by Lexi Blake
“At the research place,” he said as though trying to remember the details. “Houseman?”
“Huisman. It’s named after the family that founded it,” she explained. “I work with one of the sons.”
“Owen works with people, too,” a deep voice said. There was a hint of Western drawl to this one. He was all American, with dark hair that was a tiny bit shaggy but did nothing to hide his obvious masculinity. If he hadn’t been standing next to Owen, she would have found him devastatingly attractive. As it was, she acknowledged his handsomeness but couldn’t quite take her eyes off the Scot.
Owen winced, but his lips ticked up in a heartbreaking grin. “This is my mate, Robert McClellan. We’re sharing the flat for now. We worked together back in London before we took the transfer here. It’s only for a couple of months while we decide where we want to live. Apart. I’m just saying I’ll have my own place soon.”
Robert coughed, obviously covering his amusement. “I think he’s trying to explain that he’s not a thirty-six-year-old man who needs a roommate to cover half the rent.”
“Oh, I was thinking it must be nice to have someone to talk to when you come home at night.” She didn’t even have a pet. She’d started talking to her plants.
He shuddered as though she’d said something distasteful. “We’re mates, love. The most we say to each other is pass the beer. Do you mind if we join you?”
Oh, if she sat down with him, she might not get back up. She had to view him as an indulgence. “Sorry. I’m on my way into work.” She took the coffee from Nina and handed her the payment. It was definitely time to head out. “It was good to see you, Owen, and nice to meet you, Robert.”
Surprise was stamped on his handsome face.
She bet he didn’t get the brushoff often. He was likely used to women falling all over themselves the minute he walked in the door, and there was the slightest satisfaction that she could put that look on his face.
“Hey, I was hoping we could maybe have dinner tonight,” he offered.
Going out with him would likely be a mistake. Despite their incredible sexual chemistry, she knew they didn’t have a ton in common. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t see him again. She would likely see him a lot, and that was why she needed to keep her distance now. “I have plans tonight. Maybe some other time.”
She backed away.
“You having trouble, Dr. Walsh?”
Carter stood in the doorway, his bag over his shoulder. He was dressed for the office. “Not at all. I was just saying good-bye to my new friends. You heading in?”
He nodded, though his eyes were still on Owen and Robert. “Yes. Dr. Klein has me doing a bunch of paperwork this morning. He’s got a conference next week. And I have to reshuffle the intern schedule. Ally’s father is ill and she’s going back to Ottawa for a few days. I’m hoping the new guy can take her shifts.”
She glanced back and Owen had a cup of coffee in his hand, his eyes steady on her. He tipped his cup her way and smiled that incredibly inviting smile before turning back to his friend. Her breath had caught in her chest because that smile promised that he would be there if she needed him…for anything.
He was a dangerous man. She turned her attention back to her safety net—work. “How do you feel about the new interns? Are they going to work out?”
“Well, Annie is a moron and I have no idea how she got into medical school,” he began complaining. “Hannah thinks more about her boyfriend than she does her work. She’ll be spitting out kids the minute they get married.”
“That’s kind of sexist.” She strode toward the subway station.
“Well, it’s also true, and to show you I’m fair, I also hate Dillon. He’s an overprivileged moron who only got the job because his family is country club friends with the Huismans, so I’m sure he’ll be my boss soon. Tucker is cool,” he allowed. “He’s smart and hard working. He seems solid, if you know what I mean. I’m hoping he’ll take Ally’s place. The cancer team’s double-blind finishes on Wednesday, and we’ll need all hands on deck to get that data together.”
Carter was a logistical genius. Despite his youth, he was excellent at dealing with the various teams he needed to juggle.
“Well, you’ll do a fabulous job with it. Let me know if you need anyone else to help out,” she offered. “Cathy can input data like a pro. Because she actually is a pro.”
Carter slowed his gait to allow her to keep up. “I think we can handle it, but thank you. Speaking of data, how is yours coming along?”
A deep sense of satisfaction came over her. “It’s good on both fronts. Elaine’s aphasia has almost completely disappeared.”
Elaine was one of her patients. She hated thinking of the people she worked with as subjects. It dehumanized them, and she couldn’t do that. They were people in trouble. People like her mom. People who suddenly found the very power of speech taken from them by a greedy disease.
“That’s amazing,” Carter said with a smile. “She could barely speak when she came in.”
“The therapy is helping rewire her brain.” It was slow, but once she had the drugs that would speed up the healing process ready, it would be much faster. What could take a year to repair could be done in a matter of weeks or maybe days. “If everything goes well, I’ll be ready to go to human trials next year.”
And then she would start the real fight. It bubbled up inside her. She was getting there. She was going to take the fucker down, and then no one would have to go through what her mother had.
“I like it when you get that look in your eyes,” he said with a shake of his head, as though he was surprised the words had come out of his mouth. “Sorry. The work you do is important and when you get that look on your face, I know you’re in the zone, so to speak.”
She kind of was in the zone. She felt more settled than she had the day before, and that probably had a whole lot to do with the man she’d left behind at the café. “I’m feeling good about a lot of things today.”
“I’m surprised you turned that man down.” He opened the door to the Spadina Street Station, allowing her to enter. “He was the one stuck in the elevator with you, right? I thought I recognized him. You must have made an impression if he wanted to see you again. I guess getting stuck together is one way to have a date. I should try it sometime.”
The one thing she’d noticed beyond the fact that Carter seemed to have a problem with many of the interns under his charge was that he also complained about being single. A lot. “As guys to get locked in with for hours go, Owen’s a pretty good one.”
“So you’re going to see him again?” Carter asked.
“I don’t think so.” Had she wavered? “I mean, no. I’m sure I’ll see him around, but we don’t have anything in common.”
Except for raging sexual chemistry.
He didn’t know any of the shows she liked. She didn’t work out a lot and he’d admitted it was one of his main hobbies. That and stepping in front of people if a bullet was flying. She didn’t like the thought of him getting hurt.
Was that why she was hesitating? Because he had a dangerous job and she couldn’t stand the thought of losing anyone else?
No. She was being logical, and she wasn’t ready for a relationship. She might never be ready for one. She was married to her work.
And he made her feel. Not merely physical things. He’d made her want to reach out and hold his hand, to let him take control. For a moment she hadn’t had to be anything but Owen’s lover.
Booty calls were about all she could handle right now. Lover meant something, something serious.
This was her time to have fun and play the field.
“Besides, I might have a date in a couple of days,” she admitted. She was going to get out there, play the field. She wasn’t going to spend all her time mooning over Owen Shaw.
He stopped, his eyes widening with surprise behind his glasses. “I thought you swore off dating.”
“No,” she corrected. �
�I took a sabbatical from interpersonal intimacy.” Not intrapersonal though. She’d had an excellent relationship with her vibrator and various porn sites.
She’d dreamed of being on her knees the night before, looking up at Owen, and when he’d smiled down at her, she’d known that he valued her for so much more than sex. In the dream, he took control in much of real life, too, allowing her to concentrate on her work while he handled their daily life.
She groaned inwardly. She really was dreaming of having a wife.
If only she was attracted to other women.
Her heels clicked along the tiles at their feet and she couldn’t help but notice Carter had gone quiet.
“Cathy’s got a plan to set me up,” she explained. “You know she’s kind of a matchmaker.”
He huffed with obvious disdain. “I’m sure she thinks she is. The dating scene isn’t for me. Women don’t want a smart man. They want a steroided-out asshole who looks like he should be on a movie screen.”
She wasn’t touching that one. “Okay, then. I will not put you on her list of available men.”
“I’m married to my work,” he insisted. “I certainly don’t need some clingy female. If I date, she’s going to be my intellectual equal. You were smart to not accept a date with that Neanderthal. He’s obviously not in your league.”
Yep, he was totally not in her league. He was in the majors. Any woman who looked his way probably wanted him, and it was obvious he hung out with the cool crowd. He and his friend, Robert, were both gorgeous and cut, sexy as hell.
“Don’t be a snob,” she said, but her brain was in overdrive.
It was a bad idea to get attached to some dude she’d done in the elevator. It was better to leave it where it was and to relegate the event and the man to her fond-memory files.
“Sometimes being a snob is all I have,” Carter admitted.
The train whooshed in and she was ready to go to work.
* * * *
“What the hell was that?” Owen watched her stride out of the café, her lovely backside swaying. She was back in doctor mode, wearing a different shirt and skirt combo, flats and one of those cardigans. He wondered how many she had. This one was bright yellow and shouldn’t have been so wretchedly sexy, but he knew what she looked like trying to get one of them off. He remembered how she’d tossed it to the floor so it wouldn’t come between them.
“That was her blowing you off,” Robert explained, a cheery grin on his face. “It sounds like fun because the word blow is in there, but it actually refers to the opposite effect. That was her way of saying thanks for the sex, see you never.”
“Sex?” Nina looked at Robert and then Owen before handing over their second cups of coffee. “I thought the two of you were supposed to be having sex with each other, not the target.”
“It’s a sad but common tale.” Robert leaned against the counter. “My lover left me for a chick he found in the elevator.” He sighed and put his hand over his heart. “Such a faithless lover. One look at her and he forgot all our years of sharing our lives. What will we do about our two point five children and our rescue mutts? And who gets the china?”
“I was stuck in there with her for over four hours. It wasn’t like we looked at each other and went at it.” But when they had gone at it, it had been intense. “I got to know her. She’s a hell of a lady.”
“Yes, she is, and that’s precisely why you shouldn’t play games with her,” Nina said, her tone going frosty.
“It’s not a game. It’s a mission, and I’m not going to let her get hurt.” He’d made that decision the night before. “I’m not going to promise her anything I can’t make good on.”
“You’re actively spying on her, Owen,” Nina replied, her voice going low. “I can assure you she will get hurt. Think about that. I have to get back to work.”
He got the feeling he’d stepped into it with the new girl. And that she’d be updating Damon Knight as soon as she could.
Robert picked up his cup and tipped it Nina’s way. “Don’t worry about her. I think Rebecca Walsh can handle herself.”
Robert started for one of the swanky couches. The whole café was done up like someone’s living room with intimate spaces mixed in with traditional tabletops. Robert sank down as Tucker strode in.
“Morning, guys,” Tucker said. “Hey, Nina, can I get a plain black and a couple of muffins? Turns out the boss doesn’t do breakfast. Or buy groceries. Is there a reason I’m stuck with Ezra?”
“He needs a roomie and you’re the only one available,” Robert replied. “Jax gets bitchy when he can’t do his wife on every available surface wherever he’s living. Trust me. I stayed with them in Dallas. I did not eat off that table after I came home at a completely inopportune moment. Sasha and Dante are the only people who can stand sharing a room with the other, and Owen and I were in love until his dick took over. It was always going to be you and the boss.”
Owen rolled his eyes and looked at his partner for this op. “What’s got you in such a bloody good mood? Last night you were all prissy and today I’m getting the Big Tag treatment from you.”
Robert shrugged. “I’ve decided to go with the flow.”
Tucker sank down to the couch. “Ariel showed up at the bar last night and they made love eyes at each other for three hours.”
Robert frowned. “We did not make love eyes. What the hell are love eyes?”
Tucker’s baby blues went wide and he looked utterly ridiculous as he put his chin in his hand and batted his lashes Robert’s way. “‘Oh, Robbie, it’s so lovely to see you again and to let you creepily stare at me when you think I’m not watching but I really am because the truth is I love you, too, but I have a degree in psychology and that means I can’t sleep with the crazy ones. Oh, cursed fate!’”
He’d said it all in a terrible impersonation of Ariel’s upper-crust British accent, but he was probably dead on when it came to everything else.
Robert’s eyes rolled. “She’s not in love with me. It would be ridiculous for her to be in love with me.” A grin tugged his lips up suddenly. “She likes me, though. I think she likes me a lot.”
“Yeah, she does,” Tucker said as Nina strode up with a mug of coffee in hand.
“You are worse than any group of teenaged girls, you know that, right?” Nina gave them a judgmental stare.
Tucker merely shrugged. “We never got to be teens so we don’t know how to do it. And Big Tag is right. Gossip is super fun.”
“Gossip can kill a career. I should know,” Nina said before winking Robert’s way. “But she does fancy you. Quite a bit. Make sure you take care of her. She’s my friend. I know how to take a man’s balls off seventeen different ways, and they all hurt.”
Tucker leaned over as she walked away. “I heard she used to be Interpol. Damon hired her after she got fired for sleeping with the wrong dude, like a dude who was spying on her. She does not like the idea of fucking for information.”
“Ah, that’s why she was so upset when she found out Owen slept with the lovely Dr. Walsh,” Robert mused.
“She’s lovely now?” He knew it was perverse, but he didn’t like Robert talking about Becca like that. Robert should see her as smart and even attractive maybe, but only in a theoretical sense. “Just yesterday she was nothing but the target.”
That slightly feline smile Robert got from time to time when he relaxed enough to be mischievous took over his face. “Well, she’s way hotter than she is in her professional pictures. And she was incredibly hot last night. She kind of glowed. I thought it was because the elevator was hot or something, but now I know the truth.”
Tucker set his mug down. “So when are you seeing her again? The dude I work for is practically in love with her. Carter. He’s kind of an asshole. He’s a prick to the female interns, but you would think Dr. Walsh walks on water when he talks about her. I can’t wait to watch him implode when Owen walks in with her.”
Before Owen could ask about Carter�
�because he thought that was the man she’d walked out with moments before—Robert was speaking. “The impending implosion will have to wait. It looks like Dr. Walsh has excellent instincts. She’s like the mouse that got the cheese and was smart enough to get out of the trap.”
“She liked my cheese. Why wouldn’t she want more cheese?” It didn’t make sense. She’d been happy with him the night before. He’d been able to feel it. Robert was right; she had glowed.
“She might be one of those mice who knows going back for a second bite of cheese is never the same as the first,” Robert offered with a sigh. “She also might view you as a gorgeous muscular himbo, and she got what she wanted from you and now she’s going to go find someone with like five degrees to settle down with.”
It was what he’d feared. She was smart, genius-level smart, with a prestigious job, and he was a bodyguard who hadn’t exactly showed off his intellectualism with her. He’d talked about taking bullets and being a solider.
Neither of which he actually remembered.
It hit him hard, the scent of sweat and the rat-a-tat sound of gunfire all around him. For the merest second he could feel heat on his face and he’d known, oh, he’d known he wasn’t going to make it.
“Owen?” All amusement had fled Robert’s expression now. “Are you all right?”
He hadn’t talked to any of them about the strange flashes he’d started getting. But then he didn’t talk to them about much anyway. It wasn’t that they weren’t his mates, but he wasn’t sure how much right he had to be among them. They’d all been victims through no fault of their own. But he…
“I’m fine.” He shook it off. There was no need to worry anyone. He was fairly certain they all got a flash from time to time.
God, he wished he could get a flash of his mum, of his sister. He wanted even the merest hint of what it had meant to love them so he could make sense of the wrong he’d done in their name.