Harlequin Medical Romance September 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 by Carol Marinelli

Author:Carol Marinelli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2021-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

“YOU DISAPPEARED FAST last night.”

Lulu tried to make her tone and expression as neutral as possible. Zach was sitting at a table for one. If that didn’t scream Back the hell off, she didn’t know what did.

She nodded at his table when he took a sip of coffee instead of answering. “May I join you?”

“Please,” he said, his tone much clearer than hers had been. It said, Sure. You can sit down. But don’t expect loads of chitchat.

A shiver swept down her spine—and not because it was cold. This was the Zach Murphy she’d met on day one. The one who’d grounded her. The one who did everything by the book.

He was also the one she had thought was about as sizzling hot as a man could get, but was as much of an option for her on the dating front as a lemur.

Right then and there she realized she’d let all those barriers she’d kept up slide away. They’d kissed. She’d told him she thought about him naked. She’d climbed all over him as if he was her personal climbing wall and straddled him in front of the entire search and rescue corps.

And now it looked like he had made a decision. Not today, buttercup. Not ever.

Okay, then... If he wanted to be Mr. Rule Book again, she would focus on the fact that they were meant to be winning these games for the Oahu Search and Rescue crew today. She was a big enough girl that she could set aside the mountain of hurt that had weighted her chest when she’d seen him sneak out of the bar last night without so much as wishing her sweet dreams.

“You okay?” She pulled up a chair, plonked down her plate and took a bite of scalding-hot scrambled eggs, too proud to let him know they were burning the roof of her mouth. It helped relocate the pain in her heart, so...useful, really.

“Never better,” he said.

“Liar,” she countered.

He looked across and met her eyes.

His irises were the same color as the sea about a mile away from shore during a storm. Dark blue, fathomless and a bit overwhelming.

She swallowed. Had she messed up everything last night by commandeering that final game instead of genuinely acting like a team member? Screw it. Teams needed leaders, and she’d led them to victory last night. She had even slept in that stupid T-shirt they’d awarded them, feeling the ache of loneliness at all the space in it that would’ve been filled by Zach if only she was normal and actually knew how to date someone.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, until she couldn’t stand it anymore. They had the games to focus on, and if there was anything in the air between them that needed to be cleared they had about twenty-seven minutes to clear it before the first whistle blew.

“What’s really going on?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not important. Let’s just focus on the games.”

She bridled. “We can’t focus on the games if you’re going to be wandering around with a cloud over your head the entire time.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.