TY STARED AT the rolling lawns of his mother’s manicured gardens and wished he was a thousand miles away. He lifted the wineglass to his mouth and grimaced. The Chablis was perfectly fine but he’d have preferred whiskey or beer. Always had, despite his mother’s efforts to turn him into what she called a “civilized man”.
Somehow she’d found out he was back in LA and had issued a dinner invitation. Ty knew a summons when he heard it and hadn’t been surprised to find she’d invited the daughter of an acquaintance to dinner. The woman was as perfectly nice as the Chablis but Ty kept comparing her to the one woman he couldn’t seem to get out of his head.
What had surprised him was his mother’s latest companion. Paul Richmond was well heeled and well educated but, unlike her previous husbands, he could hardly be called polished, sophisticated and smug. And because he wasn’t, Ty had liked him instantly. However, he wasn’t in the mood for a dinner party and he wasn’t in the mood for his mother’s brand of matchmaking or interrogation—which the evening was actually a cover for.
The week since his return had been jam-packed with meetings and appointments, mostly to keep him from thinking. It hadn’t worked, because all he’d done was think.
About Paige, about her accident, and about the mind-numbing terror he’d felt when he’d thought she’d been seriously hurt.
He shook off the disturbing images that had constantly been on his mind since that day—images that had followed him even in sleep—because if he thought too much about them he might have to admit that he’d been an idiot.
That leaving Paige had been the biggest mistake of his life.
One minute he’d been watching her sleep, the next...
Okay, so maybe he’d freaked out a little. He’d experienced a crushing feeling in his chest that had had him staggering from the room, thinking he’d been having a heart attack. He’d gone looking for brandy and had found a six-pack of his favorite beer instead. Beer she had to have bought for him because she was a wine drinker.
His world had tilted alarmingly and he’d felt as though he’d been rushing towards disaster without a brake. Without a single thought to the consequences.
It was that last notion that had scared him the most. That he knew where this was going and simply didn’t care.
So he’d done the one thing he knew would get his life back on track. The one thing he’d gone to Washington to find.
Control of his life.
And while Paige had slept he’d bumped up his flight, packed in record time and left before she could wake because he knew if she looked at him with huge exotic eyes that drew him in against his will, he’d willingly go under for the third time.
A hundred times since then he’d assured himself that escaping from her had saved his life, so why did it feel as though there was a huge empty hole in his soul and that he was slowly suffocating?
A couple of days ago he’d seen his specialist and though he was still mostly uncertain if his hand would ever withstand the rigors of surgery, he hadn’t felt much of anything when Peter Dawson had claimed he’d healed well and with therapy might even get back his former dexterity.
The news should have pleased him but all he could think about was the tentative relationship he’d been forging with his father and about reconnecting with Nate. Relationships he’d left behind.
And in the dark hours of the night he lay awake thinking about Paige and wondering. If she was okay, what she was doing and who she was doing it with. A million times he’d caught himself turning to tell her something or he’d reach for his phone only to realize that she wasn’t there and that he’d given up the right to call.
He’d left her curled into her pillows, for God’s sake; left her bruised and hurting and needing someone to lean on while he’d slipped out like a thief in the night.
He’d called Frankie, but other than to tell him he was scum she refused to take his calls. But only after telling him that Paige was over him and dating again.
Dating?
His gut clenched for about the trillionth time since he’d heard. Well, hell.
And suddenly he could stand it no longer. He had to get away from the stifling atmosphere of his mother’s house and the smog and traffic of LA. It had taken him over a week to realize what he hadn’t as a kid. He could breathe in Washington and it had nothing—or almost nothing—to do with the fresh air.
It had to do with the people. His father, Jack, Nate and Frankie...and now a sweet, feisty, bossy pain-in-the-ass distraction he couldn’t stop thinking about and needed more than his next breath.
With a muttered oath he slammed down the glass on the nearest surface and headed for the door, only to be stopped by his mother’s peremptory, “Tyler, why don’t you tell us when you’re going back to St Augustine’s? I hear they’ve been horribly short-handed since you buried yourself in the wilderness.”
“I’m not going back, Mother,” he said impatiently, because his mother refused to admit that his injury might put a permanent damper on his meteoric surgical career. A career she liked to tell everyone about. “And Port St. John’s is hardly the wilderness.”
“What do you mean, you’re not going back?” she demanded, ignoring everything else.
“I resigned.” He hadn’t but that was his next step.
He was going back to Washington.
He was finally going home.
Renée gasped and paled. “But...but why, for heaven’s sake?” She rose off the couch looking both elegant and cool, the perfect line of her brow marred by a wrinkle of displeasure. She might be sixty-two but looked fifty and was still beautiful. “That’s so typically reckless and short-sighted of you, Tyler. I thought you’d outgrown that juvenile behavior but it seems spending time with that man, in that Godforsaken place, has turned you against me again.”
“Mother—” he began wearily, only to be interrupted by a cold, “You’ll regret it. I certainly did. Besides, I have it on excellent authority that you’ll make a full recovery and when you do—”
“When I do, Mother, it might not be as a surgeon.”
“Of course it will, darling, and St. Augustine’s will take you back. Dr. Hudson assured me of that.”
Furious that his mother had been discussing him with the hospital administrator, he said flatly, “It’s done. I’ve put my house on the market.”
Renée gasped and slapped a hand over her heart as though he’d stabbed her in the chest. “Oh, my God. You’re moving to Washington, aren’t you? You’re throwing away everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve. And for what? A rundown harbor town with a second-rate hospital?”
“Yes,” Ty said quietly, firmly. “I am. And Port St. John’s is hardly run-down. In fact, it’s tripled in size in the last twenty years and is a hugely popular tourist resort town. And that man, as you call him, is my father.” He turned to walk out the door.
“You’ll regret this silly decision, Tyler, just as I did.”
“No, Mother, I won’t,” he said quietly over his shoulder. “What I regret is not doing it sooner.”
Over his mother’s spluttered protest he heard Paul Richmond say, “Let him go, Renée. His mind’s clearly made up.” And just before he closed the front door he heard Paul add, “Besides, the boy’s in love.”
His mind instantly rejected being called a boy almost as much as those last words. He actually scoffed as he slammed the front door behind him.
He’d just realized that he belonged in Washington, that’s all. Nothing hearts-and-roses about that. Just a hankering for the town of his birth and spending time with his father, with Nate. And with Paige, too, he admitted.
If she ever spoke to him again.
Satisfied that he’d cleared up that misconception in his own mind, he slid behind the wheel of his shiny sports car and froze as everything abruptly fell into place—like the cogs of a safe lock tumbling into place.
It was as if an inner door swung open, revealing... Ty swore, his chest squeezing and his gut churning just like it had the night of Paige’s accident. With a blinding flash of insight he realized that all the emotions bombarding him that night, tonight—every moment since—were none other than...
Oh, God, he could barely think the word, let alone say it. But there was no denying his feelings. He was...yeah, that, with a woman who’d wormed her way into his heart, first by knocking him out cold and then with every smile, every scowl and every blush since then. A woman who faced her problems head on instead of running from them. A woman he suddenly couldn’t see himself living without.
There was no getting away from the truth.
He loved Paige Carlyle and wanted her in his life.
He’d just have to convince her to renegotiate their deal, that’s all. A deal that would last the rest of their lives.
Firing up the engine, Ty whipped out of his mother’s driveway and headed for the southbound freeway, his mouth curving in a wolfish grin. His little faerie commando had better watch her six because Ty was planning a sneak attack. And he knew exactly how surgically precise and devious it was going to be.
His feisty little medic—aka Dr. Cutie—didn’t stand a chance.
* * *
Paige heard music as she drifted up through layers of sleep and caught herself smiling before she remembered that her life sucked. Oh, yeah. It was the first time she’d actually managed to fall asleep without tossing and turning because she missed having a big warm body to curl into.
Maybe she should get a dog, she thought sleepily. A huge big shaggy dog. One that she could take for long walks on the beach and curl up with on a cold rainy night. One who would always be happy to see her and wouldn’t disappear in the middle of the night and break her freaking heart.
Yep, she yawned, snuggling into the pillow she was wrapped around. A dog sounded great—
Her eyes popped open and she froze as two things registered at once. One, the music was closer than she’d thought and, two—oh, boy—her pulse charged ahead of her brain because...because someone was moving around downstairs.
Her eyes widened incredulously.
You have got to be kidding me.
What the heck were the statistics of that happening twice?
Well, she thought furiously, flinging back the covers and grabbing her trusty flashlight off the bedside table. This time there would be no mercy. This time she would not—not, you hear, Paige Deborah Carlyle?—let a sexy BAB render her stupid.
Narrowing her eyes, she firmed her lips and tightened her grip. This guy was going down and this time she would make sure he stayed down. She wouldn’t call the cops because Frankie had said she would help her bury the body.
Paige knew just the place.
Halfway down the stairs she froze because her heart was pounding so hard she felt a little light-headed and...and there was a warm glow of—she leaned over the banister—candles?...coming from the sitting room.
Music and candles? What the hell?
Okay, so clearly her intruder hadn’t heard that stealth was a major requirement of “intruding”.
Scowling fiercely because she’d taken down the last one with her awesome ninja skills, Paige marched down the stairs prepared to give the guy a piece of her mind. She was the sister of a Navy SEAL, she told herself, and a Top Gun. She was—
A huge dark shape materialized beside her and acting on instinct she swung the flashlight with all her strength.
She heard a low oath as it connected and before she knew it she’d been pinned against the wall and disarmed. Shocked by the speed with which it had happened, Paige opened her mouth and...screamed.
Oh, yeah. Killer ninja skills to the rescue.
She thought she heard, “For God’s sake, Paige, it’s me,” but it was probably her imagination because Ty was gone. He’d snuck out when she’d been down and out and she was never—she thrust a leg between two long muscled ones and hooked an ankle—letting anyone—rammed the heel of her hand into his gut—hurt her—and growled with satisfaction when she heard a grunt of pain as her attacker let her go—ever again!
She shoved hard and the next instant the earth shook. She uttered a loud “Haaai ya!” as he went down hard.
There was a stunned silence, a muttered, “What the—?” in a voice that was both familiar and as unexpected as the snort the intruder uttered with his next breath. The snort turned into a chuckle and soon deep belly laughs filled the entrance and rattled the panes. It took a couple of dozen heartbeats to realize that—
“Ty?”
When the man on the floor continued to laugh like a lunatic, Paige stomped over to the wall and hit the lights. And there, on the floor where she’d tossed him—okay, it had been more of a shove—was Tyler Reese, dressed in nothing but a pair of worn, faded jeans and a wrist brace. Looking even better than she remembered.
It took another couple of seconds for her brain to compute and when it did, she snapped her mouth closed, narrowed her eyes and stomped closer, snatching the flashlight off the floor where it had rolled.
“Try anything funny and it’s lights out,” she snarled, scowling down at him, one hand on her hip, the other brandishing her trusty flash. She didn’t know what the hell was so damn funny but he took one look at her and whooped with freaking hilarity until, seething with frustration and the remnants of adrenaline, she tried to kick him.
His hand shot out and grabbed her foot and the next thing she knew she’d landed on him hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs. Her bruised ribs protested but before she could punch him, he’d rolled and had her pinned beneath him.
She opened her mouth to berate him for manhandling her but Ty swooped down and caught the garbled protest with his mouth. Stunned and a little turned on, Paige tried to shove him away but he grabbed her hands and anchored them beside her head as he continued his assault on her mouth.
And her senses too, dammit.
The thought had her nipping his bottom lip hard enough that he broke the kiss and growled, “Ouch. What the hell was that for?”
Somehow one of his thighs had sneaked between hers and she could feel how turned on he was. The discovery was enough to lend her strength and she punched him once...twice before he grabbed her hands.
Pain shot through her sprained wrist, which had to account for the tears suddenly blurring her vision. It also made her gasp and try to buck him off.
“Dammit,” he growled, breathing hard, she was gratified to notice because she was huffing like a geriatric steam engine. “What’s got into you?”
“You...” She gulped back a sob and glared at him accusingly. She tried to kick him but he had her legs pinned. “You...you left.” Tears blinded her but she furiously blinked them away. No way was she giving him the satisfaction of crying over him. She wasn’t. Her wrist hurt, her butt hurt and...and, damn him, her heart hurt too. “Without saying goodbye. Like I was a...a one-night stand, dammit.”
She must have surprised him because he released her hands and Paige took advantage of his distraction to shove at him, scuttling away when he rolled over to blink at her stupidly.
Her back hit the wall and she instinctively drew her knees up. She recognized it as a defensive pose but she didn’t want to be vulnerable to him again. And even though she’d known he was leaving, she’d been as devastated as when her mother had died.
“Hey,” he said softly, and Paige realized he’d peeled himself off the floor and was back-to-the wall beside her. His yummy smell enveloped her and she drew in a huge lungful before she could stop herself.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, thrusting a hand through his tousled hair in obvious frustration.
“For what, scaring the hell out of me for the second time?”
His mouth, mostly serious but often sensual—especially when he was contemplating kissing her—curved in amusement.
“No.” He grimaced, all amusement gone. “For leaving like that. For being an idiot.”
Instead of replying, she gave him a filthy look and thunked her head against the wall. After a couple of beats she felt him move and the next moment he was peering into her averted face.
Scowling, she shoved his shoulder.
“Go away, I’m over you.”
“Is that why you tried to split my skull open again? Because I have to tell you,” he continued when she just growled at him, “for the rest of my life I’ll never forget the sight of you standing over me like an avenging faerie commando, ready to whoop my ass.”
“I did whoop your ass,” she reminded him smartly, secretly pleased with his description. “I wasn’t the one knocked on his ass by a girl.”
He was silent a moment. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I was, wasn’t I?”
The tone of his voice aroused her curiosity and when she turned her head and caught him studying her as if he’d never seen her before, a confused frown wrinkled her brow.
“What?”
“You knocked me on my ass.”
“I just said that.”
“No,” he murmured, lifting a hand to cup her jaw, and Paige stilled at the expression in his eyes. Her heart lurched and an entire swarm of locusts invaded her belly. “I mean you really knocked me on my ass.”
Concerned that he might have hit his head, Paige said, “Ty...?” But he gave a low rough laugh and the next instant she found herself flat on the floor with his hard body covering hers.
Really concerned now, she blinked up into eyes the color of the late summer sky and her breath stuttered to a stop.
With his eyes on hers, he slid his hands into her hair to hold her still and with a soft, “You’re awesome,” slowly dipped his head to drop a kiss on her startled mouth.
On a muffled oath, he deepened the kiss until they were both breathing heavily and Paige felt just how much the wild mating of mouths had affected him.
Oh, boy. Her too.
He lifted his head long enough to announce, “I can’t wait to tell our kids about this,” before swooping back to feed her the hottest, hungriest kisses she’d ever experienced.
It was much later when she was sated and draped boneless across Ty’s body that she roused herself enough to croak, “Our kids?”
“Hmm?” Ty hummed, smoothing a big hand down her back to her bottom.
“Just before you ravished me you said; ‘I can’t wait to tell our kids about this.’” She pushed herself up onto her elbow with great effort because she was still trembling from the storm of passion he’d unleashed on her. “Firstly, what the hell? And secondly, what the hell?”
He blinked as though waking from a deep sleep and after a long pause, during which his body tensed by degrees, he frowned. “You don’t want to marry me?”
Stunned as much by his words as she was by the uncertainty in his tone, Paige gaped at him. After a couple of beats she sat up and reached for the USMC shirt she usually slept in, only to blink when it was whipped out of reach.
“Answer me.”
“Well,” she said carefully, beginning to get annoyed. “I don’t know. You haven’t asked me yet.”
“But...” He thrust a hand through his hair and after a long pause his breath escaped in a long whoosh. “I’m jobless.”
Startled, Paige could only blink.
“And I’m homeless.”
Her eyes widened and she was only vaguely aware that her heart had begun a heavy pounding in her chest.
For a long moment he stared at her before reaching out to cup her face with his hands. “And...and you didn’t just knock me on my ass, Paige. I fell hard. For you.”
“What...?” She swallowed before trying again. “What are you saying, Ty?”
“I’m saying that I’m so in love with you that I’m prepared to beg.”
“You...?” She shook her head as if to clear it. “You l-love me?”
“Yes,” he murmured, kissing her gently on the nose. “You. The bossy pain-in-the-ass distraction I didn’t want but need more than my next breath.”
“But...what about your job? Your life?”
“It’s here with you, Paige.”
She was stunned speechless but after a couple of gasping breaths managed, “I... I—”
Chuckling, Ty pulled her into his arms. “I can’t believe the only time I ever see you speechless is when I tell you I love you. Is it that surprising?”
“Well, no,” she admitted with a growing smile, because who wouldn’t grin knowing that the hottest guy in America had willingly entered her house and declared his love? “I am pretty awesome but—”
With a laugh Ty caught her mouth in a deep wet kiss that seemed to go on forever. Finally he broke away to murmur against her lips, “Yes, you are awesome. But you haven’t answered my question.”
Breathless, Paige traced his much-loved face and could not help herself from dropping a kiss on his mouth, his jaw and taking a nip out of his ear. “Which one was that?”
He pulled her away to look into her eyes. “Do you love me and will you marry me?”
“That’s two—” she began, only to break off with a startled squeak when he dipped his head and nipped her lip.
Curling her fingers in his hair, she yanked his head up so she could see his expression when she said, “Yes. And you’d better not tell our kids what I’m about to do next.”
His grin was a mix of relief, joy and blinding love. “And what’s that, Dr. Cutie?”
“This,” she breathed, shoving him backwards. And when she was straddling him, Paige stared down at him with triumph. “I’m going to turn your world upside down.”
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Lucy Ryder
CAUGHT IN A STORM OF PASSION
FALLING AT THE SURGEON’S FEET
TAMED BY HER ARMY DOC’S TOUCH
RESISTING HER REBEL HERO
All available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from TEMPTED BY THE BRIDESMAID by Annie O’Neil
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