“Is there a problem?” he asked.
Good heavens, was the man trying to be playful? She wasn’t in a playful mood.
“Nothing a well-placed kick to the solar plexus wouldn’t solve,” she said.
“Are you hinting that I’m in the way?” A sparkle flashed deep in those ice-green eyes. He was definitely joking with her. That, or he’d perfected the art of being a royal pain.
“It’s more than a hint. Put it in gear, please,” Heather said.
“I’ll be happy to move if you’ll answer one or two questions about that past you claim we don’t have,” Jason murmured.
“You didn’t have any questions the next morning.” Heather hoped no one overheard this conversation. She couldn’t even imagine the speculation it might provoke.
“I told you…”
“You had a headache,” she finished for him. “Correction. You were a headache.”
“I might have been a touch abrupt,” Jason admitted.
She refused to give him the satisfaction of letting him know how much his coldness had bothered her. “That was nearly a year and a half ago. I scarcely remember what you said.” Mischievously, she added, “Or what you did, either.”
“You concede that I did something?” He appeared torn between curiosity and something that, in an actual full-blooded human, might have been described as vulnerability.
“I concede no such thing,” she told him. “As I’ve mentioned several times, you fell asleep. Don’t ask me if you snored. I didn’t stick around.”
“I passed out,” Jason said ruefully. “Jet lag and a couple of drinks will do that to you.”
“Not to me,” Heather answered. “Well, if you don’t remember what happened, why don’t you accept my version of it?”
“You haven’t given me a version.” Up close, the man was taller than she remembered, most likely because she herself barely cleared five foot two.
“I told you, nothing happened. That’s as much of a version as I can muster.”
“Then why did I find your earring in my bed?” Jason demanded.
Behind him, someone cleared her throat. Heather’s blood ran cold. She felt like a kid caught with her hand in a cookie jar.
Jason must have had the same reaction, because he paled. Against his black hair, the high cheekbones and classic jawline stood out in stark relief.
“Dr. Rourke?” came the voice of Cynthia Hernandez, her nurse. “There’s a patient waiting in Room C.”
“I won’t delay you.” Jason shifted backward, careful not to bump the dark-haired nurse behind him. That wasn’t easy, since Cynthia, six months pregnant with twins, nearly filled the hallway. “See you at four o’clock at my office.”
“I’ll be there.” Heather took the patient’s chart from Cynthia and read the cover page. As soon as Jason was gone, she said, “What did you overhear?”
“Nothing, and I wouldn’t repeat it if I had.” The nurse strolled with her down the hall. “If your earring ended up in Dr. Carmichael’s bed, I’m sure it was perfectly innocent.”
“Yes, it was.” Heather hoped Cynthia was as good as her word. She’d always been trustworthy until now.
Heather also spared a moment to wonder how long Jason would go on refusing to take her word for what had—or rather, hadn’t—happened. She hoped she wasn’t going to have to tell him the whole truth. After the way he’d behaved the next morning, he didn’t deserve to know.
Now that they were colleagues, they’d soon put it all behind them, she figured. It hadn’t been such a big deal. Doctors always let their hair down at medical conventions. They didn’t always take their clothes off, of course.…
She entered the examining room and smiled at the woman sitting on the examining table. Rita Beltran beamed back. Pregnant with triplets after two years of infertility treatments, she’d been floating on a cloud for months.
Heather shoved Jason Carmichael out of her mind. Her heart belonged to her patients, and success stories like Rita’s made all her efforts worthwhile.
FROM HIS TEMPORARY, second-story office in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, Jason stared across the courtyard. Even in late February, people lingered at the small tables around a fountain. For this time of year, the Southern California weather was remarkably pleasant compared to what he’d grown up with in Boston.
The courtyard connected a trio of buildings: the three-story Birthing Center to the north, plus two curving Spanish-style wings, including the West Wing where he stood. At the plaza level, a couple of workmen were carting boxes into the facing East Wing. He assumed the cartons contained acoustical tiles, since that’s what the men had been installing yesterday when the center’s administrator, Dr. Patrick Barr, had shown Jason around.
His own clinic. Even stripped to raw flooring and taped windows, it had been gorgeous.
Although he’d loved his work in Virginia, Jason knew he’d made the right decision by coming here. At the larger, better-established facilities where he’d trained and done research in reproductive endocrinology, he’d earned a name for himself. Although he’d enjoyed the prestige, what he loved most was helping eager couples have children.
Established by Dr. Barr’s late father, Doctors Circle had significantly improved infant and maternal health in the community. Now it was about to move on to the cutting edge of infertility treatments. Jason treasured the opportunity to put his signature on this new clinic.
Heather Rourke’s presence had had nothing to do with his decision to accept the job. Nor had it discouraged him from taking it, either. She had an excellent reputation and they should work well together, as long as she was willing to accept Jason’s leadership.
He intended to keep their relationship strictly professional in spite of that irrepressible spark in Heather’s eyes. In spite of a feminine way of moving that even a white coat couldn’t disguise. In spite of a figure that, while petite in the right places, was also lusciously rounded in others.
In the past, Jason’s experiences with romance had ended in unhappiness and anger. That kind of turmoil threatened to interfere with work, which was and always would be his number-one priority. Some men might be cut out for marriage and children, but not him.
A tap at the door drew his attention. George Farajian, chief of the Ob/Gyn Department, poked his graying head into the room. “Okay to come in?”
“Of course.” Jason turned away from the window.
“I can’t believe how organized you’ve got the place already.” The obstetrician indicated the neatly labeled file cabinets and alphabetized shelves of books.
With a twinge, Jason recalled how he’d chewed out his secretary for unpacking his boxes. If she hadn’t, however, he’d have spent the next month or so stumbling over them and cursing because he couldn’t find whatever he was looking for. He supposed he owed the woman an apology.
“I have to credit Coral,” he said. “She’s done a good job.”
“Glad to hear it. I believe she was hired specifically with you in mind. Now I’d like to introduce you to your new nurse.” George stepped to one side. “Jason, may I present Edith Krick.”
The center of gravity in the room shifted as the woman entered. Not literally, although she was heavyset, but emotionally. Dark-skinned, possessed of an inner certitude that bespoke years of experience,