by Tina Beckett
Back in her husband’s bed?
Dr. Tracy Hinton has spent years traveling round Brazil, trying—and failing—to forget her sexy husband, Ben Almeida. But when disaster hits a small community with potentially catastrophic consequences, she needs his unrivaled medical expertise. Surely she can keep things strictly professional, even if she does remember how good they once were together? And working against the clock means they can temporarily put aside their differences. Yet there’s no denying their sizzling attraction—and Ben has always been so hard to resist….
He stared at her for a long moment, taking in the parted lips, the glittering eyes…an expression he knew all too well. He lowered his head, and an inner shout of exultation went off in his skull when she didn’t flinch away but met him halfway.
Their lips connected and it was as if a match had been struck in the presence of gasoline fumes. They both went up in flames.
A low moan slid between them. One that most certainly hadn’t come from him. Taking that as a signal to continue, he lifted his fingers and tunneled deep into her hair, the damp moisture of her scalp feeling cool against his overheated skin.
Ignoring the microscope and slides, he shifted her legs sideways until they rested between his, without breaking contact with her mouth for even a second.
The change in position pressed her thigh against his already tightening flesh, which was pure torture—it made him want to push back to increase the contact. He forced himself to remain still instead, although it just about killed him. It had been four years since he’d held this woman in his arms, and he wasn’t about to blow it by doing anything that would have her leaping from his lap in a panic. Realistically he knew they weren’t going to have sex here, but he could take a minute or two to drink his fill of her.
Only he’d never really get his fill. Would always want more than she was willing to give.
Dear Reader,
There comes a time in our lives when we’re confronted with tough challenges or painful decisions. When those decisions are of a life-changing nature there’s a temptation to draw inward and isolate ourselves, locking out those who love us the most.
Tracy Hinton faces just such a situation. And at a time when she should lean on her husband the most she shuts him out completely, creating a rift that soon grows too wide to bridge.
That could have been the end of the story, but sometimes we’re given a second chance—an opportunity to right the wrongs of the past. What we do with that chance will set the course for our future. Will we waste it? Or will we embrace it and accept the good things life has to offer?
Thank you for joining Ben and Tracy as they embark on a very special journey of healing and second chances. In confronting the mistakes of the past they rekindle a love that has never quite died. These two characters stayed with me long after I wrote “The End.” I hope you enjoy reading their story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Love
Tina Beckett
HER HARD TO RESIST HUSBAND
Tina Beckett
Also by Tina Beckett:
THE LONE WOLF’S CRAVING**
NYC ANGELS: FLIRTING WITH DANGER*
THE MAN WHO WOULDN’T MARRY
DOCTOR’S GUIDE TO DATING IN THE JUNGLE
*NYC Angels
**Men of Honor duet with Anne Fraser
These books are also available in ebook format from www.Harlequin.com.
Dedication
To my husband, who stands beside me through thick and thin.
And to my editor, Suzy, for making me dig deeper than I ever thought I could.
Praise for
Tina Beckett:
“A tension-filled emotional story with just the right amount of drama. The author’s vivid description of the Brazilian jungle and its people make this story something special.”
—RT Book Reviews on Doctor’s Guide to Dating in the Jungle
“Medical RomanceTM lovers will definitely like NYC Angels: Flirting with Danger by Tina Beckett—for who doesn’t like a good forbidden romance?”
—HarlequinJunkie.com on NYC Angels: Flirting with Danger
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
TRACY HINTON DIDN’T faint.
Her stomach squirmed and threatened to give way as the scent of death flooded her nostrils, but she somehow held it together. Calming herself with slow, controlled breaths was out of the question, because breathing was the last thing she wanted to do right now.
“How many are there?” She fitted the protective mask over her nose and mouth.
“Six deaths so far, but most of the town is affected.” Pedro, one of her mobile clinic workers, nodded towards the simple clay-brick house to his left, where an eerily still figure was curled in a fetal position on the porch. Another body lay a few yards away on the ground. “They’ve been dead for a few days. Whatever it was, it hit fast. They didn’t even try to make it to a hospital.”
“They were probably too sick. Besides, the nearest hospital is twenty miles away.”
Piaui, one of the poorest of the Brazilian states, was more vulnerable to catastrophic infections than the wealthier regions, and many of these outlying townships relied on bicycles or their own two feet for transportation. It was hard enough to make a twenty-mile trek even when one was young and healthy, which these poor souls had not been. And cars were a luxury most couldn’t afford.
She wouldn’t know for sure what had caused the deaths until she examined the bodies and gathered some specimens. The nearest diagnostic hospital was a good hundred miles from here. In any case, she’d have to report the possibility of an epidemic to the proper authorities.
Which meant she’d have to deal with Ben.
Pedro shook his head. “Dengue, you think?”
“Not this time. There’s some blood on the front of the man’s shirt, but nothing else that I can see from this distance.” She stared at the crude corral where several pigs squealed out a protest at the lack of food. “I’m thinking lepto.”
Pedro frowned. “Leptospirosis? Rainy season’s already over.”
The area around the house consisted of a few desiccated twigs and hard-packed clay, confirming her colleague’s words. The sweltering heat sucked any remaining moisture from the air and squeezed around her, making her nausea that much worse. Situated close to the equator, the temperature of this part of Brazil rarely dipped below the hundred-degree mark during the dry season. The deadly heat would only grow worse, until the rains finally returned.
“They have pigs.” She used her forearm to push sticky tendrils of hair from her forehead.
“I saw that, but lepto doesn’t normally cause hemorrhaging.”
“It did in Bahia.”
Pedro’s brows went up. “You think it’s the pulmonary version?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Do you want to take samples? Or head for one of the other houses?”
Reaching into the back pocket of her jeans, she eased out her cellphone and glanced hopefully at the display. No bars. What worked in Sao Paulo obviously didn’t work here. “Is your phone working?”
&nb
sp; “Nope.”
She sighed, trying to figure out what to do. “The tissue samples will have to wait until we come back, I don’t want to risk contaminating any live patients. And maybe we’ll come within range of a cellphone tower once we hit higher ground.”
* * *
Benjamin Almeida pressed his eye to the lens of the microscope and twisted the fine focus until the image sharpened, making the pink stain clearly visible. Gram negative bacteria. Removing the slide, he ran it through the digital microscope and recorded the results.
“Um, Ben?” His assistant’s hesitant voice came from the doorway.
He held up a finger as he waited for the computer to signal it had sent his report to the attending physician at the tropical disease institute of Piaui. The man’s office was fifteen steps away in the main hospital building, but Ben couldn’t take the time to walk over there right now. Dragging the latex gloves from his hands and flicking them into the garbage can to his right, he reached for the hand sanitizer and squirted a generous amount onto his palm.
“Yep, what is it?” He glanced up, his twelve-hour shift beginning to catch up with him. There were two more slides he needed to process before he could call it a day.
“Someone’s here to see you.” Mandy shifted out of the doorway, the apology in her cultured Portuguese tones unmistakable.
“If it’s Dr. Mendosa, tell him I just emailed the report. It’s a bacterial infection, not a parasite.”
A woman appeared next to Mandy, and Ben couldn’t stop his quick intake of breath. Shock wheeled through him, and he forced himself to remain seated on his stool, thankful his legs weren’t in charge of supporting his weight at that moment.
Inky-dark hair, pulled back in its usual clip, exposed high cheekbones and a long slender neck. Green eyes—right now filled with worry—met his without hesitation, her chin tilting slightly higher as they stared at each other.
What the hell was she doing here?
The newcomer adjusted the strap of a blue insulated bag on her shoulder and took a small step closer. “Ben, I need your help.”
His jaw tensed. Those were almost the exact words she’d used four years ago. Right before she’d walked out of his life. He gave a quick swallow, hoping his voice wouldn’t betray his thoughts. “With what?”
“Something’s happening in Sao Joao dos Rios.” She patted the bag at her side, words tumbling out at breakneck speed. “I brought samples I need you to analyze. The sooner the better, because I have to know why people are suddenly—”
“Slow down. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She bit her lip, and he watched her try to collect her thoughts. “There’s an outbreak in Sao Joao dos Rios. Six people are dead so far. The military police are already on their way to lock down the town.” She held her hand out. “I wouldn’t have come if this wasn’t important. Really important.”
That much he knew was true. The last time he’d seen her, she had been heading out the door of their house, never to return.
He shouldn’t be surprised she was still roving the country, stamping out infectious fires wherever she went. Nothing had been able to stop her. Not him. Not the thought of a home and family. Not the life she’d carried inside her.
Against his better judgement, he yanked on a fresh pair of gloves. “Do I need a respirator?”
“I don’t think so. We used surgical masks to collect the samples.”
He nodded, pulling one on and handing another to her, grateful that its presence would hide those soft pink lips he’d never tired of kissing. Ben’s attention swiveled back to her eyes, and he cursed the fact that the vivid green still had the power to make his pulse pound in his chest even after all this time.
He cleared his throat. “Symptoms?”
“The commonality seems to be pulmonary hemorrhage, maybe from some type of pneumonia.” She passed him the bag. “The bodies have already been cremated, unfortunately.”
“Without autopsies?” Something in his stomach twisted in warning.
“The military let me collect a few samples before they carted the bodies away, and the government took another set to do its own studies. I have to document that I’ve destroyed everything once you’re done.” She lowered her voice. “There’s a guard in your reception area whose job it is to make sure that order is carried out. Help me out here. You’re the best epidemiologist around these parts.”
He glanced at the doorway, noting for the first time the armed member of the Policia Militar leaning against the wall in the other room. “That wasn’t one of my most endearing features, once upon a time.”
He remembered all too well the heated arguments they’d had over which was more important: individual rights or the public good.
Biting her lip, she hesitated. “Because you went behind my back and used your job as a weapon against me.”
Yes, he had. And not even that had stopped her.
His assistant, who’d been watching from the doorway, pulled on a mask and moved to stand beside him, her head tilting as she glanced nervously at the guard. Her English wasn’t the best, and Ben wasn’t sure how much of their conversation she’d grasped. “Is he going to let us leave?” she asked in Portuguese.
Tracy switched to the native language. “If it turns out the illness is just a common strain of pneumonia, it won’t be a problem.”
“And if it isn’t?”
Ben’s lips compressed as he contemplated spending an unknown amount of time confined to his tiny office.
With Tracy.
He had a foldable cot in a back closet, but it was narrow. Certainly not large enough for…
“If it isn’t, then it looks like we might be here for a while.” He went to the door and addressed the official. “We haven’t opened the tissue samples yet. My assistant has a family. I’d like her to go home before we begin.”
Ben had insisted his office be housed in a separate building from the main hospital for just this reason. It was small enough that the whole thing could be sealed off in the event of an airborne epidemic. And just like the microbial test he’d completed for a colleague moments earlier, any results could be sent off via computer.
Safety was his number-one priority. Mandy knew the risks of working for him, but she’d been exposed to nothing, as far as he could tell. Not like when Tracy had rushed headlong into a yellow fever epidemic four years ago that had forced him to call in the military authorities.
The guard in the doorway tapped his foot for a second, as if considering Ben’s request. He then turned away and spoke to someone through his walkie-talkie. When he was done, he faced them. “We’ll have someone escort her home, but she’ll have to remain there until we know what the illness is. As for you two…” he motioned to Ben and Tracy “…once the samples are uncapped you’ll have to stay in this building until we determine the risks.”
Mandy sent Ben a panicked look. “Are you sure it’s safe for me to leave? My baby…” She shut her eyes. “I need to call my husband.”
“Have Sergio take the baby to your mother’s house, where she’ll be safe. just in case. I’ll call you as soon as I know something, okay?”
His assistant nodded and left to make her call.
“I’m sorry.” Tracy’s face softened. “I thought you’d be alone in the lab. I didn’t realize you’d gotten an assistant.”
“It’s not your fault. She’s worried about the risks to her baby.” His eyes came up to meet hers, and he couldn’t resist the dig. “Just as any woman with children would be.”
He mentally kicked himself when the compassion in Tracy’s eyes dissolved, and anger took its place.
“I was concerned. But it was never enough for you, was it?” Her chest rose as she took a deep breath. “I’m heading back to Sao Joao dos Rios as soon as you give me some answers. If I’m going to be quarantined, I’m going to do it where I can make a difference. That doesn’t include sitting in a lab, staring at rows of test tubes.”
He kn
ew he’d struck a nerve, but it didn’t stop an old hurt from creeping up his spine. “Says the woman who came to my lab, asking for help,” he said quietly.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Sure you did.”
They stared at each other then the corners of her eyes crinkled. She pulled down her mask, letting it dangle around her neck. “Okay, maybe I did…a little. But at least I admitted that I need you. That has to count for something.”
It did. But that kind of need was a far cry from what they’d once had together. Those days were long gone, and no matter how hard Ben had tried to hold onto her back then, she’d drifted further and further away, until the gulf between them had been too huge to span.
Bellyaching about the past won’t get you anywhere.
Ben shook off the thoughts and set the insulated bag on an empty metal table. He nodded towards the aluminum glove dispenser hanging on the far wall. “Suit up and don’t touch anything in the lab, just in case.”
She dug into her handbag instead and pulled out her own box of gloves. “I came prepared.”
Of course she had. It was part of who she was. This was a woman who was always on the move—who never took a weekend off. Tracy had thrown herself into her work without restraint…until there had been nothing left for herself. Or for him.
He’d thought she’d stop once the pregnancy tests went from blue to pink. She hadn’t. And Ben hadn’t been able to face any child of his going through what he had as a kid.
Gritting his teeth in frustration, he glanced around the lab, eyeing the centrifuges and other equipment. They’d have to work in the tiny glassed-off cubicle in the corner that he’d set up for occasions like this.
Keeping his day-to-day work space absolutely separate from Tracy’s samples was not only smart, it was non-negotiable. If they weren’t careful, the government could end up quarantining his whole lab, meaning years of work would be tossed into the incinerator. He tensed. Although if their findings turned up a microbe that was airborne, he’d willingly burn everything himself. He wouldn’t risk setting loose an epidemic.