Resisting Her Rebel Hero (6 page)

“Busy?”

“Just the usual. In addition to the usual, a dozen preschoolers with high fevers came in earlier. We’re waiting for spots to appear but in the meantime we’ve got our hands full with cranky little people demanding attention every second. Through that door,” she said, gesturing behind him. “I made her take a break. Who knows what will happen during the night with a bunch of miserable little people.” And then she was gone.

Sam stared after her for a moment, wondering if his mouth was hanging open. He hadn’t had an opportunity to utter so much as a grunt. Shaking his head, he turned and headed for the privacy door she’d indicated. He pushed it open and immediately heard talking.

So much for resting up for a rough night, he thought darkly. Ignoring the fact that she was free to entertain whomever she pleased, he let the door shut silently behind him and headed down the corridor. What he found wiped all dark thoughts from his head.

Shoving a shoulder against the doorframe, Sam folded his arms across his chest and let his eyes take a slow journey up long denim-clad legs perched halfway up a ladder. Doc Boston was alone and muttering to herself about something that sounded like bedpans and floor polish as she consulted the clipboard in her hand.

She turned a page to skim it from top to bottom and then back again, before huffing out a breath and turning another page, oblivious to his presence.

“You have
got
to be kidding,” she muttered with a sound of disgust. “Who puts bedpans with surgical scrubs? This system sucks.” She froze as though she’d said something indecent then shook her head with a laugh. “Yes, Cassidy, you can use the word ‘sucks’ without the world imploding.” She exhaled as she studied the clipboard, her breath disturbing silvery blonde curls near her face. “Besides, if someone can walk around with a T-shirt saying ‘
Eat the Worm
’ or ‘
Loggers do it with big poles
’ in public, you can certainly say ‘sucks’ in private without it being followed by lightning bolts.”

Sam grinned. “You sure about that, Doc?” he drawled, making her shriek and jump about a mile into the air. She grabbed for the shelf with one hand and the ladder with the other. The clipboard and pen went flying, her boot slipped and with a panicked shriek she went flying as well.

Without thinking, Sam leapt towards her. She landed against his chest with a thud, knocking the breath from them both. He staggered back against the wall and wrapped one arm securely around her back. The other he clamped around her thighs.

Planting his feet wide to accommodate his curvy armful, he grinned into shocked green eyes, conscious of lush pink lips forming a perfectly round O—which for some reason made him think of hot, wet kisses in the dark—an inch from his.

“I... You... Oh...
God
,” she wheezed out, fisting her hand in his T-shirt and sounding about as coherent as Cindy Dawson in the third-grade spelling bee when Frankie Ferguson had let go with a loud burp right there on stage.

She sucked in a shaky breath and uttered one word. “
You!
” Making him wonder if she was relieved to see him or cursing him. He suspected the latter.

“Expecting someone else?” The idea did not appeal.

“I...uh... You...” She shut her mouth with an audible snap and swiped her tongue across her lips. Then, realizing how provocative her action might appear—especially as his gaze had dropped to her mouth—she rolled her eyes and shoved against his chest. “Put me down.”

“‘I...uh... You’?” Sam lifted his brow, ignoring her order. “You’ve developed a stutter since I last saw you?”

“
Dammit
, you scared the hell out of me,” she snapped, and shoved at his shoulders again.

Both brows hiked up his forehead. “
Hell
?” He was enjoying the feel of her in his arms and the light fruity scent of her hair. He was enjoying seeing her flustered when she was normally so poised. “Doc, Doc,
Doc
,” he tutted, shaking his head. “First ‘suck’ and now ‘Dammit’ and ‘Hell’? What’s next? The
b
word?”

Cassidy froze and stared open-mouthed for a couple of beats before a faint flush rose up her neck into her cheeks. “You
heard
all that?” And when his eyes crinkled and his mouth lifted at one corner, she groaned.

“Oh, God, just shoot me.”

Sam laughed. “I only shoot bad guys,” he assured her, slipping his arm out from under her shapely bottom to let her slide down the length of his body while he enjoyed the friction of soft curves against hard angles. Her face flamed when she felt a certain hard angle and he bit back a groan, suddenly realizing why he’d come.

He wasn’t cool with his brother putting the moves on her and he sure as hell didn’t like the idea of Buddy or Jake dropping their shorts in her presence either.

Ignoring what that might mean, Sam inhaled the flowery, fresh scent of her hair and enjoyed the soft press of full breasts against his chest. Suddenly nothing mattered but putting his mouth on hers again and finding out if she tasted as good as he remembered.

As if sensing his intent, she made a sound of protest and scrambled out of reach, her eyes huge and dark with suspicion and...was that arousal?

“What are you doing here, Major?” she demanded a little breathlessly. For a long moment he watched from beneath heavy lids before taking a step towards her, enjoying the flash of annoyance that replaced the mild panic when she found herself backed against the wall.

Blocking her escape with a palm to the wall, he tunneled his free hand beneath the soft, fragrant cloud surrounding her flushed face. He wrapped his fingers around the back of her neck and gently pressed his thumb into the soft hollow at the base of her throat. The rapid flutter beneath his touch had him lifting her face to his.

The scent of peaches drifted to him and his gut clenched.
Damn
, he thought,
she makes me hungry
. Dropping his gaze to her mouth, he feathered a knuckle across her jaw to the corner of her lips and when her breath hitched in her throat, his blood went hot.

“I had no intention of coming here,” he accused in a voice rough and deep with need. “But you...make me crazy. I couldn’t stay away.”

With a sharply indrawn breath Cassidy fisted her hands in his shirt as though she couldn’t make up her mind whether to push him away or pull him close. Sam took advantage of her indecision to open his mouth over hers in a soft kiss that stole her breath and sent his head reeling.

“Samuel,” she protested tightly against his mouth.

With a deep “Hmm?” he slid his tongue along her lower lip before dipping inside where she was warm and delicious. He hummed again, this time with growing need.

God,
he thought, he hadn’t exaggerated the memory of her taste, or the feel of her mouth moving beneath his.

“S-Samuel,” she stuttered, “this...this is a bad idea.”
You’re telling me.
But she didn’t pull away, which told Sam he wasn’t the only crazy person here. In fact, she tilted her head to give him better access and her breath hitched in her throat.

It was the sign he’d unconsciously been waiting for.

“I like the way you say my name,” he growled against her lips, before rocking his mouth over hers, his control rapidly slipping. “I like the way your breath hitches in your throat when you’re aroused.” He pressed his hips against hers. “It makes me...hard.”

“
I’m not!
” she protested. “I...don’t...” Then flattened her palm over his heart, drew in a shaky breath and tried again. “You’re
not
.” But her words emerged on a moan when she felt exactly how hard he was, ruining her denial.

“I beg to differ,” he drawled, and chuckled when she blushed and huffed out an embarrassed giggle.

“No, I’m s-serious,” she stuttered, squirming away, only to find herself backed into a corner. Huffing with annoyance, she narrowed her eyes, stuck out her chin and clenched her hands as though she was contemplating taking a swing at him.

He smiled. He wouldn’t mind letting her try.

“Look,” she said, shoving the hair off her forehead, “I have bigger problems than your...um, ego, okay?”

Sam folded his arms and propped a shoulder against the wall, taking in the tousled, appealingly flustered picture she made. She looked about sixteen, and there was absolutely nothing cool or distant about Dr. Mahoney from Boston now.

His brow rose. “Yeah, like?” He grinned into her flushed face. “Like why bedpans are listed with surgical scrubs?”

CHAPTER SIX

C
ASSIDY
 
LAUGHED
.
“
D
ON
’
T
be ridiculous,” she said, rolling her eyes. Her voice had emerged all breathy and excited, like she was a teenager again, for heaven’s sake. She’d been muttering about bedpans, of all things, while trying not to think about a certain Navy SEAL. Then suddenly there he was—looking like hot sin, bad attitude and way better than she remembered. And if, when she’d been pressed up against all that hard heat, she’d been tempted to get reacquainted with that awesome body, she wasn’t about to admit it out loud. She’d been a little startled, that’s all. She was over her attraction to him. Well, mostly.

Looking into his darkly handsome face, Cassidy admitted to herself that he was a very dangerous man. He made her forget about good sense, heartbreak and painful lessons. He made her yearn to toss good sense out with her inhibitions. Fortunately she’d come to her senses in time.

Nibbling nervously on her bottom lip, she kept a wary eye on him and focused on getting her heart rate down from stroke level, only to have it kicking into high gear again when he pushed away from the doorframe.

“Look, Major,” she said quickly, throwing up a hand when he moved closer and looked like he wanted to nibble on her lip too. “I’m...busy.” His chest connected with her out-flung palm and didn’t stop. “
Really
busy.” She squeaked and retreated, annoyed that just a minute in his presence and she was acting all girly and flustered. “Stop.
Dammit
, I don’t have time for your...um...warped idea of...of foreplay. Samuel,
stop
!”

A dark brow hiked into his hairline and his mouth curled up at one corner. Great, now he was laughing at her. She huffed out a breath. Could this get any more embarrassing?

“Foreplay?”

Ignoring his question and figuring it was rhetorical anyway, Cassidy scuttled sideways and headed for the door, turning when she reached the relative safety of the hallway.
Ready to make a run for it if he made any sudden moves.

“So what
are
you doing here, Major?”
Besides making my knees wobble and my pulse race.

He turned, his gaze leisurely moving over her face until his hooded glance met hers, and add making her head spin to his sins. After a long moment, during which Cassidy thought she’d hyperventilate, he finally held up his bandaged hand.

“Oh.” Her breath whooshed out and a small frown wrinkled her brow. For heaven’s sake, she wasn’t disappointed that he hadn’t come to push her up against any walls. In fact, she was relieved. She was really very busy and didn’t have time for games.

“Why didn’t you just say so?” she gritted through clenched teeth, before spinning on her heel to head down the corridor at a sharp clip. She led the way through Reception and into the suture room, reaching for a lab coat on a nearby hook, figuring she needed the added protection against that penetrating gaze if she wanted to appear professional. Heck, if she wanted to
think
.

She fumbled for a button and was horrified to find that her hands were trembling too much to perform a task she’d mastered at five. Biting back a growl of disgust, Cassidy huffed out a breath, smoothed out her expression and turned to find him leaning against the bed, watching her thoughtfully as he slowly unwound the bandage covering his hand.

Crossing her arms beneath her breasts, she made herself focus on medical issues and not on how good he looked. “Frankly, I’m surprised to see you,” she remarked, as coolly as if her pulse wasn’t skipping all over the place like she was on an adrenaline rush. “I expected you to just rip them out with your teeth.”

His raised brow suggested she was missing a few IQ points. “And what?” he demanded. “Use them as lethal spitballs?”

Her lips curled without her permission. “You’re exaggerating.”

Sam snorted. “Have you ever had nylon thread holding your flesh together?”

“No,” she said, taking his hand and feeling the jolt clear to her elbow.
Whoa. Not this again.
Firming her lips, she resolutely ignored the sensation of his warm calloused skin against hers by inspecting the healing wound. After a few moments she reached for needle scissors and gently lifted each suture before snipping and tugging it free. “As a rule I avoid bar fights,” she continued, looking up briefly to find his mouth tilted in an ironic half-smile.

Her chest went tight.
Yikes
. The man was living, breathing sin
. And she had a dangerous urge to...well, lick him up one side and down the other.
She frowned at her unprofessional thoughts. “And throwing myself out of moving aircraft.”

The chuckle vibrating deep in his chest filled the small room and created an odd sensation in her belly. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“Yes, I do,” she corrected mildly, as she wiped disinfectant along the tender scar before spraying the area with a thin layer of synthetic skin. “I’m missing broken bones and you’re clearly missing your mind.” She covered his hand with a waterproof adhesive dressing. “Be careful with that for another few days and keep it clean and dry.”

He caught her wrist before she could turn away and her startled gaze rose to his.

“Don’t you want to know what it’s like...hurtling towards earth at a hundred feet per second?” he murmured deeply, softly.

Cassidy swallowed hard at the expression in his gold eyes.
Holy cow
. “No, I...”
If it’s anything like I’m currently feeling
...
terrifying
.

Without waiting for her brain to clear, Sam reeled her in until the warm male scent of him enveloped her and her common sense scattered, along with her reasons for keeping him at arm’s length. In fact, she suddenly couldn’t recall why she’d thought this was a bad idea. Without the slightest effort on his part he was rendering her speechless.

“Major...” She thought maybe a token protest was necessary, even though she couldn’t remember what she should be protesting against.

“It’s like that moment during sex,” he rasped, closing the gap to her mouth as she watched, frozen with fascination, “when you realize...” his lips brushed hers and he flattened her captive hand against his chest “...there’s no going back.”

“Major...” she croaked again, terrified that he would feel the way she trembled. His mouth smiled against hers, as though he knew what he was doing to her. His tongue emerged to sweep across the seam of her mouth. His heart pounded like a jackhammer beneath her palm.
Or was that hers?
“And then, like a heated rush...” he murmured silkily, sending blood thundering in her ears. A breathy whimper escaped and before she could stop it her palm slid up his warm chest to his neck. “It hits you...
wham
!”

She jolted the instant his teeth closed over her bottom lip to tug on the sensitive flesh. Hot shivers scattered from the base of her spine into every cell and Cassidy thought,
Oh, God
, as her knees wobbled.

Before she could protest again, Sam’s mouth opened over hers in a kiss that instantly spiraled out of control. It turned the moisture in her body to steam and sucked air from as far down as her toes.

It felt like she’d been tossed into the center of a tornado. She told herself that if he hadn’t been holding her captive she would have pulled away. Broken free. Run for her life.

At least she would have if she’d been able to formulate a single thought. Then she was being yanked up against all his hard heat, his arm an iron band across her back while he fed her hungry kisses that were all tongue and greed and stole her breath along with her mind.

Cassidy’s breasts tightened and her blood caught fire. Just when she felt that insidious slide into insanity, he froze and pulled back.

Wha—?

Stunned by the force of emotions storming through her, Cassidy sucked in a desperate breath and stared back at him, wondering a little hysterically if the pounding in her head was a sign that her brain was about to explode. The man literally sucked up everything around him like a level-five twister.

His hands tightened and his eyes looked a little wild—
kind of like she was feeling
—and it took a few moments to realize the pounding wasn’t in her head.

A loud
bang
was abruptly followed by yelling that had Sam shifting from sexy and sleepy to sexy and...
lethal
. Without a sound he shoved her roughly aside to move on silent, deadly feet towards the hallway, his hand reaching for...a weapon?

Awareness returned in a rush and Cassidy flung herself after him before he could launch a silent attack on some poor unsuspecting person. She grabbed for his shirt to hold him back and he rounded on her, eyes deadly and cold. It was clearly his attack SEAL face, Cassidy thought with a shudder. She could easily imagine the enemy quailing with terror. Heck,
she
was trembling.

“It’s all right, Major, it’s just...it’s just a medical emergency.” At least she hoped it was and not an invasion by paramilitary groups that gossip said hid in the mountains. Then all bets were off. And when he gave no indication that he’d heard, she shook him. “Stand down, Major, I’ve got this.”

For long scary beats he stared at her, his expression cold and flat. Just when she thought he meant to swat her like a pesky fly, he blinked, slowly, like he was coming back from...
a flashback
?

Cassidy gulped, but then his face abruptly lost color and before she could move, he staggered. She reached for him but he threw out a hand to steady himself against the wall.

“Go,” he rasped, giving her the sharp edge of his shoulder. She hesitated, watching his forehead drop against the bulge of his biceps. The muscles in his wide back bunched and turned hard. After a couple of hesitant beats she turned and took off down the hallway.

One look at the couple in ER had all thoughts of Sam’s flashbacks flying from her head. The woman being propped up by a clearly freaked-out man was as white as a sheet and covered in sweat. She clutched her heavily pregnant belly, and Cassidy noticed blood and fluid staining the front of her maternity dress.

“
Help
her
,” the man yelled wildly when he saw Cassidy. “Help her.
Oh, God,
help her. She’s bleeding. It won’t stop,” he croaked pleadingly. “It just won’t stop and the baby...” He swallowed. “I think the baby’s stuck.”

Cassidy grabbed a nearby gurney and met them halfway, swallowing the urge to yell at them for waiting so long. This had all the signs of a home delivery gone wrong. So dreadfully wrong. She just hoped it wasn’t too late.

“What happened?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you come in earlier?”

“She wanted a home birth, but the midwife’s not answering her phone,” the man babbled through bloodless lips, his eyes wide and wild. “I didn’t know what to do. What the hell do I know about babies? Nothing. I know
nothing
...
Oh, God,
what have I done?” As white as parchment, he swayed and Cassidy put out a hand to steady him. That’s all they needed. Another casualty.

Before she could snap out an order for him to get a grip, the woman gave a low moan and her legs buckled. Yelling out a code blue and hoping someone would hear, Cassidy lurched forward just as the woman fell, her weight taking them both to the floor.

Vaguely aware that the man was screaming and crying hysterically, Cassidy opened her mouth to rap out an order, but the breath had been knocked from her and all she could manage was a strangled gasp.

Sam’s face appeared overhead and before she could blink at his abrupt appearance he’d bent and lifted the woman off her with easy strength. Sucking in air, Cassidy scrambled to her feet.

“You okay?” he demanded in a low tone as he gently placed the woman on the gurney.

She should be the one asking but even as she opened her mouth to voice her concerns, she noted that other than a faint pallor and a hard, closed expression, Sam seemed to have recovered. His eyes were clear and sharply focused.

“Cassidy?”

She shook her head to dispel her misgivings and noticed he’d pulled on a lab coat that strained the shoulder seams and rode up his strong wrists. He’d also slung a stethoscope around his neck. He met her pointed look with a raised brow, silently telling her she had more important things to worry about. Things like their distressed patient.

“I’m fine,” she rapped out. “Get her details.” And took off down the hallway with the gurney, hitting the emergency button as she streaked past.

The next few minutes were a blur as she wheeled the gurney into the OR, where she checked the woman’s vitals. Her concern ratcheted up a notch at the patient’s labored breathing and erratic pulse.

“Dammit, dammit,
dammit
,” she muttered, grabbing a pair of scissors to cut away the blood-soaked dress. She needed another experienced professional. Preferably someone who had done this before. She needed Dr. Montgomery.

By the time the night nurse burst into the OR, Cassidy had finished intubating the mother. With swift, competent movements she hooked up a saline drip and rapped out orders for drugs.

Ripping open a syringe package with her teeth, she fitted the needle and shoved it into the first vial the nurse handed to her. “Prep her for a C-section,” she told the nurse briskly, injecting the contents into the port. “And then call Dr. Montgomery. I’m going to need help on this one.”

“You’ve got help,” a deep voice informed her from the doorway and Cassidy looked over her shoulder to see Sam striding into the OR.

Cassidy’s eyes widened. “Major—”

“Her name is Gail Sanders,” he interrupted in a voice as deep and calm as though he did this every day. “She’s a kindergarten teacher. This is her first pregnancy—no history of problems.” His eyes were calm and steady on hers. The silent message was clear. They didn’t have time to wait for the elderly doctor or discuss
his
mental issues. “Moving her when you’re ready.”