Authors: Carol Rose
"It's not as if specialists are at war with patients, dear," Charles Hayden inserted, his expression pained.
Caleb held the sweating glass of imported beer in his hand and reflected on the mixed blessing of having a family. His peripheral vision took in Julia, still sitting with a bemused look on her face. Poor baby.
Caleb placed a drink in front of his father. "Sorry I took so long, but the line at the bar was incredible. Thirsty crowd tonight." He settled himself into the chair across from Julia.
"No problem, my boy," Charles Hayden reached for the glass. "We've just been getting acquainted with Julia. I couldn't believe that you never mentioned your training to her, Caleb," his father reproved. "You've only been on sabbatical for two years. It couldn't have slipped your mind."
"I am not 'on sabbatical,' Dad," Caleb corrected him gently. "And, no, my previous work hasn't slipped my mind. It just didn't seem important."
Caleb felt Julia's eyes on his face and met them squarely. There was smoldering anger in her expression. He knew if they were alone, he'd be feeling the sting of her tongue-lashing. Oddly enough, the thought excited him. Maybe this was why he'd really brought her tonight. Maybe he wanted to force a confrontation, to rouse her ire. God knew he thought often enough of rousing her in every other way.
The crowd around them shifted as a long-time associate of his father's approached.
"Charles, I want to introduce someone to you." Charles Hayden's colleague brought a slender, dark haired man to the table as Caleb's father rose. "This is Dr. Roland Demarest, head of surgery at St. Paul's. Roland, this is Dr. Hayden."
"Nice to meet you at last, Dr. Hayden," the younger man shook Charles' hand with just the right amount of respect.
Caleb reached for his drink, hiding a smile. One thing he didn't miss about medicine was the politics.
"Oh, how rude of me," Charles remarked. "Let me introduce my companions to you, Dr. Demarest."
His gesture toward the table turned Demarest toward them. “This is my wife, Cecilia, and this is my son," Charles went on with the introductions, "Dr. Caleb Hayden."
"Oh, yes." Roland turned to shake hands. "I remember you. You did some of your residency at St. Paul's, didn't you?"
"For a few months," Caleb confirmed, aware of the speculation in the other man's eyes.
"You're not practicing currently, are you?" Roland asked.
"No, I'm working in log construction these days," Caleb responded, glad he no longer had to tolerate men like Demarest in order to further his career. ''I'm building Julia's house."
The other man's brows lifted in surprise. "Of course," he said. "A log cabin, you say?"
"Yes." Julia stared at the drink in her hands. "You could call it that."
"Yes, well," Roland mused, "I suppose not everyone's cut out for the challenge of medicine. It takes quite a lot of stamina and strong-mindedness."
Caleb heard his mother gasp at the insult.
"No," Caleb agreed. "Not everyone's cut out for medicine. Just those who don't mind playing God."
*
Caleb carefully eased the pickup to a stop in front of Julia's apartment. He'd had the sensation of carrying dangerous cargo on the long silent ride from Dallas. The lady sitting on the far side of the seat was no longer feeling surprised at the news of his former life. She was furious.
"Would you please come in for a moment?" Julia asked now, her voice pleasant enough as she opened the door.
"Sure." Caleb followed her up the sidewalk. He knew without a doubt that this wasn't
the invitation he'd hoped for.
The key clicked in the lock. Caleb felt the chill of Julia's glance as she looked at him over her shoulder. He ambled across the threshold, pulling the door shut. She was madder than a bee-stung bobcat and he wanted her so bad his whole body ached. It didn't make any sense, but very little i
n life did.
She tossed her purse and keys onto a chair and turned to face him. "I can just imagine how you laughed. It must have amused you to set me up like this. Was that the purpose of this whole farcical date?" she asked contemptuously. "You wanted to liven up the evening?"
Cale
b frowned. "Don't be an idiot."
"I didn't even have a clue." Julia took a deep breath. "They m
ust have thought I was a fool."
"Who?"
"Your pa
rents, of course," she snapped.
"No," Caleb responded with dark humor as he leaned back against the door. "They would
say that I'm the fool."
"This is what the whole evening was about, isn't it? A big practical joke?" She stood in front of him, her blue eyes fairly sparking with rage, her breasts r
ising and falling in agitation.
"Look, petunia, I'm not sure what crime it is that I'm supposed to have committed."
Incensed, Julia stalked over to him, her pointed finger stabbing his chest. "You have deliberately
kept your profession from me--"
"I am a construction foreman," Caleb's words held a definite edge even as her nearness prov
oked a stiffening in his loins.
"-
-
and you made sure that I discovered my ignorance in the most public way possible, in front of people who might potentially affect my career!"
"That's the worst, isn't it, doctor?" Anger snatched away the guilt that was forming in his chest. "If I could have made a fool of you in a way that furthered your career, you wouldn't have minded at all."
Dammit, they couldn't even fight without her work coming into it. He wanted to reach out and kiss her speechless. Talking didn't seem to get them anywhere.
"For some reason you wanted to set me up to keep me off balance, to make me look like an ignoramus for some twisted reason. Is this what you do for amusement?" she asked with heat.
"I can think off
better ways to amuse us both," he said.
"I don't know why you left medicine, or what it is that makes you need to control everything around you," she flung at him. "Maybe you had a drug problem, maybe the pressure was just too much for you. But for whatever reason, you've decided to take your frustrations out on me and I won't tolerate it!"
He should have felt defensive, insulted by her accusations. But she was right. Maybe she had reason to consider him two notches below a snake. At this point, he didn't care. All he knew was a burning desire to wrap himself around her and drive hard into her heated core. He wanted to rip away the barriers. He wanted her skin to skin, no thought, only sensation.
A more civilized man might not feel lust for a raging woman, but Caleb had long ago given up on civility. The spark of Julia's anger was real and passionate. Her unchecked emotional response
made him feel alive once more.
He wanted to keep the light so fiercely shining in her eyes. Caleb knew as he reached for her that he didn't have the right. She'd told him in a million ways that she didn't want this. Only at this moment, she seemed to nee
d it almost as badly as he did.
Julia's eyes widened as his hands slid over the warmth of her bare arms. He felt her draw in her breath to protest. The air hummed around them, the atmosphere thick with possibilities, vibrant with a power he didn't even try to identify. Then his lips touched hers a
nd something in Caleb unleashed.
Her mouth was immobile beneath his for seconds before he felt her open to the driving stroke of his tongue. Suddenly, her arms slipped around his neck and she strained up to meet him, sifting her fingers into the thick hair at his nape as she leaned against his chest. Heat blossomed in the texture of her kiss. Caleb pulled her tighter, molding her along his length. He drank
in the sweetness of her mouth.
Fire sprang up at all contact points and spread. She was fragile beneath his hands, softer than he remembered, and smelling of some fragrance that only God could create. Caleb held her hips in the cradle of his broad stance, pulling her agains
t the ridge of his masculinity.
Julia tilted her head back to allow access to his seeking mouth. Her skin was warm beneath his lips, smooth and sweet. He shook with the fierce need to consume her, to bury himself in her warmth and wrap himself in Julia. Night after night, he'd dreamed of her, and the worst of those dreams were never like this. Caleb's lips brushed a path along the delicate skin of
her neck as she clung to him.
There were ten million reasons why he couldn't have a relationship with this woman. The sanest, most considerate course of action would take him straight out the door and as far from Julia as possible. Only he wasn't sane. He was consumed by his bone-deep desire for hot, raw, real sex with no one but this woman. She was molten in his arms, alight with passion, ready and willing. An earthquake couldn't
have gotten him out that door.
"I want to touch you." Her words were muffled through passion-kissed lips.
Caleb lifted his head
and stared down into her face.
Her skin held a flush. An expression he couldn't identify transformed her-Julia witho
ut caution, lost in the moment.
He waited, tensed, while her fingers undid his buttons. There was the slightest hint of shyness in the brief glances she sent him as if she felt she were asking more than he might want to give. He felt his body rigid, pulsating with the desire to lose himself in her wet depths.
Standing very still, he watched as she slipped loose one shirt button at a time. Shyly, she tugged his shirt free of his waistba
nd and pulled it down each arm.
How many men had she undressed? He saw an innocence in her face, a glimmer of wonde
r, that shook him to his bones.
Her shimmering blue gaze skated over his bare chest and she drew a jagged breath.
Softly, she touched him, at first just grazing the tanned skin of his belly with her fingertips. Caleb sucked in air. She stroked him with infinite interest and attention, that same near-wonder in her face as if she could hardly imagine more pleasure than the feel
of his body beneath her hands.
They stood frozen in the middle of the nondescrip
t living room of her apartment,
completely unaware of anything beyond the sensation that gripped them. Her fingers traced over him lightly, skimm
ing up the middle of his chest.
She seemed lost in touch, her face reflecting her pleasure with a clarity that was achingly vulnerable. She made him weak with only the slightest brush of those delicate but capable hands over his bare skin. Hands that healed-
-
only now their sweet touch was building something more than distress in Caleb.
He felt ready to explode, holding himself in check with effort. With the stroke of her hands and the evocative sensuality of her body, she intensified his ache for union. But her expressive face heated some other part of him that he couldn't identify. He heard the raggedness of his own breathing and found himself dismissing the idea that sex with this woman could ever
be casual.
Julia's fingers traced his collarbones, stroking his skin. Her hands swept slowly over his chest, brushing the scattering of hair. She traced each muscle, trailing down to his waistband and up his sides. Her hands crept around to glide up the planes of his back. She stood very close to him as she followed the indentation of his spine. When she placed a kiss on his shoulder, Caleb shuddered. He drew a deep breath for control. An unknown power was raging through him. The woman before him was too real. He felt the whisper of her breath warm against his skin.
She touched him as if he were gold. Her face was rapt in its intensity, as if he were impossibly precious, rarer than treasure. Caleb closed his eyes.
With longing, he suffered the softness of her lips against his skin and breathed in the heady perfume of hers that had haunted him for weeks. Minutes ticked past and still he stood, lost in the tenderness of the woman before him, lost in the marvel of her touch. Her fingertips, bolder now, brushed just beneath his waistband. The muscles of his abdomen flinched. He knew he hovered on the brink of overload, at a level of intensity that signaled imminent and total loss of control.
He ignored the danger. The need that hardened him brought with it some fragile emotion that had invaded his soul, thrusting him farther into the moment of intimacy than the physical surge of hormones. He felt a detached awareness of the heaviness of his arms, of standing balanced on the balls of his feet, effortlessly. Her hands, soft as a whisper, stroked his biceps and glided again over his chest. His body was molten, beyond the heavy flush of excitement that strained the fabric of his jeans. Wanting spread throughout his body.
Caleb felt...
cherished. And beset by such overriding need for her that completion, when it came, might very well shatter the emotional distance he kept. Her lips whispered along the powerful line of his shoulder. She pressed against him, her softness against his taut chest.
Here were the complications he'd sought to avoid. A man could grow to need a woman whose slightest touch was pure heaven. She touched him as if she knew the ragged edges of his soul, knew the pain he had hidden in the darkest corners of his mind.