Tamed By Her Army Doc's Touch. Lucy Ryder
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last thing I remember was dancing with Tiff and then … and then people around us were jumping into the lake.”
The rest of his answer was drowned out by the arrival of a group of tipsy women noisily pushing through the crowd. Before Lilah could question Trent further she was being enthusiastically hugged by her friends and peppered with demands about what had happened.
“You were with us one minute, the next you were flying out the window,” Angie, a colleague from ER, laughed as she squeezed Lilah. “Heck, if we’d known you were planning a public striptease of your own, we’d have been there to cheer you on instead of that sleazy toy boy.”
“And thank God you’re wearing your good underwear,” Jenna Richards, obstetrician and bride-to-be, added. “Imagine if you’d been prancing around in laundry-day undies?”
“Oh, horror,” Angie gasped, and everyone laughed, clearly still buzzed from the evening’s festivities.
Lilah pushed a hank of wet hair from her forehead and shoved first one arm then the other through the bomber jacket’s sleeves. Now that the emergency was over, she was very conscious of the fact that she was practically naked beneath the butter-soft leather.
A cool breeze brushed her bare legs, raising an army of goose bumps and she burrowed deeper into the voluminous folds. She was freezing.
“Let’s go,” she said, pushing her way through the group, suddenly eager to get somewhere private—and maybe order a couple of brandies. For medicinal purposes, of course.
Sensing no one was following her, Lilah looked over her shoulder and found thirteen pairs of eyes studying her with an array of expressions varying from curiosity to narrow-eyed speculation.
“What?”
“Do you two know each other?” Jenna demanded, craning her neck to look through the crowd of bystanders.
Lilah frowned. “Who? Trent?”
There was general confusion but it was Angie who demanded, “Trent? Who’s Trent?”
“The boy I—”
“We’re talking about Lucky Luke,” Jenna interrupted, gesturing wildly to the people crowding around the big guy whose gaze was locked on Lilah. Her breath caught beneath that intense gaze but she must have looked baffled because Jenna’s mouth dropped open to a chorus of gasps.
“You don’t know?” She looked shocked.
“Know what?”
“And the lucky girl just happened to see Dr. Hunk of the Decade in his skivvies,” another voice drawled. “Did you know his father’s a cyber-tech billionaire?”
Lilah followed the direction of the woman’s predatory look. “Dr who?”
“Sullivan,” Jenna prodded. “You know? The assistant director of medicine Sullivan?”
It was Lilah’s turn to look shocked. “But … but … I thought the ADM was a … woman?”
“Honey,” Angie said, her face lighting up with a wicked grin, “Harriet Sullivan is a woman. You just got an up-close-and-personal view of her nephew, Dr. Tall, Dark and Buff, practically in the … well, the buff.”
LUKE CHECKED HIS side mirror, flicked on the indicator and turned his motorbike into the hospital visitors’ parking. The sixteen-hundred cc engine rumbled beneath him like a large, hungry predator and responded to the merest flick of his wrist.
He’d been back in Spruce Ridge a few months and still couldn’t believe he was here at all. But, then, Spruce Ridge had been the spawning grounds of the Sullivan boys’ greatest summer adventures, despite—or maybe in spite of—their parents’ widely publicized and bitter divorce.
His aunt and uncle had taken in three bewildered little boys and provided a firm hand and a ton of homemade cookies, along with unconditional love. Looking back, Luke sometimes wondered where he’d be if it hadn’t been for summers spent here.
His mouth twisted into a self-deprecating grin as he recalled the wild scrapes he and his brothers had got into, partly in a bid for their parents’ attention but mostly because they had been budding delinquents. And punishing his parents had been the main reason he’d joined the army after med school, instead of doing his residency at the hospital his mother pulled strings to get him into.
He’d loved every minute of being in the Rangers—right up until eight months ago when his helicopter had been shot down over enemy territory. The crash had taken the lives of six marines, two rangers, the hostage they’d been sent in to retrieve and Luke’s passion for flying.
He and the rest of his team had held off hostiles for fourteen hours before help had finally arrived. Luke didn’t remember the rescue. He’d woken up in hospital two days later feeling damn lucky to be alive. He’d also woken up realizing it was just a matter of time before his luck ran out, so he’d signed his release papers and hopped on the first flight home.
Locating an empty parking space near the entrance, he whipped the big motorbike between a faded red truck and a dark blue sedan and brought it to a halt.
Dropping one booted foot to the ground, he killed the engine, released the kickstand and rose to his full six-four height. Shoving up his visor, he stripped off thick leather gloves and turned to survey the parking lot in a move he recognized as a habit left over from a decade in the military. He wasn’t concerned about being paranoid—it had saved his ass countless times over the years—but he still had to remind himself that Spruce Ridge wasn’t a war zone.
He figured he’d eventually get better at remembering.
Reaching up, he tugged off his helmet and shoved a hand through his hair, ruffling the thick coffee-colored strands. After tucking his gloves in the helmet, he dropped everything into a side storage compartment then headed for the entrance.
People sent him wary glances and Luke smiled and shook his head as they scuttled out of his way. He knew the black leather made him appear the big badass biker, but he’d seen enough accidents involving motorbikes that he wouldn’t consider getting on one without wearing all the proper gear.
Reaching for the big zipper tab, he pulled it down and thought about his favorite leather bomber jacket a certain siren had been wearing the last time he’d seen her.
The memory of huge stormy gray eyes framed by a thick fringe of dark lashes, long ropes of sopping red-gold hair and a lush pink mouth flashed into his head and brought a different smile to his lips. That mouth had breathed life back into a young man’s lungs and had featured hotly in Luke’s dreams last night.
Stepping through the automatic doors into the air-conditioned foyer, Luke pulled off his aviator shades and slid the earpiece of one arm into the neck of his T-shirt.
He gave a silent chuckle. Okay, so the memory had also included long naked legs and some spectacular curves covered in skimpy leopard-print underwear. He was a guy and hard-wired to recall stuff like that. Besides, in the months he’d been home he hadn’t seen anything remotely as impressive or intriguing as the woman who’d stripped in public and dived into a freezing lake to save someone she didn’t even know.
That had taken a lot of guts, and Luke was a great admirer of guts.
Entering the nearest elevator, he punched the button for the fifth floor and watched as the doors slid closed. It was his weekend off but he’d decided to check on last night’s drowning victim before heading for the marina.
The elevator bell pinged and the doors opened onto a brightly lit corridor. Luke stepped out and the nurse on duty at the ward station looked up as he approached. Her gaze widened and she blinked a few times as her mouth opened and closed. “D-Dr. Sullivan?” she stuttered. “I didn’t … I almost didn’t recognize you.”