Despite her close relationship with Elijah Alexander, she obviously hadn’t heard that he wasn’t doing patient rounds at the hospital but spending time with his wife, who was in ICU after suffering a near-fatal heart attack the previous evening.

So all he said to her was, “And I’d let you go if I didn’t think it was likely you’d pass out while you were driving and potentially cause more harm to yourself and/or others.”

He wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but her face got even whiter. “Have I lost that much blood?”

He chuckled as he tugged on the second glove. “Hardly.”

She scowled. “Then why do you think I’d pass out?”

“Because I was there when you fell off the stone wall at Eagle Point Park and cut your knee open. You said you were okay, then you saw the blood and your face went white just before your eyes rolled back in your head.”

He shouldn’t have mentioned the incident, because it was an admission that he still remembered that day, even so many years later. As he remembered so many things they’d done and moments they’d spent together. He had too many memories of Ashley. Memories that haunted his waking moments and taunted him in dreams.

“I was nine,” she said, her indignant response forcing his attention back to the present.

“And you’re as pale now as you were then,” he told her.

Since she couldn’t see her face, she really wasn’t in a position to deny his accusation. Instead, she lifted her arm and thrust her towel-wrapped hand toward him.

“Fine. Take a look and give me one of those butterfly bandage things so I can go home.”

Cam took her hand and carefully began unwrapping the towel. At another time, he might have lifted his brows at the parade of little goslings embroidered along the hem, but now it was the blood soaked into the fabric that held his attention.

“How did it happen?” he asked.

“Broken glass.”

He was a doctor—he’d seen far worse than a three-inch gash in the flesh of a woman’s hand. Except that this was Ashley’s hand, and the gash ran down the side of her palm before abruptly detouring toward her wrist. Luckily, it stopped short of her ulnar artery, but his heart skipped a beat in his chest when he realized how close it had come.

“Must have been a big piece of glass,” he noted.

“Eleven-by-fourteen.”

It only took him a second to figure out the reference. “A picture frame.”

She nodded, but kept her gaze firmly affixed to the opposite wall.

He tore open the packaging of a gauze pad, dabbed gently at the skin around the wound. “Well, I think it’s going to take a little bit more than one of those butterfly bandage things to fix this up.”

“How much more?”

“Probably ten to fifteen stitches.”

He thought of the patients still in the waiting room and considered sending her to the hospital for the procedure. Now that he’d examined her injury, he was confident the repair was something any ER doctor could handle.

But she was already here and he had everything he needed on the premises to get the job done, and he would take care to minimize, as much as possible, any scarring.

“I was afraid you were going to say something like that.” She sighed. “Okay. Let’s just do it.”

“Well, Ashley Roarke, I never thought I’d hear you say those words to me again,” he teased.

That remark brought color to her too-pale cheeks and a flash to her lovely violet eyes.

Eyes that had haunted his thoughts and his dreams for longer than he was willing to admit.

“The stitches, doctor.”

He grinned, unrepentant. “Of course.”

He released her hand and went to the door, poking his head out to ask Irene for a suture tray.

She must have anticipated his request, because she came in with the necessary equipment less than a minute later.

Her eyes grew wide when she saw Ashley’s injury.

“Oh, honey, what have you done?”

“I lost a fight with a piece of broken glass,” Ashley told her.

“Well, don’t you worry. The doctor will have you fixed up in no time.”

“But you’re going to jab me with that first, aren’t you?” she asked, warily eyeing the needle that the nurse was prepping.

“Actually, the doctor is going to jab you with it,” Irene told her. “But you won’t feel him poking at you after that.”

Cam fought against a smile as Ashley’s cheeks colored again.

He’d remembered so many things about her, but he’d forgotten how easily she blushed, how much he used to enjoy making her blush. But that was a long time ago.

Now he had to forget that they were ever lovers and concentrate on doing his job.

“There now. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Irene said.

“You wouldn’t be asking that question if you’d been on the other end of the needle,” Ashley told her.

The nurse chuckled. “You never did like getting shots,” she remembered. “And your sister wasn’t any better. How’s she doing, by the way?”

He didn’t know if Irene had asked the question because she was anxious to catch up on Roarke family gossip or if she was trying to distract Ashley from what he was doing, but since the patient wasn’t paying any attention to him or the needle sliding through her skin, he was grateful.

“Meg’s great,” Ashley responded. “She seems to have adapted to marriage easily and blissfully.”

“Good for her,” the nurse asserted. Then her voice gentled when she said, “But I imagine it must have been difficult for you.”

Ashley didn’t move, but Cam sensed her tension.

“Megan getting married so soon after you ended your engagement, I mean,” Irene clarified.

“I was—am—happy for her.”

“Well, of course you are. And I have no doubt that someday you’ll find a man who’s perfect for you, too.”

“I’m not looking for a man—perfect or otherwise,” Ashley said.

She spoke with such conviction, he found himself wondering about the details of her broken engagement, and whether he might be able to subtly pry them out of the nurse at another time. Because he had no doubt that if there were details to be known, Irene would know them.

But for now, he clenched his teeth together to hold back the questions he wanted to ask. He had no business asking any questions, no business feeling anything for the woman who had once meant everything to him.

“Are you up to date with your tetanus shot?” he asked instead.

Ashley shifted her attention from the nurse to him. “I had a booster two years ago.”

“Then you don’t need another one.”

“Must be my lucky day.”

He smiled, appreciating that she could find humor in the situation.

“Since you’re just about finished up here, I’ll go check on Mrs. Kirkland,” Irene told him. Then to Ashley, “Take care of yourself, hon.”

“I will.”

“How do they look?” he asked, after Irene had gone.

Ashley glanced down at her hand, at the dark thread that stood out in stark contrast to her pink skin. “It looks … good?”

He smiled again. “It looks raw and ugly, but it will look good when the wound has healed.”

“How long?” she asked.

He tore open a sterile gauze pad, affixed it to her skin. “Seven to ten days.”

“At least they’ll be out before I go back to school.”

“Too bad,” he said. “I imagine fifteen stitches could be the object of intense fascination for a bunch of first graders.”

She looked up, surprise evident in those stunning eyes.

He was suddenly aware of how close they were sitting. That he was still holding her hand. And that she had made no effort to pull away.

“How did you know I teach first grade?”

He shrugged. “It’s what you always said you were going to do.”

“I didn’t think you would have remembered something like that,” she murmured.

“You’d be surprised what I remember,” he said. “What I couldn’t forget.”

Her gaze dropped away, and he cursed himself for speaking aloud a truth he’d only recently acknowledged.

He wrote her a prescription for some painkillers, tore off the page and handed it to her.

“Try to keep your hand elevated as much as possible, keep the stitches dry, and set up an appointment with Courtney to have them checked next week.”

“I’ll do that,” she said. “Thanks.”

Cam nodded and moved to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob.

“I never forgot you, Ashley. And I don’t think you forgot me, either.”

He walked out before she could reply. Because even if she denied it, even if she had forgotten about him, he was going to make sure she remembered him now.

This time, he wasn’t going to walk away.

Chapter Three

Ashley didn’t get the prescription filled.

She hadn’t told Cam that she was taking Fedentropin because she didn’t want him asking all kinds of questions about the drug trial she was participating in. It had been awkward enough when Irene had made reference to her broken engagement without getting into any explanations about her medical history or the experimental drug that was helping to manage her endometriosis so that pregnancy remained an option for her.

But her hand throbbed painfully as she tried to sweep up remnants of broken glass and wood with her left arm wrapped around the broom and the handle of the dustpan gripped with the thumb and two other fingers of her right hand, making her rethink that decision. She could call Megan, of course. Her sister had developed the drug she was taking and would know whether it was safe to take the painkiller she’d been prescribed.

But then she’d have to tell her sister about the fifteen stitches and Megan would insist on coming over to see for herself that it wasn’t a fatal wound. And as much as she enjoyed spending time with her sister, she hated knowing that her family was still so worried about her. As they’d been worrying since she’d ended her engagement.

Because worrying translated into hovering, and while Ashley was still adjusting to living alone, she enjoyed having her own space. She ate her meals on her own schedule, watched whatever she wanted to watch on TV and generally came and went as she pleased without being accountable to anyone else.

Of course that would change when she had a baby, but she looked forward to the duties and responsibilities of motherhood. She wanted nothing more than to feel the stirring of a new life in her womb, and the warmth of a tiny baby in her arms.

Which was another reason she didn’t want to fill the prescription Cam had written for her. Her appointment at the Pinehurst clinic was only a few days away and she didn’t want anything to delay the start of the process. So she’d stick with her extra-strength Tylenol and hope that was enough to take the edge off of the pain.

Her stomach growled as she emptied the dustpan into the garbage, so she propped the broom and pan in the corner and moved to the fridge. Unfortunately, she found nothing that appealed to her. Or maybe she just didn’t want to tackle putting together a meal with only one hand.

She could, however, dial the phone, and she was thinking about doing just that when the doorbell rang.

She’d never been the type to ignore a ringing phone and the echo of a bell had the same effect. She pulled open the door and, for the second time that day, found herself facing her past.

“Making house calls, Dr. Turcotte?” she asked him. Her tone was deliberately casual, refusing to acknowledge the jump in her pulse.

For as far back as she could remember, her body had always instinctively reacted to Cameron’s presence. Since she could do nothing about that response, she simply tried to ignore it.

But she couldn’t deny that he looked good. His hair was as dark as she remembered, and still long enough to flirt with the collar of his shirt. His eyes were the same rich green that brought to mind the Irish countryside of her ancestors, and his gaze was just as intense. The shadow on his jaw attested to a long day at the office and gave him a slightly dangerous edge. Dangerously sexy, she mused, and immediately pushed the thought aside.

He had on the same shirt and khaki pants he’d been wearing earlier, but he’d loosened the knot in his tie and rolled up his sleeves, revealing darkly tanned and strongly muscled forearms. He used to be an avid tennis player and she found herself wondering if he still enjoyed pounding a fuzzy yellow ball around the court. It would certainly explain his trim and toned physique.

“Actually, I’m not here in my professional capacity,” he told her, his comment drawing her back from her perusal.

“Then why are you here?” She knew the question sounded rude, but she didn’t care. She was tired, her hand ached and she didn’t have the energy or the desire to put a smile on her face, though she was suddenly experiencing an unwelcome stirring of certain other desires.

Cam lifted a flat white box that she hadn’t even noticed he was carrying because she’d been too busy looking at him.

“Pizza delivery,” he said.

“I didn’t order pizza.”

“And yet I’ve got a large double pepperoni and extra cheese in my hands.”

It was her favorite kind. Of course, it had always been his favorite, too. Had he remembered her preference? Or had he just ordered it the way he liked it?

Not that it mattered. Even if he had remembered, their history was exactly that, and she wasn’t going to let his sudden appearance at her door drag her down memory lane.

So all she asked was, “Why?”

He shrugged. “Because I worked through lunch and I was hungry, and because I figured it would be difficult for you to put together dinner for yourself with those stitches in your hand.”

It sounded not only reasonable but thoughtful, and she was undeniably tempted to invite him in. There was something about Cam Turcotte that had always tempted her, but she wasn’t a teenager anymore and she had no intention of letting down any of her barriers where he was concerned.

“I’m not hungry,” she lied.

“You should eat anyway.”

Still, she hesitated. “Contrary to whatever Irene might have told you, I don’t need anyone looking out for me, Dr. Turcotte.”

“It’s just a pizza, Ash.”

He was using his doctor tone again, patient and reasonable, and she knew that she was being anything but reasonable.

As he said, it was just a pizza. And she was hungry.

She stepped back from the door.

“Fine. Bring in the pizza.”

Her welcome left something to be desired.

As Cam stepped into the foyer, he wondered again why he was there when it was readily apparent that Ashley wished he wasn’t. He’d known he was taking a chance when he looked up her address in the file, but he’d never been able to think clearly when it came to Ashley Roarke.

“Nice neighborhood,” he said, conversationally.

“We like it.”

“We?” he queried, following her through to the kitchen.

“Megan and I bought the house a couple of years ago and lived here together until she got married. I guess I haven’t quite got used to being on my own yet.”

“I thought you were talking about the fiancé,” he admitted, setting the pizza box in the middle of the table.

“Ex-fiancé,” she clarified.

She opened the cupboard to get plates, but he reached over her head for them so that she didn’t have to stretch.

“Yeah. I got that from what Irene said,” he admitted.

“You mean she didn’t give you the whole sordid story?”

“Is it sordid?”

She shrugged as she moved toward the refrigerator. “Let’s just say he didn’t think the act of putting a ring on my finger mandated exclusivity.”

“Bastard,” Cam said.

Ashley smiled, appreciating his unequivocal assessment and deciding that she might enjoy his company after all.

“The official term, at least among my friends, is ‘cheating bastard,’” she told him.

“I’m sorry, Ash. You deserved better than that.”

“Well, as Paige likes to remind me, at least I found out before we got married.”

“I don’t imagine that was much consolation.”

“No,” she admitted, peering into the refrigerator. “Beer, wine or soft drink?”

“Beer would be great.”

She snagged a bottle for him and a soft drink for herself and carried the beverages to the table.

Again, before she could ask for help, Cam had both of the drinks open.

His unsolicited assistance reminded her of the days when they’d been dating, when he’d somehow been able to anticipate what she wanted without her saying a word. Like instinctively knowing the type of movie she wanted to see on a given night, or whether she preferred to stay home rather than go out. Bringing her flowers to brighten her day when she hadn’t even known she was feeling down, or stopping by simply to spend time with her before she’d acknowledged that she was lonely.

Just like tonight, she realized now, and felt a funny little flutter in the vicinity of her heart.

She picked up the soda he’d opened for her and took a long swallow. She didn’t want to be feeling any flutters, not now and definitely not because of Cam Turcotte.

“Premium beer,” Cam noted appreciatively, picking up his bottle.

“My brother-in-law’s company,” she said, gratefully latching on to the neutral topic.

“That’s right.” He lifted a slice of pizza and slid it onto her plate before taking another one for himself. “Your sister married Gage Richmond. I read about his career change—and their marriage—in a business magazine somewhere.”

“The Richmond name always makes good copy.” She pulled a piece of pepperoni off of her pizza and popped it into her mouth.

“Megan works at Richmond Pharmaceuticals, doesn’t she?”

She nodded. “Recently promoted to VP of clinical science.”

“Impressive.”

“No kidding. Whenever she tries to talk to me about something she’s doing at work, my eyes glaze over.”

“As I’m sure her eyes glaze when you want to discuss the intrinsic value of finger painting.”

She smiled at that. “Very few people over the age of ten appreciate the intrinsic value of finger painting,” she told him. “But with Megan, it’s not that she doesn’t understand, just that she has an irrational fear of any human being less than three feet tall.”

“I take it she doesn’t plan on having kids then?”

“Not anytime in the near future,” she said, then realized she was no longer certain it was true. After all, her sister was married now and starting a family with her new husband wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. She pushed the thought—and the irrational spurt of envy—aside.

“I appreciate the pizza,” she said. “But why are you really here?”

“I just wanted to see you, to talk to you, without an audience.”

“Why?”

“For a lot of reasons,” he said. “But primarily because we’re living in the same town again, which means our paths are going to cross on occasion, and I don’t want things to be awkward between us.”

“Our paths are only crossing now because you showed up at my door.”

He helped himself to another slice of pizza. “Actually, my door is just down the street.”

She frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Number fifty-eight. The SOLD sign on the front lawn.”

The pizza in Ashley’s stomach suddenly felt like a ball of lead. “You bought that house?”

“The rent they were asking was astronomical,” he said, as if that was a perfectly logical response to her question.

“I can’t believe you bought it,” she said.

But what she was thinking was that she was completely unprepared to be neighbors with her ex-lover. It was one thing to accept that he’d returned to Pinehurst—it was a big enough town that she wasn’t likely to run into him at the grocery store very often—and quite another to know that he would be living just down the street and that she would have to pass by his house every single day on the way to and from her own.

“I thought you weren’t sure this was a permanent move, that’s why you wanted a one-year contract …” She let the words trail off, realizing she’d already said too much, admitted too much.

“You asked Elijah about me,” he guessed.

She shrugged, an implicit admission that she’d done just that after Paige had warned her of Cam’s impending return. “I was curious about the rumors that you were coming back. It’s not like he violated any doctor-patient privilege by confirming it was true.”

“Curious in a good way?” he asked her.

She lifted her hand to brush her hair away from her face, winced. “Just curious.”

Cam frowned at the expression of discomfort. “Are you still experiencing pain?”

“A little.”

“You shouldn’t have any with the meds I prescribed.”

She didn’t say anything.

“You did take the medication, didn’t you?” he prompted.

“No,” she admitted.

“Why not?”

She shrugged. “I don’t like taking anything stronger than over-the-counter drugs.”

“Honey, you didn’t come into the office because you had a headache, you had fifteen stitches put in your hand.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “And don’t call me ‘honey.’”

“You didn’t object to Irene calling you ‘hon,’” he pointed out.

She didn’t say anything.

“Or was that okay because she hasn’t seen you naked?”

Ashley blushed at the reminder that he had seen her naked, as he knew she would, but tilted her chin. “Actually, Irene has seen me naked.”

He lifted his brows.

“But not since I was in diapers,” she admitted, and gave him a small smile.

She’d always been beautiful. But when she smiled, when the light of humor sparked in the depths of her violet eyes and those soft pink lips curved, she was absolutely radiant.

Sitting across the table from her now, looking at her over a pizza box, he wondered how he’d ever settled for anything less, how he’d ever believed that his feelings for anyone else could compare to the emotion that filled his heart when he was with Ashley.

His gaze locked with hers, held. And suddenly the air was sizzling with the attraction that had always sparked between them.

“Did you have those five freckles at the base of your spine when you were in diapers?” he asked.

He could tell by the darkening of her eyes that mention of those freckles had stirred memories for her, too.

“I don’t know,” she said softly.

“Do you still have them?”

“I don’t know,” she said again.

Obviously the ex-fiancé had never kissed each and every one of those freckles, as Cam used to do. But he wasn’t going to mention the other man’s name again. He didn’t even want to think about her being with anyone else. He wanted—

The scrape of chair legs against the floor tiles severed his thought as Ashley pushed her chair away from the table. Which was probably for the best, because he had no business thinking about what he wanted to do with Ashley when so much of his life was still unsettled.

“I should, uh, clear this up,” she said.

He carried the plates into the kitchen for her, and pulled out the waste basket to scrape them before loading the dishwasher. But he paused when he saw what was in the receptacle.

“I’m guessing this is the eleven-by-fourteen,” he said.

“What?” She turned around, saw that he’d found the broken picture frame. “Oh. Yeah. It is.”

“It’s a good picture of you,” he said. “You look happy.”

She shrugged. “I was.”

And the man in the photo with her looked happy, too. Of course, he had Ashley in his arms, so he had reason to be happy. Which made Cam realize her former fiancé wasn’t just a bastard, he was an idiot. He’d been poised to start a life with this beautiful, vibrant woman, and he’d thrown it away.

Okay, so maybe he was being a little bit hypocritical. Because twelve years earlier, Ashley had wanted to talk about their future and he’d let her go. But he’d barely been nineteen years old, too young to be thinking in terms of “till death do us part” and too stupid to know what he was giving up.

Cam picked up his beer, took a long swallow. “Are you still in love with him?”

Ashley returned the unused napkins to the holder then leaned back against the counter. “How is that any of your business?”

“When a man kisses a woman it’s important to his ego—crucial, in fact—to know that she’s thinking of him and not anyone else.”

She eyed him warily. “If a man doesn’t know that about a woman, then he has no business kissing her.”

“That’s why I asked the question.” He set the now empty bottle on the counter and stepped closer to her, bracing his hands on the edge of the counter so that she was boxed between them. “Are you still in love with him?”

Ashley didn’t dare answer his question with the truth.

The truth was, she was no longer convinced she’d ever been in love with Trevor. Certainly she hadn’t loved him as she should have loved the man she was planning to marry. But if she admitted that to Cam now, he would interpret it as an invitation and, as desperately as she wanted to feel his mouth on hers, she couldn’t let that happen.

Because she knew that one kiss would lead to more, and she didn’t want more. She’d meant what she said when she told Megan and Paige that she didn’t want a man or a relationship. She didn’t want to risk her heart again.

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I still love …” Oh Lord, she couldn’t even remember his name. She could only think of Cam. She only wanted Cam. “.I still love him.”

“Liar.”

The word was a husky whisper against her lips before he captured them with his own.

She couldn’t stop herself from responding to his kiss any more than she could stop her heart from pounding or her body from yearning. His tongue traced over the seam of her lips, and they parted willingly, eagerly.

It seemed to her that they’d grown too far apart to fit together easily. The moment he slipped his arms around her and drew her against him, she knew she’d been wrong.

Cam had always been a fabulous kisser. When they’d first started dating, back in the early days of their relationship when they hadn’t gone any further than kissing, he would hold her and kiss her forever. This kiss reminded her of that—as if it would go on forever, as if he could be content to just kiss her forever.

Ashley wasn’t feeling content. She pressed against him, wanting to be closer, wanting more.

His hands slid up her back, his fingers tangled in her hair, and he drew her head back. His mouth trailed from hers to trace along her jaw, down her throat. His tongue stroked, his teeth scraped, his lips soothed.

He shifted, drew her nearer, so that she was nestled intimately between his legs, so that she could tell he wanted her as much as she wanted him. Desire—hot and reckless—churned in her veins, rushed through her body, making her feel as if she was seventeen years old again.

Of course, her teenage heart had been filled with more love than lust, and though she’d given herself to him willingly, even eagerly, she’d been unprepared for the complete and total heartbreak that was all he’d left her with when he went away.

A heartbreak that, at the time, she didn’t ever think she would recover from. A heartbreak that she’d felt even deeper and sharper than the pain caused by Trevor’s betrayal.

She’d loved Cam once and he’d trampled all over her emotions. She wouldn’t let him do it again. She didn’t want to feel anything for the man who’d broken her fragile heart so many years before.

But as she kissed him back, she couldn’t deny that she was feeling something, though she didn’t know how to define what that something was.

Attraction? Undoubtedly. Cam Turcotte had been a teenage heartthrob, and the years had added to rather than detracted from his appeal.

Lust? No doubt a healthy dose of that had been thrown into the mix. And maybe that wasn’t surprising, considering that she was a twenty-nine-year-old woman who hadn’t been on a date since the end of her engagement.

She’d had offers. When she’d gone out with Paige and Megan or friends from work, she’d been approached by men who expressed an interest. But she hadn’t even been tempted. In fact, she hadn’t felt anything but numb for so long she didn’t know what to think about the feelings that were spiraling through her now.

When would she ever learn?

Obviously the trauma of slicing open her hand had affected her brain. It was the only explanation for letting him kiss her, for letting the kiss go as far as it did.

He’d caught her in a moment of weakness, but she was drawing the line, right here and right now. She would not get caught up in the seductive magnetism of Cam Turcotte. Not again.

She had to end this now—that would be the smart thing to do. But it felt so good to be held and kissed and … cherished.

Except that he didn’t cherish her. He never had. Because if he’d truly treasured her and what they had together, he wouldn’t have walked away so easily.

Which was why, this time, she had to be the one to walk.

She tore her mouth from his and pushed against his chest.

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