“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