Heartbreaker. Laurie Paige

lowering to a sexy, husky level that he hadn’t intended.

      Arriving at the entrance to the Wainwright ranch, he turned in, then stopped in front of a sprawling white ranch house reminiscent of South Fork on the old TV series, Dallas. He wondered which bedroom was hers.

      She had the door open almost before he stopped. When she headed for the house entrance, he was hot on her heels. With a deliberately casual air, he grasped her arm as if to make sure she didn’t stumble and fall into the lush landscaping bordering the front walk.

      “Thanks for the ride,” she said politely. It was an obvious dismissal.

      Something stubborn reared up inside him. “No trouble,” he murmured, then did something he’d never done before: he kissed an unwilling woman.

      Bending slightly forward, he lowered his head and brushed his mouth over hers, softly, teasing her and perhaps himself because of the sparks that flashed between them now and that had from that first encounter in the street.

      If he had any sense, he’d run as fast as he could in the opposite direction from this beautiful young woman with her lithe dancer’s body and her fierce anger at the unfair hand she’d been dealt.

      Instead of slapping his face as he half expected, Susan stood perfectly still during the first brief kiss, then another…and another.

      It was hard to stop, to give up the softness of her mouth, to ignore the tremor in her sensitive lips or the unconscious invitation when they parted in an audible sigh. Caressing her neck, he felt the telltale pounding of a pulse that spoke of the danger she was determined to deny.

      “You can’t fight fate,” he advised gently as he finally surrendered her mouth. “You’ll only hurt yourself.”

      Her chin shot up. “So you say. How much do you get for performing heart surgery?”

      “A lot,” he admitted, not taking offense at her intended insult.

      She went inside and closed the door quietly but firmly in his face.

      Michael drove home, no longer aware of the moonlight, but thinking instead of the precarious nature of life itself. There was a sense of urgency in him, as if he needed to do something right away.

      Like make love to Susan Wainwright before she disappeared into a wisp of moonlight?

      He gave a wry grimace at the absurdity of this notion as he parked and depressed the remote to close the garage door behind him. Two shadows stepped out of the gloom of the dim interior.

      “Easy, Doc,” one of them said. “We need to have a little talk.”