Playboy Surgeon, Top-Notch Dad. Janice Lynn

commuting and to help with Addy.”

      “Aunt Reesee is cool,” Addy piped up, bouncing along beside them. “She lets me watch SpongeBob and drink soda pop after dark.”

      Blair’s brow lifted. “Oh, really?”

      Realizing her mistake, Addy faked a yawn and skipped ahead to Blair’s mid-size four-door sedan. When Blair punched the remote entry, unlocking the door, Addy climbed in and began buckling herself into a child safety seat.

      “Blair, about earlier,” he began, speaking quietly in deference to the little girl who’d taken her video game out of her bag and chatted to her virtual pet.

      Blair stepped back, not looking at him. “It was no big deal. Forget it happened.”

      Despite having just told himself the same thing, he didn’t like Blair’s quick denial. She was treating him as if he were a lecherous creep and her disdain annoyed him.

      “Wasn’t it?” he challenged.

      Her teeth sank into her lower lip. “We both know you’re an incurable flirt. What happened didn’t mean a thing. Like I said, no big deal.” She glanced toward where Addy played her game. “I need to go.”

      An incurable flirt? Blair’s words stung. She made it sound as if he were diseased and condemned. Maybe he was. After all, wasn’t that exactly how his mother had thought of his father? Like father, like son. Wasn’t that what she always said?

      “Fine,” he bit out, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

      “Not if I see you first,” she muttered under her breath.

      She moved to Addy and checked to make sure the seat’s safety catches were properly latched.

      “Bye, Dr Oz.” Addy waved, fighting back a yawn.

      Oz’s diseased and condemned heart squeezed. “Bye, Pipsqueak.”

      Blair closed the door, climbed into her car and drove away.

      He raked his fingers through his hair, watching the taillights disappear into the night.

      If he lived to a hundred, he wouldn’t forget the feel of Blair’s warm skin beneath his fingers, wouldn’t forget the softness, the fullness, the way she’d stared into his eyes while he’d cupped her face.

      Deep down he’d always wondered what touching Blair would feel like.

      Now he knew and wished like hell he didn’t.

      Chapter Three

      “TELL me again that I’m imagining something between you and Dr Manning,” Kanesha insisted the next morning. “Because I was at lunch yesterday and saw how you two looked at each other. The way you two always look at each other.”

      “You’re imagining that there’s something between Dr Manning and me.” Blair didn’t glance up at the cardiac unit’s nursing director. Why should she when Kanesha might see guilt in her eyes?

      “Yes, I am.” Kanesha fanned her face. “And my thoughts are hot, hot, hot. You go, girl.”

      “There’s nothing between us except a mutual love for Dr Talbot.” Her friend was going to think what she wanted, regardless of anything Blair said. There wasn’t anything between her and Oz. An almost kiss from the night before most certainly didn’t count.

      Kenesha glanced down the hallway. “Speaking of hot.”

      Don’t look up. Don’t look up.

      Blair looked up.

      And clashed gazes with Oz.

      Her heart pounded against her rib cage. Why was he looking at her like that? That almost kiss hadn’t meant anything.

      “Uh-huh. It’s all in my imagination,” Kanesha snorted. “Nothing at all going on between the two of you. That’s why he’s looking at you like you’re the sweetest lollipop he’s ever seen and he wants to see how many licks it takes to get to the center of Blair Pendergrass.”

      “Shh.” Cheeks blazing at the images Kanesha’s words elicited, Blair frowned at the nursing director. It wasn’t as if she needed her friend putting ideas in her head. Hadn’t her own dreams betrayed her the night before? Filling her sleep with images of Oz? Of his magical fingers? Of that almost kiss? Thank God Stephanie had interrupted. Too bad her alarm clock hadn’t followed suit. “He’ll hear you.”

      “Hear what?” Oz asked, stepping up to the nurses’ station, his gaze still locked onto Blair.

      Kanesha’s dark eyes glittered. “That Blair is hoping you’ll change your mind about being in the auction so she can bid on you.”

      Along with her stomach, Blair’s jaw dropped. “I didn’t say that.”

      “Didn’t have to.” Snickering, Kanesha walked off while mumbling something about checking the patient schedule and leaving them alone.

      Why was everyone purposely leaving them alone? She didn’t want to be alone with Oz.

      “I didn’t say that,” she repeated, fighting to catch her breath. Did she sound like a broken record? No matter. “I did not say I wanted to bid on you.”

      “I didn’t think you did.” Oz gave her a thoughtful look. “You’re still short on bachelors?”

      “Nothing’s changed since last night,” she snapped, then realized she was being rude. Regardless of what had happened, regardless of the personal distance she wanted between them, they worked together.

      Forcing herself to relax, she started over. “Latham Duke’s son agreed to the auction. We need one more to even out the numbers between bachelors and bachelorettes,” she said in an even tone, glad to focus on something other than the man standing so close to her.

      “I’m the prime candidate?” Oz stepped closer to her, so close she could feel his body heat, was swamped with the fresh scent of his soap and spicy aftershave.

      She gulped. “I didn’t say that.”

      His gaze bored into her. “But initially, you signed me up to do the auction. If I had been agreeable you wouldn’t be short a bachelor?”

      “True, but…” She took a step back, surprised to realize she didn’t want him in the auction, didn’t want to watch women haggling over him. When had that happened? She’d been the one to initially put his name on the list and hadn’t thought twice about doing so.

      “I’ll think about it.”

      “You will?” Blair blinked in surprise. He’d been so adamant about not being auctioned off, had seemed upset that she’d added him onto the list. What had changed his mind? Surely he hadn’t believed Kanesha? Even if he had, so what? It wasn’t as if Oz wanted her to bid on his date.

      Did he?

      “Why not?” He shrugged. “It’s for Dr T. Like I said, I’ll think about it.”

      Relief filled her. His reconsidering had nothing to do with the night before, had only to do with his love for Dr Talbot. “How is he this morning? I called, but Stephanie said the physical therapist came early to work with him.”

      “Grouchy—the therapist came early.”

      Blair smiled. That was her Dr T. “Did he sleep okay?”

      “Like a baby.” Oz leaned against the nurses’ station desk. “He only woke once during the night.”

      “Thank goodness.”

      Silence loomed between them for several torturous seconds.

      “Mr Duke has an appointment this morning, doesn’t he?”

      Grateful for the subject change, Blair nodded. “I put him in room