Rodriquez, the orderly named Ricky, even Elle.
Dante fisted his hands. He didn’t know the answer for sure, but he was going to find out. He remembered Mark’s hunger for the finer things in life. They’d both grownup with similar backgrounds—absent mother, abusive father, oldest sibling. And they were both high achievers, striving to escape the dire circumstances they’d been born into. But where Mark placed high values on material possessions and grandiose titles, Dante valued ideals like honor and integrity.
And revenge.
It was true. Revenge was a stronger motivator than either honor or integrity. If he wasn’t so determined to put Furio Gambezi behind bars for Leeza’s death, he wouldn’t be undercover, lying about who he was. Spying on people who assumed he was their friend.
The two sides of Dante’s personality warred.
The humanitarian part of him was disgusted at how low he’d stooped. But another part of him, the bloodthirsty side, realized the end did indeed justify the means. When Gambezi and the scum who was supplying the gangster with Rapture were off the streets, countless lives would be spared. For that goal, the cost of Dante’s integrity was a small price to pay. He couldn’t lose sight of it.
Still, he found betraying his own ideals hard to live with. He crossed to the window and opened the blinds, hoping that a glimpse at nature would soothe the battle going on in his head.
Hands jammed into his pockets, he stared out the window to where the verdant field trailed off into a copse of oak and pecan trees. The sky had become overcast since he’d been inside; he remembered the weather report had called for an afternoon drizzle. It had rolled in early from the Colorado River, bringing a gray but compelling dampness.
Better get to work. You’ve got to make this look convincing.
Just as he was about to turn from the window, one of the hospital’s side exit doors opened and a woman stepped out.
The flare of auburn hair immediately seized his attention. He took a deep breath. Elle Kingston hesitated on the back porch. Dante noticed she held something clutched in her hands, but he couldn’t tell what itwas. Furtively she glanced first to the right and then to the left, looking guilty as sin.
Suspicious behavior.
What was she up to?
He narrowed his eyes, watching as she hunched her shoulders against the drizzle and scurried across the lawn. She paused at the edge of the forest, looked over her shoulder again and then quickly disappeared into the trees.
ELLE SLIPPED INTO the forest, the four cans of almost expired infant formula that she had boosted from the newborn nursery cradled in her arms. Fear pushed her heart rate higher. Anxiety had her biting her bottom lip.
Please, please, let the baby be okay, she prayed.
Worried that she might have been seen, Elle cast one more glance over her shoulder, looking back from where she’d come.
In the foggy drizzle, the five-story hospital built of stylized red stone looked positively gothic with its witch’s hat turrets, black slate roof and gingerbread trim. The guarded wrought-iron gates, privacy hedges and trellises twined with English ivy only added to the air of mystery.
Neighbors called it a fortress. Pleased patients dubbed it a sanctuary. Texas Monthly had christened Confidential Rejuvenations a place where celebrity secrets go to die.
At times like this, with gray weather enshrouding those stony walls, the place made Elle feel exquisitely sad at the thought of all those people with so much to hide.
The thing of it was, in spite of her occasionally mixed feelings about Confidential Rejuvenations and the work they did here, she loved her job. And she was concerned over the strange goings-on of the recent weeks. First there’d been the media leaks, then the arson in the laundry room. After that, several items had gone missing. Strange things like a ham from the kitchen, crutches from central supply, a crate of bleach from the janitor’s closet.
Taken one by one, the occurrences were nothing more than criminal mischief, but added together, it didn’t seem like a coincidence. Elle was beginning to wonder if someone was purposely trying to sabotage the hospital. The idea that someone was intentionally doing harm to the place she loved angered her.
She shook off her fanciful thoughts. There was no time for this. She had to make this quick. She had less than an hour left on her lunch break.
Resolutely she pushed deeper into thewoods. After several minutes of hiking, she passed the meditation sanctuary tucked away in a grotto of trees. The overgrowth of vines crawling across the walkway leading to the structure told her no groundskeepers had been up here to maintain it in a very long time. Patients seeking solitude rarely visited this sanctuary since they’d built a bigger one down by the river. More often it was used illicitly for romantic trysts by patients and hospital staff alike. Elle narrowed her eyes as she walked past, wondering if anyone was inside. But the windows were tinted, keeping passersby from peeking in.
The grounds of Confidential Rejuvenations encompassed over a hundred acres, most of it covered by the thick grove of indigenous trees that ran parallel to the river. Walking paths extended throughout the forest in several directions, but Elle diverged from the beaten trail.
Instead, she ducked under the branch of an aged oak and stepped over a moss-covered fallen log, keeping her eyes to the ground. Several minutes later, she saw what she was searching for—faint footprints in the mud.
Yes. It had to be near.
She crouched, studying the undergrowth, looking for any signs of the baby. Growing up with brothers and a father who hunted, Elle had learned through osmosis a tracking trick or two. She set down the bottles of formula and moved deeper into the undergrowth.
“Where are you little guy?” Elle cooed and pushed aside the thick carpeting of monkey grass slicked with fine beads of rain. “Come out, come out wherever you are. I might not be mama, but I’ve got food.”
Then she heard a twig crack loudly on the path she’d abandoned.
Startled, she rocked back on her heels, hand to her throat, pulse pounding, and jerked her head around. Peering through the newly budded leaves, she stared at the broad-shouldered man silhouetted in the tunnel of trees.
She recognized him immediately as he stood there looking very out of his element in his tailored silk suit. His intense, dark eyes drilled into her as if he could see deep down inside to all the things she tried so hard to hide—her fears, her insecurities, her doubts, the dark secrets she told no one, not even her best friends.
The little hop of sexual excitement catching low in her belly took Elle by surprise.
“Looking for something?” asked Dr. Dante Nash, his voice as cool as well water.
His presence threw her off balance and Elle hated being in a defensive position. She rose to her feet.
“You followed me,” she accused.
“I did,” he admitted without the slightest hint of apology in his voice.
“Why?”
Tree branches separated them. Dante on the path. Elle ankle-deep in the undergrowth, studying him like a cautious child peering from around her mother’s skirt. He made her feel things she didn’t want to feel—interest, attraction, compulsion and possibility.
He shrugged. “Curiosity.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you spying on me?”
His smile was slight and didn’t reach his light brown eyes. She found herself wondering when was the last time the man had genuinely smiled, and then Elle wondered why she was wondering.
“Why?” he asked. “Are you up to something that would invite spying?”
Oh, he was good, answering a question with a question, turning things around on her. His cagey manner made her bristle. Mark had been equally adept at evading her questions.
“No,” she denied, realizing just how defensive she sounded.
He glanced at the baby bottles she’d settled on the ground at her feet. “What’s that all about?”
She stepped in front of the baby bottles, blocking his view. Her gaze tracked over him, over the fine lines of his suit, growing damper every minute he stood in the drizzle. She was getting wet as well. She could feel her unruly hair growing frizzier by the second. “I really don’t think it’s any of your concern.”
“I don’t know about that,” Dante said. “Looks to me as if that baby formula came from the supply closet of Confidential Rejuvenations.”
“What if it did?”
“That’s theft in anyone’s book. Are you a thief, Elle Kingston?” His eyes locked with hers and he never looked away.
It was damned disconcerting. A buzz of sexual energy sizzled down her neck.
“What are you?” she snapped. “A cop?”
For a moment so brief she was sure she must have imagined it, a look of uneasiness passed over his face. He moved closer, pushing the soggy tree branches out of his way, and with each step toward her, Elle’s heart beat harder and her breath grew more shallow. He stopped within an arm’s length of her and she quelled the sudden urge to reach out to run her fingers over his strong, commanding jaw and fit the tip of her finger into the cleft at his chin.
“Mark’s been talking to me about buying into Confidential Rejuvenations,” he said. “It’s in my best interest to know if the hospital has a big problem with employee theft.”
“The formula expires in two days. It would be thrown out anyway.” She didn’t owe this man an explanation, so why was she giving him one?
“Who’s the formula for?”
Good grief, why wouldn’t he just go away and leave her in peace?
But he just kept staring at her, one eyebrow quirked up on his forehead, that irritating half smile hanging on the corner of his too-tempting mouth.
She glared. “Don’t you have patients to see?”
“Nope. It’s my first day. No patients yet.”
“Then go unpack your stethoscope or something.”
“Already unpacked.”
She glowered at him.
He shrugged. She could tell he was enjoying jerking her chain. “I was bored,” he said. “Following you seemed like more fun than staring at the four walls of my office.”
“And I’m busy.”
He glanced around at the forest. “Doing what?”
“That’s none of your business, Dr. Nash,” she replied tartly.
“What are you hiding, Nurse Kingston?”
The seductive way he said her name sent flames of lust licking through her belly. This was ridiculous, the way her traitorous body was reacting.
“Nothing,” she denied.
“No?”
She shook her head.
“Then why are you outside in the rain, while your hair goes wild all over your head?”
“I’m a water nymph in disguise,” she retorted.
His smile broadened and for the first time it reached his eyes. A real smile. “I can see that,” he murmured. “So much fiery red hair.”
He closed the short distance between them until the toes of his sleek black Gucci shoes, dotted with water sprinkles, were almost butted up against her white leather nurse’s clogs. The dark flicker in his eyes sent alarm bells ringing inside her as he reached up to finger a strand of her frizzed-out locks.
She gulped, unable to find her voice, not knowing what she would say even if she found it. He was the most enigmatic man she’d ever met, and he made her feel that if she were to peel back the complicated layers of his personality, she could dig endlessly and never find his true center.How did a woman ever learn to trust a man she couldn’t know?
I dunno, how come you trusted Mark?
Because she dumbly loved too easily, loved too hard. But no more. Shewas done with opening her heart too fully, too soon. She was finished with blind loyalty. From now on, she was going to be cautious and cynical and distrustful.
Dante’s fingers lingered at her hair. “No secrets at all, water nymph? Nothing you want to get off your chest? Nothing to confess?”
She could scarcely think. The heat from his body, the fragrance of his captivatingly masculine cologne mixed with the musky scent of damp forest rattled her brain.
“Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said, his hot, laser-sharp gaze puncturing hers. “A smart woman like you, who knows how to keep other people’s secrets, is bound to have a few secrets of her own.”
Her nipples tightened to hard buds underneath her scrub top. She was glad for her lab coat buttoned up over her clothes. Still, in this rain…
She stifled the urge to look down and see if her arousal was visible through her scrubs. But she didn’t want to turn his attention in that direction, so she simply tried her best to look cool and calm.
“Spoken like a man who’s dying to reveal a few skeletons from his closet,” she countered.
He took his fingers from her hair, but he did not lower his hand. Rather, he stroked the back of one finger along the line of her jaw.
His touch was like fire. She swallowed, forced herself not to shudder.
“A fringe of raindrops,” he explained. “On your chin.”
Elle sucked in her breath, stepped back away from him, away from his exploring fingers that sent heated lightning shooting straight to her womb. He was looking at her with the most compelling expression on his face. She watched his eyes drift to the tell-tale throbbing of her pulse at the juncture of her throat and collarbone.
What was with this guy?
A soft noise from the undergrowth drew their attention to the ground.
That’s when Elle saw what she’d come into the forest searching for—a fawn with wide, terrified eyes.
Her nurturing instincts vanquished any weak-kneed fantasies she might be having about the man beside her. Heedless of the mud, she knelt on the carpet of pine needles and dead leaves and reached out to the baby.
The fawn trembled at her touch, unable to run, even to stand on its wobbly little legs.
“That’s your secret?” Dante sounded strangely relieved.
All business now, Elle looked up at him. This baby needed her. She had no time for sexy thoughts. “Hand me one of those bottles, will you?”
Dante leaned over to retrieve the bottle as Elle gathered the fawn into her arms and tucked it in the crook of her left elbow. He straightened and turned to hand her the formula. His forearm brushed lightly against her shoulder. She caught a closer glimpse of the steely set of his jaw where the hint of a five o’clock shadow had started to sprout. A whiff of his woodsy cologne set her heart pumping. Oh boy, this wasn’t good. Not good at all.
Forget about him.
Resolutely, she focused her attention on the fawn squirming in her arms. Gently she placed the bottle’s nipple on the baby’s lower lip. She bent it slightly to express a squirt of milk.
The fawn tentatively flicked out its tongue. Once it tasted the milk, the baby made greedy sucking noises and it was easy for Elle to slip the nipple into its hungry little mouth.
“How did you know the fawn was here?” Dante asked, crouching beside her, his deep voice as comforting as hot chocolate on a cold winter day.
“I’ve been watching a pregnant doe from the back window of the E.D.,” she said. “Every morning she crosses over from the farms to the road and heads down to the river. Two days ago, she didn’t cross. Then yesterday, when she went down to the water, I noticed she wasn’t pregnant any longer. Then this morning…” She let her words trail off and took a deep breath to keep the tears from her voice. “After the disaster drill, we had a motor vehicle collision victim come into the E.D. for stitches. The driver hit a doe in the road and rolled his SUV. I just knew…”
Elle pressed her lips together. A tear slid down her cheek. Ah dammit, she was crying. Why was she crying? She was an E.D. nurse. She’d seen a lot worse things than a dead deer. She blinked and sniffled back the tears.
Dante clamped a hand on her forearm and squeezed gently. “It’s okay to feel tender-hearted over an orphaned baby.”
Just like that, he got her.
Mark would have told her she was being ridiculous. Mark, the same man who’d kept promising her they’d start a family next year, then the next and the next, until finally he left her for a much younger woman who clearly did not have a ticking biological clock.
The fawn wriggled in her arms. It made a soft bleating noise of complaint. What was she doing wrong? The baby chewed the nipple. Milk squirted every which way. Elle was having trouble holding the animal—the rambunctious youngster was stronger than it looked. The fawn kicked at her with its rowdy little hooves, butted the bottle with its head. The formula flew from her hands and landed in the bushes.
“Oh fiddlecakes,” she said, and reached for a second bottle.
“Fiddlecakes?” He sounded amused. “I thought the term was fiddlesticks.”
“Something my grandmother used to say. I spent a lot of time with her growing up. Both my parents did shiftwork.”
“Medical?”
“Cops.”
An odd expression she couldn’t read crossed Dante’s face. Then he surprised her by plunking down beside her on the ground. “Give him here.”
“What are you doing?”
“Let me hold him and you can hold the bottle.”
“You’re going to get mud on your suit.”
“I don’t care.”
“Really?” That surprised her. Mark would rather have his teeth pulled than sit on the ground in one of his tailored suits.
“It’s just clothing.”
That didn’t sound like any surgeon she knew. This guy was a horse of a different color. Elle cocked her head to study him. “Why are you getting involved?”
“Just give him to me,” Dante said, clearly not someone who liked explaining himself.
“How do you know it’s a him?”
“I had a good view of his backside while you had him tucked under your arm.” Dante took the fawn from her and held him in his lap with a firm grip.
His hand grazed hers.
The breath knotted tight in Elle’s chest, unable to find a way out. Hand tingling, she ducked her head and got up to retrieve the second bottle.
Together they sat side by side on the muddy forest floor, raindrops dotting their skin as they nourished an orphaned baby buck.
Her estimation of Dante Nash shot up a notch. She could tell he was a good doctor by the considerate way he held the deer. Gentle but firm. It was the kind of touch that would make any patient feel safe in his hands. She slanted a sideways glance at his face and discovered he was looking at her.
Their eyes met.
He winked.
A hot flush of sexual excitement raced through her. To Elle there was nothing sexier than a nurturing man. Quickly she dropped her gaze. No, no, she didn’t want this feeling. She did not want to like him. To want him. She’d just come out of a miserable divorce. This wasn’t the time for a relationship, and he, as one of her ex-husband’s friends, was not someone she should choose.
“You’re going to have to take him to the animal rescue center,” Dante said.
“I know.” Elle stroked the baby’s fur.
“Yet you’re getting attached anyway.”
She shrugged. “A fault of mine. Getting attached when I shouldn’t.”
“It’s not a fault. Just means you care.”
“Yeah well, it makes for a frequently broken heart.”
A long silence stretched between them, interrupted only by the sounds of the baby deer suckling. He finished one bottle and Elle started the famished youngster on another.
“Why’d you marry Mark?” he asked.
“What?” His question caught her off guard. She raised her head, stared at him again. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t get offended,” Dante said. “It’s just that you’re not Mark’s usual type.”
“No?” Of course not, Elle thought. Cassandra was Mark’s usual type—blond, beautiful and busty. Elle stared down at her own average-sized 34B bosom.
“You’re too smart for him.”
“You don’t even know me. How can you say that?”
“You have lively eyes.”
Elle snorted, but his words brought a heated rush of pleasure to her cheeks.
“Let me guess, you put Mark through medical school. Worked a full-time job, paid the bills and helped him with his homework.”
Dante was so right it hurt. “You know what?” Elle said. “That’s none of your business.”
“Touché,” Dante said. “He’s through.”
“Who? Mark?”
“No, the fawn.”
Indeed, the baby had sucked the bottle dry. Feeling an odd strangeness she couldn’t quite identify, Elle got to her feet and swiped at the mud on the knees of her scrubs. “My lunch hour is over. They’ll be wondering where I am.”
Dante stood up, the fawn cradled in his arms. “What are we going to do with him?”
Elle reached out for the baby. “I’ll call my sister-in-law. She’s interning for the vet at the end of the road. She’ll know who to call about disposing of the fawn’s mother and what to do about this little guy.”
Dante transferred the deer to her arms, their fingers brushing again in the process. Suddenly her heart was in her throat and she had no excuse for it.
“So tell me,” she said. “Did you satisfy your curiosity? Or are you still bored?”
He lowered his eyelids and gave her a sultry look. He raked his gaze over the length of her body, then went back to stare at her lips. He looked like a man whose appetite had just been whetted.
Then he said in low, provocative voice, “Not by a long shot.”
The baby kicked and she almost dropped him. Elle tightened her grip on the fawn and told her silly heart to stop beating so fast. The look Dante was giving her meant absolutely nothing.
Chapter 3
HALF AN HOUR LATER, the animal control people came to haul away the mother deer’s carcass, while Elle’s sister-in-law, Charlotte, arrived in a van to pick up the fawn.
Elle stood at the back entrance to the hospital cradling the trembling animal in her arms, Dante at her side. She wondered why he was sticking around, but she didn’t ask.
“Ooh, Elle,” said her sister-in-law’s assistant, Linda when she spied the baby. Linda was a middle-aged woman with a welcoming smile, dimples in both cheeks and dog hair all over her lab jacket. “Look what you’ve got there.”
The receptionist looked from the fawn to Elle and then to Dante, and then an appreciative gleam came into her eyes. The look on Linda’s face proved Elle’s suspicion that the man attracted feminine attention wherever he went.
Charlotte came around to the front of the van where Elle, Dante and Linda were standing. Elle’s sister-in-law wore her dark-brown hair in a short, stylish cut that accentuated her gamine features. Underneath her lab jacket she wore jeans, a yellow T-shirt and scuffed cowboy boots. She was wiry and petite. Elle had a hard time imagining her wrangling large farm animals.
Charlotte immediately zeroed in on the fawn. “What happened?”
“His mom got hit by a car. Animal control came for her.”
Charlotte sighed. “Poor little guy.” She turned to Dante. “Hi.” She stuck out a hand. “My name’s Charlotte. I’m married to Elle’s younger brother, Tom.”
“Dante Nash,” he said and shook Charlotte’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Dante’s the new surgeon at Confidential Rejuvenations,” Elle explained. “He was with me when I found the fawn.”
“Oh really?” Charlotte got that matchmaking look in her eyes. Ever since she’d married Tom, Charlotte was relentless about trying to hook up her single friends and family members. She was still in the starry-eyed honeymoon phase, convinced that marriage was the solution to everyone’s problems. “So tell me, are you married, Dr. Nash?”
“I’m not.”
“No?” Charlotte glanced at Elle and wriggled her eyebrows suggestively.
“Dante was Mark’s best friend in college,” Elle said and sent Charlotte a look that said forget about fixing me up.
“Not best friends,” Dante corrected. “Mark and I were just roommates and football teammates.”
“There you go,” Charlotte said. “Clearly he knows Mark’s true colors if he’s not claiming him as a friend. Score one for Dante.”
“Char,” Elle said through gritted teeth. “This fawn is getting heavy.”
“Oh yeah, sorry. Right this way.” She led them to the back of the van where she opened up the double doors, and Elle settled the fawn down on the floor.
Dante stood behind Elle, silently watching the proceedings. Elle felt weird having him hang out with her, especially after what Charlotte had just said, and she wondered what on earth he must be thinking.
“I gave him some baby formula from the hospital nursery,” Elle said.
Charlotte looked up, a serious expression on her face, the matchmaking temporarily forgotten. “Good thing you found him when you did. If he’d been out in the cold overnight without his mom, I hate to think what would have happened. Either coyotes or bobcats would probably have gotten him. You saved his life, Elle.”
Warmth spread from the center of her heart outward in a sweet glow. Elle smiled and softly scratched the fawn behind one ear. She’d saved a life. Nothing made her feel happier than that.
“I’ll keep him at the office for a while, make sure he’s going to be okay and then we’ll take him to Dr. Levy’s sanctuary.” Dr. Levy was the vet Charlotte was training under and he had donated several hundred acres along the Colorado River as an animal sanctuary.
“Thanks. I knew you’d know what to do.”
Charlotte looked over at her assistant. “Hop in the back with the baby, Linda. I’ll drive.”
“Will do.”
Linda climbed inside the back of the van. Elle gave the little buck one last parting look and sighed wistfully as Charlotte shut the door.
“Elle’s going to make a great mother someday,” Charlotte said to Dante. “She’s so good with babies, whatever the species.”
“No doubt,” Dante said.
Elle sneaked a glance over at him, but she couldn’t read a thing from his impassive face.
Sorry for my matchmaking sister-in-law, she telegraphed him with her eyes.
He gave her an enigmatic smile and a slight shrug as if to say: Family, what are you going to do?
“Are you still planning on coming to the family softball tournament? It’s three weeks from Saturday,” Charlotte asked Elle. “Tom’s ordering this year’s jerseys and I need a head count.”
“As if I could skip out. Dad would never let me hear the end of it if I didn’t show.” Elle said. The first weekend in May the Kingstons staged an annual family reunion centered around a weekend-long softball tournament. It had been a family tradition long before Elle was born.
Charlotte tucked her fingers into the back pockets of her jeans and sized up Dante. “Why don’t you come, too?” she asked. “Our team is short a catcher since Mark divorced Elle. If you don’t come we’ll be forced to play Aunt Gertie.”
Mortified at her sister-in-law’s forwardness, Elle couldn’t bring herself to look at Dante. “Char, for heaven’s sake, let it be. Dante has no interest in playing softball with the Kingston clan.”
“Maybe not,” Char said. “But he might have interest in spending some time with you.”
Kill me now, Elle thought.
“Thank you for the invitation,” Dante said. “It sounds like a lot of fun, but I have to check and see if I’m scheduled to be on call that weekend.”
“Just know that we’d love to have you,” Charlotte said. “Aunt Gertie can’t catch to save her life.”
“We’ve gotta go now. Thanks for looking after the deer.” Elle said, and then lowered her voice so only Charlotte could hear her. “You are so dead.”
Her sister-in-law laughed. “You’ll thank me on your golden anniversary.”
“I gotta get back to work,” Elle said, turned on her heel and hurried back inside the hospital before her matchmaking sister-in-law found yet another way to embarrass her.
AFTER ELLE WENT BACK inside the hospital, Dante returned to the office to find Mark waiting for him.
Mark took one look at the damp, muddy suit that would have cost Dante half a month’s salary if he’d been the one to pay for it and shook his head. “Hell, man, what happened to you?”
“Got lost in the forest.”
“Huh? What were you doing in the woods?”
“Never mind.” Dante shook his head. “Where could I get a set of scrubs to change into?”
Mark shook his head. “No, no, we’re going to lunch in Austin with Covey and Butler. You can’t wear scrubs.” Mark eyed the width of Dante’s shoulders. “We’re still about the same size. You can wear one of my suits.”
“You keep extra suits at the office?”
“Don’t you?”
“You forget,” Dante said, following Mark into his office. “I’ve been working for a county hospital.”
That was the phony cover the FBI had provided for his résumé. And he’d worked at enough county hospitals as both an intern and resident that he knew they were as different from Confidential Rejuvenations as Park Avenue was from the streets of Baghdad.
Mark stepped to a mahogany wardrobe in the corner of his massive office and threw open the door. Inside were four suits, all much more expensive than the one Dante was wearing. “Long way from our UT dorm days, huh?”
“You’ve done very well, Mark.” Dante selected a navyblue suit from the wardrobe and looked over at his colleague. They’d shared a dorm room and the football field, but they hadn’t been the best of friends, mainly because Dante never let anyone get that close. Still, he couldn’t help feeling like something of a traitor.
If Mark’s involved in this mess, he’s going down. You have no reason to feel guilty.
No, he shouldn’t feel guilty, but lying didn’t come easily. “Thanks for the loaner,” he said. “I’ll go change.”
After returning to his office, Dante closed the blinds on his window before changing into the clean suit. As he reached for the string on the louvered blinds, he found his gaze drifting to the edge of the forest and his memory flashed back to Elle.
He thought about how she’d looked with her auburn hair curling up around her face in the rain. She really could have been a water nymph with her dewy skin, mischievous lips and womanly figure.
The setting hadn’t been sexual, but he’d gotten aroused. It had taken every bit of the self-control he possessed not to kiss her. When Dante had touched her hair, he’d come so damned close to falling into the abyss.
It scared him.
Not only because she was just as much a suspect as anyone else at Confidential Rejuvenations, but because she made him feel things he had no business feeling.
He wanted to take her to bed.
Bed? Hell, he’d wanted to take her right there on the forest floor.
And she’d looked at him as if she wouldn’t resist.
Then he thought about how tender she’d been with the baby deer. A true earth mother. That thought made him feel something else entirely. Longing, sadness and a bittersweet loneliness he hadn’t experienced since his mother had taken off when he was a kid.
He smiled, remembering about how flustered she’d gotten over her sister-in-law’s matchmaking attempts. Clearly Elle was still touchy on the subject of marriage, not that he could blame her. From all accounts, she’d been through a rough time with the divorce.
Dante shook off thoughts of Elle along with his muddy suit. He was a professional, an undercover FBI agent. These emotions could only trip him up. There were only two feelings he could afford to indulge in.
One was justice.
The other was revenge.
Elle Kingston was Mark’s Achilles’ heel. No one knew more about a man than his wife. And no one could flip faster than an ex-wife scorned. She was Dante’s route to Lawson’s downfall.
He knew then what he had to do. He must capitalize on the chemistry between them. Get closer to her. Find out exactly what secrets she was keeping about her exhusband. He would have to use her, manipulate her and then, in the end, he was going to have to walk away.
It was a dirty job.
But he’d been assigned to do it and Dante Nash never shirked his duty.
TWO DAYS AFTER ELLE’S strange encounter in the woods with Dante, she met her two best friends, Vanessa and Julie, at Stevie B’s, a popular blues bar down by the marina, not far from Confidential Rejuvenations. They met once a week, usually on hump day, to blow off steam and offer each other moral support. It was a weekly ritual Elle had come to rely on since her divorce. She had no idea how she would have made it through such a rough patch if it hadn’t been for her friends.
Elle was the last one to arrive. Vanessa and Julie were already sitting at a casual picnic style table in the back overlooking the Colorado River. Catamarans glided majestically through the water, the setting sun cast golden lights over the sails. It was early, the crowd was still light. The band wouldn’t start playing for another hour.
Vanessa and Julie weren’t watching the boats. Instead, they were engrossed in a game of “Sex or Dinner” and they hadn’t seen her come in.
“Jerry Seinfeld,” Julie said to Vanessa with a toss of her ash-blond hair.
Julie was one of those petite women who men seemed to instantly gravitate toward and want to take care of. Even dressed in the pink scrubs of the newborn nursery where she worked as a registered nurse, Julie looked incredibly feminine. She had a certain romantic naiveté about her that didn’t jive with the earthy, nononsense personality shared by the majority of nurses. If Julie weren’t so darned sweet, Elle would have been jealous of her.
“Strictly dinner,” Vanessa answered. “Jerry’s funny, but sexy he’s not. How about Colin Ferrell.”
“Seriously, you have to ask?” Julie blushed.
“I gotcha, chica.” Vanessa flashed a sly smile. “Sex all the way with that delicious Irishman.”
“Sex sounds fabulous,” Julie said, “but you know I’d be too shy to see it through. Good thing Colin is just the stuff of my midnight fantasies.”
“What about that cowboy sitting over there on the bar stool underneath the Coors sign?” Vanessa nodded at a lean-muscled, good-looking man in a Stetson at the end of the bar. “Sex or dinner?”
“Hmm,” Julie said. “This game makes me nervous when it leaves the realm of celebrity fantasies.”
“Please, you’ve been working at Confidential Rejuvenations long enough to know that celebrities are no different than the rest of us. They just think they are. I mean come on, Mark managed to snag Cassandra Roberts.”
“But Mark is rich and good-looking and a doctor.”
“So sex or dinner with Mark?”
Julie shuddered. “Neither. Besides the fact he’s Elle’s ex, there’s something about him that’s just…”
“Hi, guys,” Elle said, rushing to let her friends knowshe was standing there before they kept talking about Mark. She plunked down beside Julie and hooked her purse over the back of her chair. “I had to restock the crash cart before I leftwork.We had a code at the end of the shift.Ateenager.”
“Oh gosh, it’s especially awful when it’s a kid. Survivor?” Julie asked, nibbling her bottom lip.
Elle nodded and smiled triumphantly. It was always a good day when they saved a life. “We got her back.”
“That’s great news,” Vanessa said.
Because of patient confidentiality, Elle couldn’t discuss the case with her friends, although she longed to tell them what had happened and get their opinion on the odd turn of events. The daughter of a high-ranking local political official had collapsed at her private high school. The school had called an ambulance and they’d rushed her to the E.D., but by the time she rolled through the doors, she wasn’t breathing. A few seconds later, the girl had gone into full-blown cardiac arrest and they had to call a code.
One of the girl’s friends, who’d been escorted to the hospital by the police, had confessed that she’d taken a pill they’d bought the weekend before from some guy they’d met at a rave. The lab had drawn blood samples from the victim, but they’d been unable to detect any drugs in her system, so they’d sent the samples out for more rigorous testing at a specialized lab.
According to the victim’s friend, the pill was supposed to make you feel sexy and floaty and in love with everyone. It was a lot like Ecstasy, she’d said, only sexier.
“We ordered a pitcher of raspberry beer and chicken nachos for appetizers,” Vanessa said.
“Sounds great.” Elle slipped out of her cardigan. “Because of the code, I missed lunch. I’m starving.”
“So,” Vanessa asked her. “How’s your week been so far?”
Elle started to tell them about Dante, but what was there to tell? She was attracted to another man for the first time since her divorce. Big deal. It couldn’t go anywhere. “Nothing unusual.”
“That’s not what I heard.” Julie reached for the pitcher the waitress set on the table along with three frosted mugs and began pouring up the beer. She tilted the glass to keep too much foam from forming.
“What did you hear?” Vanessa leaned forward.
“I heard Elle went into the woods alone on Monday and she came out with a baby and a man.” Julie grinned impishly and slid a mug of beer in front of Elle.
“What?” Vanessa jerked her gaze from Julie to Elle, her dark Latina eyes flashing with interest.
“It was a baby deer.” Quickly, Elle explained how she’d come to find the fawn.
“What did you do with it?”
“Charlotte came and got it,” she said. “The vet she works for has an animal sanctuary. They say the fawn’s going to be fine.”
“Except that he’s an orphan,” Vanessa said gloomily. She’d had a difficult childhood and had the tendency to look on the dark side of life.
Elle studied her two friends who were so different, not only in looks but temperament, as well. Julie was the timid, tenderhearted romantic who saw the world through rose-colored glasses. Vanessa was the bold, sharp-witted cynic with a fiery temper.
And her?
Well, Elle was the center. Neither sweet nor tart. Neither too timid nor too daring. Tepid. Average. Nothing special. Elle supposed that was one reason they were all such good friends. They balanced each other out.
“So what about the guy?” Vanessa asked.
“What guy?” Elle evaded, even though she wasn’t really sure why she didn’t want to talk about Dante. Usually, she told Julie and Vanessa everything.
“The guy from the forest.”Vanessa took a sip of her beer and eyed Elle over the rim of her mug with an assessing stare.
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