Tori Carrington - Night Fever

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he is,” Heather said, her tone telling him she wasn’t buying the casual question either. “But that’s not why I’m calling.”

Sam downed half the contents of the water bottle then ran the back of his hand across his mouth. “Good, because if it was, I’d have to hang up on you.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” He screwed the cap back on the bottle and looked at his watch. It had been a long day filled with getting-acquainted meetings with staff personnel that hadn’t been nearly as interesting as his meeting with Layla Hollister. Then he finished up with another dinner with the center director who, it appeared, was in the middle of a divorce and had nothing better to do with his time than schedule long dinner meetings with underlings who might prefer to be doing something else.

“Anyway, I was just thinking that it’s been a while, you know, since you and I had some private time together.”

Sam put the bottle on the counter and took off his tie. “I was just out for dinner with you and Brian the Sunday before last.”

Oh, happy day. Brian had spent the whole time scowling into his beer can while he’d openly belittled the medical community at large and Sam more directly, and Heather had tried to smooth everything over. For her sake, Sam hadn’t hauled off and given Brian a piece of his mind by way of a fist, but he probably would have had he stayed even five minutes longer. So he’d left as quickly as possible without looking back—which he wouldn’t want to do anyway, considering the state of that place. The tract house was little more than a shack that his sister tried her best to make into a comfortable home.

He rubbed his face. “Do you need money?”

Heather laughed. “No, I don’t need money. Thanks for asking. In fact, I’ll have you know that I just started turning a profit.”

“Making pigs?”

“Creating collectable porcelain pigs I sell on the Internet.”

“Good.” Sam massaged his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. With a great deal of assistance from him, his little sister had graduated from UCLA with honors. But after only one year in a promising public relations career, she’d met Brian and all her career ambitions had gone down the drain.

Now she was not only living with a pig, she was making them.

“No, I thought that you and I, you know, could go to our favorite place. Hang out for a while.”

Their favorite place. Just the two of them. Sam grinned. That, he could definitely do. “Sure, name the time.”

She did, three days from now, for lunch.

“Anyway, what are you doing home so early?”

“If you didn’t expect me to be home, why did you call?”

“I expected to get your answering machine.”

“You could have called my cell.”

“I never call your cell.”

“I know.” He glanced at his watch. “Interestingly enough, I have a date tonight.”

A pause. “Have, as in, it has yet to begin?”

“Uh-huh. She’s coming here after she gets off work.”

“And you talk about Brian working strange hours.”

“She’s a doc and puts in time at a free clinic.”

“Same difference.”

Sam bit his tongue to stop himself from saying it wasn’t.

“Is this serious? I mean, you never have anyone at the house.”

“I suggested a restaurant but she didn’t bite. As for the serious part, this is our first date.”

“First date…at your house. Mmm. I was going to ask her name, but I won’t, because I get the feeling her name won’t come up again anyway after tomorrow.”

“Ouch.”

“Don’t ‘ouch’ me, Sam. When are you going to stop all this dangerous playing around and get serious about someone?”

“Just as soon as I meet someone I want to get serious about. And what I’m doing is not dangerous. I have plenty of condoms.”

“You should hold stock in the company.”

“Actually, I do.”

She sighed heavily. “You know, one of these days I’m going to give up on you, big brother.”

“No you won’t.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“Because you love me.”

She laughed. “Yes, you big lug, I do.”

Shortly thereafter Sam pressed the disconnect button on the phone then stood silently in the middle of his kitchen. Heather was ten years younger than him and was indirectly responsible for his having chosen to become a doctor. They were the only two children of Bruce and Louise Lovejoy of Toledo, Ohio, a quiet couple whose own parents before them had emigrated from England when they were young. But it had been Heather’s being born with a cleft palate, and a local doctor’s muck-up of the reconstructive surgery, that had given Sam the idea of becoming a doctor himself. A doctor that wouldn’t make the same kind of mistakes his sister’s doctor had.

He shook his head, wondering what had made his mind go back there. It had been a very long time since he’d thought about the genesis of his interest in the medical field. While Heather’s scars were still visible because she refused to undergo further surgery, he’d spoken to her on the phone, not face-to-face, so seeing her scars hadn’t been the reason for his recollections.

He glanced at his watch again. Layla should be closing the clinic doors right about now. Of course, that didn’t mean she would be heading this way.

He grinned. Nor did it mean that she wouldn’t be.

He placed a call to a local restaurant and ordered up dinner for two to be delivered in fifteen, then headed for his bedroom and the shower beyond, not about to make it easy for her to refuse him if she did make the trip all the way out to his place.

OKAY, so Mallory was right. She did want to go to Sam’s place. More than that, she was sitting in her car outside his house, hesitant about pulling into the driveway of the sloping ranch-style dwelling that could have held five of her cramped apartment.

Of course, she doubted Sam Lovejoy had the student loan debt that she had, either. His house alone stood testament to the fact. Never mind the sleek black Jaguar parked in front of the door.

God, he was home.

She wiped her damp palms on her skirt, not realizing until that moment that she’d secretly hoped he wouldn’t be there. Then she could have placed the blame for their not seeing each other on him.

But he was home and she was there and it would be stupid for her to do anything else but go in. Maybe have a cup of coffee or water or something. Then say something about an early morning and hightail it out of there if she felt the least bit uneasy.

She made a face, backed up then pulled her ten-year-old Pontiac behind his sports car. Who was she kidding? She didn’t want to hightail it out of anywhere. She wanted to see if his mouth was capable of doing all the things she’d dreamed about last night. And, let’s face it, it had been a good long time since she’d had an orgasm that required somebody else being in the room. Much too long.

And if a little voice told her that this might not be such a good idea, sleeping with a fellow doctor, much less a boss of sorts, she ignored it. While Sam Lovejoy might be staff administrator, he was also a man. And while she couldn’t really say she knew him all that well, she got the distinct impression that any indiscretions would be kept between the two of them. Unlike what had passed between her and Jim Colton. It seemed the entire Center knew that she’d had an affair with a married man. The only people who hadn’t had a clue, it appeared, were her…and his wife.

“Turn off the car, Layla,” she quietly ordered herself.

She did, then forced herself to climb out. The lawn on either side of the drive was nicely landscaped. Flowers blooming everywhere. But that didn’t mean anything. All the houses out this way had professional landscapers. It didn’t mean that…