Lisa Bingham - The Miracle Twins

Or would he?

They hadn’t parted on the best of terms. Nick had felt humiliated, while Lucy—

When Lucy had turned to walk away from Nick, the judge and the witnesses, Lucy had seen the main door like a trapped animal who’d spied a hole in the fence. The moment she was out of sight of the wedding party, she’d started to run.

And she’d been running from the memory ever since.

No. She wouldn’t think about that now. The past was past, and the decision she’d made to cancel her wedding had been the right one. Lucy wasn’t the “marrying kind”—and she’d proven that to herself time and time again. She grew jittery and uncomfortable if she stayed in one place too long. The pressures of her job, the travel and risk involved, didn’t lend themselves to even the most casual of relationships, let alone marriage.

Wrenching her thoughts back to the matter at hand, Lucy scowled. Lights blazed from most of the windows. Yet several minutes had gone by and no one had appeared.

Ringing the doorbell again, Lucy cursed the fact that she hadn’t asked the cabdriver to wait. With her luck, she’d come all this way only to be marooned until Nick returned from some emergency at the hospital. True, she had her cell phone, but after gathering enough courage to face Nick tonight, she didn’t plan on leaving until she’d seen him.

Irritated, Lucy pressed the doorbell a third time, keeping her finger on the button for several seconds. Then she punctuated her imperious summons by banging the brass door knocker.

“Where is he?” she muttered.

Abruptly she froze, knowing that any minute the door would open and she would be face-to-face with Nick Hammond, the only man who’d ever made her knees quake.

What would be her reaction after all these years? Would she still feel an instant tug of attraction?

No. It wasn’t possible. Too much time had passed. She wasn’t the same woman she’d been then. Her experiences had hardened her. She couldn’t possibly—

The door flew open and Lucy’s heart stopped in her chest, then began a slow, sluggish beat.

This was the man she’d refused to marry?

A hot tide seeped into her cheeks and she was infused with embarrassment. She’d obviously interrupted Nick in the middle of a shower. He stood before her wearing nothing but a robe, his hair dark and spiky with moisture. Water dappled his bare skin, stray droplets streaking his chest.

A bolt of heat shot through her body and settled low in her abdomen. She swallowed against the dryness gathering in her throat, knowing that if she tried to talk, her voice would emerge as a croak.

“Lucy?”

Her name was a mere breath of sound, but it brushed her senses like a caress.

Talk to him, idiot. Say something. You can’t stand here gaping at the man.

“Nick.” His name was garbled and barely audible, and she cleared her throat. “Hello.”

To his credit, Nick kept his composure. In fact, other than the slight tightening of his fingers around his belt, he appeared completely unaffected by her sudden arrival. His features smoothed into an expressionless mask and his eyes became hooded, giving nothing away.

Why didn’t he say something? Why did he keep looking at her as if she had suddenly appeared from an alien planet?

Lucy thrust her hands into the pockets of her jacket, shivering in the cool spring air. But it wasn’t the chill of spring that caused her skin to tingle. As his gaze slipped down her body, gooseflesh pebbled her skin. Lucy tried to meet his inspection with one of her own, but as she absorbed the sight of his nearly naked body, she knew she would be a fool to continue. Her mind might insist that she was over her college infatuation, but her body had a different idea.

Fastening her eyes on the faint cleft in his chin, she refused to look down. She was only concerned with his mind and his hands, the main tools of a surgeon.

Liar.

When the silence grew even more uncomfortable, Lucy said, “Are you going to let me in?”

Nick’s gaze intensified—as if he was trying to divine the reason for her sudden appearance. But finally he stepped back, making a sweeping gesture with his arm.

“Be my guest.”

Lucy brushed past him into a narrow entry hall. As she did so, she was inundated with the scents of shampoo and soap.

Not for the first time, Lucy rued the fact that she’d been forced to come to Nick for help. She’d investigated several other surgeons. But whenever she’d reviewed her list, she’d known that Nick was her only real choice.

So she’d taken a flight to Salt Lake City, insisting to herself that the past didn’t have any bearing on her current mission. She’d eventually begun to believe that she could deal with Nick in a manner that was both friendly and detached.

But now she wasn’t so sure.

You’re tired, that’s all. Weariness can do funny things to a person.

“Take a seat in the living room.”

He pointed at a small space to her right. White walls and a minimum of furniture offered a slightly neglected appearance—as if Nick spent as little time in his home as she did in her apartment in Chicago. It was a bachelor’s domain, dominated by a huge sound-and-television system, a battered recliner and a table piled high with medical journals. There were no telltale signs of a woman—no bric-a-brac, no photographs, no hint of lace or flowers.

Lucy couldn’t deny that his single status—if she’d guessed correctly—would make matters easier. She was about to infringe on Nick’s time in a completely overbearing way, and she didn’t need a jealous wife impatiently tapping her toe in the background.

Stepping into the sunken living room, Lucy turned to face Nick. Since he’d remained in the entry hall, she was forced to look up, up, before meeting his dark gaze.

“Nice place,” she said, even though the older home wasn’t at all what she’d expected from a successful surgeon. She had been so sure she’d find him living in a mansion above the Avenues, not a cul-de-sac near Westminster College.

“What are you doing here, Lucy?”

So much for chitchat.

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could utter a sound, he held up one hand.

“No. Wait here. I need to get dressed first.”

Turning on his heel, he’d taken two of the carpeted steps before she asked, “Do you often answer the door in your bathrobe?”

Immediately, she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. As he peered at her over the railing, a tingling awareness shot down her spine. She became uncomfortably conscious of the white terry cloth, which revealed part of his chest and the slick wetness of his skin. Nick’s body was more powerful than she remembered, the muscles sculpted and well defined—yet another reason for her to believe he was unmarried. In her experience, married men usually didn’t have much time to devote to a rigorous training schedule in a gym.

But that didn’t mean he was unattached. There might not be a Mrs. Hammond, but chances were that Nick was involved with someone.

“I was expecting a colleague from the hospital with some urgent reports.”

“I see.” But even though the explanation seemed reasonable, she wondered if he was telling the truth. Maybe Nick was giving her an excuse so that he wouldn’t have to admit he was waiting for someone else. Someone who wouldn’t mind being greeted in such a familiar manner.

She was tempted to blurt out her suspicions, but before she could say a thing, Nick climbed the rest of the stairs and disappeared from view.

“That went well,” she grumbled under her breath.

Removing her hands from her pockets, she wiped them down the legs of her jeans, damning the moisture that revealed her nervousness. Try as she might, she couldn’t push away the image of Nick standing in the stairwell, the overhead light bathing his skin in a layer of gold.