Dr. Irresistible. Elizabeth Bevarly

been married for years. As if the two of them were irrevocably in love. As if the two of them were building a life together. As if the two of them had made a baby together.

      Oh, no. Oh, no, please. Not that. Anything but that.

      “I’m sorry,” he said, turning back to Hazel. “What was your name again? I seem to have stumbled into this conversation somewhere in the middle. I missed the beginning part. I gather you’re a friend of Prudence’s from high school?”

      Hazel nodded dumbly, numbly, as if she were still held in thrall by the golden, shining promise that was Seth Mahoney.

      “Well, how nice,” he said. “It’s always good to run into an old friend and relive those glory days.” He returned his attention to Pru, his back fully on Hazel now. And Pru could see by his expression that he knew exactly what Hazel had been pulling a moment ago, and it was his intention to bail Pru out. “Isn’t it, sweetheart?” he added. “Isn’t it fun to see people from high school that you honestly thought you would never, ever, see again for the rest of your natural life? Don’t you just love that?”

      His smile was absolutely devilish, and Pru couldn’t help but succumb to it, to him. Trying not to giggle, she smiled back. “Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “It’s something, all right. Honey,” she added belatedly, hoping she wasn’t slathering it on too thick.

      His expression told her that she probably was, but that he didn’t have a problem with it. And then, as if to illustrate that very thing, he bent and kissed her quickly again. Simply, briefly, chastely. Explosively, hotly, uproariously. Part of her really wished he would stop doing that. But another—perhaps even larger—part of her, wished he would never, ever stop.

      “So I guess this means you’ll be coming to the reunion with Prudence, then, won’t you?”

      As one, Pru and Dr. Mahoney turned to Hazel. But he was the one to ask, “What do you mean? What reunion?”

      Hazel uttered a soft sound of surprise. “Didn’t she tell you? Her ten-year high school reunion is next month. The invitations went out in January.”

      “I…I didn’t mention it…dear,” Pru quickly replied, “because I know how, uh…how busy March is going to be, and I…I just didn’t think I…that is, I didn’t think we…would be able to make it.”

      Oh, well done, Pru, she said, congratulating herself. My, but that had sounded convincing.

      “Oh, pooh,” Hazel said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s been ten years. You could clear one weekend for the reunion. Besides,” she hurriedly went on when Pru opened her mouth to object again, “considering the way you live now, you’d be crazy not to come to the reunion. Don’t you want to rub everybody’s nose in it about the ‘Most Irresponsible’ thing?”

      “‘The Most Irresponsible thing’?” Dr. Mahoney echoed, his interest quite clearly piqued on that score. His blue eyes fairly sparkled with mischief. “What’s ‘the Most Irresponsible thing’?”

      Pru opened her mouth to respond, but this time it was Hazel who cut her off.

      “You may not know this about your wife,” she said to Dr. Mahoney, “but she hasn’t always been the forthright, upstanding woman you made of her.”

      The blue eyes began to twinkle, Pru noticed. Twinkle. Of all things.

      “Do tell,” he said mildly.

      Of course Hazel was perfectly willing to do just that. “Oh, you can’t imagine some of the tight spots she found herself in when we were in high school.”

      “Tight?” he repeated. “Really? Such as…?”

      Once more Hazel shot that careless hand forward. “Oh, heavens. Where to begin.”

      “Don’t you have to make your rounds…sweetheart?” Pru asked impulsively, nudging the good doctor’s arm from her shoulder with a single, careless shrug. “Surely you have patients waiting for you.”

      “Oh, they don’t mind waiting a few minutes more,” he assured her. “Now then, Hazel, you were saying…? About tight…spots?”

      She dimpled prettily as she grinned at him. “Oh, it would take more than a few minutes to tell you all about Pru’s misadventures,” she said. “But to make a long story short, your wife was voted Most Irresponsible by the senior class of Easton High School ten years ago.”

      He gaped, feigning astonishment. At least, Pru could tell it was feigned. Hazel, however, seemed to be falling for it hook, line and sinker. “My Prudence?” he asked, splaying a hand open over his heart in disbelief. “Irresponsible? I don’t believe it for a moment. I’ve never met a woman with her act more together than hers is.”

      Somehow, Pru managed to swallow the burst of hysterical laughter that wanted to leap out of her throat.

      “She’s amazing, the way she’s organized our lives,” he said further. Then, turning to ooze his charm all over Pru, he added, “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

      Something about the way he said that, and something about the glint of undisguised hunger in his eyes, made that vrooming in her chest start up again, and this time it didn’t settle into idle. This time it just kept vrooming, as if very much in need of a new muffler. And Pru got hot all over again wondering just what, exactly, muffling would involve when it came to Seth Mahoney.

      “Well, then,” Hazel said, as if everything were settled. “What could be more responsible than the life you’re leading these days, Pru? Now you have to be at the reunion. Come show everybody up. Let them see how wrong they were about you. Come say ‘I told you so’ to everyone.”

      Unable to come up with a good excuse not to, Pru turned to her newly acquired husband, silently demanding a reply from him. He had, after all, gotten her into this. The least he could do was dig her out again. But instead of offering her an adequate excuse, or even backing up the lame one that she had supplied about being too busy, Dr. Mahoney smiled a dangerously cryptic smile.

      “Well, why the hell not?” he asked.

      “What?” she exclaimed.

      “Come on, Prudence, it’ll be fun.”

      “But…but…but…” she said. Unfortunately her brain refused to budge from that one, not particularly polite, word.

      “Oh, good,” Hazel said, clearly delighted to have something to liven up the reunion.

      Okay, this had gone far enough, Pru thought. No more fun and games, no matter how much Seth Mahoney seemed to be enjoying his little diversion. “Now wait a just minute,” she began.