Resisting Her Rebel Hero (4 page)

“No, it isn’t,” he agreed, “especially during tourist season. But off season gets pretty quiet.”

“I can do quiet. And I’m impressed with the way everyone bands together. It’s wonderful knowing that there are still places where people are willing to step in and help their neighbors without expecting something in return.”

“That’s what’s kept me here for sixty years,” he said, moving to the door. “The warm community spirit. You don’t find that in the city.” He turned and studied her intently. “I’ve watched you over the past two weeks, Cassidy, and you’re a very perceptive diagnostician. We could use someone like you heading up the hospital.” And when Cassidy opened her mouth to remind him that she was only there for three months, he beat her to it with his parting shot, “Think about it,” before disappearing down the hallway.

Cassidy watched him leave. Admittedly she was enjoying the opportunity to practice family medicine in a town where people cared about each other, but Boston was her home. And that kind of decision couldn’t be made lightly.

* * *

It wasn’t until late afternoon that she finally realized she’d been hanging around waiting for something to happen. It didn’t take a genius to realize that
something
was a certain Navy SEAL and that she’d been waiting for him to come in to have his injuries treated.

Irritated with herself, she’d collected her purse and jacket and was on her way out when the door banged open and there he was, looking like he’d just blown in from a big, bad superheroes convention with his big, bad SEAL attitude.

When her knees wobbled and her head went light, Cassidy assured herself it was simply because she hadn’t eaten anything all day. It certainly didn’t have anything to do with the way his gold eyes latched onto her like a tractor beam.

Gesturing to an empty suture room, Cassidy wordlessly handed her jacket and purse to the receptionist and ignored the jitters in her belly as the sheriff half-dragged, half-carried him down the corridor and through the doorway to heave him onto the narrow bed. And just like that, every delusional thought she’d had in the early hours blew up right in her face.

“You may now stick him with as many needles as you like,” the sheriff announced, shoving his hands on his hips and glaring at his brother. “In fact, that’s an official order. Maybe it will improve his attitude and I won’t have to toss him in jail again for disobeying a direct order.”

“I said I was fine,” the SEAL snarled as Greg, the young deputy who’d helped drag him into the examination room, ducked his head and made a beeline for the door.

Wise move, she thought when a string of muttered threats turned the air blue. She might be relieved he’d made it back in one piece but it had been a long day and an even longer night, obsessing about whether or not she had been imagining things. The good news was that she was sane and not hallucinating. The bad news was, Cassidy thought with a sinking sensation, he was even more dangerously attractive in the cold light of day.

And that was bad. Very bad. Because Cassidy Mahoney was done with dangerous bad boys who made women swoon. She really was too busy getting her life back to deal with two hundred and forty pounds of belligerent male.

It seemed the sheriff was too since he folded his arms across his chest and glared at his brother, clearly not intimidated by the show of aggression. “And if he gives you any trouble, make him wear a pretty pink hospital gown,” he barked, ignoring the way Sam’s lip drew back over his teeth in a silent snarl. “He deserves to have everyone laugh at his ugly butt after the stunt he pulled.”

Cassidy watched the silent clash of wills and her first thought was that nothing about Major Kellan was ugly. She was pretty sure her staff wouldn’t be laughing either. More like swooning from the thick cloud of testosterone and bad attitude that surrounded him.

A fierce golden gaze caught and held hers as though he knew what she was thinking, and Cassidy felt a flush creep up her neck into her cheeks. Besides being grossly unprofessional, picturing him naked wouldn’t do a thing to convince her she’d imagined her earlier reaction to him.

The sheriff raked his hand through his wet hair, looking tired and exasperated. “Listen up, man,” he growled, “I know you’re a big, mean SEAL and everything, but just let the doc check you out, okay? I don’t have time to babysit you or keep you from bleeding to death. You wouldn’t believe the paperwork. It’s a nightmare. Elections are coming up and I can’t afford to have you die and make me look bad.”

“I keep telling you I’m fine,” Sam snarled. “Quit hovering like a girl. There’s nothing Old Monty can do that I can’t do for myself, so get the hell out of my face before I break your ugly mug.”

“Oh, please.” Ruben snickered rudely. “You can’t even break a sweat without help. Now suck it up and let the doc check you out. You look like hell.”

Samuel said something that Cassidy was pretty sure was anatomically impossible but before her eyes could do more than widen, Ruben turned to her with a grim smile. “Doc, he’s all yours, just as I promised. He’s a bit more battered and bloodied but I refuse to take credit for that. He’s a hard-headed pain in the ass so you might consider sedating him.” He sent his brother a meaningful glare. “In fact, unconscious would be a real improvement.”

Ignoring the derisive suggestion, Sam turned narrowed eyes her way. “Doc?” he demanded. “You’re the
doctor
?” His tone suggested she’d deliberately misled him. “I thought you were the nurse.”

“No,” she corrected smoothly. “You thought I was a stripper.”

“And with that,” Ruben drawled mockingly, “I rest my case.” He slapped his hat on his head and adjusted the brim. “Cassidy, ignore the inscrutable death stares. Underneath all that macho SEAL
hoo-yah
attitude he’s really quite sweet.”

The SEAL snarled something impolite and with a deep laugh the sheriff sketched a salute and disappeared down the hallway, leaving Cassidy with two hundred pounds of seething testosterone. Sweet wasn’t a word she’d associate with Major Hotstuff, she mused, moving to the supply cabinet for a towel.
 
Just the idea of it made her want to smile. So she frowned instead.

“So,” he said, taking the towel and fixing her with his mesmerizing stare, “you’re a doctor.”

She sent him a cool look then turned to remove disinfectant and a package of swabs from the overhead cabinet. “Is that a problem, Major, or an apology?”

His amused gaze drifted over her face and breasts to the neat row of supplies she’d begun setting out and he drawled, “Only if you’re plotting revenge.”

“Fortunately for you I’m not the vengeful type, Major.”

His mouth curled at one corner and he said, “Uh-huh” into the towel. Cassidy ignored the impulse to bang her head against the wall. She had a feeling it would be a lot less painful than getting caught up in the man’s web.

Fortunately, her little chat with the elderly doctor had reminded her of why she was off men in anything but the professional sense. Flicking him an assessing glance, she decided the sheriff was right. He did look like hell.

“There’s no one to save you from the needle this time, Major.” She opened another cabinet and removed a suture kit and syringes. “In fact—” her voice was brisk as she moved closer “—I can foresee more than one in your immediate future.”

Ignoring the dark eyebrow hiking up his forehead, she stepped close and pushed the soaked parka over his wide shoulders and down his arms. He shrugged and sucked in a sharp breath, before drawling, “Not just beautiful and smart, but psychic too?”

Cassidy bit back a snort and tossed the garment onto the floor, before turning to wash her hands at the small basin. “It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to see that you’re an action junkie looking for trouble,” she replied smoothly, pulling a strip off the paper towel dispenser.

He shrugged. “Goes with the job.”

“For which the free world is eternally grateful.” She dried her hands and dropped the paper into the bin as she turned. She caught his eyes crinkling at the corners as though he didn’t take himself half as seriously as other people did, which...surprised her. She was accustomed to being surrounded by alpha males who thought they sat at God’s right hand. Discovering he could poke fun at himself had something warm and light sliding into her belly. Something that felt very much like admiration.

Telling herself that certainly didn’t mean she
liked
him, Cassidy focused on his once white T-shirt, now covered in mud and blood. Shaking her head, she pulled it out of his damp waistband and grabbed a pair of scissors off the counter.

With a few snips, his shirt fell away and she quickly unwound the soiled bandage. When the move exposed fresh blood oozing from the loosened dressing, she bit back a curse.

“You’re an idiot,” she muttered, knowing exactly who she was addressing this time. Lifting a loose edge, she pressed her hand gently against his hard belly and ripped it off in one smooth move.

Sam hissed audibly in surprise and pain. “
Holy...!
Hell and damnation, woman, what the
hell
was that?” His fingers whitened around the edge of the bed and he looked like he wanted to wrap them around her throat.

“Sorry,” she said, and meaning it. It would have been worse if she’d taken her time removing it. “It’s better coming off fast.”

“For you maybe...
Jeez
...does the CIA know about you?”

“The CIA?” she asked, sending him a narrow-eyed look out the corner of her eye, fairly certain he wasn’t being complimentary.

“Yeah. Hear they’re looking for interrogators.” Definitely not complimentary. “My CO would recruit you on the spot to torture the tadpoles in BUD/S.”

“Tadpoles? Buds?” she asked, pouring disinfectant into a stainless-steel bowl and filling it with warm water.

“Wannabe SEALs in Basic Underwater Demolition SEALs,” he told her. “Have to knock the cra...I mean stuffing out of them during hell week to sort out the men from the boys. You’d be perfect for the job.”

Apparently
he’d
managed to survive without having the stuffing knocked out of him. She wondered how he’d managed it. Sheer stubbornness most likely.

She pulled on a pair of latex gloves then ripped off a large section of cotton wool. “I’m good
,
but thanks anyway.” She pressed a hand to the smooth ball of his shoulder. “Lie flat and lift your arm over your head.”

His scowl turned into a grimace when he realized he was too big and had to scoot down the bed, ending up with half his long legs draped over the end. Growling irritably about “damn midget beds”, he raised his arm and bent it behind his head. With lids lowered over his unusual eyes, he sent her a sleepy look.

“Although if you continue ripping off my clothes and making me lie down,” he drawled softly, “I’ll start thinking you have ulterior motives, Miz Honey.”

“That’s
Dr.
Mahoney to you,” she said absently, carefully cleaning the area around the wound before selecting another wad of gauze to clean the wound itself. It would take about a dozen stitches to close.

“Yes,
ma’am.
” His voice was polite and subdued but a quick look caught the irreverent smirk curling his mouth. Cassidy swallowed the impulse to return that impudent grin. Or worse—kiss his battered mouth better. From all accounts he was the kind of man who wouldn’t stop at kissing. From all accounts he was only interested in quick tumbles with the nearest available woman. Probably because being a SEAL precluded any kind of stable or long-term relationship.

She shivered. If she knew what was good for her, she’d shove her libido back into hibernation and stop getting all excited every time he invaded her space.

Dr. Mahoney was back in charge, she reminded herself, and there would be no mixing her chemistry with his. On
any
level. She was going to patch him up, send him on his way, and hope like hell she never saw him again.

CHAPTER FOUR

S
AM
 
WATCHED
D
OC
 
B
OSTON
work on his torso and wondered why he was so drawn to a woman who made it abundantly clear she wasn’t interested. He tried reminding himself that he’d be heading back to Coronado soon and anything more than harmless flirting was impossible. It didn’t help. Not even when he observed the competent way she wielded sharp objects.

Sure, she was beautiful but then, so were a million other women, and he’d had little problem leaving them behind. Except there was something compelling about her that told Sam she wouldn’t be easy to forget or walk away from. She was smart and mouthy and didn’t take his reputation as a badass seriously or treat him differently from other patients. And
that
more than anything made him like her.

Okay, he
really
liked the look of her—he was a guy, so sue him—but lately all the feminine adulation had begun to irritate him. All a lot of women saw was a SEAL with hard muscles and weird eyes. A guy they could brag about being with to their friends. He’d enjoyed that in his twenties, but in the decade since he’d seen and done things no one should see or do.

Cassidy Mahoney, on the other hand, did more of the squinty-eye thing that for some strange reason made him want to smile when he hadn’t felt the urge in a long, long time. It made him want to push her up against the nearest wall and taste all that soft, smooth skin.

He thought of how she’d react if he acted on the impulse, and had to suppress a grin when her suspicion-filled look said she knew what he was thinking. His what-have-I-done-now eyebrow-lift had her eyes narrowing, as if she suspected he was up to no good. A flush rose from the lapels of her lab coat and climbed her neck into her cheeks.

If she only knew
.

“I promise not to wrestle you to the ground and stab you in the throat with that,” he assured her, then decided to qualify it with, “Well...maybe wrestle you to the ground...” His gaze smoothed over her breasts and up her long throat to her lush mouth. “Okay,
definitely
wrestle you to the ground. But the stabbing thing? You’re safe. SEAL’s honor.”

She didn’t disappoint him. Thrusting out a plump lower lip that he yearned to take a greedy bite out of, she huffed out an annoyed breath that disturbed the long tendrils of fine silvery hair escaping her tousled topknot. She appeared at once exasperated, embarrassed and incredibly appealing.

“Give it a rest, Major.” She huffed again, shoving the needle into a vial of local anesthetic like she was probably imagining it was his hide. He covered a wince by scratching his chin. “It must be exhausting trying to keep that up.”

“Keep what up?” he asked innocently, wanting her to keep talking. Even rife with irritation, he liked the sound of her voice—smooth and silky, like hundred-year-old bourbon. It intoxicated his senses and kept him from thinking about gut-wrenching guilt and things he couldn’t change.

She removed the needle and flicked the syringe a couple of times before gently depressing the plunger. A tiny spurt fountained from the tip. “The seduction routine,” she said, wiping an area close to his wound with an alcohol swab. “Heaven knows, just trying to keep up with it is exhausting.”

“It’s really no trouble,” he assured her, except lately it
had
become exhausting. Most likely he was just out of practice. Life-and-death situations didn’t leave much time for fun and games. “I can do it in my sleep.”

She gently slid the needle into his flesh. There was a tiny pinch and almost instantly cold numbness began to spread along his side. He sighed with relief as she removed the needle and pressed a small swab over the puncture wound.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” she murmured, tossing the syringe into the nearby medical waste container. She opened the suture kit onto a strip of newly torn paper toweling. “It’s meaningless.”

He shrugged and this time couldn’t prevent a wince from escaping. Last night he’d wrenched his shoulder hauling an injured man up a slippery cliff face. “Women seem to like it,” he said on a yawn, deciding he really liked the way her wide green eyes went all squinty and irritated when he piled on the charm. It made him want to lay it on extra-thick just to see her scowl at him.

She made a noise that sounded like a snort and he had to clench his jaw to keep from grinning with satisfaction. “They probably don’t want to hurt your feelings,” she pointed out.

“You think so?” He tried the wounded look but he suspected she wasn’t fooled.

“This is not the eighties,” she informed him with a
get-real
lift of an eyebrow. “Not all women appreciate being charmed out of their panties with lines from a bad movie script.”

He looked skeptical and she shook her head as though he was beyond help. Sam waited until she turned back with a suture needle and monofilament thread, before handing her needle scissors. He watched surprise flit across her face and knew what she was thinking.
What did a macho idiot know about needle scissors?
He grimaced.
Other than having first-hand experience?

“I went to med school,” he reminded her, when she made no move to take them. He was annoyed for caring about her opinion—which had been pretty obvious from the outset, thanks to the sheriff locking him in a jail cell for no good reason.

“The way I hear it,” she said, accepting the instrument as well as the implied reproach with a nod, “you cut med school to play pirates.” He watched her get a firm grip on the needle and press the edges of his skin together with her left hand. She pushed the needle through, released it and gripped it with the flat edge of the scissors, before carefully pulling it free.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” he advised darkly, talking about more than embellished stories of his SEAL exploits. He had a feeling someone had been filling her head with his youthful indiscretions—
most
of which were gross exaggerations, the rest outright lies.

Her open skepticism confirmed his suspicions. “You mean you don’t wear a cape and fly around the world in your underwear, saving humanity?” Her movements were quick and confident and a neat row of stitches began closing the three-inch slash on his belly.

Sam chuckled and thanked God for BDUs. It was kind of nice having a conversation with a woman who didn’t treat him like he walked on water or was there to scratch her itch. It was even better watching her full pink mouth when she talked. It made him think of long dark nights, crisp cool sheets and hot wet kisses when he hadn’t thought about them in a while. It was a relief to discover he was still normal in one important area.

“You don’t believe that, do you?”

She deftly tied off and started on a fourth suture. “I stopped believing in superheroes a long time ago, Major,” she said absently. She looked up and caught his gaze. “So why
did
you?”

“Why did I what?”

“Join the Navy instead of finishing med school.”

“I did finish,” he told her, “courtesy of Uncle Sam.”

“But why the armed forces when you were already doing something that would save lives?”

He fought a knee-jerk reaction to come up with some stupid macho excuse that would confirm her not so flattering opinion of him. But something held him back. Something deep inside wanted very much for her to think of him as more than a battered sailor with big muscles.

“I was in New York when the Towers fell,” he said, wincing as the words emerged. He’d never shared his true reasons with anyone but for some reason found himself spilling his guts to her.

He remembered exactly what he’d been doing when his safe world had fallen apart. He’d been living the life of a typical student, concerned only with enjoying the hell out of being young, healthy and surrounded by girls and parties.

“You...you were
there
?”

Sam looked up, almost surprised to find he wasn’t alone. Cassidy’s green eyes were huge and filled with a compassion he knew he didn’t deserve.

“A few blocks away,” he said impassively. “I’d cut class and was staying in Brooklyn with a friend for a few days. We were sitting at a sidewalk café, having coffee and bagels, when...when the first plane flew into the towers.” He fell silent for a couple beats before continuing. “We tried getting through but the cops stopped us. Never felt so helpless in my life. There I was, a fourth-year med student thinking I had it all.”

His lips twisted self-deprecatingly. “Thinking I
knew
it all.” He speared her with a haunted look. “I saw many draw their last breaths. I don’t ever want to feel that helpless again. The next day Jack and I enlisted. We were determined to take a more active role in protecting our country.”

“Healing the sick and saving people
is
taking an active role, Major,” she reminded him, but he was already shaking his head.

“Not active enough, Doc. Besides, there are thousands of civilian doctors Stateside,” he pointed out. “What about the men and women protecting our country? Protecting the free world? Who saves them?”

“I...”

“My friend’s father was one of the firefighters killed that day,” he continued, as though she hadn’t interrupted. “I’ll never forget the look on Jack’s face when he heard his dad was never coming home.” Sam closed his eyes on remembered devastation—of that day as well as events more recent than 9/11. “You never forget that kind of pain.”

You never forget
, Sam admitted silently.
And the guilt eats at you that you are alive and they aren’t.

* * *

Cassidy watched as fierce emotions moved across his features, through his beautiful eyes. She felt a little pinch in the region of her heart. Crescent Lake’s hero was hurting, and the discovery that he was more than just a pretty face and a hot body terrified her in ways that she didn’t want to analyze.

She’d rather think of him as a shallow womanizer who’d enlisted because men in uniform got more girls. Although, in or out of uniform, the man would attract more than his share of women.

Using her wrist to push away the tendrils of hair that kept obscuring her vision, Cassidy studied him closely. The events of 9/11 may have changed the course of his life, but she had a feeling something more recent had put that
haunted
look in his eyes. And suddenly, more than anything, she wanted them glinting wickedly at her again.

Whoa
, she warned herself silently when the notion seemed more appealing than it should.
Way too intense for someone you can’t wait to get away from
.

In silence, she completed another suture before asking casually, “So you didn’t?”

His muscles bunched beneath her fingers and he went strangely still for a couple of beats before asking, “Didn’t what?”

There was a sudden shift in the air and she felt the hair at her nape rise. Primitive warning whooshed up her spine and she sucked in a sharp breath. Lifting her head, she found his attention locked on her—laser bright and strangely intent. It was odd, feeling as though they were communicating on different levels, only one of which was verbal. And even more disturbing to realize that she didn’t have a clue what it was all about.

“Cut med school to play pirates on the high seas,” she reminded him, and watched, mesmerized, as his big body relaxed. His gaze lost that fierce glitter and his mouth its tight, forbidding line, even going so far as to kick up at one corner. The air surrounding them shifted again and she was left dizzied by the sudden shifts in mood.

His teeth flashed white in his dark face. “Well...technically...I suppose I did.”

Cassidy sighed and concentrated on the last suture. “You’re an idiot.” Sam snorted, apparently as relieved as she was to lighten the tension. The band of pressure around her skull eased a little more. She really,
really
, didn’t want to like him. At least, not any more than she already did. That would be so utterly irresponsible—not to mention stupid.

“That’s the third time you’ve said that,” he accused plaintively.

“I meant it before too.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Why? Because I like to jump out of airplanes?”

“No,” she said, unlacing his mud-caked boot and dropping it on the floor, along with his wet sock. “Because you blow people up instead of healing them.” She retrieved a stool from the corner and slid it under his hard calf, reaching for a pair of scissors. There was no way she was going to wrestle him out of his wet jeans to get to the thigh injury. Just the thought of him lying there in his underwear—
God, did he even wear them?—
gave her a hot flash.

“I do heal people,” he said mildly as she began cutting the wet denim. “All spec ops teams need medics.”

She paused and frowned at him. “Well, why aren’t you doing
this
...” she gestured to the room around them “...instead of wreaking havoc and blowing things up?”

His expression clearly questioned her intelligence. “I just told you. Besides, I like blowing things up,” he said as though she was a particularly dense blonde, and she wanted to smack him. She had a sneaky suspicion that had been his intention. It seemed he was as eager as she was to move away from intensely personal subjects. “And I’m good at wreaking havoc.”

Cassidy rolled her eyes and said, “You are such a guy,” with such feminine disgust that Sam laughed.

“And that’s bad, how?”

He was so delusional that she stared silently at him for a couple of beats as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Besides, the man’s blood was probably ninety-nine percent testosterone and she’d been lucky to escape unscathed the first time around. Well, not completely unscathed, she admitted reluctantly, but she had a feeling if she allowed Samuel Kellan to matter, she wouldn’t be so lucky. “It’s bad when you won’t talk about what’s bothering you.”

He snorted and sent her a look that said she was delusional. “Talking’s for politicians...and girls,” he scoffed, and she huffed out an exasperated breath, suspecting that he was being insulting on purpose.
Sneaky
. “SEALs are doers,” he continued. “They don’t do a lot of standing around, talking. If they did, nothing would get done.” His eyes crinkled and his grin turned wicked. “But if you want to know what I was thinking last night, I’d be happy—”