“I haven’t seen you here before.”
“I usually go straight home after work.”
“Where’s work?”
“The hospital in Whitehorn. I’m also on staff at the clinic here in Rumor.”
“Nurse?”
“Third-year resident.”
His eyebrows rose. “No wonder you’re tired after work. I’ve seen ER, it looks exhausting.”
The warmth of her genuine laugh wound its way around his heart. He definitely liked making her laugh.
“It’s not quite that exciting,” she denied. “We’re a small town, you know.”
“Just the same, you see all the interesting cases.”
“Well, some.” She shrugged. “I’m an ob-gyn.”
Dev laughed aloud. “I’m not going to comment.”
“Thank you. I’ve heard them all.”
Her body relaxed even more after their introductions, and within moments, she was leaning into him, her soft curves pressed against the planes of his chest and hips; she fitted there as if she was made for him. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. What had he ever done to deserve this?
After another slow dance, he asked, “Would you like to get a fresh drink and talk for a while?”
To his delight, she agreed. Her friends smiled and waved with waggling eyebrows when he led her to a booth along the back, where the music wasn’t so loud and the lighting was more intimate.
Ignoring them, Brynna tasted the drink the waitress sat on a napkin before her. She’d worked up a thirst. If someone had told her this morning that she’d be dancing with a handsome cowboy, let alone letting him buy her drinks, she’d have ordered them a psych exam. She was the most sensible, least impulsive person on the planet. She never did anything like this.
But it had been a harrowing day at the hospital. She’d lost a mother with leukemia she’d been trying desperately to save. In order to protect her unborn child, the young woman had refused the chemotherapy she needed, so there had been little Brynna could do, except turn her over to the oncology team once the baby was safely delivered.
Even now, thinking about Heidi Price, regret washed over her. The sound of pool balls clacking together and muted cheers came from a side room, and she couldn’t help thinking how odd it always seemed that lives went on unaffected when others were experiencing tragedies.
As though sensing the shift in her mood, Dev asked softly, “Something wrong?”
She drew a circle in the condensation her glass had left on the table and spoke the difficult words. “I lost a patient today.”
“That must be tough.”
Brynna agreed. “She was twenty-four. Had leukemia, but refused treatment because of her baby.”
“I guess there wasn’t much you could do.”
“It was frustrating.”
“What about the baby?”
Gauging his sincerity, she gazed into his eyes. His earnest tone and concerned expression showed he really cared. “She’s four weeks early, but doing just fine.”
“That’s good.”
His compassion touched her, and Brynna nodded. “I had to tell her husband that his wife didn’t make it.”
He studied her for a moment. “How do you do that?”
“Well…I’ve never had to do it before. I was taught to explain the facts. Answer the questions. But then you see the pain…the grief…and….” Brynna’s throat tightened with the words and the remembrance. She had felt like crying all afternoon, but she hadn’t allowed herself to let go. She was a professional.
“And what?” Dev asked, urging her to go on.
This man not only had her examining her inner feelings, but sharing them. She found herself saying things she didn’t share with anyone else. “I don’t know how to detach and be merely the doctor and not a caring person,” she admitted. “You are a caring person, or you probably wouldn’t be a doctor. The two aren’t separate, are they?”
With a lump in her throat, she shook her head.
His hand covered hers then, warm tactile comfort that sent an enticing shiver up her arm. Without conscious thought, Brynna turned over her hand and laced her fingers through his, their palms touching. His tanned hand was large, with long fingers and calluses she felt against her palm—so different from her own—so entirely masculine. It was an intimate touch. A sexy, familiar touch that set off a battery of butterflies in her chest and made her wonder how his hand would feel on other parts of her body.
She should have been ashamed of her thoughts, but the sensual contact released a deeply buried longing—a longing for something more than years of school and work and self-denial. His touch brought her single status sharply into focus.
Face warming uncomfortably, she glanced up to notice his thick blond hair with a ridge where his hat had been and his crescent-shaped eyebrows. Both hair and brows were bleached from the sun. He was strikingly handsome, but there was something even more attractive about him than those intriguing eyes and sexy mouth. The way he looked at her made her think of wet lingering kisses and the slide of bare skin.
The words to a song about slow hands registered in the background. A burning warmth that had begun in her chest flowed through her abdomen and pooled at the center of her femininity. This man’s touch melted her insides. The way he gazed at her had her hot enough to combust. She swallowed and met his sparkling green gaze. Could he tell the effect he had on her?
He smiled, one side of his full lips drawn up in a secret grin that created a sexy dimple in his cheek. Surprising herself, she studied his mouth and wondered what it would feel like to kiss him. Would he be an aggressive kisser? Would his lips taste like the beer in the glass on the table? Would his tongue?
If she didn’t know it was physically impossible, Brynna would have sworn her heart turned completely over in her chest at the thought. The temperature in the room seemed to double. She found it difficult to breathe and inhaled quickly through parted lips.
Dev obviously noted her sharp intake of breath, the parting of her lips, the rise of her chest, and his gaze, glittering with masculine interest, dropped to her breasts before he dragged it back to her mouth. The smile had disappeared from his lips, and his perusal was now surprisingly serious. Had he been imagining kissing her, too?
She didn’t want to let go of his hand, and he didn’t seem inclined to break the contact either. She felt like clinging to him, and it was a good thing the table was between them or she’d have embarrassed herself by pressing against his body and melding into him. Remembering the solid strength of his arms and chest as they’d danced that last dance made her head a little dizzy.
The waitress set down a full glass and a fresh pitcher of beer. Reluctantly, they broke the contact of their entwined fingers, and Dev placed money on the tray. The girl thanked him and picked up Brynna’s empty glass.
Brynna glanced at the gimlet, a lime twist perched on the rim. No wonder she was feeling light-headed. She’d had too many drinks. Obviously the liquor had gone straight to her head for her to be having the dangerous and uncharacteristically erotic thoughts she’d been having about the man sitting across from her.
“I think I’ve had enough,” she said.
When she looked up again, Dev’s brows were drawn together in a question—or was that disappointment?
“Drinks,” she clarified.
His expression smoothed into a lazy smile. “We could order coffee,” he suggested. When she didn’t readily agree, he added,