Lucy and The Lieutenant. Helen Lacey

cringed inwardly. He wasn’t in the mood for the pretty brunette with the lovely curves and dancing green eyes, and tried to stay as indifferent as possible. “Good afternoon, Dr. Monero.”

      “Please,” she said just a little too breathlessly. “Call me Lucy.”

      He wouldn’t. Keeping it formal meant keeping her at a distance. Just as he liked it.

      Instead he made a kind of half-grunting sound and shrugged loosely. “Have you seen my uncle this afternoon?”

      “Just left him about ten minutes ago,” she said, smiling. “He said he’s feeling good today. The nurses left food on the tray, so perhaps see if you can get him to eat something.”

      “Sure.”

      She didn’t move. Didn’t pass. She simply stood there and looked at him. Examined him, he thought. In a way that stirred his blood. It had been too long since anything or anyone had stirred him. But Lucy Monero managed it with barely a glance.

      And he was pretty sure she knew it.

      “So, how’s the shoulder?” she asked, tossing her hair in a way that always made him flinch.

      A trace of her apple-scented shampoo clung to the air and he swallowed hard. “Fine.”

      He’d dislocated his shoulder eight weeks earlier when he’d fallen off his motorbike. She’d been one of the doctors on duty at the hospital that night. But he’d made a point of ensuring she didn’t attend him. He hadn’t wanted her poking and prodding at him, or standing so close he’d be forced to inhale the scent of her perfume.

      “Glad to hear it. I was talking to your mother the other day and she said you plan to reopen the tavern in the next few months?”

      His mother had made her opinion about Lucy Monero clear on numerous occasions. She was Lucy’s number-one fan and didn’t mind telling him so. But he wasn’t interested in a date, a relationship or settling down. Not with anyone. Including the pretty doctor in front of him. Her dark brows and green eyes were a striking combination and no doubt a legacy from her Italian heritage. She wore scrubs with a white coat over them, and he figured she’d just come from the emergency room at the hospital where she worked. But he knew she was also filling in at the veterans home a couple of times a week while one of the other doctors was on leave. Uncle Joe thought the world of her, too. And even his older brother, Grady, had extolled her virtues after she’d attended to his youngest daughter when the child had been taken to the ER a couple of months ago with a high fever.

      Brant did his best to ignore her eyes, her hair and the curves he knew were hidden beneath the regulation blue scrubs. “That’s the plan.”

      She smiled a little, as though she was amused by his terse response, as though she had some great secret only she was privy to. It irritated him no end.

      “I’m pleased your shoulder is okay.”

      He wished she’d stop talking. “Sure, whatever.”

      Her eyes sparkled. “Well, see you soon, Brant.”

      She said his name on a sigh. Or at least, that’s how it sounded. There was a husky softness to her voice that was impossible to ignore. And it always made him tense. It made him wonder how her voice would sound if she was whispering, if she was bent close and speaking words only he could hear.

      Brant quickly pulled himself out of the haze his mind was in and nodded vaguely, walking away, well aware that she was watching him.

      And knowing there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about.

      * * *

      Lucy let out a long sigh once Brant Parker disappeared around the corner of the ward. His tight-shouldered gait was one she would recognize anywhere—at the hospital, along the street, in her dreams.

      He’d been in them for years. Since she’d been a starry-eyed, twelve-year-old mooning over the then-fifteen-year-old Brant. She’d lived next door to the Parker ranch. The ranch he’d left when he was eighteen to join the military. She’d left Cedar River for college just a couple of years later and put the boy she’d pined over as a teen out of her thoughts. Until she’d returned to her hometown to take a position at the small county hospital. She’d seen him again and the old attraction had resurfaced. He had been back from another tour of the Middle East and they’d bumped into each other at the O’Sullivan pub. Of course he hadn’t recognized her. The last time they’d crossed paths she had been a chubby, self-conscious teenager with glasses. He’d seemed surprised to see her, but had said little. That had been more than two years earlier. Now he was back for good. Just as she was. He had left the military after twelve years of service and bought the old Loose Moose Tavern.

      He could have done anything after high school—maybe law or economics—as he was supersmart and was always at the top of his class. One of those gifted people who never had to try hard to make good grades. He spoke a couple of languages and had been some kind of covert translator in the military. Lucy didn’t know much about it, but what she did she’d learned from his mother, Colleen. The other woman regularly visited Joe Parker and also volunteered at the hospital where Lucy specialized in emergency medicine.

      She’d known the Parkers since she was a child. Back then her parents had owned the small ranch next door. When she was fourteen her dad had died unexpectedly from a stroke, and then within a year her mother had sold the place and moved into town. A few years later her mother was killed in an accident. By then Lucy was ready for college, which would be followed by medical school, and had left town. The house her mother had bought in town was now hers and it was conveniently located just a few streets from the hospital. She was back in Cedar River to give back to the town she loved.

      And maybe find her own happiness along the way.

      Because Lucy wanted to get married and have a family. And soon. She was twenty-seven years old and had never had a serious romantic relationship. She’d never been in love. The truth be told, she’d never really been kissed.

      And she was the only twenty-seven-year-old virgin she knew.

      In high school she had been a geek to the core and had mostly been ignored by the boys in her grade. She hadn’t even managed to get a date for prom. And by the time she was in college, her dreams about dating quickly disappeared. Three weeks into college and her roommate was assaulted so badly Lucy spent two days with the other girl at the hospital. It was enough to make her wary about getting involved with anyone on campus. She made a few friends who were much like herself—focused kids who studied hard and avoided parties and dating. By the time she started medical school the pattern of her life had been set. She was quiet and studious and determined to become a good doctor. Nothing else mattered. Though she’d gotten more comfortable over time in social situations, she was known as a girl who didn’t date and, after a while, the invitations stopped.

      One year quickly slipped into another and by the time she’d finished her residency she’d stopped fretting about being the oldest virgin on the planet. Not that she was hanging on to it as though it was a prize...she’d just never met anyone she liked enough to share that kind of intimacy with. Of course her closest friends, Ash, Brooke and Kayla, thought it amusing and teased her often about her refusal to settle for just anyone. She wanted special. She wanted a love that would last a lifetime.

      She wanted...

      Brant Parker.

      Which was plain old, outright, what-are-you-thinking-girl stupid, and she knew it deep within her bones. Brant never looked at her in that way. Most of the time he acted as though he barely even saw her. When they were kids he’d tolerated her because they were neighbors, and in high school he had been three years ahead and hadn’t wasted his time acknowledging her in the corridors. By the time she was in college he was long gone from Cedar River.

      Her cell beeped and quickly cut through her thoughts. It was Kayla reminding her that she’d agreed to meet her and Ash and Brooke at the O’Sullivan pub for a drink and catch-up that evening. It had become something of a Friday-night ritual since she’d returned to town. Kayla had