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  That gave her pause.

  Never see Ross again?

  Not that she’d thought she ever would. Not after he’d told her he didn’t want anything to do with her ever again, that she was holding him back, and he planned to get on with his life. Without her.

  And he had. All too quickly he’d moved on.

  Yet, here he was, back in her life, creating emotional havoc.

  Just as Cindy was, waiting for an explanation. Any moment her friend would start with the hands-on-hips foot-tapping.

  “Look,” Brielle said slowly, hoping to put off the interrogation, “the man annoys me and isn’t someone I’d be interested in. Let’s just leave it at that. Please.”

  Cindy considered her a moment, then shrugged. “Okay, for now, but only because your annoyance factor is about to skyrocket anyway.”

  Brielle took a deep breath, turned slightly to see Ross headed their way. Great. Her annoyance factor shot into orbit.

  “Hey, Brielle, can I talk to you a moment?”

  One one thousand. Two one thousand. Three one thousand. If she counted to infinity it wouldn’t calm her Ross-ified nerves.

  She could do this. She could be calm, professional. He meant nothing to her. Nothing but a pesky fly she’d like to swat away.

  Swat.

  “Obviously, you can.”

  Perhaps she shouldn’t be so snappy with a physician who was her superior, but she couldn’t help herself. Not so close on the heels of Cindy’s question about Justice.

  Her son’s eyes were the exact shade of blue of Ross’s. He had the same strong chin and facial structure. Made expressions that were so similar to Ross’s that at times Brielle’s breath caught and memories pierced her heart.

  Justice looked a great deal as Ross must have looked at a similar age. Except that her son had arrived into the world two months early and was small for his age. She couldn’t imagine six-foot-two-inch Ross ever having been anything but big.

  “I’m going to go clean Bay One,” Cindy told no one in particular as she fanned her hand over her chest one last time and grinned at Brielle while mouthing, “Hot.”

  When they were alone at the nurses’ station, Ross sighed. “Is this how it’s going to be the entire time I’m here?”

  “This?” She pretended to have no clue what he referred to.

  “You hating me.”

  “I don’t hate you.” She didn’t, did she? She just wanted him to go away without disrupting her life further, without disrupting Justice’s life. No way would she let Ross hurt their son the way he’d hurt her.

  “Good to know.”

  “Don’t let the knowledge go to your head,” she advised, not wanting to encourage him in any way as keeping an emotional distance was difficult enough already. “I may not hate you, but I don’t like you.”

  Not looking one bit nonplussed, he grinned. “Let me take you to dinner tonight so we can work on that. Once upon a time there were a lot of things you liked about me. Let me remind you.”

  An invisible hand jerked at Brielle’s throat, choking the breath from her. No sound would come out so she shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  Did he really not know?

  “Should I give you a thesis on the reasons? Or just the top-ten list?” she snapped, her voice freeing itself from the mute clutches of shock.

  “No,” he said, leaning against the nurses’ station and crossing his legs at the ankles in a casual pose, too casual really. “What you should do is say yes.”

  “No.”

  “Brielle.”

  “Don’t Brielle me, Dr. Lane. There is no reason why I should say yes. No reason why I ever would. This is a wasted conversation because there’s no point to us going to dinner. Ever.”

  “Sure there is.” There was an undercurrent to his voice that caused her head to jerk up, for her eyes to study him closely. He looked casual, relaxed, but there was a steely, determined set to his jaw.

  Did he know? Had he somehow learned of Justice? Had she been wrong to believe he didn’t have a clue? Really, why else would he be there?

  “What reason would that be? Because I sure can’t think of a single one.” It wasn’t as if he’d woken up one morning and thought, Hey I miss Brielle Winton. Wonder what she’s been up to. Maybe I should move hundreds of miles away for a few months so I can find out. Right. But, then, why else would he have chosen to work here?

  Unless he’d discovered her five-year-old secret.

  “Because I like you,” he answered without hesitation, as if his reasons were logical and she shouldn’t have had to ask.

  Her heart pounded in her chest and she grabbed hold of the edge of the nurses’ station, grounding herself. “You don’t even know me.”

  “Sure I do.” He sounded so self-confident, so cocky that she wanted to scream with frustration. Did he think her life had just stood still since he’d walked away? That she had been in limbo, waiting for him to come back to pick up where they’d left off?

  “You may have known me better than anyone once upon a time, but not any more. Five years changes a person. I’ve changed.”

  His gaze skimmed over her, dragging slowly across each of her facial features, lower till he reached where the nurses’-station hid her body. “Not that much. You’re still the same Brielle.”

  She fought the urge to cross her arms over her chest, her belly, her hips. “Don’t act as if you know me when you don’t. I have changed.” Oh, how pregnancy and becoming a mother had changed her. Her body. Her mindset. Everything. Justice had changed her for the good. Unlike his father. “I’m a completely different person, have different priorities, different dreams.”

  He moved round the desk, stood close, quietly regarding her, seeming to consider her comment. “What do you dream now, Brielle?” His question came out soft, curious, almost a plea to know her inner desires.

  As if she’d tell him anything about her dreams.

  “Not so long ago all your dreams featured me,” he reminded her softly, no trace of his cocky arrogance to be heard in his voice for once.

  There went that jerk to her throat again, but this time she held onto her ability to speak.

  “Long enough.” For ever ago. “Like I said, I’ve changed. For however long you are here, I will treat you with professional courtesy, but I will not cater to you beyond that limited role. Anything else between us ended long ago.” Five long, horrible years ago when he’d changed the course of her life by ending their relationship and moving far away. “At your bidding, I might add.”

  Had that been bitterness in her tone? She wanted indifference, not the slightest hint that he’d hurt her, that he still held the power to hurt her.

  “Brielle—”

  “Unless what you have to say is regarding a patient, please don’t speak to me,” she interrupted, unwilling to listen to more. “Just leave me alone.”

  His brows drawn together, he sighed. “If that’s how you want things.”

  “It is.” With that she turned back to her computer monitor and pretended he wasn’t standing so close, pretended that he didn’t mean a thing to her.

  Not pretended. He didn’t mean a thing to her. Not really.

  Not for a long time.

  Not ever again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  GLAD HER SHIFT was almost over, a tired Brielle handed an elderly gentleman an emesis pan. “Use this if you need to throw up. Dr. Lane will be in momentarily to order something to ease the nausea.” A noise caught her attention as someone entered the room. She didn’t have to look to know who it was. The quickening of her pulse gave all the indication she needed. “Here he is now.”

  “Hello, Mr. Gardner, I’m Dr. Lane,” Ross introduced himself as he washed his hands. “I’ve looked over
your labs. The good news is that your chest pain doesn’t appear to be cardiac in nature.”

  “The bad news?” the slightly balding, white-haired man asked, his expression pinched. His frail hands clasped the white cotton blanket covering his thin body tightly.

  Brielle fought the urge to take his trembling hand in hers while he awaited whatever news Ross had come to deliver.

  “Your liver enzymes are through the roof, as are your amylase and lipase levels,” Ross explained, elaborating on the details of the patient’s labs and how they related to his symptoms. “I’m going to admit you to the medical floor for acute pancreatitis.”

  Ross spoke calmly to the man, taking time to explain the diagnosis and the medical implications. Despite the fact that she should probably go and check to see if there were any new patients to triage, Brielle found herself fascinated by Ross interacting with his patient.

  She’d always known he was going to be a phenomenal doctor. He’d had such a reassuring manner about him, an aura that promised his patients everything would be okay so long as their lives were in his hands, that he’d always do his best.

  When it came to his patients, perhaps that was true. In the short time he’d been at Bean’s Creek, he’d certainly earned the respect of his colleagues. No one could say enough good things about the gorgeous new doctor filling in for Cassidy Jenkins.

  “Brielle, will you call the medical floor and have a nurse prepare a bed for Mr. Gardner? I’ll get admission orders written.” He looked up from where he listened to Mr. Gardner’s chest yet again. “Oh, and one more thing, go ahead and give an anti-emetic prior to his transfer, please.”

  He named the medication, dosage, and route he wanted it administered.

  Please. No wonder all her co-workers thought he was God’s gift to the emergency department. Forget the man’s extraordinary good looks, which made a girl willing to overlook most flaws, but, seriously, how many doctors said please and thank you routinely? As well loved as Cassidy was, even the lovely doctor on maternity leave wasn’t known for pleases and thank yous.

  Brielle didn’t want to like him, this older version of the man she’d once loved with all her heart. Didn’t want to have positive thoughts in any way, shape, or form regarding Ross.

  She didn’t want to have thoughts of Ross, period.

  Not good. Not bad. Not any.

  Forcing him from her mind yet again, she nodded at the source of her annoyance and left the emergency room bay to carry out his orders. She’d just finished drawing up the injection when he stepped up behind her. Close. Too close.

  She turned to tell him to back away, to leave her alone, but facing Ross was a mistake.

  He was standing closer than she’d realized. So close that they practically touched. So close that when she looked up at him, she could see the flare of desire darkening the blue of his eyes.

  She remembered that flare, that look that said he wanted her. Before he’d baled out on her, that look would have had her smiling, nodding, and them getting alone as quickly as possible.

  A lump clogged her throat. She choked back a fresh wave of annoyance at how she remembered everything about him, how her body remembered every look and caress he’d ever bestowed on her. Stupid body!

  He looked good, smelled good. It was all she could do to keep from deeply inhaling the musky scent of him. If she leaned just slightly towards him, she bet he’d feel good too. His lean body was as toned and fit as ever. Perhaps more so than when he’d been finishing his degree.

  But Brielle didn’t lean. Instead, she focused on the image of the last time she’d seen him when she’d gone to Boston a few months after he’d left.

  An image of that wonderfully built body of his pressed against a woman Brielle hadn’t known, but obviously Ross had, filled her mind. His lips had been firmly attached to the blonde stranger’s. When he’d pulled back, he’d smiled at the woman, slid his arm to her lower back and whispered something in the woman’s ear that had made her laugh and slap his upper arm.

  Brielle hadn’t laughed, but she had felt like slapping Ross. And herself for being so stupid as to think going to Boston to tell him about her pregnancy had been the right thing for her to do.

  He’d told her he wanted nothing to do with her or anything that had to do with her ever again. Why hadn’t she believed him?

  She’d left somewhere between numb, angry, and so hurt that the airline stewardess had asked more than once if she was okay. Less than a month later she’d given birth to Justice, her obstetrician citing stress as the cause of her premature labor.

  The memory of her Boston trip still held the power to almost bring her to her knees with pain, nausea, and weakness. It also gave her the power to resist the man standing before her, who was as sinfully tempting as the devil himself. Yes, she’d loved him once upon a time, but the flip side of the coin held her in its grasp much more firmly these days.

  “Brielle,” he began, his voice low, his eyes searching as if he knew her thoughts had gone somewhere dark. He reached for her shoulders.

  “Don’t!” She jerked back, clenching the medication-filled syringe between shaking fingers. “Don’t you dare touch me, Ross Lane. Don’t you ever touch me!”

  She’d been louder than she should have been and Cindy glanced her way, frowning in confusion.

  “Brielle.” Her name came out as a sigh. He said something more, but the roaring in her ears prevented her from understanding his words. Had he really thought he could just show up and step back into her life? Was that what he wanted?

  Who cared what he wanted?

  As far as she was concerned, Cassidy couldn’t come off maternity leave soon enough so that Ross could pitchfork his way back to the fiery gates that had spat him out.

  She closed her eyes, squeezed them tight, hoping he would be gone when she opened them.

  No such luck.

  She sighed. “Please go away.”

  He stared at her for long moments. “Is that what you want? For me to leave and just stay gone?”

  Was it?

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “The emergency room would be chaos if you left.”

  His lips twisted. “That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it. Go to dinner with me at the end of your shift so we can talk.”

  “We’ve already been through this. I don’t want anything to do with you.” She fought back the bile rising up her throat. Had she purposely flung his words back at him? “What would be the point?”

  “We could catch up on old times.”

  “Aren’t you listening?” She glared up at him as if he wasn’t nearly as bright as she knew him to be. “I don’t want to catch up on old times with you.”

  He shrugged. “I’m flexible. Go to dinner with me so we can make new times.”

  She started to shoot him down again, but thought of Justice. This was her precious son’s father. A father he’d never met. Didn’t she owe it to Justice to see if Ross was man enough to do right by his son should she tell him of the miracle they’d created?

  Was there really any choice a good mother could make other than to see what he had to say and then make any necessary decisions regarding her son’s future?

  * * *

  Ross watched the play of emotions dance across Brielle’s face. She’d never been good at hiding her thoughts. Time hadn’t changed that.

  She was considering saying yes. He wanted her to say yes. More than any sane man should, he wanted her to go to dinner with him, to spend time with him, regardless of what they were doing.

  “Please, Brielle. Say yes.” He didn’t like pleading with her, but with their past he figured he owed her that much. Hell, he probably owed her a lot more than that, but he wasn’t quite ready to grovel yet. “I want to spend time with you. Outside work.”

  Emotions
continued to battle for dominance across her face. She didn’t want to say yes. Not really. But he wasn’t blind. There was still something between them, a heat, an inner connection that time, or his foolishness, hadn’t eradicated.

  “Let me take you to dinner. No pressure for anything more, I promise. I’ll grovel if necessary.”

  Okay, so maybe he was ready to grovel. Groveling would be a new experience, but he’d learn to grovel with the best of them if it won him the chance of getting back in her good graces.

  Her brown gaze lowered then lifted to his. “Okay, fine, I will go to dinner with you. But this means nothing, Ross. Nothing at all. I am not interested in rekindling a relationship with you or making new memories or anything of the sort. I’m focused on my future. You are part of my past that I would have preferred stayed part of my past.”

  Ouch. She wasn’t mincing her words, but he didn’t deserve any sugar-coating. Still, if she’d give him a chance he’d get there, would remind her how sweet their lovemaking had been. Sweet seemed too tame a word for what they’d shared.

  As simple a thing as it was, she’d called him Ross again rather than Dr. Lane. Hearing his name on her lips pleased him way too much.

  “Tonight? After your shift?” A wise man would get a commitment on a date and time. Ross was no fool.

  “Tonight is as good a time as any,” she sighed, her face pale as if she was battling nausea. “I want to get this over with.”

  Her tone made going to dinner with him sound worse than having root-canal treatment. Did she dislike him so much?

  “Not that I’m not grateful you said yes, albeit with less enthusiasm than one would hope for, but why did you?”

  “A glutton for punishment, obviously.” She laughed a laugh he recognized as one full of irony. “But we both know you weren’t going to let up until I said yes. Meet me at Julian’s just down the street about thirty minutes after my shift change. A quick dinner. Nothing else.”