DR. DEVASTATING Page 2

  And Dana said, "Hi, Katie. Have a seat."

  Now, a grown-up Dana demanded, "Come on, Lee. Admit it. It's the perfect solution."

  Lee put her memories away and smiled at her friend. Dana had come a long way from the insecure girl Lee had first met in the Honeygrove High cafeteria. Now, Dana dressed with style and carried herself with confidence. And since she'd admitted her love for Trevor MacAllister, everything about her seemed to glow.

  Lee said, "Let me get this straight. Instead of a bridesmaid twice, I'll be the maid of honor for two brides?"

  "Exactly," said Katie.

  "Only one dress to buy to add to the others in the back of my closet. And only one church to show up at."

  "That's right."

  "My kind of compromise," said Lee. "And when is this momentous event to take place?"

  "September 6." Dana sipped at her own Coke. "The same date as Katie's was supposed to be."

  "Sounds good."

  "And you'll wear the dress Katie originally chose for you. In fact, you can keep the fitting Katie already scheduled for you, a week from Saturday, at one."

  "Fine."

  Katie added, "We're going to design the ceremony together. Dana will choose the flowers—except for my bouquet, of course. And she'll use the florist I already hired, so my deposit won't go to waste. And Dana says Walter and Maggie would be thrilled if we held the reception at their house. There shouldn't be any problem if I just cancel the hall I booked." Walter MacAllister was Honeygrove Memorial's chief of staff. His wife, Maggie, gave terrific parties—and Trevor, Dana's intended, was their son. "The only thing I'll really be out is the invitations," Katie added with a sigh. "I picked them up at the printer's just last Friday."

  "But I'm paying for the new ones," Dana chimed in. "So it's all going to work out beautifully." She glanced at her watch and pushed back her chair. "Gotta go. I told Trevor I'd meet him out front at six."

  As Dana rushed off, Katie's food arrived. She glanced over at Lee. "Aren't you going to order?"

  Lee shook her head. "It's my gym night."

  Katie sprinkled Parmesan on her pasta. "You're so admirable with this exercise thing lately."

  Lee suppressed the urge to look away. She had her own secret motivation now, one that had her heading for the gym three times a week without fail. But she wouldn't have called it admirable, exactly. "It's good for me," she said, feeling extremely insipid as the words escaped her lips. "Very … stress reducing."

  "Stress reducing," Katie echoed, rolling her eyes. "I could use a little of that myself."

  Lee laughed. Katie was famed as a total pushover. Got a free clinic to run? Need someone to work your shift? Ask Katie. She never learned to say no. "Watch my lips," Lee teased. "No. Say it. No."

  Katie waved a hand. "Go on. Leave me and my linguini in peace."

  "Not completely in peace, I'm afraid," said a deep voice from behind Lee.

  Lee didn't have to turn to know who it was: Dr. Michael Brennan, Katie's lifelong friend, and now her husband-to-be.

  "Mike." A soft, private smile lifted the corners of Katie's mouth.

  Lee greeted him, too. "Hi, there." Tossing a bill on the table, she pushed back her own chair and stood.

  Mike slid into her place. "How's it going, Lee?"

  "As well as can be expected, considering that Katie and Dana have been talking wedding dates again."

  "Did they reach an agreement?"

  "We did," Katie told him. "What would you say to a double wedding?"

  Mike put an arm around Katie's chair. "I'd say, fine with me."

  "I knew you would." Katie leaned his way and they shared a quick kiss.

  Then Mike turned back to Lee. "Those two really broke your old vow with a vengeance, didn't they?"

  Mike referred to the pact that Katie, Dana and Lee had each signed on the day that they received their baccalaureate degrees from the University of Oregon, a pact that said never, under any circumstances, would one of them marry a doctor. As it had turned out, both Trevor MacAllister and Mike Brennan had M.D. after their names.

  Lee reminded Mike, "You know very well that the vow was always more of a joke than anything else."

  Mike chuckled. "Sure it was."

  Katie elbowed him playfully in the ribs. "Quit teasing Lee and order some dinner."

  Mike glanced down at Katie's plate of linguini. "Mmm. That looks good."

  Katie laughed and moved the plate farther away from him. "Get your own."

  Lee left them, feeling glad for their happiness—and only a tiny bit envious.

  As Lee got into her car, a certain thought rose, unbidden and delicious, to the surface of her mind: Would he be there?

  She knew the answer. Of course he would. He worked out Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights without fail, unless some emergency came up at the hospital. A delicious shiver of anticipation skittered through her as she shifted her car into reverse and backed out of her parking space.

  Ten minutes later, Lee parked her car a hundred feet away from the broad glass front of the Optimum Fitness health club. Lee had joined the club three months before, after one of those nights spent on the couch with a stack of videos and a carton of Häagen-Dazs. She'd looked at herself in the mirror the next morning and groaned.

  Okay, so she had zero breasts and minimal cheekbones. Did she have to sport cottage-cheese thighs as well? She'd joined the club that very evening—and discovered that he worked out there, too.

  An accident of fate, that's what it had been.

  Lee got her gym bag from the trunk, pushed through the gleaming glass doors and waved at the hunk behind the front desk. It took her five minutes more to change into shorts, a tank top and jogging shoes.

  And then she climbed the stairs to the running track, which followed the perimeter of the huge gym below. She performed a few rudimentary stretches, keeping near the wall, out of the way of the runners. Then she moved onto the track.

  As she jogged along, she could look out the banks of windows that gave a nice view of Honeygrove, Oregon's minimal skyline—or she could peek down at the floor below and keep her eye on what was happening in the gym. She could check out the action on the cardio-fitness machines, as well as the varying weight-resistance equipment, from the Nautilus to the Universal. She could see the free-weight area, too.

  Lee had made two circuits of the track before she spotted him. On one of the weight benches, doing biceps curls. He wore pricey white running shoes, blue shorts and a gray athletic shirt—the kind with no sleeves and no neck, leaving a lot of deltoid and trapezius exposed.

  Oh dear, and what deltoids! The left one bunched and bulged every time he brought that dumbbell up. The sight was enough to cause hot flashes, even though Lee was only thirty and, as far as she knew, still reproductively sound. Sweat stained that gray athletic shirt, a tempting dark line of it, down the center of his chest, from those gorgeous pectorali majors down the linea alba. Unfortunately Lee couldn't see the sweat on his skin from up there on the track. But she could darn well imagine it.

  She jogged on, her breath coming a little harder even though she wasn't running fast at all, her mind spinning off into her own private world of secret pleasures.

  Oh, he'd look great in a loincloth.

  Hmm. A loincloth…

  As in Tarzan.

  Why not?

  A bed of jungle orchids, the high, strange cries of bright-colored, exotic birds. Monkeys chattering. A lazy boa constrictor twining the limb of a rubber tree overhead. Humidity. Serious humidity. And Tarzan—her own personal Tarzan, with his gold-shot hair, his blue, blue eyes, his to-die-for deltoids—pressing her down among the fabulous blooms.

  "Ugh. Jane."

  "Oh, Tarzan. Yes! Now! Please…"

  "Slow joggers to the outside of the track."

  "Huh?" Lee blinked and came back to herself as a tall, skinny guy ran past her. "Oh. Sorry," she muttered.

  The other jogger turned and jogged backward long enough to grin,
"Don't be sorry, just move to the outer edge."

  "Right. Of course. I will…" She was still panting excuses as the man faced front again and took off.

  Lee moved to the outside. Unfortunately, from there, it was hard to sneak glances at Derek.

  As she thought his first name, she felt a small twinge of guilt. A twinge she immediately told herself to ignore. Away from the clinic, it should be all right to let herself think of him by his first name. What could it hurt? It was all only in her mind anyway.

  She jogged two more laps and then slowed to a walk, her enthusiasm waning without all that male perfection to provide inspiration. Maybe she should finish her cardiovascular workout downstairs on one of the stationary bikes. From there, she'd have a decent view of the free-weight area.

  Then again, maybe that would be carrying things just a little too far. She could tell herself it was all right to fantasize about Dr. Derek Taylor when she'd never, ever let herself get near him in any personal sense. But to actually coordinate her workouts so she could keep him in sight? No, that would be pushing the whole thing one step beyond what she considered acceptable.

  Lee ordered her legs to get going. She moved into the center of the track and kept up with the main flow of runners for fifteen more minutes, not indulging in a single fantasy during the whole of that time.

  Then, following the workout schedule that the club's fitness advisor had laid out for her, she went down the stairs to the main gym. By then, Derek had progressed to performing squats with a weighted barbell balanced across his incredible shoulders. Now that they were on the same floor, she could see the sweat on his skin. She wasn't quite close enough to make out each little bead of it. But the shine was there, so tempting, making her think of heat and wet and salt on her tongue.

  Lee went straight to the Universal machine. Yes, the Universal just happened to be directly across from the place where Derek stood before the weight rack, alternately squatting, pushing himself to his feet and rising onto his toes. This time, it wasn't her fault that the view was so good. Blame the fitness advisor.

  Lee grabbed the bar that hung from a chain and began slow, rhythmical pull-downs. Twenty feet away, Derek's incredible gluteus maximus tensed and stretched with each squat he performed.

  What about…?

  The Lady and Laborer.

  Hmm.

  She could see herself now. In her boudoir. Her scented boudoir. She would lie, sated, in a bed with white curtains, silk pillows and satin sheets. And he would stand naked before the high, mullioned windows that overlooked the grounds of her estate.

  "Come back to bed, my darling…" she would murmur throatily.

  He wouldn't move. No, he would stand there showing her only the powerful perfection of his back, his buttocks, his muscular legs.

  "Please," she would sigh.

  Still, he would remain motionless, except for one long, weary exhalation of breath.

  And she would rise from her silken bower and tiptoe to him, her gossamer night rail trailing across the Aubusson rug, only to hover, unsure, a few feet from his imposing form.

  "My darling…"

  "No. You won't use me again this way, my lady." His voice would be low, rough, rumbling. He would remain obdurately turned away from her.

  And she would dare to reach out one slender white hand, to lay that hand on his hard tanned shoulder, which would instantly tense even harder beneath her caressing touch. "Oh, please. Look at me." Stillness. All that warmth and ready power beneath her palm. "Vincent." Were laborers ever named Vincent? Did it matter?

  He would whirl on her, grab her, grind his mouth down on hers. And she would melt, surrender, sigh in abject need…

  "Are you done with that bar, or what?"

  Lee shook her head, stepped back, forced a dazed smile for a plump redheaded woman in a lime green leotard. "Oh. Yeah. Sure. Go ahead."

  "Thanks." The woman moved in front of Lee and positioned herself for her own series of pull-downs.

  Lee backed up a few more steps, trying to clear her mind enough to recall which exercise she was supposed to do next. She remembered. Those push things, where she sat on the bench and used her feet to push the bar that lifted the weight. She bent to move the pin so that she'd be pushing exactly eighty pounds.

  She had the strangest feeling, as she shoved the pin in place, the feeling that someone was watching her.

  She looked up.

  And found those Paul Newman eyes locked right on her.

  Very slowly, as she gaped at him, Dr. Derek Taylor smiled.

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  « ^ »

  It was nothing, Lee told herself repeatedly as she finished her workout and then headed for the women's dressing rooms and the showers. He'd spotted a colleague, he'd smiled.

  No big deal. Happened all the time. He knew that she worked out there. He'd acknowledged her presence at the club more than once in the past, just caught her eye and given her a tight little nod, then gone on with his flexing and pumping.

  This time was no different than all the others.

  Except…

  Well, this time, there had been something strange about his smile. Something unlike all the cool, detached smiles he'd granted her before. Something knowing.

  Lee turned the shower knob all the way to cold and then stood there, shivering under the icy spray. "Chill out, girl," she muttered under her breath. "Chill out and get yourself a grip. The man's an M.D. He's got a serious case of blonde-of-the-week syndrome. You've seen the kind of woman he dates. No way he's going to suddenly decide to take an interest in you. You imagined it. It did not happen. Wipe it from the old memory banks. Now."

  "Everything all right in there?" A woman with a twenty-year-old body and a fifty-year-old face appeared at the entrance end of Lee's doorless shower stall.

  Lee armed water from her eyes, wrapped her arms around herself to still her shivering and managed a sheepish grin. "Everything's fine. It's just my teeth chattering you heard, that's all."

  The woman chuckled. "Whoever he is, I hope it works out."

  Lee turned off the water and reached for her towel. "There's nothing to work out, I promise you."

  "Whatever you say, dear. Whatever you say."

  The woman moved on to the next stall and Lee got busy drying off.

  A few minutes later, she slung her bag over her shoulder and headed for her car, giving the bemuscled front-desk attendant a second wave. She pushed through the glass door and stepped out into the warm July evening. Her car was about thirty feet away. She started for it.

  But she didn't get far, because a voice straight out of her fantasies called from behind her, "Lee. Wait up."

  Lee froze. She gritted her teeth. She reminded herself that nothing, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened in the gym, and that nothing out of the ordinary was happening now.

  She drew in a breath, carefully let it out, pasted on a smile and then turned to face him. "Dr. Taylor, I—"

  "Look. This is stupid. We're not at the clinic now. How about calling me Derek?"

  No! she thought frantically. How about not? But she kept smiling, somehow. "Um, well … what?"

  His fine brow creased. "Excuse me?"

  "You asked me to wait up?" She put a question mark after the statement, hoping he'd take the hint and get it over with, let her know what in the world he wanted, let her deal with it and then let her go home to her nice little house and the lamb chop in the fridge and the philodendron on the windowsill—which needed to be watered, now that she thought about it.

  "Oh," he said. And then he smiled. Lord, he could send her right into a myocardial infarction with that smile of his. "How about dinner?"

  She gaped. "Dinner?"

  He shifted his gym bag from his left hand to his right. "Yeah. You know. The meal most people eat in the evening? And don't tell me you've had it already. I won't believe you."

  She cast frantically about for an excuse to say no. But her brain s
eemed to have flat-lined right out on her. "Well, actually. I have to get home. I have a lamb chop. And a thirsty philodendron."

  He laughed. Those gorgeous teeth sparkled. "You're kidding, right?"

  She brushed her bangs out of her eyes. "No. I'm not. I really do have to—"

  Right then, he reached out and took her arm. His grip was warm and firm. Arrows of awareness went zipping through her. What was left of her mind flew right out of her head.

  "Come on. We can take my car. I'll just bring you back here afterward."

  His "car" was one of those four-wheel-drive things. A deep, peacock blue with lots of shiny chrome. The kind of vehicle that would look equally appropriate on safari—and parked in front of some chichi restaurant. The kind of car you actually had to climb to get into. Lee sat in the deep embrace of the leather passenger seat and looked down at her own dusty little economy car as they rolled past it headed for who could say where.

  "I hate Thai food," she muttered at him, just so she could pretend she had some say in this transaction.

  He shot her another gorgeous grin. "All right. We'll skip that little Thai place I like so much."

  "Thank you."

  "What do you want, then?"

  Out of this "car" of yours and far away from you. "How about just a sandwich?"

  "You're easy to please."

  If you only knew. "How about that place right there?" She pointed at a stucco building up ahead.

  He turned into the parking lot. "This is Mexican. You like Mexican food?"

  "It's fine."

  He switched off the engine and turned to her, draping an arm over the steering wheel. "Lee, you seem hostile."

  She stared at all that male perfection. He was wearing tan chinos and a polo-style shirt that clung lovingly to his broad shoulders and muscular arms. So close, in the limited space of the cab, she could smell him. He smelled of soap and a recent shower—and some maddeningly subtle aftershave. She wanted to lean closer, so she could smell him better.