The Seduction Challenge

Those cool blue eyes flickered to the car, his expression serious. ‘How many in the car?’

‘Two.’

‘Have you checked them?’

‘Briefly.’ Lucy responded without question to the authority in his voice. ‘They were both shouting and yelling so I thought that this man seemed more urgent.’

Dear God, she hoped she’d done the right thing. Her first aid was very rusty. What if the people in the car died because of her?

But this motorcyclist would definitely die if she moved her hands.

She swallowed. ‘This man has got a nasty laceration on his thigh and he’s bleeding from an artery. Oh, God, look…’ She stared helplessly at the pads under her fingers, which were already soaked through with blood. ‘What do we do?’

‘You keep pressing while I elevate the limb…’ The man wedged something under the injured leg and then briefly examined the young man with a skill and confidence that left her in no doubt as to his profession.

‘You’re a doctor,’ she mumbled with relief, and he gave her a brief smile.

‘For my sins.’ His gaze returned to the injured man. ‘This chap needs fluids urgently. How long ago did you call the ambulance?’

Lucy bit her lip. ‘About five minutes? We phoned immediately.’

‘They ought to use the helicopter,’ he muttered, shifting his position slightly. ‘Why don’t you check the couple in the car again?’ He glanced up at the young man, who was still hovering. ‘Can you take over here and press on the wound? That would leave us free to check on the others.’

Lucy opened her mouth to point out that the man had turned pale green at the sight of all the blood, but the doctor was already halfway through demonstrating the first aid for an arterial bleed, his tone brisk and matter-of-fact as he talked. His cool confidence seemed to have a positive effect on the driver and he was soon nodding agreement and preparing to take over from Lucy.

Relieved that someone who clearly knew what he was doing was now in charge, she swapped places with the other man and looked ruefully down at her hands.

‘There’s a water bottle on my bike.’ The blue eyed doctor had noticed her predicament and she smiled at him gratefully.

Seconds later she had cleaned up as best she could and was dealing with the people in the car.

The woman passenger had already dragged herself out through the sun roof and was sitting on the grass verge, blood trickling from a wound in her scalp. Judging that she was obviously not in immediate danger, Lucy turned her attentions to the driver.

After tugging at the door without success, she climbed onto the bonnet and talked to him through the sun roof.

‘Can you tell me where it hurts?’

The man groaned, his face chalk-white. ‘My legs.’

Lucy squinted down into the footwell, but the twisted metal stopped her seeing anything. ‘Can you wiggle your toes? Yes or no?’

‘Yes.’

Well, that was something, but there was still always the risk that he’d damaged his spine.

‘How are we doing here?’ The doctor was suddenly by her side, his gaze calm and appraising as he looked at her. How could he be so cool about the whole situation? Her insides were totally knotted.

‘His legs are trapped, but he’s got feeling,’ she told him, sliding off the bonnet and straightening her clothes quickly. ‘But I’m worried about his neck and I can’t get the door open. The passenger climbed out through the sun roof.’

‘We’ll deal with him first, then,’ the doctor murmured, taking a firm grip of the doorhandle and bracing his broad shoulders. ‘Let’s see what we can do about the door, shall we?’

Planting his foot on the car to give him extra leverage, he gave the door a powerful yank and it groaned open reluctantly. Noting the swell of muscle under his leathers, Lucy wondered how on earth she would have managed if he hadn’t come along. There was no way she could have opened that door.

Having sorted out the door, he squatted down beside the injured man, asked a few questions and then straightened up again.

Lucy looked at him anxiously. ‘Wh—what do you want me to do? Should we get him out?’

‘No way.’ The doctor shook his head decisively. ‘We need to immobilise his spine. We’ll leave him there until the ambulance arrives and we can get our hands on a spinal board.’

Lucy’s gaze skidded towards the car and she lowered her voice. ‘What if the car catches fire?’

His blue eyes gleamed slightly. ‘You’ve been watching too many movies. It does happen, of course, but very rarely, and the car seems OK in this case. We’ll keep an eye on it but I don’t want to move him until we can get some support on that neck. It’s the only part of him that’s really worrying me.’

Lucy wondered what it must be like to have so much self-confidence. He didn’t seem at all daunted by the emergency situation they were facing. He just assessed each problem as it came along and dealt with it.

He pulled back the sleeve of his jacket and glanced at his watch. ‘OK—well, we’ve done just about everything we can with limited equipment. What we need now is an ambulance.’

Looking at the grim set of his mouth, Lucy gave a little shiver and decided that she wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of him. There was no denying that he was staggeringly handsome, but there was something intimidating about the breadth of his muscular shoulders and the ruthless set of his dark jaw.

And then they both heard the clack, clack, clack of an approaching helicopter and he glanced towards her and gave her a wink and a smile that made her insides turn over. He had the sexiest smile she’d ever seen and suddenly the rhythm of her breathing was totally disrupted. When he smiled like that it softened his appearance and he no longer looked rough and aggressively male. Just plain handsome.

Lucy looked away from him, confused by her reaction to him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d noticed that a man was handsome.

Maybe it was a good sign.

Maybe she was slowly starting to recover from everything that had happened.

Strong fingers gripped her arm and held her firmly. ‘Stay well back while they land.’

She did as she was told, responding automatically to the cool authority in his tone. She had no intention of arguing with him. As far as she was concerned there’d been no question as to who’d been in charge from the moment he’d stepped off his motorbike.

Lucy watched in fascination as the helicopter hovered and the pilot landed with breathtaking skill. She’d heard about the air ambulance of course, but this was the first time she’d actually seen it in action.

Two paramedics ran from the helicopter and one of them grinned in surprise when he saw the doctor.

‘Joel? I thought we’d got rid of you, mate!’

‘So did I,’ the doctor replied, his tone dry, ‘but someone up there obviously thought differently. The motorcyclist needs a line in fast, Greg. Let’s get some Hartmann’s into him, and for goodness’ sake make it warm or we’ll kill him off. And grab a Hudson mask because he needs ninety percent oxygen. You’d better warn them to have three units of O-neg ready in A and E because he’s going to need blood. He’s our priority. We need to evacuate him before the occupants of the car.’

The paramedic called Greg nodded. ‘There’s an ambulance on its way—ETA three minutes. They can take the people from the car.’

‘Great. Let’s get to work, then.’

Lucy stood to one side, assuming that if he wanted her help he’d ask for it. He reeled off several other instructions and then strode off to deal with the motorcyclist while the second paramedic hurried up to her.

‘What’s the story with the guy in the car?’

‘It’s his neck, or at least that’s what he—Joel.’ She stumbled over the name. ‘Joel is worried about. He thinks it should be immobilised before he’s moved.’

The paramedic nodded. ‘Let’s do it then. I’ve never known Joel be wrong.’

So the self-confidence was justified.

Lucy glanced in the direction of the doctor, who was now on his knees beside the motorcyclist, squeezing fluid into him from an IV bag. ‘I can’t understand how he can be so cool. I was in a total panic before he turned up.’

The paramedic gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘So at a guess I’d say you’re not a trauma doctor. He is.’

A trauma doctor? Well, that would explain the unshakable self-confidence.

‘So that’s why he wasn’t fazed.’

The paramedic gave a short laugh as he handed her some equipment. ‘Never seen him fazed by anything, to be honest, but some people are just like that, aren’t they? We used to call him Joe Cool. One thing’s for sure. If I was ever in a pile-up and I saw him hovering over me I’d know I was going to be OK. He’s one hell of a clever doctor and a big loss, if you ask me.’

‘Loss?’ Lucy obediently held the equipment he gave her and waited to be given instructions.

‘Yeah. He was working with us until two weeks ago. Then he left for pastures new. Bloody waste. Best trauma doctor I’ve ever seen.’

‘So why did he leave?’

The paramedic shrugged. ‘He wanted a change. Fed up with being in the news, I suppose. Anyway, let’s get this guy out.’

In the news?

Why was the doctor in the news?

Lucy stared at the paramedic, who gave her a friendly grin and went back to the car.

Behind her she heard the helicopter taking off again and realised that the motorcyclist was already on his way to hospital.

Her eyes widened as she realised how quickly they must have worked.

The doctor sprinted back to the car and helped the paramedic stabilise the driver while Lucy checked on his passenger.

A fire engine and an ambulance arrived and suddenly there were people everywhere. In no time at all the man was freed and he and his companion were on their way to hospital.

Suddenly Lucy found herself alone with the blue-eyed doctor.

‘Well, that livened up the lunch-hour,’ he drawled as they watched the ambulance race away, siren blaring.

Lucy gave a rueful smile and pushed a thick strand of dark hair out of her eyes with trembling fingers. Now that it was all over she felt slightly sick.

In fact, she felt dizzy.

The doctor must have noticed because he frowned suddenly. ‘Are you OK? Damn, you’re white as a sheet. Sit down fast—that’s it. Head down.’

He pushed her down onto the grassy bank and guided her head between her knees with a strong hand. She took several deep breaths and waited for the swimmy feeling to pass.

‘Sorry.’ She lifted her head and gave him an embarrassed look. ‘I don’t—’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said softly, his hand still lingering on the back of her neck. ‘It’s the shock. You’re all right while it’s happening, and then when the crisis has passed it hits you. It happens to everyone.’

She was willing to bet that it had never happened to him, but she was grateful to him for trying to make her feel better.

She gave him a shaky smile, relieved that he’d forced her to sit down. She didn’t think her legs were capable of holding her.

‘I’m not used to dealing with emergencies by the roadside,’ she confessed, her breath clouding the frozen air. ‘I felt totally helpless. I hope I didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve never panicked so much in my life. I just didn’t know who to deal with first, and my first aid is so—’

‘You did a good job,’ he said, interrupting her gently, his eyes sharply observant as they scanned her pale features.

Shy and uncomfortable under his scrutiny, she dipped her head and her dark hair tumbled forward over her face. ‘Well, I’m a nurse,’ she muttered, and the man threw back his head and laughed. A rich, masculine sound that made her stomach flip over.

‘I suspected that from the glimpse of your uniform under your coat and the inexhaustible supply of sterile dressing pads.’ He chuckled, his eyes dancing. ‘Either that or you’re a stripogram, but I assumed it was a bit early in the day for that.’

Lucy smiled hesitantly, unused to exchanging banter with strange men, but his answering smile was so warm and compelling that she started to relax.

‘I’m really glad that you came along when you did,’ she confessed. ‘It was definitely my lucky day.’

His smile faded and his gaze was suddenly disturbingly intense. ‘I’m starting to think it was my lucky day, too,’ he said softly, and she felt hot colour flood into her cheeks.

Was he flirting with her?

It had been so long since anyone had flirted with her that she didn’t have a clue how to respond, and she scrambled unsteadily to her feet, feeling gauche and ridiculously shy.

‘I’d better go.’

She had to. She had to get away from the way he was looking at her.

He rose to his feet with the easy grace of a jungle predator and strolled with her back to her car, pausing to scoop up his discarded helmet on the way. One sideways glance confirmed just how incredibly good-looking he was and she almost laughed at herself.

Any other woman would have taken advantage of the situation and made witty conversation, but faced with all that raw masculinity all she wanted to do was run a mile.

He paused by the car and his eyes rested on her face. ‘You know, you shouldn’t worry. You did incredibly well back there.’ His voice was deep and cultured. ‘And you didn’t drag off his helmet, which is what most people would have done. What sort of a nurse are you?’

Lucy blushed awkwardly, thinking that his voice matched his looks. ‘Just a practice nurse.’

‘Just?’ His dark brows rose and his mouth tilted slightly at the corners. ‘Must be a pretty lucky practice if those skills you just showed are anything to go by.’

‘I—well, thanks…’ Lucy had never felt so tongue-tied in her life. It had been fine when they’d been working together, but now she was suddenly aware that they were alone and the way he was looking at her unnerved her. Not as a doctor surveying a colleague but as a man looking at a woman. And what a man…

His easy assurance made her feel awkward and out of her depth, and the strength of her reaction to him shocked her.

Tim had been her first and only boyfriend and she couldn’t remember a time when he’d been intimidating. Far from it. In many ways Tim had always been the boy she’d grown up with. Familiar and comfortable.

But there was nothing familiar and comfortable about the man watching her now. Nothing remotely boyish. He was every inch a man, and his arrogant stance and the confident way he surveyed her brought her flesh out in tiny goose-bumps.

Catching the gleam in his wicked, sexy eyes, she knew instinctively that he was aware of the effect he was having on her.

‘I’ll wait here for the police,’ he suggested, tucking his helmet under one arm and trapping her gaze with his. ‘Perhaps you ought to leave me your details if you’re thinking of dashing off.’

Her eyes widened and her heart leapt into her mouth. ‘Why?’

His smile was slow and lazy. ‘So that I can call you up and pester you, of course.’

‘Oh…’ His directness took her breath away and his smile widened.

‘Alternatively, I could give it to the police, who are bound to want a statement.’

Flustered, she lifted a hand and scraped her dark hair out of her eyes. ‘The police…’

For a moment she’d seriously thought he’d been asking her out.

He was laughing at her now, but there was warmth and something else in his gaze.

‘You look about fourteen when you blush.’

She felt about fourteen.

‘So come on, gorgeous,’ he said easily, ‘tell me all. Name, rank and serial number.’

Gorgeous?

No one had ever called her gorgeous before.

She opened her mouth but no sound came out.

‘Look, it’s easy. Just copy me.’ He folded his arms across his broad chest, his eyes teasing her gently. ‘I’m Joel. I’m thirty-three years old, I’m single and when I grow up I want to be a doctor. I love people and animals and what I most want is world peace. There. How hard was that? Now it’s your turn.’

What should she say?

Hi, I’m Lucy and I used to be married, but I’m not any more because my husband was a total rat and he broke my heart.

Maybe not.

‘Come on, let’s introduce ourselves.’ His tone was persuasive and he stuck out his hand. She stared at it for a moment and then stretched out her own, immediately regretting the impulse as his warm, strong fingers closed over hers. His grip was as confident and powerful as the man himself, and she felt a flutter of panic. She couldn’t tell him her name. Acknowledging that he was exceptionally good-looking was one thing, but handing out names and phone numbers was completely different. It might lead to something she wasn’t ready to handle.

She might not have had much experience with men in her life, but she could see at a glance that he was way out of her league.

Jerking her hand away, she stooped to pick up her bag.

‘I’d better be going. The time of the accident was 12.30. That’s all I know. I didn’t see anything at all. Nothing. So I’d be no use to the police.’ Gabbling in her haste to get away from him, she fumbled in her pocket for her car keys, but his strong fingers closed over her arm, holding her trapped.

‘Slow down.’ His voice was incredibly gentle. ‘Why are you running away from me?’

Her breath was coming in gasps. ‘I’m not running.’

‘Liar.’

‘—I’m going to be late,’ she stammered, finally retrieving the keys and freeing herself from his grasp.

He reached out a hand and took the keys from her, unlocking the car and opening the door so that she could slip inside.

‘So why the big secret?’

She glanced at him warily. ‘Secret?’

A smile touched his mouth. A slow, sexy smile that made her heart stop and her breath catch in her throat.

‘Go on, give me a clue.’ Joel’s voice teased her senses. ‘Just the first letter? E for Esmerelda? L for Lucretia?’

‘L for Lucy.’ The minute she’d said it she could have bitten her tongue off. She’d had no intention of telling him, but the way he was looking at her made her feel—made her feel…

‘Lucy…’ He repeated her name slowly and thoughtfully, not even pretending to disguise his blatant interest in her. He wanted her and he wasn’t afraid to show it.

For one fleeting moment she wondered what it would be like to go out with a man like him and then she dismissed the thought quickly. It would be scary. There would be nothing safe or tame about him. He was one hundred per cent hot-blooded male and she had absolutely no experience of men like him. The strength of attraction between them was so powerful it warmed the freezing air around them.

‘May I have my keys?’ She reached out a hand, her cheeks burning as he held her gaze steadily for several seconds more before slowly handing them over.

‘Look…’ He hesitated, clearly searching for the right words. ‘I can see I’ve made you nervous, and I know that this isn’t exactly a conventional place to meet, but I’d really like to see you again.’

She felt as though someone had squeezed all the breath from her body. ‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’ He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Don’t you believe in love at first sight?’

She looked at him, and her smile was filled with sadness and all the pain of the last twelve months.

‘I don’t believe in love at all,’ she said quietly, turning the key in the ignition and driving away from him before her hormones made her do something she knew she’d regret.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS her.

The nurse from the car accident.

Completely amazed by his good fortune, Joel stopped dead in the doorway of the waiting room. Without the covering of her thick wool coat he was able to get a good look at her, and he ran an appreciative eye over her long legs, her ridiculously slim waist and her incredible curves.

She was the sexiest woman he’d ever seen.

His eyes narrowed and his insides clenched as he watched her face, noting the huge green eyes and the soft pink mouth. She was completely and utterly feminine and every male bone in his body reacted to her.

As he watched, she bent down to retrieve a toy from the floor and he had to stop himself groaning aloud.

She had a bottom straight out of a bad boy’s dreams. A perfect, rounded curve. He’d never been able to understand why women thought thin was attractive. Personally, he hated thin. As far as he was concerned, a woman was meant to have curves. And, boy, did this one have curves…

He remembered her wistful comment about not believing in love and wondered what had happened to make her look so sad and vulnerable. After she’d made that announcement he’d let her go, all his experience with women telling him that it would be a mistake to persist.

But he’d had every intention of seeing her again.

All the way to the surgery he’d been racking his brains for a way of tracking her down, but now here she was, in his father’s waiting room. He couldn’t believe his luck.

He was about to throw a lifetime of commitment phobia to the wind and propose to her on the spot when he heard his name.

‘Dr Whittaker. Dr Whittaker!’

He blinked, shook himself and reluctantly dragged his eyes away from Lucy, focusing instead on the woman smiling up at him.

‘Er—hello, Ros.’ He bent to kiss her cheek, genuinely fond of the woman who had been his father’s receptionist since he was a child. ‘You look gorgeous. Nice jumper.’

He always noticed what women wore. In fact he always noticed women, full stop.

Especially when they looked like Lucy.

‘Go on with you!’ The receptionist blushed and lifted a hand to her hair, visibly flustered by his attention. ‘You’re late, Dr Whittaker. Your father and brothers were expecting you this morning.’

‘Something came up.’ Joel gave her a saucy wink, knowing that she’d think the worst of him, because people always did and it amused him to wind them up.

With a last regretful glance towards the nurse with the curves, who still hadn’t noticed him, he followed Ros through the waiting room, along the corridor that ran past the consulting rooms and up the stairs to the staff sitting room.

‘I saw you on the television, Dr Whittaker.’ Ros grabbed the handrail, slightly out of breath as she negotiated the stairs. ‘In fact, I have to admit I didn’t miss a single episode of Helicopter Doctor. You were fantastic. So cool and calm and wonderfully in charge of every crisis. I could hardly believe I once changed your nappy.’

‘Thanks for that reminder, Ros.’ Joel’s tone was dry but his eyes gleamed with humour. ‘Just as long as you don’t sell any photos of me in the buff to the press…’

Ros laughed. ‘What was it like, trying to work with a camera on you all the time?’

‘Actually, I hardly noticed them,’ Joel said truthfully. ‘I just got on with the job and they hovered in the background. When you’ve got a patient lying in pieces after a road accident you don’t exactly care who’s watching.’

‘But now you’re giving it all up to be a GP. Do you think you’ll miss all the drama?’ Ros paused at the top of the stairs and Joel gave a careless shrug.

‘I don’t think so. Six months with the air ambulance was long enough, really. I’m ready to join the family firm.’

Particularly now he’d seen the nurse that his father had employed.

The job was looking up by the minute.

Ros smiled. ‘It’s your father’s dream, you know. All three of his sons in practice with him.’

‘Yeah, I know. We spoil him.’ Joel gave her a friendly wink and then went ahead of her and pushed open the door of the staffroom.

His father and older brother had practised in an old converted house until four years before, when they’d moved into this purpose-built, architect-designed medical centre built around an impressive glass atrium, which allowed plenty of light into the building. His father, who believed in the importance of pleasant working conditions, had also insisted on a spacious, well-equipped staffroom which had stunning views over the Cornish coastline.