He’d barely managed the save when Gage had asked if the pretty doctor would like to check his wound for him later, if necessary. If Gage became her patient she’d never date him. Since they’d both already voiced a mutual interest in her it was imperative that they not establish a regular doctor-patient relationship.
Unfortunately, Gage hadn’t been able to sleep because of the pain, and Duke had elected to drive them back to the apartment, where Gage had a stronger pain reliever leftover from a recent oral surgery. Gage had encouraged Duke to stay at the campsite and get to know the doctor a little better, but Duke had wanted to approach her with Gage.
Gage focused on the address on the envelope, and his eyes bugged. “No way.”
“Oh, yeah. The doctor is in,” he said triumphantly. They couldn’t have asked for better luck. “I left a note stuck to her door to let her know that her friendly upstairs neighbors got her forwarded mail in their box by accident.”
Duke’s thoughts were interrupted by the telltale chime of an instant message on Gage’s laptop computer sitting beside him on the couch. Gage sighed heavily and rubbed his hands over his face.
Duke asked, “Is Amy still pestering you?”
“Yes. I told her I wasn’t interested in meeting. She is being persistent.”
Duke grimaced and said, “Persistent? We know all the signs of cyberstalking. You’ve tried reasoning with her. You’re just going to have to block her.”
They’d met Amy playing Call of Duty online one night with two other friends. They had no problem playing with women on their team, and she’d done okay. Gaming had progressed to her messaging them at other times. Duke wasn’t interested in an online relationship because he knew the risks and had ignored and discouraged the contact from the start.
Gage had a softer heart and had replied to her messages, trying to keep it friendly. His interaction with her had only encouraged her to contact him more often. She’d become needy to the point that he’d had to tighten the security settings on his social networking sites to stop her from spamming him, which made having them at all kind of pointless. The private messages had taken on a whinier, more desperate tone, and Gage had finally told her that it had to end. She was silent for two days and then began instant messaging him almost constantly, even in the middle of the night. She wanted to meet him face-to-face.
When the text message alert suddenly sounded on Gage’s cell phone, he peered at the screen and cringed. He looked at the phone like he wanted to throw it.
Duke gaped and said, “You’ve got to be joking.”
“She tricked one of the guys into giving my number to her. I already called him. This is what I get for being a nice guy.”
“Yeah. Cyberstalked. I think we need to do a little research and then contact her to put a stop to this.”
Gage shook his head. “I’ll e-mail her and warn her one last time.”
“Have you ever Googled ‘personality disorders’? Amy sounds obsessed. Seriously.”
Gage scowled as his phone chimed again. He turned the phone off and lifted the computer to his lap.
Duke hoped this time Amy got the message. Given his background in security and investigation, he felt relatively certain that Amy was who she said she was and wouldn’t be difficult to find. The issue worrying Duke was that she might be more deeply fixated on Gage than he realized.
* * * *
Emma climbed from her vehicle and quietly closed the door. She hadn’t seen her new apartment in broad daylight since she’d visited it with the property management representative the week before. She’d come home late every night since moving in. Her lease had come up for renewal on the house she’d been renting, and she’d opted to move out of the noisy neighborhood to find someplace a little quieter.
She followed the moonlit sidewalk to the front of the building with her keys ready and waiting to unlock her door.
A folded note was slipped into the crack between the doorjamb and the door, which she removed as she slid her key in the lock. Walking in, she sighed at the stack of sealed boxes the movers had delivered that still waited to be unpacked. Her goal was to have the apartment shipshape by that weekend. After hanging her keys and purse up, she unfolded the note and read it.
Hello New Neighbor!
Your mail was accidentally placed in our box by the mail carrier today. Feel free to come by at your convenience to get it. Welcome to the neighborhood.
Your upstairs neighbors in Apt. 104B
The confident, boxy scrawl looked like a man’s handwriting. Her mail had been forwarded from her old address, and today would’ve been the day it would start delivering at her new place. She was willing to bet her neighbors had gotten quite a stack.
Glancing at the clock, she pondered if she should go up right then to get her mail. It was after ten o’clock, and her neighbors might already be asleep. She hung her doctor’s jacket on the hook beside her purse and keys, thankful she’d taken a break to eat an early supper when she had. One of her younger patients had been admitted into the local hospital, and she’d been there longer than she’d expected.
Placing a box on the kitchen counter, she slit the tape open with a utility knife and began unpacking the contents and putting them away. She heard a light thumping noise overhead and wondered if her neighbors upstairs were night owls like her.
She heard more soft thumping and made a decision. Walking to her door, she put her doctor’s coat back on and grabbed her keys. She trotted up the stairs and knocked on the door of apartment 104B. Nobody had been home upstairs last week when she’d taken a look at the apartment for the first time. She’d heard them moving around a couple of times late at night, but they were nothing compared to the noise level she’d lived with at her last residence.
Jane was the one who had suggested the complex because Tabitha from the quilting circle had just recently moved out of the apartment Emma now occupied. She hoped that with time the cat box odor faded. She was relieved she’d been able to get out of tonight’s quilting circle get-together. Working strange hours had its perks sometimes.
The door opened wide, and she stood there in amazement, staring at Duke Rivers. He smiled widely at her and seemed genuinely pleased to see her. She couldn’t understand why, given his apparent lack of interest the other night.
“Well, hello there, Doc. Welcome to the neighborhood.”
In surprise, she said, “Wow. It’s a small world.”
Duke backed up and beckoned her inside. “And getting smaller all the time. Look who’s here, Gage.”
She peered in and waved at Gage and stepped over the threshold. “I’m sorry if I came up too late. I hope I haven’t interrupted your evening.” Judging by the familiar soundtrack, they had a movie going.
Gage smiled and waved her in as Duke closed the door behind her. In a quiet, deep voice, he said, “Hi, Emma. It was a nice surprise to find out you’re our new neighbor.”
Emma gave him a little wave, feeling self-conscious as she overlapped the edges of her doctor’s coat in front of her and held it closed with her forearms across her chest. Her nipples perked up and throbbed with excitement as he continued to gaze at her.
Duke placed a hand at her waist and said, “Come on in. We were just watching a movie.”
“I asked for one hair from her golden head…she gave me three,” said the familiar voice of Gimli the dwarf.
She cocked her head and smiled as she peered at the television screen. “You’re watching The Fellowship of the Ring, aren’t you? Extended Edition?”
Smiles broke out on both men’s faces as if they were impressed, and Duke said, “Of course. I take it you’re a fan?”
Emma nodded, thinking that was an understatement. She’d recognized the dialogue from the extended version of the movie. The ability to quote dialogue made her slightly more than just a fan. “You could say that.”
Gage patted the couch beside him and said, “Why don’t you join us?”
Emma wanted to in the wor
st way but squelched the thought. “I wish I could, guys, but I’ve been up since five o’clock this morning and I still have stuff to do before I go to bed. Maybe another time?” she asked, hoping they didn’t think she was just making excuses. A little voice in her head asked her if that wasn’t exactly what she was doing.
Duke smiled and said, “Sure. Let me get your mail.” He strode off to the kitchen. Emma stood there fidgeting, overlapping the front edges of her doctor’s coat again, and rewrapped her arms over her chest as she waited for Duke. She glanced up and caught Gage watching her.
“Is the arrow wound healing well?” she asked, noting that he sat on a pillow. It was second nature to her to reach for her life as a doctor as a means to make conversation. She’d always felt inept at small talk.
“It’s much better. My doctor said you did a good job and prescribed an antibiotic.”
“I noticed that you were both gone the following morning. Was the pain severe?”
Gage nodded and looked a little sheepish. “Yeah. We’d brought sleeping bags and I could never get comfortable so we left.” He searched her eyes and said, “Are you sure you don’t want to—” He was interrupted by a chime emitting from his open laptop, which seemed to annoy him greatly.
“Everything okay?”
Gage nodded and looked a little disgusted. “It seems I have an online admirer-slash-stalker.”
“Oh, that’s not good.”
“It’s a hazard of getting to know people online. Sorry to bore you with my issues.”
“It’s okay.”
“Here you go,” Duke said as he returned to the living room and placed her thick stack of mail in her hands. “You sure you can’t stay for a little while?”
“Thank you for the invitation, but I need to get a little more unpacking done and I have an early morning. I wish I could, because I love The Lord of the Rings trilogy.”
Duke said, “I’ll walk you down.”
She was a little surprised he wanted to do that. She didn’t have far to go, and the stairway was well lit. Looking back at his friend, she said, “Good night, Gage. Feel better.”
“Thank you, Emma. I will.” His deep tone and the sleepy look in his eyes sent a thrill right through her core, and she smiled back.
“And good luck with your stalker. I’ll bring the popcorn next time I visit, okay?”
Gage smiled and said, “It’s a date.”
Duke walked her downstairs as she pondered Gage’s last words. A date? She wasn’t his doctor. Would she date him? In a heartbeat!
She asked, “So, are the two of you roommates?”
Duke nodded. “We’re also cousins, but we were raised together like brothers. We’ve lived together for about a year, since we made the move from San Angelo.”
San Angelo. Who do I know from San Angelo? “Hey! You’re friends with Ace Webster and Kemp Whittier, aren’t you?”
Duke smiled and nodded. “Yeah, we work with them on occasion. We helped with Summer’s security issues at Discretion.”
Emma hoped Duke couldn’t see her blush as she remembered her latest purchase at Discretion. She didn’t recall seeing him there. “That was a pretty hair-raising situation. Have you done work at the hospital recently?”
“Yes, they needed a consultation and upgrade on their video surveillance system.”
She nodded. “I’ll bet that’s why you’re familiar to me. I must’ve seen you while I was checking on a patient.” At her door, she inserted her key and turned to Duke as she pushed it open. “Thank you for walking me down.”
Duke leaned against her doorframe and crossed his lean, muscular arms over his chest, mirroring her posture, only he seemed ruggedly comfortable doing it, and she only felt vulnerable and awkward.
The snug black T-shirt he was wearing stretched tautly over his biceps, and she longed to reach out and stroke the tanned expanse of his arm. He smiled at her, and she was held captive by the mischievous twinkle in his slate-gray eyes. The color was not steely and intimidating. It was softer, more earthy, and appealing to her.
His smile lifted at the right corner of his mouth, and he licked his lip a second before he spoke. “We’d like to take you out sometime.”
“We as in three friends going out?” she asked as her heart raced in her chest. Is this how Grace felt the first time her men asked her out?
“We as in the three of us going out on a date, if you’re not opposed to that idea. Gage would’ve walked you down with me but it’s a lot tougher than he likes to admit to get up and down.”
“Oh. Um—well…sure. I guess that would be all right. But my hours are kind of strange.”
Duke’s ever-ready smile reappeared as he looked into her eyes. “We keep strange hours at times too, Emma. Could I have your phone number?”
“S–Sure,” she stammered. She reached for a business card in her pocket. After writing her private number on it, she gave it to him. “Wait. Why the sudden interest? I got the impression last weekend that you weren’t…”
“Weren’t what?”
“Interested in me. I saw you cut Gage off when he—”
“Almost became your patient?” Duke’s smile was wide and confident as he said, “We’re not interested in you as a doctor, Emma. We are, however, interested in you.”
It was a good thing she was leaning against the doorframe, otherwise she might’ve fallen over. “Oh.” That’s all you can think of to say, dimwit?
He smiled as he tapped her card against his palm. “I’ll call you.” Instead of backing off to return upstairs, Duke surprised her by closing in on her. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”
His lips pressed lightly to hers for barely a second before he turned and walked away. She stood there in shock. He glanced back for a second, a big smile on his face, and waved at her. She grinned, probably looking like a total idiot, and waved back at him. Still feeling his warm lips pressed to hers, she stayed at her door until she could no longer see his feet and then went inside and locked the door behind her.
Pressing her fingertips to her lips, she whispered, “Wow.”
A date? Hell yeah. How long had it been since she’d been on a date? Forever.
* * * *
Friday evening, Emma grinned as she pulled in to the parking spot designated for her vehicle next to her apartment building. She’d gotten home while the sun was still up. She grabbed her grocery bags and juggled them as she checked her mail then headed inside. The dark apartment was blissfully cool as she closed the door behind her. She wondered again if the smell of the previous occupant’s cat litter box would ever dissipate and added scented candles to her shopping list on the refrigerator.
After changing into a tank top and snug, stretchy pants, she set to work unloading her groceries on the kitchen counter. A growling rumble sounded from her stomach, and she pondered what to make herself for supper. Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.
She peered through the peephole and gasped in delight at what she saw. It was her handsome neighbors, with a pizza box and a bottle of wine in hand. A thrill raced through her as she whispered, “Awesome.”
She opened the door and immediately wished she’d stayed in her scrubs when they both looked her up and down and smiled. Duke said, “Hey, pretty neighbor! We saw you were home early and thought you’d like to share our supper with us.”
Self-consciously, she braced her forearm against the door to cover her nipples which had peaked at the sight of them. Dressed in her sports bra and a tank top, there was no doubt they’d be able to see them. “Sure! Um—Let me go change real quick, though. I was about to start supper and then unpack some boxes—”
“No!” Gage interrupted, then clamped his lips together before continuing. “I mean…don’t change on our account. What you have on is…just fine with us.” His cheeks turned a little ruddy as he spoke.
Duke chuckled as he glanced at Gage and said, “Yeah. Don’t go to any trouble because of us. After a long day, you’re allowed to
get comfortable. Why don’t we eat, and then if you’d like we can help you unpack some boxes.” His gray eyes seemed hopeful and a little hungry as he glanced at her clothing again. Emma bit her lip as her nipples responded with another wave of throbbing awareness.
Emma beckoned them into the kitchen. “Sure. I hope you don’t mind eating on paper plates. I still haven’t unpacked everything in the kitchen. But I do know where my corkscrew is. You’re sure you don’t mind helping me?”
Gage replied, “Not at all.” He looked around, and his eyes rested on the boxes in the living room next to her couch.
Gesturing to the stack, she said, “Those are all my books, music, and DVD collection.”
Gage grinned and said, “This should be fun and a great way to get to know you.”
Emma thought she might enjoy this evening, until she remembered what was in some of those boxes Gage had eyed.
She got paper plates and plastic cups from the pantry as she pointed at the drawer that she knew contained the corkscrew. Duke and Gage quizzed her about her day as they consumed the pizza and the bottle of wine. By the time she’d finished her first glass of Barbera d’Alba, she’d decided that having their help unpacking would be a fantastic idea. They set to work in the kitchen first, as Duke and Gage put away the groceries she’d been unloading before they arrived. Duke pulled the produce from a bag and held up a rather large cucumber, and Gage followed suit.
“Mine’s bigger,” Duke said with a chuckle.
Gage smirked and replied, “Mine’s thicker.”
Emma let loose a giggle that ended with a snort and said, “That’s okay, they’ll both get devoured.” Did I just say that out loud? Both men groaned as they put them in the produce drawer and helped get everything else put away. Duke unpacked a box that contained her limited supply of alcohol and other odds and ends.
The Divine Creek Ranch Collection Volume 4 Page 3