Fools Rush In. Kristan Higgins

the mind/soul argument. I dragged myself into the present. When Jill called me Dr. Barnes, it meant a patient had come in. Otherwise, I was known as honey or sweetie.

      “Yes, Mrs. Doyle?” I answered, grateful for the distraction.

      “There’s a patient in Room One,” she said, sticking her head into the office with a file and a big grin.

      I entered Room One, and there on the exam table sat an extremely good-looking man. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Swarthy skin. Heavy eyebrows, giving him an exotic, Mediterranean look. He held a gauze bandage on his right hand, and there was blood on his denim shirt.

      “Hi, I’m Millie Barnes,” I said, extending my hand. As he looked at it pointedly, I realized he couldn’t shake at just that moment. “Sorry,” I murmured with a grin.

      “Lorenzo Bellefiore,” he said with a smile.

      I managed not to sigh. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said, my insides quivering. “What happened here?”

      Lorenzo (oh, Mommy!) glanced down at his hand. “I got cut on a horseshoe crab,” he answered, frowning. “I think I might need stitches.”

      “All right, let’s have a look,” I murmured, quite, quite glad that Curtis and Mitch had taken me shopping the week before.

      In my best doctor mode, trying to focus on the injury and not on the intense lust that was melting my insides, I washed my hands and pulled on latex gloves. Gently peeling away the bloody gauze from the god’s hand, I looked at the wound. Focus, Millie, focus. He was wearing a spicy cologne, and I could just barely catch a whiff of it. Again, I suppressed a lustful sigh, instead giving him a quick and reassuring (I hoped) smile. His eyelashes were sinfully long.

      “Yes, indeed, you will need stitches,” I pronounced cheerfully. Suture repairs were tons of fun for me. I loved suture repairs, especially on gorgeous men with delicious names.

      “Promise not to hurt me,” he said, cocking an eyebrow.

      “I promise,” I purred.

      Flirting! We were flirting! With each other!

      I called the charming Nurse Doyle and she, with only minimal facial contortions meant to convey her own giddy joy, got the necessary elements for a basic suture repair.

      As I went to work on Lorenzo, I asked him a few questions, designed only, I assure you, to put him at ease and not to pry into his personal life. Well, maybe just a little.

      “So, Mr. Bellefiore—”

      “Call me Lorenzo,” he said, watching me swab his skin with Betadine.

      “Okay, Lorenzo, do you live here on the Cape?”

      “No, I don’t.” (I already knew this. If someone this magnificent lived within a fifty-mile radius, I would have known about him.) He went on. “I was born in Brooklyn, actually, but I’ve been away at school so long, that doesn’t seem like home anymore.”

      “Where did you go to school?” I asked, sneaking another look at him. Mmm.

      “I finished my Ph.D. in marine biology last year,” he answered, smiling gleamingly again. “In Miami. But I got a grant to do some research up here, and I just moved about a month ago.”

      “Marine biology. That’s interesting,” I said. “If you don’t like needles, you should look away now.” I was about to inject his hand with local anesthesia, and he did indeed look away.

      “Youch!” he yelped, jumping. “That stings!”

      “I know, I’m sorry. But it won’t hurt in a minute. Cruel to be kind. So what are you doing up here on the Cape?”

      “I’m studying the mating habits of horseshoe crabs,” he answered.

      “Really!” I said, squelching a giggle.

      “Yes, it’s fascinating,” he went on, and proceeded to tell me about the sexual patterns of the strange and prehistoric horseshoe crab. I made the appropriate murmurs of interest as he went on, carefully stitching up his rather elegant hand. Before he even knew it, I was done.

      “Ta-da!” I announced, cutting the last tie. “What do you think?”

      He examined the stitches carefully before turning his soulful Mediterranean eyes on me.

      “You did a great job, Doctor,” he said, and my pulse jumped.

      “All in a day’s work, Doctor,” I replied. I put a sterile gauze bandage over the wound and taped it into place, instructing him on keeping the cut clean and coming back for suture removal.

      “Is your tetanus shot up to date?” I asked, rakishly snapping off my latex gloves and tossing them in the hazardous-waste bin.

      “Just last year,” he answered. He scootched off the exam table. Alas, he was kind of short, maybe only five foot seven or so, but hey! Those eyelashes made up for a lot.

      “Dr. Barnes, can I ask you something?” he said.

      Anything and yes yes yes. “Sure, and call me Millie,” I said.

      “I know we just met, but do you think you’d like to have dinner with me some night? I hardly know anyone up here, and I’d love to get to know you better.”

      Oh my GOD! “I think that might be possible,” I answered calmly. “I’m working days all this week, so my nights are free.” Whoops! Too available. “If you give me a call here, maybe we can set something up.”

      “That would be great.” He smiled again and again, my insides clenched with heat. Lorenzo sidled past me and went to settle up with Sienna. Jill came down the hall to pump me for details, but I headed her off at the pass.

      “Mrs. Doyle, that humerus fracture needs a follow-up X-ray, so if you don’t mind, could you schedule that?” We had no humerus fracture. Jill jumped right in.

      “Of course, Dr. Barnes. Anything else?”

      “Yes. Mrs. Donahue needs a refill on her Coumadin, so if you could call that into the pharmacy, that would be great. And please make sure we’re restocked on suture kits in Room One, and don’t forget that we…should…should…okay, he’s gone!”

      Sienna came leaping back to join us the minute Lorenzo Bellefiore walked out the door. We huddled around the small window in the doctor’s office that was, we had found, excellent for spying. Our newest and most favorite patient drove off, and then, like the three females we so clearly were, began with the high-pitched histrionics.

      “Oh my God! Did you see his ass?” Sienna gushed.