I don’t want my best friend threatened with a lawsuit.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.” But still he didn’t put her down.
As she thumped his back with her fists, she could hear her sister laughing.
To heap on the humiliation, he carried her case in his free hand with no visible effort.
“This is uncomfortable. You’re going to rupture my spleen.”
He ignored her and carried on walking, his boots crunching through the surface of the snow.
“There you go.” He lowered her gently to the ground. “Bones in one piece, spleen intact, temper and smart mouth also thriving.”
They were at the bottom of the curving staircase that led up to the deck.
“There is nothing wrong with my mouth, thank you.”
He looked at her for a long moment and the corners of his mouth flickered into a smile. “Finally, something we agree on.”
She was so taken aback she was mute.
His smile widened and he picked up her case and vanished up the stairs as if it weighed nothing.
She heard him laugh and murmur a few words to Rosie, and then he was standing in front of her again.
Before she could move, he leaned forward and brushed his lips across her cheek. “Admit it, Doctor. I rock your world.”
“My world hasn’t moved an inch. Not a tremor.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth and lingered with such intensity that she stopped breathing. If a patient had showed any of the signs she was showing, she would have called the resuscitation team. She would have been hitting the red button and yelling can I have some help in here?
She said nothing.
He said nothing.
And then his eyes lifted back to hers and the sizzle of electricity almost knocked her off her feet. Her world wasn’t so much rocked, as jolted and shaken. It made no sense. She was an expert at freezing men out. He should be stepping back. He should be giving her a similarly frosty look while he decided she definitely wasn’t his type. He shouldn’t be looking at her the way he was looking at her. As if he wanted to—as if—
In a delicious trancelike state, she tilted her head. Her mouth drifted toward his, as if she were being pulled by an invisible force. Her eyes started to close.
And then, when she thought her heart might pound its way through her chest, he spoke.
“Enjoy your time with your sister. And you should ask Dan to take a look at that shoulder while you’re here. I don’t know how you injured it, but he’s good at sports physio.”
The words yanked her back to reality. Her eyes opened, but he was no longer in front of her.
What? Where?
Dazed, she turned and watched as he walked back to the car. What had just happened? Was she ill? She pressed her palm to her forehead. She wanted to take her temperature, and maybe run some blood tests. A scan. She had to be ill, surely? There was no other reason for her strange symptoms.
Had he noticed?
Get a grip, Katie.
She stared after him, frustrated by every confident stride. And how had he known about her shoulder? Slip on the ice, damn you.
“Not even a ripple on the Richter scale,” she called after him. “And I could have walked across that bridge without you. I would have been fine.”
The last thing she heard before he slid behind the wheel was laughter.
Damn the man.
If she never saw him again, it would be too soon.
She walked up the steps carefully, not because she was afraid they might be slippery, but because her legs seemed to have forgotten their purpose.
And now she had another problem looming. What to do about her sister. Her matchmaking, romance-loving, dreamy sister. Katie was sure that if she examined Rosie’s blood under a microscope, her red blood cells would be shaped like little hearts.
“Hurry up, I’m letting out all the heat,” Rosie yelled down to her from the door of the tree house. “What’s taking you so long?”
Katie wasn’t sure there was a clinical term that covered her current symptoms. She realized Rosie hadn’t been able to see what had happened. The wraparound deck had provided shelter from prying eyes.
“I’m coming!” She hauled herself up the last few steps. “Where’s my baby sister?” She emerged onto the deck and was enveloped in a hug. Rosie held on to her so tightly she thought her ribs might crack. She opened her mouth to protest and ended up with a mouthful of her sister’s hair. “Hey. Good to see you, too. Ouch.