Sizzling Nights With Dr Off-Limits

“Hi,” the six-year-old answered, staring at him with big brown eyes that filled with uncertainty and a lack of trust.

No doubt over the past few months she’d been poked and prodded, tested and treated repeatedly to where she felt on constant guard long before his being asked to consult on her case by Dr. Edwards.

“What’re you doing there?” He gestured to the puzzle she worked on.

She resumed scanning the puzzle pieces. “My mom says I need to do more puzzles. That it will keep my brain sharp.”

“Your mom is a smart lady.” He sat down at the table next to her. “Can I help?”

She shrugged. “If you want to. I’m not sure all the pieces are here. It’s just a puzzle I found here, but it wasn’t put together when I started.”

Here being in the hospital playroom. A large room equipped with kid-sized tables, video game stations, toy centers and table activity centers.

He sat at the table, seeming to search for a place to fit the puzzle piece he’d picked up. In reality, he studied Cassie, watching her movements, her facial expressions, how she moved her hands, her body. How she grimaced repeatedly when she tried to focus on what she was doing, how she squinted her eyes and had a slight tremor to her movements.

“Does your head hurt, Cassie?” The answer seemed obvious, but sometimes asking a child an obvious question, even one he already knew the answer to, could help break the ice. He wanted Cassie to trust him.

“Yes, but sometimes not too bad.”

Her headaches were the first symptom that had clued her parents in to the fact that something wasn’t right with their little girl. Never had they imagined they’d be told she had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball. Fortunately, Cassie’s tumor wasn’t cancerous, but, due to the size and the fact it was growing, she’d begun to have more and more problems. Visual changes, hearing changes, speech changes, motor-skill changes. She’d started falling for no reason other than poor balance. Because the mass was taking over vital brain tissue and causing increased pressure in her head.

Although it would be tricky due to where it was located within the brain and the amount of tissue it encompassed, Cassie needed surgical excision of the mass.

Lucas was the doctor who was going to perform the surgery.

“Are you going to take my blood?”

At the child’s suspicious question, he shook his head. “No, I’m not here to take your blood, Cassie.”

“I don’t kick and scream,” she told him, not looking up from her puzzle. “I used to, but I don’t anymore.”

“That’s good to know, but I’m not going to take blood.”

She cast him a dubious glance. “What are you going to do?”

“Right now? Help you put this puzzle together and talk about your headaches.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes it feels like my head wants to blow up.”

No doubt.

“I’m a pediatric neurosurgeon. My job is to make your head stop hurting.”

The child looked up and squinted at him. “Can you do that?”

He nodded. “I’ve consulted with the neurologist you’ve been seeing, looked over your imaging tests. It’s not going to be easy, but, yes, I believe I can make your headaches go away.”

The child glanced toward her mother, who was sitting in a rocking chair watching their interaction. Looking tearful and tired, the woman nodded.

“I’d like my headaches to go away,” the girl said.

“Me, too.” He told the truth. Unfortunately, a lot of his cases weren’t things he could correct or effectively treat. Once he removed the tumor, Cassie should get great relief.

Of course, nothing about brain surgery was ever that easy.

With removal of her tumor came a lot of risk. A lot of worry about what type of residual effects she’d have from his having removed a portion of her brain. Her tumor wasn’t small and hadn’t responded to the chemotherapy meant to shrink it. There was a chance Cassie would be permanently brain damaged after the surgery, that she wouldn’t be able to do the things she currently did.

There was an even bigger chance that, at the rate her tumor was growing, the mass would take over her good tissue and cause more and more damage and eventually death.

Those were things he’d discussed with her parents in private already. They’d wanted to schedule surgery as soon as possible. He’d wanted to meet Cassie, to interact with her and to do a consult with a trusted pediatric neurosurgeon colleague to be sure he agreed with how Lucas intended to proceed with Cassie’s care and predicted outcome.

He popped a puzzle piece into place. “Let’s see if we can get this thing figured out.”

She nodded and handed him another puzzle piece.

* * *

Emily stopped short when she entered the hospital playroom and saw Lucas sitting in one of the small chairs at a table where Cassie Bellows worked on a puzzle.

Emily took all her patients to heart. Cassie was no exception. Emily had instantly felt a connection to the little girl and her parents.

Especially Cassie’s mother. Maybe because the woman was the same age as Emily. Maybe because of the gentle spirit she sensed within Cassie.

She’d known Lucas had been consulted on the case, knew that he’d likely do surgery on the child.

What she hadn’t known or expected was to walk into the playroom and see a highly skilled pediatric neurosurgeon sitting at a child’s table helping his patient put a puzzle together.

She’d worked in this department for years and that was one sight that had never before greeted her. If someone had told her she would see that, never would she have believed that neurosurgeon would be Lucas.

Lucas might have gone into pediatrics, but he’d given her the distinct impression during their marriage that he didn’t like kids. Too bad he hadn’t let her know that before...before... She sank her teeth into her lower lip.

He laughed at something the child said, then popped a puzzle piece into place, earning a “Good job” from Cassie. The girl studied the connected pieces and quickly found another fit.

Lucas high-fived her, compensating when the little girl’s movements were off from a sure smack of their hands.

Old dreams rattled inside Emily’s chest and her eyes watered. A metallic tang warned she’d mutilated her lower lip.

Darn him. She didn’t want to see him being nice. How was she supposed to keep him behind those “bad guy” walls she’d spent years erecting if he went around acting like a good guy?

It was an act. Had to be. He didn’t even like or want kids. Not that he’d ever said he didn’t like kids, but he’d reacted so poorly when she’d told him she wanted to have a baby. He had said point-blank he didn’t want children and for her to stop talking about it. If only she could have. By that point, he had taken anything she said to him the wrong way, and she’d quit talking to him. Talking had led to crying and crying to arguing and arguing had led to more and more distance between them.

Currently, distance between them was what she desperately needed.

Having him at Children’s was pure torture. Every time she saw him, she was taken to the past. She just wanted to forget the past. All of it.

Especially the end and the heart-wrenching events that had followed the night she’d left Lucas.

If only she could forget.

Why was he putting a puzzle together with Cassie? He didn’t have to interact with the child. All he had to do was examine her, talk to her parents, get surgical releases signed and then do brain surgery. No. Big. Deal.

No interaction required.

He needed to stick with the program of how he was supposed to behave.

Instead, he played with the little girl while her mother watched them as if he were a superhero. If Lucas cured Cassie with minimal negative effects of removing the tumor, she supposed Mrs. Bellows would find her views justified.

Emily knew better. He wasn’t a superhero, he was...

She stopped.

He was an ex-husband who was apparently a phenomenal pediatric neurosurgeon, and perhaps even a nice guy to his patients if the vision before her could be believed.

Which she still didn’t quite buy.

But Lucas was right about one thing.

If she was going to stay at Children’s, she had to let go of the personal. She couldn’t let patients like Cassie and her parents pick up on her animosity toward Lucas.

What if she caused them to doubt him? What if her feelings toward him somehow influenced a patient in a negative way and delayed or prevented needed care?

She’d told him she was a professional. She was. But even professionals could have broken hearts blinding them from time to time.

She couldn’t allow her personal biases about Lucas to bleed over to her patient care in any way. Not and remain proud of the type of nurse she was.

She’d not seen him since Saturday night at the fund-raiser. She’d managed to slip back into the ballroom and convince Richard she’d developed a headache and would like to go home. He’d looked relieved.

The headache had served as reason to send him home, as well. That hadn’t left him looking relieved. Quite the opposite.

He’d acted as if he suddenly wanted to stake his claim.

Perhaps she should have let him stay.

She cared about him, had been thinking they’d have a nice life together. He never made her cry.

But that night she hadn’t even been able to tolerate the idea of Richard kissing her. Nor had she been able to stomach the idea of him kissing her since.

She wasn’t sure she’d ever want him to again, because just-okay-ever-after might not be good enough, after all.

Darn Lucas and the turmoil he’d caused. Saturday night and last night she’d dreamed about him, dreamed about the past. Not the tears or fights, but about the one part of their relationship that had been magical.

Sex.

She’d had no previous experience and sex had never been as mind-blowing since. How good things had been between them could only be credited to his skills. He’d made her feel amazing, loved, completely over the moon and satiated.

One touch of his hand had made her squirm with desire. One kiss from his lips had made her need him with a ferocity that had never failed to surprise her. One time with him and she’d been hooked like an addict with a potent new fix.

He’d been her drug.

Only, not long after their marriage, he’d bored of sex with her. Had he actually cheated on her?

She didn’t think so.

Despite their flawed marriage, she didn’t think he’d taken their vows that lightly. He’d told her to leave before he’d gone that far. Maybe she was being naive, but she truly didn’t think he had.

In the days since their divorce, she didn’t fool herself that he’d been abstinent. He’d enjoyed sex too much for that.

Darn him that just seeing him sitting and playing with a child had somehow morphed into thinking about sex. She wouldn’t be having sex with Lucas. Not ever again.

Which was a shame in some ways, because he’d certainly made her feel things physically she’d not felt since. Richard really wasn’t the guy for her. She needed to look for someone else, someone who wanted the same things out of life that she did, but was also good at sex.

Did such a mythical creature exist? So far her experience had been one or the other, but never the twain had met. She’d thought so with Lucas, but everything had fallen apart and left her devastated. So much for young love.

“You want to help with our puzzle?”

Emily blinked. Darn. He’d caught her staring at him and no wonder with how long she’d stood watching him, reminiscing about the past. Oh, yeah, Lucas being at Children’s was affecting her professionalism, and she hated it.

“Sorry.” Sorry she’d gotten caught. Sorry her cheeks were on fire. Sorry her mind had wandered. Sorry she couldn’t be immune to him. Sorry her body flushed when he was looking at her as if he somehow knew what she’d been thinking. “I need to check on Cassie. She’s due a vitals check.”

The child looked at her suspiciously. “Are you going to take my blood?”

Focusing on her patient and doing her best to ignore the man watching her, Emily shook her head, hating that this was always the first question Cassie asked. Poor kid. “No. I’m going to take your temperature, your blood pressure, your heart rate, your oxygen saturation. Those kinds of things. But no needles.”

Cassie digested her answer, then lifted her little chin bravely. “I don’t cry anymore when my blood is drawn.”

“That’s a very big girl,” Emily praised, wanting to wrap her arms around the child. “But it’s okay to cry sometimes.”

Cassie blinked. “Do you ever cry?”

She’d cried an ocean’s worth of tears over the man sitting across the table from Cassie. Until Saturday night after she’d returned home from the TBI fund-raiser, she’d not cried in a long time.

She’d watered up on the anniversary of the day she’d left, but even then she’d managed to choke back the tears and keep herself distracted from the grief she knew she’d carry to the grave.

Unfortunately, a few days later, she’d broken down and cried bucketfuls. That had been the last day she’d cried. Maybe she’d always cry on that particular date. Oh, how much she’d lost.

“I used to cry a lot,” she answered honestly. Lucas had hated her tears, had begged her not to cry, but usually that had left her only more tearful. “But I rarely cry these days.”

Just when her ex-husband showed up and rocked her world by saying he wanted to be her friend. Right.

Lucas’s gaze was intense, so much so it bore into her. She ignored him. Let him think what he wanted. She’d wondered if hormones had played into her constant tears, but perhaps Lucas had been the real cause.

“These days, what makes you cry, Emily?” Lucas asked, his fingers toying with the puzzle piece he held. Did he know she’d cried Saturday night? Did he want her to admit how much he’d affected her? Truly, he triggered strong emotions whether they were of happiness or sadness.

“Sad movies,” she answered flippantly. No way was she getting into a discussion about what brought on her tears.

“Me, too,” Cassie piped up and began to talk about a movie where a dog had died and she’d cried.

While Lucas watched, Emily removed the thermometer from the supply tray she carried. She took the girl’s temp across her forehead, took her blood pressure, clipped the pulse oximeter over the child’s finger and completed her vitals check.

Then she took her stethoscope and listened to the girl’s heart and lung sounds and jotted them down on a notepad she kept in her pocket. She’d record them into the computer electronic medical record when she returned to the nurses’ station.

“Is there anything you need, Cassie?” she asked.

Wincing a little, the little girl shook her head. “Just to finish this puzzle.”

Emily glanced down at the three-fourths completed puzzle. “Looks like you’re making good headway.”

“Dr. Cain is helping.”

“I’m not much help,” Lucas quickly inserted. “Cassie is the puzzle master. I’m just riding on her coattails.”

Emily’s throat tightened. She didn’t attempt to speak. Why bother? There was nothing to say even if he was kind to a child.

She fought to keep from frowning. Professionalism, she reminded herself. Professionalism.

Ugh. She had to get him out of her head.

Which had been a lot easier when he’d been out of her sight. Now that he was working at Children’s, she was going to have to learn a new strategy to keep Lucas from ruining her hard-earned peace.

Work. She’d focus on work.

She turned to Cassie’s mother, smiled. “Anything I can get for you, Mrs. Bellows?”

The woman shook her head and thanked Emily anyway.

Without a word to Lucas, she headed out of the room. Lucas joined her in the hallway seconds later.

“I’m sorry.”

That made three apologies. Seemed Lucas’s vocabulary had definitely expanded over the past five years.

“For?” she asked, not sure what it was that had him saying a word he used to be unable, or unwilling, to say.

“Saturday night.”

Her heart raced within her chest, using her lungs for punching bags and leaving her breathy. “There were so many things you should be sorry for about Saturday night. Enlighten me as to which you refer specifically.”

“All of it.”

She ordered her hands not to shake and her feet not to trip over each other. “All of it?”

“Well, not the buying your date part,” he amended, flashing a good imitation of a repentant smile. “I’d like to take you to dinner, Emily.”

He wanted to take her to dinner. Flashbacks of the past hit again. He’d pursued her hot and heavy, had asked her out repeatedly until she’d said yes. Not that she’d not wanted to say yes to the handsome doctor, but she’d planned not to fall into the trap of dating the doctors she worked with. Ha. That hadn’t turned out so well.

“Perhaps you misunderstood how the date works,” she said, just because he waited for a response. “Part of what you won is that I am supposed to provide you with a meal.”

“I’d rather provide you with a meal, but beggars can’t be choosers. Would tomorrow night work?”

Beggars couldn’t be choosers? What did he mean by that? Whether or not she agreed to coexist with him really didn’t matter a hill of beans in his achieving his career goals. He had to know that. She frowned. “Maybe we should just make the ‘date’ a lunch one.”

He shook his head. “I work through lunch most days and just grab a few bites of something when I can.”

So did she, most days.

“Okay, fine. Tomorrow night,” she agreed for the sole reason that the sooner she had her “date” with him, the sooner she had that behind her and wouldn’t have it hanging over her head like an executioner’s ax.

“Really?”

Why did he look so surprised? Then again, he didn’t know she’d gone to the TBI fund-raiser chairman and requested to purchase her date and void her obligation to Lucas. The woman had denied her request with a laugh that said she thought Emily was silly for even asking.

“Let’s get this over with.”

His smile made his eyes twinkle. “What time can I pick you up?”

She did not want to be seen with him in public, but she supposed most of her friends already knew he’d bought her date. Several of them had asked how it felt to be bought by the hospital’s hot new doctor. Ugh.

“I’ll meet you at Stluka’s.” She told him the address of the bar and grill that was not too far from her apartment.

“Sounds great.” He smiled and Emily’s brain turned to mush. Pure mush. Lord, help her. She didn’t want his smile affecting her, didn’t want him to smile and her nerve endings to electrify with old memories.

That was all that was causing the zings through her. Old memories and not that he was knocking down bits and pieces of the protective wall she’d erected between them.

Maybe she was being too hard on herself. Lucas was a beautiful man with gorgeous eyes and a quick smile. Plus, she knew what those long fingers, that lush mouth, his hard body, were capable of. She knew.

Darn. She needed Lucas repellent. Or Lucas resistant spray. Or something. Anything to give her the power not to respond to his utter maleness.

She didn’t want to respond to him.

He represented the worst time of her life.

He represented the best time of her life, a little voice reminded. Only, that time of joy had been short-lived and she’d spent years recovering from the aftermath.

CHAPTER FOUR

EMILY ARRIVED AT Stluka’s right on the dot of seven. Although she’d been ready and nervously pacing across her tiny apartment for the past hour, she’d refused to arrive early. She would not have Lucas thinking she’d been eager to spend time with him.

She wasn’t.

She just wanted this over. Which didn’t really explain why she had a nervous jittery feel in her stomach. Maybe that was normal when dining with one’s ex-husband.

The perky blonde hostess greeted her with a huge smile and welcomed her to Stluka’s. “Are you meeting someone or just want to hang at the bar?”

At that moment, a man stood from a bar stool, turned, met her gaze.

“I’m meeting someone. He’s already here.”

The girl followed Emily’s gaze and gave an impressed look. “Lucky you.”

Lucas joined her, but Emily wasn’t sure if he overheard the girl’s comment. If so, he didn’t acknowledge her admiration.

“We’re ready for our table,” he told the hostess.

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