by Susan Crosby
She didn’t budge. “So. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow,” she said.
He pulled away his hand slowly, cold replacing the heat fast—too fast. She shivered.
“Until tomorrow, then,” he said, smiling.
She climbed out of the car, leaning back in for just a moment. “Good night.”
“I’ll wait until you’re inside.”
She nodded, was aware of his gaze on her as she crossed between two parked cars, walked up the sidewalk, then climbed the front stairs. Should she turn around and wave? Of course. He was being a gentleman. She waved, although she couldn’t see if he waved back.
When she got inside she leaned against the door, her legs wobbly. What had just happened? Was she caught up in Penny and Brant’s story of love at first touch? She wanted the same fairy tale. The same happy ending. She’d wanted that for a long time.
But with Ted? A man who turned her on just looking at him? A man she worked with? A doctor?
She climbed the stairs, went into her dark, quiet apartment, then didn’t bother turning on the lights, moonlight casting just enough illumination. She slipped off her shoes, hung up her coat and sat on her sofa, curling her legs under her. Her body felt alive. Needy. Aroused.
How could she work with someone whose smallest touch left her breathless?
Her phone rang. She picked it up from the coffee table, her hello sounding shaky, even to herself.
“It’s Ted.”
She gripped the receiver with both hands. Her heart began to pound, loud and fast. “Oh, hi.”
“Listen, I—”
What? You felt it, too? You want me, too?
“Sorry. A car just cut me off. Um, I left some papers on your kitchen counter. Would you bring them with you tomorrow?”
She closed her eyes, more disappointed than she should let herself be. “Of course.”
“Thanks. See you.”
“Bye.”
She’d seen him around the building for months and been able to control it. So why this reaction today? And then there was the fact he hadn’t seemed to notice her at all until today. Or had he studiously been avoiding her, as she had been avoiding him?
All she knew for sure was that she needed to be very, very careful from here on. First and foremost, she wanted to get into the vault.
And she couldn’t—wouldn’t—let her attraction to Ted get in her way.
Chapter Four
In the lab early the next morning, Ted made room for Chance Demetrios to study his computer screen. Ted had arrived well before dawn, needing to get started on his lightbulb moment of the previous evening.
“You came up with this last night?” Chance asked.
“Yeah. A purely random thought.”
“How did we miss it before?”
“Because it’s been a process. We had to go through the previous steps to get to this point.”
“I think you’re onto something, Ted.” Chance stepped back. “This could be the breakthrough.”
“Maybe.”
They’d worked together for so many years that they didn’t need to say a lot, could interpret each other’s expressions. Chance grinned; Ted just nodded, their reactions as opposite as everything else about them. Although they were about the same height, and had similar dark eyes and hair, Chance was powerfully built and social, and the black sheep of his dominant and wealthy family, whereas Ted rarely made waves. Opposite in many ways, but similar where it counted.
Because what they had in common was a need to find a viable treatment for male infertility, although neither had told the other why. And both were stubborn and independent, which made them a good team, each other’s checks and balances.
“Has Derek Armstrong weighed in on having Sara Beth working with us?” Chance asked.
“He hasn’t stopped by today. Maybe he doesn’t know yet.” Ted figured Derek would have an opinion, since he’d had an opinion on everything else that Ted and Chance were doing as they tried to protect the institute’s name.
“Did you spend the night here again?” Chance asked, booting up his own computer.
“No.” But that reminded Ted that he needed to order a bed frame, his box spring and mattress being too low to the ground for comfort getting in and out of bed. “I went to my parents’ house for dinner. It was their anniversary. How about you? You sounded hopeful about your date on the phone yesterday.”
“Here’s a piece of advice, my friend. Never have a first date on Valentine’s Day.”
With a few keystrokes, Ted forwarded the new hypothesis to Chance’s computer. “Okay. Why not?”
“Expectations are too high.” Chance tapped a couple keys, then his screen matched Ted’s.
“For what? Roses? Candy? Sex?”
“All three.”
“Your expectations or hers?”
Chance laughed. “In this case, hers.”
“And you turned her down?” Ted had observed Chance in action for years. He flirted in the same unconscious way that most people breathed. “Got a fever or something?”
“Or something.”
Ted studied Chance, but didn’t continue the conversation. They worked side by side, their shorthand of familiarity being enough to convey their thoughts. Suddenly, Ted smelled sweet lemons and discovered Sara Beth standing beside him, wearing tie-dyed scrubs in blues and greens.
Technically she’d been his Valentine’s Day date, but without roses, candy or sex. Without any expectations at all. She’d been a good sport about it, too.
“Good morning, Doctors,” she said, unobtrusively setting down an envelope with what he assumed were his papers from the night before.
He hadn’t needed them—he had a near photographic memory—but he’d gotten worried when her lights hadn’t come on in her apartment after he’d dropped her off. The only reasonable way he could make sure everything was okay was to call her, using the excuse of bringing his notes to work.
“Good morning, Sara Beth,” Chance said. “Thanks for agreeing to work with us.”
“It’s my pleasure. I know how anxious you are to have the situation cleared up.”
Ted didn’t take his eyes off his monitor, but he said good morning.
“Your first appointment just arrived, Dr. Demetrios,” Sara Beth said.
He saved his work and shut down the computer. “Did you have a nice Valentine’s Day?”
Ted heard her hesitation and wondered if Chance did.
“Yes, I did, thank you. And you?”
“She didn’t have a sense of humor.”
“Ah. Too bad. That’s a requirement of yours, I’m sure.”
Ted looked at her in time to see her eyes sparkling.
Chance nodded solemnly. “Number one priority. That, and being a redhead.”
“Uh-huh.”
He raised a hand. “Honest.”
She tapped her watch.
“I’m going, I’m going.” He headed to the door. “See you later.”
The obvious ease of their relationship irritated Ted. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Sara Beth then followed Chance out the door, stopping him.
“Sara Beth is going to be working with us every day. You need to treat her more professionally.”
Chance’s brows lifted. “I’ve worked closely with her for months, Ted. We joke around. You’ve heard of the concept, right?”
“Joking is fine. But not flirting.” He was making an ass of himself, and he knew it, yet couldn’t stop it. “You got yourself in trouble for that before, remember?”
A deep frown settled on Chance’s face. He leaned closer to Ted, keeping his voice low. “How could I forget? But I wasn’t guilty then, and I’m not guilty now. So lay off.” He walked away.
It wasn’t the first argument they’d had, and undoubtedly wouldn’t be the last, but their disagreements were usually about intellectual or scientific issues, which eventually were proved or disproved. Plus, they enjoyed challenging each other.
Thi
s was different. They never intruded on each other’s personal lives. Never had any reason to.
Ted shoved his hands through his hair, taking a few seconds to vanquish the irrational thoughts, then determine the reason for them.
Simple. He was jealous of how easy it was for Chance to flirt and tease.
Ted could learn, though. Tricia’s presence last night had reminded him how far he’d come. In high school they’d both been labeled nerds. She’d blossomed into a beautiful, poised woman to match the intelligence that had been there all along. And he looked a little more put together now, which got him dates without him trying much. Not that he held any woman’s interest for very long—
“I’m on the clock here,” Sara Beth said from the open doorway, apparently having waited as long as she could while he self-analyzed.
“Sorry.” He returned to the lab, and went directly to a corner desk. “I had boxes brought up from the vault.” He pulled up a page on the computer screen. “All you need to do is enter the information from the files into this spreadsheet.”
She stared at the image. He was distracted by her lemon scent again, realized it was her hair that smelled so good.
“This seems like a job that one of the data clerks could do,” she said, hesitance in her voice.
“So it may seem, but it’s much more than just entering data. Plus, we want to involve as few people as possible. You need to read the files, to understand the information that’s there, not just statistics. We’re looking for reasons why there have been so many more multiple births in the past few years than in previous ones. The institute’s protocols are exact. We don’t allow more than three implantations, yet we’ve had more twins and triplets born than makes scientific sense.”
She looked up at him. He’d gotten so close, he could feel her body heat, but he didn’t move away from it. Neither did she.
“And because we had a big turnover of personnel after Dr. Armstrong retired, the people involved are gone and you’re left holding the bag?” she asked.
“Not exactly, since we haven’t been here long enough to blame, but Chance and I came here because of the institute’s great reputation and what seemed to be unlimited funding. A scandal, which this is brewing to be, could cause a huge loss of funding, which could mean the death of our research.” He almost brushed back a wisp of Sara Beth’s hair that had escaped her braid.
“Okay. What am I looking for?”
He pointed out the items she should review, flagging anything questionable. “If you come across something that doesn’t make sense or falls outside the category parameters, just ask. I’ll be working in the lab all day.”
She nodded. “When I’m done with these, should I go into the vault for more? I mean, how far back are we checking?”
He finally stepped away slightly. “I don’t know yet. We may end up entering everything, converting all of it into the new program, something that would’ve been done, except that Dr. Armstrong said it wasn’t necessary. Lisa and Paul want to bring the institute into the twenty-first century.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
Ted wondered about her mood. She’d gotten quiet and businesslike since Chance had left. “Thanks again for last night, Sara Beth. I think I’m off the hook with my parents for a while.”
“It wasn’t a hardship for me.” She fidgeted. “You and Tricia go way back, I guess.”
He adjusted his lab coat. “We dated in high school.” He remembered their first kiss, glasses bumping glasses. He hadn’t known where to put his hands, so he hadn’t made any attempt. They’d just sort of leaned toward each other and touched lips. They’d gotten a little better at it through trial and error, but it wasn’t until he’d dated an older woman as a sophomore in college that he’d learned what he’d been missing.
“You haven’t seen each other all these years?”
“Once, right before I graduated from Stanford.” They’d slept together. She’d come to town for the sole purpose of sleeping with him, she told him, as forthright as always. It had been physically satisfying but left him feeling hollow at the same time, as if they’d needed to do it in order to move on with their lives, to prove to each other how far they’d come. That she’d shown interest in him last night was both surprising and uncomfortable. “She could be elected president someday. Or at the very least, be a Supreme Court justice.”
“You can say you knew her when. Reporters will track you down to interview. You’ll have your high school yearbook photos splashed on the tabloids and across the Web.”
“My fondest wish,” he said dryly.
She laughed, a bubbly sound that infiltrated his body and danced inside him, making him feel…edgy. He remembered the firmness of her breast against his hand, the tempting curve of her lower back…
Tempting? There was no denying it. She tempted him, even with her hair in a tidy braid, her bright scrubs and practical shoes.
“Would you go shopping with me?” he asked.
“Pardon me?”
He liked the way her eyes widened when she was surprised, her lashes long and dark. “I thought I’d look at furniture this weekend. Would you turn your lie into a truth by helping me?”
A long pause ensued, then finally, “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise. Why? Do you think it isn’t?” He hadn’t thought it through. The idea had struck, and he’d asked.
“We work together.”
Ted was unprepared for the blow of a rejection. He rarely asked anyone for help doing anything, but he also couldn’t remember being turned down before, either. “If you don’t want to, just say so. It’s not like it’s a date.”
Her gaze drilled his. “I’m sure Tricia would be glad to have you change your mind and ask her. She seemed ready and able.”
“If I’d wanted to ask her, I would have. It could be fun, Sara Beth. An adventure,” he added, appealing to that side of her.
They stood staring at each other. He waited her out.
“Okay,” she said. “I need to see your loft first or I won’t be able to picture the furniture in your space. I’m not a pro, you understand.”
“You have good taste. Actually, anyone probably has better taste than me, but your apartment is comfortable. I want comfortable.”
“And a place you can invite people over.”
“Yes.”
“Even if you don’t really want to,” she added, her eyes dancing with laughter.
They barely knew each other, but she’d figured him out. And he’d asked her to help him with the furniture because he’d already relaxed with her. She was easy….
No. That was a complete lie.
She was trouble.
Chapter Five
Sara Beth let herself into her mother’s house at six o’clock on Tuesday night. No scent of food greeted her, which meant they would be eating out. “I’m here!” she called, then shut the front door.
“Be out in a sec,” came Grace O’Connell’s reply from her bedroom at the back of the house.
In reverse of Sara Beth’s housing situation, Grace owned her two-story Victorian, lived downstairs and rented out the second story to a Harvard law professor. It was the house where Sara Beth grew up.
“Cute blouse,” Grace said. “You actually shopped.”
“Guilty.” Sara Beth hugged her mom, wondering as usual if Grace was ever going to age. Although sixty-two, she looked much younger, her hair long, straight and blond, her few wrinkles mostly laugh lines fanning from the corners of her crystal-blue eyes. She and Sara Beth could trade clothes, if they wanted, they were built so similarly.
Sara Beth adored her. She’d had a wonderful childhood, had never felt denied anything—except a father, or even a father figure. If her mother had dated, Sara Beth never knew about it.
“How come you didn’t call me to shop with you?” Grace asked, stepping back to look at her daughter more closely. “I would’ve been happy to go along.”
Grace cocked her head. “Who is he?”
It wouldn’t do any good to hold back. Her mother could spot a lie every time. “It’s not what you think.”
“Anytime a woman who hates to shop goes shopping, and buys more than she thinks she needs, there’s a man involved.”
“You buy new clothes all the time. I’ve never seen evidence of a man.”
“I like to shop.” She slipped into her coat and stuffed her wallet into a pocket. “Did you buy new lingerie?”
Sara Beth almost choked. “No, Mother. I did not.”
“You’re blushing. Hmm. That’s interesting. Tell me about him.”
“We’re just friends.”
Grace rolled her eyes, hooked her arm in Sara Beth’s and headed toward the door. “Which is the most pathetic lie in the lexicon of dating.”
“It’s the truth in this case. I did go to a family dinner with him last weekend, but he called it a rescue date. His parents get on him about still being single and I went as a decoy.” And ended up being aroused by his touch. Not exactly within the definition of “friend.”
Outside, Grace slid her key into the lock. “So, he used you? How charming.”
“I said yes because it suited my purposes, Mom, not his. I’ve gotten in a bad habit of staying home, especially now that Lisa practically lives at the institute. I decided to shake up my routine.” She smiled. “So, where are we going?”
“Don’t change the subject, young lady.”
“There’s no subject to change. Nothing’s going on.” They turned right at the end of the walkway. Sara Beth guessed they were going to Santini’s, a small family-style restaurant two blocks away.
“Are you going out with him again?”
Sara Beth managed not to sigh. “Not on a date. I’m going to help him shop for furniture for his place on Saturday.”
“Why?”
“Because he asked.” And because I want to.
“Why aren’t you telling me who he is, Sara Beth? If it’s no big deal—”