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Coming soon from Harlequin Mills and Boon Medicals:
ITALIAN DOCTOR, FULL-TIME FATHER
August, 2008
Excerpt:
"I'm fine," he snapped.
"No, you're not," she said, trying to sound calm, even though every last nerve in her body was in riot. He was injured. Her fault. She'd hurt him! "Just sit down, please."
Dante didn't answer, and Catherine held her breath for a moment. Then she called out to him again. "Dante..."
In response, a light from the back snapped on. A small bean from a torch. He held it to his face and she saw the smile tweaking the corners of his mouth. "Remember that night when we had that thunderstorm? The electricity was out..."
"And you found some candles," she said, thinking back to the way that night had ended.
"And you knocked one of them over and started a fire."
In spite of herself, Catherine laughed. "Small fire. You got it put out." And in doing so, started an even bigger fire between them - one that hadn't been put out so easily.
"You burned up my lab coat and my shoes."
"Good thing you weren't in them." Truth was, they were in a heap on the floor, next to her clothes. Nice memories from a very nice time in her life. The best time in her life. "Look, you really do need to come sit down."
"You're right. I do." He limped back to the front of the shed, dropped a pile of thick packing quilts down on top of Catherine, then slid to the floor next to her.
"Can I look at your ankle?" she asked.
He didn't give her permission, but neither did he protest as she eased into position and pulled off his boot, then his soggy sock. "Point that light down here," she said, beginning a gentle prod, first of the inside of Dante's ankle, then of the outside.
So many scars from so many surgeries, and now she wasn't sure there wouldn't be another surgical scar there soon. "Where does it hurt?" she asked.
"Nowhere in particular," he said, even though as she attempted to move his ankle in a reverse-clockwise circle he sucked in an intense gasp.
Nothing felt broken from what she could feel. Not all breaks were palpable, though. The good thing was that he still had good residual range of motion. Stiff, very painful, but good. He was trying to be stout about it, though, and she recognized the subtleties - the change in breathing patterns, the flinching of muscles. "Dante, I'm so sorry about this. I didn't mean for you to re-injure yourself."
"Not your fault," he forced out, as she reversed the movement to clockwise
"You came out after me. I shouldn't have started out in the first place, but..." She ran her fingers over the top of his foot, assessing each bone as she did. Satisfied that nothing was obvious, her fingers wandered lightly toward his ankle. Dante sucked a sharp breath in through his teeth as she reached the tops of his toes, and Catherine automatically pulled her hand back. "Sorry," she choked.
"Not pain," he said.
"You're not gasping from pain?"
"Not everything that elicits a gasp is painful. Remember that night, after the fire?" He reached out and took her hand. "We were good, Catherine. I think we still are. If you want us to be."
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