“I can walk-” Trying to prove it, she took a step and stumbled. Looking like he might prefer facing the guillotine, he bent to scoop her up in his arms, but he was thin, lanky, and she was… not. He staggered back with her and hit the wall behind them, where both of them crashed to the floor in a tangle.
Leaping up, he shoved his hands into his hair. “Listen, just kill me,” he begged. “Do it quick. Before Denny does.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m not hurt.” She stood, then couldn’t control her grimace at the fire in her ankle. “Well, I’m not
Looking miserable, he moved to her side, acting as her crutch, helping her down the hall, both of them dripping iced tea. “Doctor’s quarters,” he said, and opened the last door. “Wait here.”
Then he hightailed it out of there so fast her head spun.
She hopped inside. The room was small but high-tech, with all sorts of medical equipment on shelves against the far wall. There was a patient bed, a sink, and a cart with more supplies.
Dorie eyed a set of tweezers and her bottom actually twitched. Still dripping iced tea, she picked up a medical journal from the counter and was reading about the latest bird flu theories when the door opened.
To her vast disappointment, it was Tall, Dark, and French Attitude, still looking… well, tall, dark, and attitude- ridden.
“I’m waiting for the doctor.”
He looked at her, and not at her tea-soaked body either, but straight into her eyes, as if he could read her without her saying a word, and wasn’t exactly thrilled at what he saw.
“So…” She tried a smile. “Is he coming?”
He sighed, somehow sounding very French without saying a word. “He’s here.”
THREE
You’re the doctor?”
At the question from his dripping wet patient, Dr. Christian Montague sighed from the depths of his irritated soul and strode across the small room to the sink. This was his second patient before they’d even set sail. The first, his so-called “emergency,” the one that had gotten him on board a half hour early, had suffered from-stop the presses-a paper cut. She’d turned out to need nothing more than a Band-Aid, though her eyes had wanted something else.
He was used to that. It had nothing to do with ego and everything to do with the fact that he worked on a boat that catered to the extremely wealthy, which often equaled spoiled. He was a single man, a doctor to boot, surrounded by exotic, lush landscape that inspired certain emotions, one of them being lust.
But Christian didn’t mix business and pleasure. Ever.
At least this bedraggled patient wasn’t coming on to him. She seemed to be in honest distress. She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous as Brandy had been. She wasn’t smooth, suave, or sophisticated as their guests often were.
Instead, she stood there, her dress stained and wet and dripping on his floor, wearing a tote on her shoulder that was nearly as large as she was, looking uncertain, with her wide chocolate eyes broadcasting her naivety.
Didn’t she know what that doe-eyed, innocent expression did to most men? Turned them into assholes, that’s what. The transparency of her drenched dress didn’t help. She was a walking please-take-advantage-of-me waiting to happen.
He couldn’t have said why this annoyed him, it just did.
Oh yes, there was that. He flipped on the tap at the sink and scrubbed his hands. “I’m Dr. Christian Montague,” he said, and yanked out a paper towel, turning to face her as he dried off.
“Dorie Anderson.”
Okay, he
“Uh…” Her wavy, somewhat wild flyaway brown hair was half out of its clip, and she lifted a hand to shove it away from her eyes, her fingers shaking.
“Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Hurt?”
When she didn’t answer, he attempted to curtail his irritation. “What seems to be the problem here, Ms. Anderson?”
He knew what
“Dorie,” she whispered. “You can call me Dorie.”
She smelled like lemon. Lemon iced tea to be exact. Not a scent he’d have considered a turn-on by any means, and yet he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her, or breathing her in. The woman barely came to his shoulder. She was drenched. And there were those eyes, those drown-in-me, heal-me, I’m-so-sweet-I’ll-kill-you-slowly eyes…
Not his type, not even close.
“My problem,” she finally said, “is that I tripped on the dock.” Her cheeks went pink. “I nearly lost my luggage, and then I spilled iced tea-”
“You don’t need a doctor for any of that.”
At the base of her throat her pulse beat like a humming-bird’s wings. He found his gaze trapped there.
“I hurt my ankle.”
Okay, now they were getting somewhere. He gestured to the bed. “So have a seat.”
Dragging her teeth over her lower lip, she glanced at the bed. “Um.” She slid her hands behind her, over her bottom, and winced. “I prefer to stand.”
“I can’t look at your ankle while you’re standing.”
“I-” The boat lurched. She gasped, and her arms flailed out, and so did the huge bag over her shoulder, which smartly connected with his jaw.
The thing must have rocks in it, because he actually saw stars.
He also saw her falling, damn it, and grabbed her as those huge pools of melted chocolate landed on him.
“What was that?” she asked.
“We’ve just left the dock.”
Pressed against him, hair wild, eyes locked on his, her dress soaking into him, she took in the unmistakable sensation of the boat moving over the water. “Oh. Right. I didn’t think. It’s…”
She had a smile on her, he’d give her that. The kind of smile he didn’t see every day-real. He tried to back away, but she had a grip of steel on him.
“I hit you.” She touched his jaw. “Or my purse did.” She let the bag slip to the floor, where it landed with a loud
Definitely rocks. Unfortunately he couldn’t think about that because her warm, soft curves were pressed against him, and he became so hyperaware of that, nothing else penetrated. For all the people he came in daily contact with, for all the people