Reviving The Doctor’s Love Life

Neurosurgeon Julia Fitzgerald graduated high school at fourteen, whizzed through med school and even became a successful navy captain. Alas, when the subject is romance, she’s a dunce. No amount of textbook learning can help her find a date or understand what men really want.

When handsome-as-heck contractor Kane Chatterson begins renovating Julia’s house, she finds him...distracting. Is it his strong, tanned forearms? His quiet, confident manner? Mr. Sexy Flannel Shirt doesn’t have any of the qualities Julia believes she needs in a man. But when he offers to help her find the perfect date, she reluctantly agrees. And as Julia gets schooled in the fine art of love, she realizes that Kane might be exactly what the doctor ordered...

“Wait. Why am I explaining all this to you?” Julia asked.

“Because I have the kind of face that makes people want to open up?” Why was he being so damn flirty? It was as if Kane couldn’t stop the asinine comments from flying out. But she’d caught him off guard looking like that. Plus, she was much more down-to-earth when she rambled on about nothing.

“No. You have the kind of face that makes people feel as if they’re strapped to a polygraph machine.” That was an interesting revelation. Did he make her nervous?

“You don’t like my face?” He reached up to stroke his famous trademark beard, then remembered he’d shaved it several months ago when he’d moved to Sugar Falls. Instead, he touched a bristly jawline that felt like eighty-grade sandpaper.

“I’m not going to answer that, either.” But he could tell by the blush rising up from her scoop-neck tank that she probably liked his face more than she wanted to admit.

* * *

Sugar Falls, Idaho: Your destination for true love!

The Makeover Prescription

Christy Jeffries

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHRISTY JEFFRIES graduated from the University of California, Irvine, with a degree in criminology, and received her Juris Doctor from California Western School of Law. But drafting court documents and working in law enforcement was merely an apprenticeship for her current career in the dynamic fields of mummyhood and romance writing. She lives in Southern California with her patient husband, two energetic sons and one sassy grandmother. Follow her online at www.christyjeffries.com.

To my Monkey Roo. Your superfast race-car brain has been such a blessing and continues to amaze me every day. You are so smart, creative and incredibly witty. Even though I can’t wait to see what kind of man you’ll grow up to become, you will always be my little boy. I love being your mommy.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Captain Julia Calhoun Fitzgerald had no problem commanding a full surgical team in the operating room during an emergency decompressive craniectomy, but she could be naked, standing on her head and yelling from a bullhorn, and nobody in the Cowgirl Up Café would give her a second look.

“May I get some...” Julia’s voice trailed off when she realized she was talking to the back of the busboy’s turquoise T-shirt. He’d unceremoniously dropped the plate of food off on the counter between her seat and the empty one next to her, not bothering to ask if she had everything she needed.

She looked down the counter and saw an unused place setting two seats over. She could either sit here, going unnoticed for another twenty minutes—which was how long it’d taken for the waitress to take her order in the first place—or she could reach over and grab the neighboring paper napkin and utensils. She decided to do the latter.

After centering the newly acquired napkin in her lap, Julia neatly cut her oversize breakfast burrito in half with surgical precision, then clamped her lips shut at what looked to be sausage gravy oozing out of the center. This couldn’t be right. She lifted her head and looked around the restaurant, hoping to catch the attention of the lone waitress who was darting between several crowded tables, fumbling with her order pad before picking up a stack of dirty plates from an empty table.

Was this place always so crowded? Since being stationed at the Shadowview Military Hospital last month, Julia had come into her aunt’s restaurant only twice, and both times were right before closing when most of the small town of Sugar Falls, Idaho, shut down for the night.

And speaking of Aunt Freckles, where was she anyway? Julia could’ve sworn the calendar app on her fancy new smartphone said they were supposed to meet at the café at eight this morning.

She glanced at her gold tank watch—one of the more modest pieces she’d inherited from her mother—and noted that she had only about fifteen minutes before she was supposed to meet the contractor at her new house.

Julia used her fork and knife to probe at the contents of the flour tortilla on her plate, then leaned forward and sniffed at the batter-covered meat inside. This was definitely not what she’d ordered. She carefully set her utensils down on either side of her plate and took a sip of her orange juice while observing the other customers and trying not to eavesdrop on the intense conversation going on in the booth to her right.

“There’s no way the Rockies are going to make it to the play-offs this year, let alone win the pennant.” One of the older-looking cowboys slammed his fist on the table, making the salt and pepper shakers rattle as the equally elderly man beside him nodded in agreement. “And if you try to tell me their bull pen is stronger than the Rangers’, I’ll call you a liar.”

Julia squirmed in her seat, trying not to listen to the heated discussion but unable to tear her gaze away.

“Now settle down, Jonesy,” said the younger man sitting on the opposite side of the booth. He was holding up his hands, the sleeves of his gray flannel shirt rolled up to reveal strong, tan forearms that could only be the result of years of outdoor physical labor. His short auburn hair was messy—probably due to the green hat precariously hanging on his bouncing knee—and his square jaw and smirking lips made Julia’s pulse want to do the opposite of settle down. Luckily, though, his quiet voice, or maybe his overall size, had the proper effect on Jonesy, who took a couple of deep breaths before nodding. Sexy Flannel Shirt continued, “Nobody said anything about their pitchers. All I said was...”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the server approach, and Julia turned away from the conversation, slightly lifting her hand in an attempt to get Monica’s attention. At least, she thought the name tag read Monica. She couldn’t be sure since the woman kept passing by in a blur, not even glancing in Julia’s direction.

“Excuse me.” Julia tried again when Monica rushed behind her side of the counter, this time balancing three plates of food in one hand and a carafe of coffee and a bottle of syrup in the other. But the young woman still didn’t look her way.

Sighing, Julia decided that she’d settle for eating what she could off the plate. She hated being late, and since the contractor was a good friend of her aunt’s, Julia wanted to make a good impression. She picked up her fork and began eating the home fries, which she had to admit were delicious, if a little greasier than her usual breakfast fare. Just as she swallowed the last bit of potatoes, she heard a choking sound coming from the booth beside her.

Sexy Flannel Shirt had his hand covering his mouth, and Julia sprang into rescue mode. Within four strides, she’d pulled the man out of the booth and wrapped her arms around his torso, locking them in place directly above his upper abdomen. His chin almost collided with her forehead when he whipped his head back quickly to look at her.

“You’ll be okay,” she said in her most authoritative tone. “Try to stay calm.”

“I would be a hell of a lot calmer if I knew why you were latching onto me like that,” the man replied. If he was capable of speaking, he was capable of breathing.

Oh no.

Julia rose awkwardly to her full height, her hands disengaging so slowly, she could feel the softness of his flannel shirt under her fingers. And the tightness of the muscles underneath. Obviously her senses were on high alert because of the quick adrenaline rush she got whenever she was in an emergency situation like this. Even if it was a false alarm.

She quickly clasped her overly sensitive hands behind her back.

“Sorry,” she said to Mr. Flannel, as well as to the two older cowboys sitting with him at the table, their eyes as large and round as their stacks of blueberry pancakes. “I thought you were choking.”

“I thought so, too,” the man admitted. “Then I just realized that I was being poisoned by whatever was inside my chicken-fried steak burrito.”

He pointed to his plate, and Julia suddenly realized where her breakfast order had ended up.

“It looks like you got my egg white and veggie delight wrap.” She picked up the plate and walked back to her seat at the counter, then returned with his meal, the spilled gravy not yet congealing. “I think I got yours by mistake.”

“What happened to my hash browns?” he asked, looking at the empty space alongside his burrito.

A defensive heat rose up from the neckline of Julia’s hospital scrubs, all the way to her hairline. Who put chicken-fried steak in a tortilla, anyway? “I, uh, ate them when I realized that the burrito wasn’t what I ordered.”

“Most people would’ve just sent the order back if it was wrong,” he said, his lips twitching, giving her the impression that he found her mistake hilarious.

Oh really? She wanted to ask. They wouldn’t gasp and choke and pretend to be poisoned? But she didn’t know this man, or the rest of the people in this town. Yet. And Julia didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot with her new neighbors. Although she had a feeling that with all the eyes—including Monica’s, finally—in the suddenly quiet restaurant staring at her, she’d already made quite an impression.

The pressure on her sternum felt as if someone were trying to save her from choking...on her own embarrassment and she had to silence the whispers of one of the other few times she’d been so foolish. She returned to her seat and picked her leather satchel up off the floor, retrieving her wallet out of the front pocket before walking back to his booth.

“Here. This should cover the cost of your breakfast.” Julia’s voice wobbled as she pulled two twenty dollar bills out, setting them on his table. Then, before she walked out the door, she decided someone had better tell him. “And just so you know, there’s a piece of spinach stuck in your teeth.”

Julia dodged the waitress and her tray full of food as she made her way to the front door. Several shouts of laughter reached her ears right as she exited, but she didn’t pause or turn back to see who was making fun of her. Instead, she squared her shoulders and walked down the sidewalk of Snowflake Boulevard, wondering how long it would take for news of the embarrassing scene she’d just caused to make its way down the shops and businesses lined up along this main road through town.

This was why she was more comfortable in the background. Out of the way. Being ignored.

She’d just climbed in her car when her cell phone chirped to life. Seeing her aunt’s name on the display screen, Julia quickly answered it.

“Sug, where are you?” Aunt Freckles asked.

“I just left the café.” No need to tell the woman about how she’d accosted one of the customers by mistakenly performing the Heimlich maneuver. Her aunt would probably find out soon enough, anyway.

“Why would you go there?”

“Because we were supposed to meet there at eight.”

“No, we weren’t. We were supposed to meet at the bakery. Why would I have you come to my restaurant when I’d already taken the morning off?”

Well, that would explain why the café was so understaffed. But how could Julia have gotten the location wrong? She tried to tap on her calendar app to confirm that she hadn’t screwed up twice this morning, but she accidentally ended the call. Ugh. She squeezed the phone in frustration, then took a deep breath and reminded herself that she was smarter than this. She tried to pull up Freckles’s number, but before she could find the right button, a text message from her aunt popped up saying they could just meet at the new house, so Julia put her MINI Cooper in gear.

Turning onto her street, Julia gazed up at the ramshackle old Victorian that stood at the end of the cul-de-sac on Pinecone Court, a proud smile making her cheeks stretch and alleviating her lingering shame over that awkward encounter just a few moments ago. If one didn’t count the Federal-style mansion in Georgetown, the summer cottage on Chincoteague Island in Virginia or the countless commercial properties still held in the Fitzgerald Family Trust, Julia had never owned her own house.

She parked her car in the driveway, biting her lip and staring out the window, trying to envision all the possibilities spread out before her. Unlike Julia, this house was anything but practical and understated. But all thirty-two hundred square feet of it was hers.

There were no interior designers to suggest beige color palettes and overpriced modern art. No maids to rush in and make up her bed the moment she’d robotically woken up at five thirty every morning to practice the cello. No private tutors waiting in the informal library—the formal library in the Georgetown residence being reserved for when Mother invited her university colleagues over—to ensure Julia’s MCAT score was high enough. After all, they needed the med school admission counselors to overlook the fact that she wasn’t old enough to buy liquor, let alone cut open cadavers to research the long-term effects of liver disease. And there was no personal chef here to tell her that her parents had already instructed him on the week’s menu, so she would not be eating processed carbs for dinner, no matter how many of her classmates were cramming for finals over pizza and Red Bull energy drinks.

A horn blasted behind her, and she turned to see her elderly Aunt Freckles behind the wheel of a slightly less elderly rusted-out 4x4 that Julia didn’t recognize. Freckles was actually her great-aunt on her father’s side, and while Julia only had sporadic contact with her relative until her parents’ joint memorial service several years ago, it didn’t take a neurosurgeon to figure out why the flashy waitress and former rodeo queen had been estranged from their conservative and academic family.

“Morning, Sug,” Freckles hollered—there was really no other way to describe the woman’s cheerfully brash voice—as she patted the Bronco emblem near the driver’s-side door. “Ain’t she a beaut? My second husband, Earl Larry, had one just like it back in ’73. We hitched an Airstream to it and cruised all over Mexico.”

She brushed her aunt’s weathered and heavily rouged cheek with a soft kiss as Freckles wrapped her in a bear hug that threatened to crush several ribs. Julia was still accustoming herself to the woman’s hearty displays of affection. “Whatever happened to Earl Larry?” she asked, always interested in hearing about her aunt’s series of past relationships.

“His grandpappy died and left the family business to him. Earl Larry went corporate on me, and after that Forbes report came out with him on the cover, I told him I wasn’t made for that kind of life. I couldn’t stand being married to some stuffy old three-piece suit, no matter how many capital ventures he sank our RVing money into.”

It was hard to imagine anyone named Earl Larry wearing a suit, let alone having a grandpappy who left him a company that would be featured in a well-respected financial magazine. Of course, it was just as difficult to imagine seventy-eight-year-old Eugenia Josephine Brighton Fitzgerald of the Virginia Fitzgeralds wearing orange cowboy boots, zebra-printed spandex pants and an off-the-shoulder turquoise T-shirt emblazoned with the words Cowgirl Up Café—We’ll Butter Your Biscuit.

“Whose car is this?” Julia asked.

“It’s Kane’s,” Freckles said. “I saw him pulled over on Snowflake Boulevard, and he said he’d eaten something that hadn’t agreed with him. I told him he just needed some fresh air, and since I’ve been itching to take this old Bronco of his for a spin, he agreed to let me drive it so he could walk the rest of the way. It’s only a couple of blocks, so he should be here any sec.”

Julia had yet to meet Kane Chatterson, the contractor Aunt Freckles suggested she hire to remodel the house. But if this derelict hunk of junk on wheels was any indication of the man’s rehab skills, her once-stately Victorian abode was in serious trouble.

Of course, if her overzealous impromptu CPR skills back at the restaurant were any indication, Julia’s medical career as a Navy surgeon might be in serious trouble, as well.

“Would you like to see the inside of the house?” Julia asked.

“You bet,” Freckles said in her mountain drawl.

“I have only an hour before my shift at Shadowview, so I might ask you to give Mr. Chatterson the tour if he isn’t here soon. I can email him some of my notes and suggestions later.”

What Julia didn’t say was that it would certainly be a load off her mind if she could just skip all this formal meet and greet business and fire off a quick note to the guy. Especially after the disastrous morning she’d already had. But Aunt Freckles’s quick shake of her dyed and teased peach-colored hairdo was enough to suggest Julia shouldn’t keep her fingers crossed.

“Kane’s a good boy and dependable as sin. He’ll get here in time. Besides, I’m holding his baby ransom.” Freckles dangled the metal keys above her head. “And men have an unnatural attachment to their cars. If you ever took the time to go out on a date with a decent fella, you’d find that out for yourself.”

Julia rolled her eyes, a practice that she never would’ve dared in the presence of her parents when they’d been alive. But, seriously. Her aunt referred to every male under the age of sixty as a boy and never missed an opportunity to suggest Julia’s social life was too date-free—at least by the older woman’s standards. Freckles liked men almost as much as she liked sequins and comfort food.

“I’m in and out of surgery all day, and when I do get the occasional time free, I usually spend it swimming laps or sleeping at the officers’ quarters near the base hospital.”

“You work too hard, Sug,” Freckles said, rubbing her niece’s shoulder. Julia, who normally tried to remain as reserved as possible, had difficulty not leaning in to the comforting motion. “And you gotta eat sometime. In those blue hospital scrubs and that cardigan, you look like you haven’t got a curve to your name. Isn’t there a nice doctor or admiral or someone you could go out to dinner with?”

“I don’t need a man to take me to dinner.”

“Hmph.” Had her aunt just snorted? “I don’t know if I mentioned this yet, but the town of Sugar Falls puts on a big to-do at the end of the year to raise money for the hospital. Since you’re one of the new surgeons and an official resident of Sugar Falls, the committee is going to expect you to be there as a guest of honor. With a plus-one, if you know what I’m saying?”

Guest of honor? A plus-one? Julia’s stomach twisted and her forehead grew damp, despite the fact that the early November sun still hadn’t peeked out of the clouds. She was pretty sure her aunt was suggesting she’d need to find a date, which was much easier said than done. Besides, Julia never wanted to show her face in the town of Sugar Falls again.

“Oh, look,” Freckles continued. “Here comes Kane now. Smile and try not to look so dang serious.”

Julia’s insides felt tighter than a newly strung cello as she turned around to await the contractor who would be doing the remodeling work on her new home—if his estimate was reasonable. Yet before she could formulate her plan to refrain from shoveling out piles of her inheritance to someone in order to avoid the hassle of negotiating, she recognized the familiar gray flannel shirt, and her heart dropped.

Oh no. Please, no. This can’t be happening to me.

The man hadn’t seemed quite as tall when he’d been sitting in that booth back at the Cowgirl Up Café, but his broad shoulders and chest looked just as muscular as they’d felt twenty minutes ago. He moved with long, purposeful strides that ate up the sidewalk, and Julia didn’t know whether she should meet him halfway and beg him not to mention the choking incident to Freckles, or whether she should hide in the overgrown azalea bush.

In the end, she was too mortified to do either. Her aunt motioned the man up the uneven cement path and onto the porch. “Kane Chatterson, meet my favorite grandniece, Dr. and Captain Julia Fitzgerald.”

The pride in her aunt’s voice blossomed inside Julia’s chest, nearly shadowing the lingering shame. Or was that just her elevated heartbeat?

“I’m your only niece,” Julia said, trying to lighten things up with a joke, but she succeeded only in making her nerves feel more weighed down. She cleared her throat and looked at Kane. “We weren’t formally introduced earlier.”

God, she hoped this man didn’t spill the beans to her aunt. His sunglasses shaded his eyes, and he certainly wasn’t smirking now, making it impossible for Julia to figure out if he was annoyed, amused or biding his time until Freckles left and he could tell her that she and her contracting job weren’t worth the trouble.

But Kane Chatterson simply gave her a brief, unsmiling nod before asking, “Do I call you Doctor or Captain?”

“Call me just Julia. Please.” She reached out her hand to shake his, and he gripped her fingers quickly, his warm calluses leaving an imprint on her palms. As a medical professional, she had no rational or scientific explanation for the shiver that vibrated down her spine. As a woman, her only explanation was that this new sensation was most likely the result of her aunt’s fresh lecture on dating. And possibly the fact that she hadn’t been this attracted to a man since...ever.

“Just Julia,” he replied. But still no smile.

She looked at her watch. She’d be out of here in ten minutes. Surely, she could pretend to be a normal, successful woman for another ten minutes.

“What do you mean, you weren’t formally introduced earlier?” Damn. Aunt Freckles didn’t miss a thing.

“We, uh, spoke briefly at the Cowgirl Up Café when our orders got mixed up this morning,” Kane told her aunt. The faint dusting of copper-colored stubble on his square jaw made it too difficult to tell if the man was actually blushing.

“Yeah, I figured the new waitress I hired wasn’t quite ready for me to leave her on her own,” Freckles replied, then turned to Julia and gave her a wink. “Seems like lots of people are getting stuff wrong this morning.”

“Here.” Julia handed the cell phone to her aunt, determined to prove that she hadn’t made a mistake. Or at least two of them. “It says right here on my calendar app that we were supposed to meet at the café.”

Since Freckles was busy tapping on the screen and Mr. Chatterson’s attention was on the yellow paint chipping off the wood siding of the house, Julia stole another look at his dour face. She’d been trying to save his life back at the café. Surely he couldn’t be irritated with her over that—unless the laughter she’d heard as she left the restaurant was directed at him. Maybe the guy’s ego had taken a hit. Or maybe his feet were cold and tired from walking all this way from the restaurant.

Julia glanced down at the scuffed cowboy boots. No, that sturdy, worn leather looked like they’d been walked in quite a lot. So his stiff demeanor most likely wasn’t the result of sore feet. She allowed her gaze to travel up his jeans-clad legs, past his untucked shirt and all the way to his green cap with the words Patterson’s Dairy embroidered in yellow on the front.

That funny tingling made its way down her spine again.

What was wrong with her? She didn’t stare at unsuspecting men or allow her body to get all jumbled full of hormones, no matter how good-looking they were. Julia reached up and tightened the elastic band in her hair, hoping he wouldn’t look over and catch her checking him out.

“Sug,” Aunt Freckles said, holding up the smartphone. “Somehow you managed to program the Cowgirl Up Café as the location for everything in your calendar this month—including five surgeries, two staff meetings, a seminar on neurological disorders and the Boise Philharmonic’s String Quintet.”

“Oh. Well, I haven’t had time to go over the new software update. Yet.” Julia waved her hand dismissively before powering off her screen. That wasn’t a real mistake. She had much more important things to accomplish than mastering some stupid scheduling app—like getting this tour underway if she wanted to report for duty on time. She pulled a key from the pocket of her cardigan sweater, the one Aunt Freckles said did nothing for her coloring or her figure, and asked Mr. Chatterson, “Would you like me to show you around inside?”

“I could probably figure it out on my own,” he said, then used the top step to wipe his boots as she unlocked the door. “But it wouldn’t hurt for you to tell me some of your ideas for the place.”

Well, wasn’t he being generous?

“Shouldn’t you grab a notepad?” Julia gestured toward his run-down truck-vehicle thing.

“Why?”

“So that you can take notes?”

“Don’t need to.”

“What about measurements? Surely you won’t be able to remember every little dimension.”

“No, ma’am. I probably won’t. In fact, there’s probably a lot of stuff I won’t remember. But I’ll get a sense of the house and what it needs, which is something no tape measure can show me.”

“But how will you give me an estimate?”

“If I decide to take the job,” he said, looking up at the large trees, their pine needles creeping toward the roof she was positive needed replacing, “I’ll come back and take measurements and write it all down neat and tidy for you.”

“Sug,” Freckles interrupted in a stage whisper. “Kane here knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t come into the operating room and tell you where to cut or how to dig around in someone’s brain.” Then, as if to lessen the rebuke, Freckles turned to the brooding contractor. “Julia’s a neurosurgeon in the Navy. Smart as a whip, my grandniece. Did I mention that?”

“I believe you did. Should we get started?” he asked, wiping his hand across his mouth. Then, without waiting for a response, he walked through the door as though he couldn’t care less about Julia’s abilities in the operating room or her whip-like intelligence. Not that she wanted the attention or expected him to be in awe of her, but it was one of the few times somebody hadn’t been impressed with her genius IQ.

The guy strode into her front parlor as though he owned the place, and Julia resented his take-charge attitude and her unexplainable physical response to him. However, he was the expert—supposedly—and she was intelligent enough to know that this old house needed much more than her surgical skills.

The trio made their way from room to room, and Julia lost track of the amount of times she had to tell Aunt Freckles that she didn’t love the idea of glitter-infused paint on the walls or a wet bar added to each of the three floors. When they finished the tour in the kitchen, Julia was already in jeopardy of being ten minutes late for her shift. Unfortunately, she didn’t trust her aunt not to suggest something outlandish in her absence.

“I say you get some of those cool retro turquoise appliances and redo all these cabinets with pink and white paint.” Freckles waved her arms like an air traffic controller. “Then you can do black-and-white-checkered tile and give it a real fifties’ vibe. If you knock out this wall, it will open up the kitchen to the family room.”

“Which room is the family room?” Julia rubbed at her temples before tightening her ponytail. Again.

“I believe that’s the room you referred to as the study,” Kane told her. His smirk gave off the impression that he was laughing at her for some reason. Again. “Or was that the informal parlor?”

“Either way,” Julia said. “I don’t want a fifties-themed anything in my house. Besides, remodeling the kitchen is my last concern.”

It was difficult to not startle at Freckle’s loud, indrawn breath. “Sug, no, no, no. The kitchen is the heart of the house. That should be the first thing Kane works on. How’re you gonna cook or eat if you don’t have a decent kitchen?”

“I don’t intend to do much cooking here. I eat most of my meals at the hospital, and as long as I have a refrigerator to store all the leftovers you give me, I should be just fine.”

The woman tipped her head back, then rubbed her fingers over her eyes. Julia feared her aunt was going to smear her purple eye shadow. “It’s just that with the Pumpkin Pie Parade coming up and then ski season right after, I’m going to be so busy at the café. I worry about you being all alone, not eating right and withering away to nothing.”

“I assure you, I value my health too much to allow myself to wither away,” Julia said. “But I know you worry about me, and if it makes you feel any better, I’ll buy a cookbook and teach myself some basic recipes. After all, how hard can it be?”

“Sug, I know most things come easy to you,” Freckles said, wrapping her thin arm around Julia’s waist. “But there’re a lot of things in life you just can’t learn from a book.”

Unfortunately Julia knew the truth of that statement all too well. Freckles was her last living relative and the reason Julia had transferred duty stations and moved to Idaho. If it would ease the woman’s mind to know that her only niece would have a fully functional kitchen, then Julia would give Sexy Flannel Shirt permission to start tearing out the old rotting cupboards today.

Julia leaned into Freckles’s one-armed embrace. She didn’t even have to look at the contractor’s estimate to know that no matter how absurdly high his price might be, she would end up hiring him just to appease the affectionate woman.

“Fine,” Julia said. “First things first, though. I need my bedroom to be in habitable condition. Then Mr. Chatterson can start on the kitchen. But no turquoise appliances or checkered floors. All design ideas need to be approved by me.”

“Of course, Sug.”

“Now I really need to get to the hospital,” Julia said, glancing at her watch. “Take your time looking around.”

“You want me to lock up afterward?” Kane asked after she hugged her aunt goodbye.

“That would be great, if you don’t mind. Do I need to sign anything?”

“Not until I send you the estimate. Like I said, I haven’t decided if this project is something that will fit into my schedule yet.”

Julia collected her leather satchel on her way to the front parlor, then glanced out of the glass-paned entryway toward his old car parked in her driveway. His schedule was probably chock-full of appointments involving lots of smirking and consultations on how to give strangers the silent treatment. Unfortunately for her, that kind of work likely didn’t pay his bills. Which meant she’d be stuck convincing herself that she could easily handle this unexpected attraction to her new contractor.

Chapter Two

Kane let out a long breath, feeling some of the nervous energy leave his body. This was exactly the kind of job he loved—taking something so run-down and bringing it back to its former glory. But Dr. Captain Julia Fitzgerald was exactly the kind of client that he most assuredly did not love.

He’d first noticed the blonde woman the second she’d sat down at the counter of the Cowgirl Up Café. It was hard not to notice a pretty face like that, despite the fact that she’d kept mostly to herself and didn’t make eye contact with any of the other customers.

Not that he’d been in a real friendly mood himself these past two years. But before he knew it, the woman had her arms wrapped around him, her small, firm breasts pressed up against his back, and suddenly he hadn’t cared about the vegetables he’d accidentally bitten into because all he could think about was his desire for her clasped hands to travel downward. He’d reacted so quickly, almost knocking his head into her face, that he wasn’t quite sure what they’d even talked about after that. He’d seen a flush of embarrassment steal up her cheeks, and she’d pointed at something in his teeth before the entire restaurant broke out into laughter. Then she was gone before he could find out who she was.

An hour later, he still hadn’t recovered from the unexpected shock of seeing the same woman standing next to Freckles on the front porch. Nor had he stopped anxiously wiping his mouth or checking his teeth for residual spinach every time he’d passed his reflection in a window. So maybe he’d put on his game face when he’d been formally introduced to her, but she hadn’t exactly been real comfortable in his presence, either.

“You sure she’s your niece?” Kane asked Freckles now, looking out the kitchen window at Dr. Smarty-Pants sitting in her car, frowning at her cell phone. Yeah, he got the message loud and clear. The young woman was a doctor. She saved lives for a living. Apparently she even tried to save lives during her breakfast. He didn’t need a college degree to see that no matter how beautiful she was, she thought she was way too good for the likes of him.

“What? You don’t see the family resemblance?” the café-owner-and-sometimes-waitress asked.

He glanced back at the seventy-something-year-old woman, noting that her purple eye shadow was an exact match to the geometric pattern on the scarf tying up her orangeish hair. Just Julia, on the other hand, didn’t wear a lick of makeup, and her only accessory had been an ugly beige cardigan covering up the hospital scrubs he hadn’t noticed earlier at the café.

“Well, she’s almost as pretty as you, but she kind of reminds me of one of those Lego people I had when I was a boy,” he said, then tried to offer the woman his most charming smile. His mouth and his opinions had often gotten him into trouble before, and he hoped Freckles didn’t object to his honesty.

But the sassy older lady just beamed a crooked grin, then sauntered over to join him by the window. “Yeah, she’s a little stiff and formal, but she’ll come around once I give her a good makeover.”

Actually, Kane would’ve used the words cold and inanimate to describe her. Just Julia was exactly like those academic decathlon snobs Kane had avoided in high school. The ones who were standoffish and thought less of him because he was some dumb jock. Not counting the high-handed way she’d talked down to him at the café, the woman had barely said three words to him, directing most of her comments to her aunt.

“What’s she doing to that poor phone?” he asked when he saw Julia shake the device before throwing it onto the dash of her car and backing out of the driveway.

Freckles sighed. “Poor girl’s not so good with technology. But don’t you dare tell her I said that. She’s used to being the best at whatever she sets her mind to.”

“I’ll bet that doesn’t help much when it comes to interpersonal relationships,” he said.

“You’re one to talk, Kane Chatterson,” Freckles responded, and he could see the disapproval in every wrinkle on her face. A wave of remorse lodged in his gut. As usual, he’d said the first thing that popped into his mind, not thinking that it might come out as an insult. He was always too quick, too impulsive. “We all have our flaws, son.”

Kane didn’t want to think about the reasons that he’d practically been hiding out in Sugar Falls for the past few months. So he wiggled his eyebrows and shot a grin at Freckles instead. “And what exactly are your flaws?”

“None of your beeswax, you little charmer.” She smacked his arm lightly, and the playful gesture helped loosen the knot in his gut. “And speaking of charm, don’t you get any ideas about putting those famous Chatterson moves on my Julia, you hear?”

“Ha!” Kane tried to laugh. “What famous moves?”

“She’s not real savvy when it comes to people, especially anything involving business and dating. She’s too trusting. She needs worldly people like us to look out for her.”

“I think you’re doing a fine job of looking out for her.” All on your own, he thought, but didn’t dare say out loud. In fact, Kane pitied the man who was stupid enough to get on Freckles’s bad side. And not just because they’d be banned from her restaurant and the best chicken-fried steak in Idaho.

“You keep that in mind. Julia’s nothing like those major-league groupies you got used to when you were playing baseball.”

He tried not to roll his eyes. How could he get anything from his notorious past out of his mind when everywhere he turned, it was getting brought up? Most people in town knew not to bring up his past career as a major-league pitcher or the scandal in Chicago if they wanted to engage Kane in more than five minutes of conversation. And usually five minutes was his max. Which meant this little chat with Freckles had gone on way too long.

“Don’t worry. I’ll give your niece a fair price, and you can rest assured that I have absolutely no intention of bringing the so-called Chatterson moves out of retirement.” He pulled the antique watch out of the pocket of his jeans and clicked the cover open and closed a few times. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride back to the café so you can make me a new burrito.”

“Fine, but you’re paying full price for a second meal.” Freckles sighed and hopped up into the Bronco. She was much sprier than most women her age—whatever age that was. “So, you’re saying my niece isn’t attractive or smart enough for you?”

“That’s not what I said at all, and you know it.” He slammed the door a little more forcefully than necessary, wanting to cut off any further discussion on this subject. People with half their eyesight could see that Just Julia was drop-dead gorgeous, even if she kept her classic beauty hidden underneath those ugly hospital clothes and an aloof exterior. He wasn’t about to admit to Freckles—or anyone—that every muscle in his body hardened the moment she’d reached out and shaken his hand. Kane hadn’t been remodeling homes for long, but he already had a few rules for himself.

Rule Number One. He worked alone.

Rule Number Two. He always packed an extra sandwich in case time got away from him and he found himself on the job after dinnertime, which happened nearly every day.

Rule Number Three. He wouldn’t work for a client who didn’t have the same vision he did for the outcome of the property. Some people might think this was bad business sense, but it wasn’t as though Kane was in this line of work for the money. He didn’t believe in working for free, but his past salary and careful investing pretty much negated the need for him ever to work again. He’d started this business because he loved to build things and see his ideas come to life, not because he loved being around people.

Today, he would add Rule Number Four. He wouldn’t date a client, no matter how attracted he was to her. That would be an easy enough rule to follow. Unlike Just Julia, Kane’s heart wasn’t in need of protection. It was retired, along with his pitching glove.

“So, what do you see for the house?” Kane asked her aunt as he climbed in and started up the classic car he’d been refurbishing in his spare time.

He listened to Freckles’s chatter as he steered the Bronco back into town, noting that all of her suggestions were the complete opposite of what her niece wanted. Which, actually, made following Rule Number Three rather easy. He and Just Julia definitely saw eye to eye about keeping the same features of the stately old house and just repairing and refinishing everything to bring it back to its original splendor.

Kane turned onto Snowflake Boulevard, the street that ran through downtown Sugar Falls, and pulled in front of the Cowgirl Up Café to let Freckles out. Neither his stomach nor his still-tense muscles were settled yet and he promised her he would stop in for lunch instead. He waved to a few of the locals, keeping his green cap pulled down low just in case there were any tourists out and about looking for an autograph or a sly selfie with the elusive “Legend” Chatterson.

God, he hated that nickname. And he’d grown to hate the celebrity status that came along with it.

What he did like was the slower pace of the small town, along with the refuge and the anonymity it had provided him. So far. The scandal of Brawlgate was finally dying down, and he didn’t want to challenge fate by coming out of hiding too soon. Plus, Kane was finding that as much as he missed pitching, there was something to be said for living out of the spotlight. Despite fielding the occasional calls from his sports agent and former coaches, he was free to do whatever he wanted. Like tinker on his old cars and rebuild homes. And right now, there was a deteriorating Victorian on Pinecone Court calling his name.

As he drove back to the house, he reached under his seat and pulled out a notepad. So maybe he hadn’t been completely honest about not needing that. Kane parked the car and grabbed a tape measure from his tool bag in the backseat. Because he had issues focusing, Kane had a tendency to get so absorbed in a project that he would forget about his surroundings and tune out everything and everyone around him. And when that happened, he preferred not to have potential clients think he was off his rocker.

Since he hadn’t given the key back to Freckles yet, he could spend some more time in the house on his own, exploring it and making notes.

He just hoped that when he made those notes and calculated the costs, he didn’t spell anything wrong or add incorrectly on the formal estimate.

Concentrating on schoolwork had never been his strong suit, and he’d rather have a busload of newscasters from ESPN roll into Sugar Falls and reveal his hiding spot than have Just Julia look down her cute, smarty-pants nose at him.

* * *

By the time he pulled into a visitor parking spot at Shadowview Military Hospital the second Thursday in November, Kane was already five minutes late for his group session. Well, not his group session—one run by his brother-in-law, Drew.

He stopped by the Starbucks kiosk in the lobby and ordered a decaf Frappuccino because he hated sitting still in those introductory meetings with nothing to do, nothing to hold on to. Unable to wait, he stuck his tongue through the hole of the domed plastic lid to taste the whipped cream, then kept his head down as he walked through the large, plain lobby. Kane navigated his way down the fall-themed decorated corridors of the first floor until he found the psychology department, which was directly across from the physical rehab department.

Dr. Drew Gregson had explained that he wanted his patients with PTSD to understand their therapy was no different than someone learning how to walk again after losing a limb. Tonight he was meeting with a new group in a classroom-like setting—and Kane hated classrooms. They would eventually meet out on the track, in the weight room and on various courts and fields.

When Kane had been doing physical therapy after his shoulder surgery, his sister, Kylie, had talked him into coming to work out at the hospital. Drew had been looking for innovative ways to assist his PTSD patients in their recovery, and helped his wife convince Kane that exercising with them would be a great motivator for some of the men and women who used athletics as a physical outlet. Especially since most of the group’s sessions ended up in some challenge that usually provided one of the patients with bragging rights that they’d competed against Legend Chatterson.

Good thing his ego could take it. Being at Shadowview—seeing the world through the eyes of the wounded warriors and the staff who helped them—always put things into perspective for Kane. These people were dealing with legitimate life-or-death situations. Brawlgate, his former baseball career, being attracted to his new client...none of that seemed as important when he was faced with real obstacles to overcome.

Kane looked at the number he’d written on his hand to make sure he was going to the right meeting room. Which was why he didn’t see the shapely blonde exiting the gym facilities until she’d bumped into him.

“Sorry, darlin’,” he said before thinking about it. The flirtatious endearment sounded as out of practice as his pitching arm. His first instinct was to pull an orange pumpkin-shaped piece of construction paper off the nearby bulletin board and hide his face behind it, but then he recognized those round green eyes.

Whoa. His hand flew to his mouth to make sure he didn’t have any whipped cream stuck to his face. He hadn’t seen her since she’d signed off on his estimate and he’d started work on her old house a few days after they first met. Neither time had she looked so flushed, and sexy, and...hell, feminine, as she did now.

Not that he wasn’t well aware of how attractive she was. But Just Julia in her boxy hospital scrubs only served as a reminder that she was some smart doctor with a fancy education. In this outfit—he let his eyes travel down her form-fitting workout clothes—she looked like the kind of woman who would hang out in hotel bars and throw herself at the visiting professional baseball team.

“Mr. Chatterson?” she asked, and Kane tried not to look at the straps of her sports bra as he shifted the cold drink to his other hand, then back again.

“Sorry. I didn’t recognize you dressed like...” Dressed like what? One of Beyoncé’s backup dancers? Nothing he could say at this point would make him sound like less of an infatuated idiot. “Anyway, I wasn’t expecting to run into you here.”

“Sorry for running into you at all,” she said, then held up her smartphone. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going because I have this new fitness monitor on here, and I somehow programmed it wrong. It’s telling me that I’ve only burned thirty calories but that my heart rate is 543. Now, I’m trying to just delete the whole thing, because really, I know how to check my own pulse and multiply and... Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear about this.”

She tapped harder on the display. Kane, always a sucker for video games and electronics, eased the phone out of her hand. “Here, let me.”

She leaned in and watched over his shoulder as he made a few swipes and closed out the app. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that touch screens didn’t seem to be her forte. Or that standing this close to her still-damp skin made him think of a different type of physical exertion he wouldn’t mind engaging in with her.

He finished and handed the device back to her, cursing to himself for having such an inappropriate thought. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Well, I do work here.” It might’ve come off as defensive or stuck-up from any other woman, but Just Julia’s response seemed more like a schoolteacher trying to explain a new concept to a first grader.

And Kane Chatterson had always had a soft spot for his first-grade teacher, who’d been the only one who hadn’t treated him like a below-average student with problems sitting still in class.

“Are you working now?” He finally allowed himself to look down at the form-fitting sports tank that tapered down to her small waist. He brought his straw to his lips, needing something to relieve the sudden dryness in his mouth. He got the paper wrapper instead.

“I had back-to-back surgeries this morning and needed to loosen up and relieve some tension before I started on my post-op reports. Normally I do laps in the pool, but there was a water aerobics class going on, so I used the cardio equipment instead and accidentally set the program for the inverted pyramid. The incline level got stuck on high, which is why I tried to use my phone to calculate my heart rate. Wait. Why am I explaining all this to you?”

“Because I have the kind of face that makes people want to open up?” Why was he being so damn flirty? It was as if he couldn’t stop the asinine comments from flying out. But she’d caught him off guard, looking like that. Plus, she was much more down-to-earth and endearing when she rambled on about nothing.

“Your face is perfect. It’s your eyes that make people feel as if they’re strapped to a polygraph machine.” That was an interesting revelation. Did he make her nervous?

“So you like my face?” He reached up to stroke his trademark beard, then remembered he’d shaved it several months ago when he’d moved to Sugar Falls. Instead he touched a bristly jawline that felt like eighty-grit sandpaper.

“I’m not going to answer that.” But he could tell by the blush rising up from her neckline that she probably liked his appearance more than she wanted to admit. An alarm bell went off inside his brain. And then, as if she’d heard the same warning, she straightened her back and crossed her arms, her haughty stance effectively putting him back in his place. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for the...” He stopped. Kane couldn’t very well tell her he came as a guest to help boost troop morale. That might give away his celebrity status.

“I’m here for a meeting,” Kane finally said, then shifted his drink in his hands again and prayed she wouldn’t look at the big Psychology Department sign behind him.

She looked, and he saw her green eyes become round with realization.

“Therapy is nothing to be ashamed of,” she said, surprising him. No, he didn’t suppose it was, for a brain doctor like her. The only thing he was embarrassed of was the fact that he’d called this uptight, intelligent woman darlin’ and that she might connect the dots and figure out who he really was. Assuming she hadn’t already.

“Oh really?” He seized on her mistake. “Do you go?”

“As a matter of fact, Aunt Freckles suggested I start talking to a professional about my... Well, that’s not really relevant.”

Oh boy. The smart doctor had a secret. Besides the fact that she’d been hiding all her sexy curves under those blue scrubs and ugly cardigan sweaters. Now Kane was more than curious about what else the doctor was keeping under wraps.

“Actually...” She shifted back on her sneakers and stood up straighter. “I’ve been meaning to call you and see how the progress is going on the upstairs bedrooms.”

Bedrooms. Bedrooms. He tried not to think about the fact that this Lycra-clad woman had just said the word bedrooms to him. “Progress? Well, the flooring is all done in two of them and down most of the hallway. I should have the stairway finished by next Wednesday. I’m still waiting for you to get back to me on those tile samples so I can start the master bathroom. Why?”

“I was just thinking that with the colder weather approaching, I’d like to move in soon so I can appease my aunt. She’s worried that since I’m living close to work, I don’t have much of a social life and... Sorry. I’m rambling again.”

“You mean you want to move into the place while it’s still under construction?”

“I promise I wouldn’t be in your way or anything. I’m usually at the hospital all day and would keep to one bedroom and bathroom upstairs.”

“Stop saying bedroom,” he muttered.

“What was that?”

“I said ‘spraying bedroom.’ As in, I need to use my paint gun to finish spraying the last coat on it. The bathroom will still take at least a week once I order those tiles. But I haven’t even started on the kitchen yet, and your aunt was pretty convinced that you needed a fully functional kitchen before you could move in.”

Julia sighed. “Aunt Freckles is convinced about a lot of things that I don’t actually need. You should see the liquid eyeliner she bought me so I could practice something called the cat-wing technique.” Kane didn’t reply that Just Julia’s aunt was probably right about the kitchen and most definitely wrong about the eyeliner. Or the fact that he preferred working on empty houses where the pretty and distracting homeowners weren’t coming and going anytime they pleased. Especially if this was her normal after-work attire. “Anyway, I’ll head back to my office now to look over those tile samples, and then we’ll plan on me moving into the house next week.”

She didn’t wait for his response as she nodded at him, then walked away. Her expensive-looking sneakers squeaked along the pristine hospital floor with each step. He had a feeling brain surgeons—not to mention military officers—were used to telling people what to do and having their orders carried out.

Apparently the boss lady didn’t understand that Kane Chatterson wasn’t a lower ranked recruit or some unemployed laborer in a small hick town perfectly content to do her bidding. He might not have a bunch of letters after his name, but he had two championship rings and had been on the cover of Sports Illustrated three times. Even if one of those times was a shot taken during Brawlgate and wasn’t the most flattering image.

No wonder she didn’t have much of a social life, if this was how she talked to people. He definitely wasn’t some nobody to be so easily dismissed. And if the good doctor thought she was going to move in and start ordering him around as he remodeled her home, she’d better think again.

Chapter Three

Julia hadn’t minded when Freckles had hired a personal shopper who emailed links containing possible dresses for Julia to wear to the hospital’s fund-raising gala in December. After all, shopping was an easy enough task to delegate since Julia didn’t exactly care what she wore to the event, which was still four weeks away. The thing she wasn’t looking forward to, though, was finding a suitable date to accompany her, which Aunt Freckles insisted was just as necessary as a new pair of strappy heels.

Julia sat at her desk, looking at the dark screen of her cell phone, and groaned when she was unable to open the message her aunt had sent when she’d been downstairs working out. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and sent out a prayer that Kane Chatterson hadn’t seen the embarrassing text when he’d helped her reprogram her phone twenty minutes ago.

Heat stole up her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut and gave her ponytail a firm shake. Julia refused to think about how her contractor had stared at her when she ran into him outside the gym. Especially since she had many more pressing matters to worry about—like how to make Aunt Freckles proud of her without allowing the woman full access to her sparse wardrobe and even sparser dating options.

Setting boundaries was usually easy for Julia because she didn’t tend to socialize much anyway. But this was uncharted territory for her. How did Julia politely tell her well-meaning relative that she absolutely did not need a makeover or a professional relationship coach—as the last text suggested?

Surely it couldn’t be that difficult to find her own date. All she needed to do was figure out what kind of man she wanted and then go out and find one. She shoved a few chocolate-covered raisins in her mouth as she wrote “Qualities I Want in a Man” at the top of a notepad.

But the only image that came to her mind was Kane Chatterson standing there, all perceptive and broad-shouldered and rugged. Sure, Julia had come into contact with plenty of men since joining the Navy, but dress whites and blue utilities were utterly dull compared to the faded jeans and soft flannel uniform her hired contractor filled out. The man was broad, but lean and muscular in that athletic way of someone who was always on the move. He was also more intense than a college freshman studying for his first midterm, looking around as if he was taking in every detail of his surroundings and then memorizing it for future use.

Besides the condescending smirk, she’d only seen Kane wearing a constant frown, barely addressing her unless it was to ask about paint colors or refinished hardwood floors. So she’d been shocked an hour ago when she’d heard the man call her darlin’ in that slow, sexy drawl of his. Shocked and then flushed with embarrassment when she realized he’d been staring at her body as though he’d spilled some of his iced coffee drink on her and wanted to lick it off.

Then she’d said something about therapy and the guy’s whole demeanor had changed. Julia had tried to come up with something else to talk about, but she’d just ended up blabbering about bedrooms and moving in and eyeliners, then tried to walk away with her head held as high as the uncomfortable, tingling tightness in her neck had allowed.

Stop. Stop thinking about what happened in the hospital corridor earlier. No wonder her aunt didn’t believe she was capable of finding a suitable date on her own.

This was ridiculous. She could do this. Julia had never failed at a task, and she wasn’t about to get distracted and fail now.

She looked down at the empty page and began to write.

Must look good in flannel.

Must speak in a slow, sexy drawl.

Must look at me like I’m the whipped cream on his Frappuccino.

No, this was ridiculous. She tore the yellow sheet off and tossed it in the small trash can by her desk.

She rotated the pencil between her fingers, twirling it like a miniature baton. After a disastrous relationship with one of her professors a few years ago, Julia didn’t want a man at all, let alone another person to help her find one. She knew that her solitary upbringing and current avoidance of social activities was anything but ordinary. She’d never let it bother her before now. But her fitting in seemed important to Aunt Freckles. And if she wanted to be normal, or at least create the appearance of being normal on the night of the hospital gala, then she would need to put forth more effort. She looked down at a fresh piece of paper and started her list all over again, this time leaving off any references to Kane Chatterson.

She had just finished and put her pencil down when a knock sounded at her office door. Chief Wilcox, Julia’s surgical assistant, entered. “Do you have those post-op reports done? The physical therapist is already asking for them.”

“Yes, they should be in the patient’s online file,” Julia told the corpsman, who had a pink backpack slung over her shoulder and was apparently leaving for the day.

“I looked there and didn’t see them.”

“I finished them after my workout,” Julia said, pulling up the screen on her iPad. “Oh. I must not have clicked on Submit. Okay, they should be in there now. I’ll call the physical therapist and let him know.” She looked her assistant over. “You look like you’re off for the weekend.”

Even to Julia, the observation came out sounding a little too obvious. She didn’t want the woman to think she was crossing the line from professional to overly social, but how else was she supposed to get to know her staff? She told herself this was good practice.

“Oh, yeah. A few of us are doing a camping trip up near the Sugar River trailhead. I still need to pack my gear, and Chief Filbert put me in charge of KP duty, so I need to get all the food ready, too.”

Julia had no idea who Filbert was, but she was more than familiar with the hollowness circling her chest. Not that she was much of a camper, but it was her weekend off, as well, and nobody had thought to ask if she’d like to go on the trip. Same thing with happy hours or lunches in the break room. It was easier to act indifferent than to make other people see that she, too, wanted to be included in the ordinary adventures of life.

At a loss, Julia simply said, “I hope you all enjoy your trip, then. I’ll see you back here on Monday at 0600.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’,” Wilcox said before closing the door. Julia fell back against her chair and squeezed her eyes shut at how ridiculously pathetic she must’ve sounded. She remembered her first day of high school and how the students patted her on her twelve-year-old head when she’d foolishly asked several of the cheerleaders if she could sit with them at their table. Nobody had been rude to her outright, but the novelty of having a child genius as some sort of odd little mascot soon wore off when Julia easily outscored several of the seniors on their honors English midterms.

College hadn’t been any better, especially since she was studying adolescent brain development while her own brain hadn’t finished the process. Guidance counselors who didn’t know what to do with such a young scholar told her things would get better for her socially once she got older. But by the time she started med school, she no longer cared about what others thought of her and found it easier to simply hang back and observe. She had her cello, she had swimming, she had her books and her studies. She didn’t have time for homecoming games and celebratory drinks after final exams—even if she had been old enough to be admitted into the bars with the rest of her classmates.

A career in research had been on the horizon until she’d seen a documentary about women in the military.

She’d attended Officer Development School soon after her parents died, the order and regulation of the Navy reminding her of her regimented childhood and serving as the perfect antidote to Julia’s hesitancy to fraternize. She easily told herself that she wasn’t jealous of her staff’s camaraderie or the fact that she looked for reasons to sit here in her office and work instead of going back to the lonely officers’ quarters and microwaving a frozen Lean Cuisine before falling asleep on her government-issue twin-size mattress.

So why was she all of a sudden starting to worry about any of it now? She undid her ponytail and massaged her scalp before turning to the tile samples she’d set on the credenza behind her.

Julia ran her fingers over the glazed surfaces of the colorful porcelain pieces. Kane had suggested neutral colors because they added to the resale value. While some of the decorating magazines she’d perused pushed the idea of an all-white bathroom, the surgeon in her worried that she would grow tired of the sterile and clinical feel of such a contrast-free environment.

Julia brought the blue-and-green mosaic strips to her desk and propped them against some medical texts so she could get a better look at them. If they laid the glass tiles in a running bond pattern in the shower, she could use both colors, but would it overpower the white cabinets and the large, claw-foot tub in the center of the room?

She shook some more Raisinets out of the box as she contemplated the color scheme. Not that she was the type who turned to food for comfort—Fitzgeralds didn’t need comforting, after all—but during med school, she’d found that she thought better when she snacked.

Unfortunately, no amount of snacking could get Kane’s voice out of her mind. She tried to ignore the warmth spreading through her at the memory of her body’s response to his assessing stare outside the gym.

The sooner she made a selection, the sooner she could get back to more important things—like picking a dress for the hospital gala and finding an appropriate date to take with her. Preferably one that didn’t look at her as though he knew exactly how much she wanted those sexy, smirking lips to...

Julia snatched another handful of candy, determined to distract herself from thinking of his mouth, only to have her focus shift to the blue-green glass tiles that were the exact same shade as his eyes. If she chose that color, would she be sentencing herself to a lifetime of showers feeling as though his penetrating gaze was surrounding her naked body?

She reached for the plain white subway tiles before changing her mind and grabbing her smartphone. After taking a quick picture, she fired off an email to Kane in an effort to prevent herself from wasting any more of her time with such dangerous and unproductive thoughts. And to stop the sound of his slow drawl calling her darlin’ replaying over and over again in her mind.

* * *

It was after eleven o’clock, and Kane’s brain had yet to slow down enough to make going to bed an option. Usually a day’s physical labor followed by a long, mind-numbing run after dinner was enough to tire him out sufficiently so that it would take only about thirty minutes for him finally to drop off into his standard six hours of sleep. But images of his client in all her spandex workout glory wouldn’t stop popping into his overactive mind, and he decided he might as well pull out his laptop and do some invoices in an effort to bore himself to sleep.

He could go out to his garage and work on his Bronco, but because of his attention issues, once he got hyperfocused on a project, he would lose all sense of time and end up exhausted and cranky the following day.

So, it was either crunching numbers or watching a late-night edition of SportsCenter, which he knew from past experience would only get him more frustrated.

Picking the mentally healthier and more productive option, he sat up and switched on his bedside lamp before opening his nearby laptop. He logged onto his email and, in his inbox, he saw the very name of the source of his late-night thoughts. He clicked on the attached image and stared at her tile selection. He had to give credit to Just Julia. She wasn’t too outlandish in her remodeling requests. In fact, Kane had originally suggested white just because the doctor seemed like a plain vanilla kind of person. But seeing the bold colors of the tiles she’d picked—as well as the snug fabric of her high-end athletic wear—made him rethink his original opinion. She’d typed information about the brand and tracking numbers in the body of the email. But he squinted at the bottom left of the picture, seeing notes written on a yellow notepad off to the side.

Although today’s encounter at the hospital made it a total of three times they’d seen each other in person, he’d emailed her with updates, and she’d stopped by the house in the evenings when he wasn’t there and left pictures carefully cut out of magazines along with handwritten descriptions on lined paper taped to the walls. Usually her notes were detailed instructions of what she liked or wanted, and even though they were long and tiresome to read, Kane would much rather deal with a client on paper than one in the flesh.

Especially one whose curvaceous, damp flesh he’d been thinking about all evening.

So when he saw the note by the bluish green tiles, his first instinct was to zoom in and see what special instructions she had for him now. Instead, he leaned closer as he read the words “Qualities I Want in a Man.”

What in the world was this? His finger vibrated over the mouse pad, but refused to click on the button that would close the image.

By the time he got to number three, he tried to tell himself that this obviously wasn’t meant for him to see. Yet like a pitch in midhurl, he couldn’t stop now. Why in the world would she write out such a ridiculous and pointless list? Or one so personal?

Assuming she was the one who’d written it in the first place.

It was her handwriting, though. He’d exchanged plans and inventories with her long enough to know that the woman put a ton of thought into every list she created. Freckles had made several offhand remarks this past week regarding her niece’s single status and lack of a social life. Maybe Just Julia was feeling inadequate in that department and was making an effort to step up her game.

His eyes bounced around the enlarged image, trying to take all the information in at once while he told himself that there was no way he’d make the cut. Not that he wanted her looking in his direction, anyway. Kane had to take a few deep breaths to focus on what he was reading. Hell, were there any qualities on here that he even remotely possessed? He read it through again.

Must be social.

That certainly wasn’t him. Sure, it used to be, before his career had taken a nosedive, but nowadays, Kane viewed social situations like most batters viewed a curveball—confusing and oftentimes unavoidable.

Must be educated and able to discuss current events.

Nope. Kane Chatterson barely sat still long enough in class to make it out of high school with a diploma. He had a feeling even that accomplishment was the result of sympathetic teachers and his dad’s generous donation to the library building fund.

Must be patient and not lose his temper.

Kylie once told him that he had the patience of a hummingbird, which said a lot, considering his sister’s only speed was overdrive.

Must enjoy swimming or similar civilized athletic pursuits.

Sure, baseball could be civilized if compared to rugby or ice hockey or cage fighting, for instance. But as any of the three million YouTube viewers would attest, the swinging bats and punches and profanity involved in the Brawlgate scandal two years ago were anything but civil.

Strong.

In terms of what? Before his shoulder injury, Kane could bench-press two-fifty and hurl a fastball ninety-nine miles per hour. But Erica, his ex, had once called him emotionally unavailable and a weak excuse for a boyfriend. So he was fifty-fifty in the strength department.

Good with his hands.

Kane looked at his palms, trying to imagine how his work-worn, callous hands would compare with the uppity doctor’s long, graceful fingers that meticulously saved lives. Meh.

Flannel.

He glanced at his open closet and the soft plaid shirts hanging in order by color. He had a feeling the prim Navy captain meant the man she was looking for must prefer wearing flannel pajamas or some other conservative outfit to bed.

Kane stretched out under his quilt and tried not to grin at how shocked Just Julia would be if she could see the complete lack of flannel between his sheets right now. Or the complete lack of any material, for that matter.

The sudden thought of the attractive woman seeing him naked in bed caused an unexpected response, and Kane had to shift his computer lower on his lap.

Speaking of lists, maybe he should rethink the set of rules he’d laid out for himself. Specifically, the one about him not dating his clients. Or thinking about their damp blond hair pulled back away from their high, flushed cheekbones.

Kane shook his head, trying to envision Just Julia in plain blue scrubs and an oversize white coat. If he concentrated hard enough, maybe he could imagine her green eyes looking through him, instead of being dilated from physical exertion and rounded in surprise when she’d glanced up from her cell phone and collided with him in the hospital hallway earlier today.

He slammed the laptop closed in frustration, then remembered their conversation and her plan to move into her house in a week. Kane needed to get as much work as possible done before then so he wouldn’t have to risk running into her upstairs. Near her bedroom. He opened the computer again and logged on to the building supply store’s website to place an order for the tiles.

That done, he set his laptop off to the side and turned out his lamp, knowing he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep for a long time. After a few minutes, he pulled the laptop over again, opened his email account and finally sent her a reply, using as few words as he dared.

Ordered tile. Should be in stock next Wed. Then, at the last second, he couldn’t help adding, Kitchen not done. Maybe that would stall her and he could buy himself some more time. And avoid running into the pretty doctor at all costs.

* * *

Julia carried the last box down the stairs from her officer’s quarters and shoved it into the backseat of her red MINI Cooper. How sad was it that all of her personal belongings fit into a car with the cubic space of a safe-deposit box? Well, technically, the attic at the Georgetown house was filled with family heirlooms and photo albums and her parents’ personal effects. Yet none of that had ever really felt like hers.

Still, she would have to face that mess eventually, or have one of her attorneys face it for her and send her an invoice. She looked at her watch and estimated that the sun would set before she made it to Sugar Falls. She’d purposely timed her move-in day to be more of a move-in evening. That way she wouldn’t have to see Kane Chatterson and risk him asking her in person if she’d gotten a cookbook like she’d promised her Aunt Freckles.

By the time she pulled onto Pinecone Court thirty minutes later, her stomach was empty, yet she was eager to see what progress had been made on her house. When she saw the Ford Bronco parked along her curb, now sporting a dull gray paint color instead of its usual rust spots, she wanted to throw her gearshift straight into Reverse.

Instead she took a deep breath and ordered her tummy to quit thrashing around. She would really need to become accustomed to seeing Kane sporadically. After all, she’d hired the guy to remodel her house. She couldn’t very well let her abdominal muscles get all tight and contracted anytime she saw his ugly old car.

She wasn’t some lovesick nineteen-year-old anymore, thinking an affair with her college professor was the real deal. In fact, technically speaking, she was Kane’s boss. She was a Navy officer, trained to issue orders. And she was an accomplished surgeon, known for her steady hand and her even steadier nerves. If she could command an operating room full of experienced hospital staff, Julia could certainly handle one small-town contractor who barely said more than a few words to her—even if his eyes drank her in as though they knew every inch of her body intimately.

She parked in the narrow driveway, then grabbed her leather satchel and one of the boxes out of the backseat and made her way up to the front porch and inside. She heard music coming from upstairs and smelled something garlicky drifting out of the kitchen area. She set the box down in the front parlor and climbed the newly finished stairway, uncertain if she should be walking on the freshly stained steps. But then she realized they must be dry, since someone was upstairs and had to have walked on them already.

She followed the sound of Duke Ellington—her classical cello instructor would’ve frowned at her recognizing the piece—toward her bedroom and stepped into the well-lit area, relieved that the antique chandelier had been installed already. When she got to the bathroom door, she froze. Kane Chatterson, wearing faded jeans and nothing but paint splatters on his torso, was standing behind her claw-foot tub, one well-defined muscular arm poised with a paintbrush above the top sill of the window frame.

With an effort, she ignored the weakness in her legs and drew in one ragged breath after another.

Each stroke of his hand matched the swaying tempo of the music coming from the cordless speaker propped up on the bathroom vanity. The muscles of his back moved in an orchestrated rhythm with the jazzy strains of a piano. The darkness outside made his reflection in the window almost mirror-like, and she saw the deep-set focus in his eyes, his concentrated brow and the hard lines of his set jaw. She could also see that he was completely transfixed in his own little world and had no idea she was there.

The professional in her wanted to cough or turn down the jazz music or do something to draw his attention to the fact that he wasn’t alone. Unfortunately, her body wasn’t behaving so professionally. Desire curled around her, squeezing so tightly it threatened to cut off the oxygen supply to her brain. Thank God the man was focused too intensely to witness her intrusion on his workspace because Julia didn’t think she could’ve taken a step.

She had no idea how long she stood there, just as absorbed in his movements as he apparently was in his painting. A softer, slower saxophone-based song switched on the moment his eyes met hers, and Julia wasn’t sure if the dizziness in her head was from the paint fumes or from the way he looked at her.

Chapter Four

Kane was so engrossed in what he was doing, he had no idea how long Julia had been standing there waiting for him. He struggled to get those old feelings of embarrassment in check before turning away from the window and pretending not to care that she’d caught him completely off guard. Noting her surgical scrubs were covered by a soft purple cardigan sweater, he let out a breath, equally relieved and disappointed that she wasn’t wearing her exercise outfit.

“Hey,” he said, before coughing and clearing his throat. He set the paintbrush down in the tray and walked over to his iPhone to turn off his playlist. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“It’s seven o’clock,” she said, her green eyes round and fringed with spiky lashes.

Kane pulled his late Grandpa Chatterson’s antique gold watch out of his pocket and snapped it open—more as something to redirect his focus than to actually check the time. “Wow. I must’ve really been in the zone.”

At least, that’s what his dad called it whenever Kane would tune out the rest of the world to the point that someone could ask him if he wanted a million dollars and he’d ignore the question. His mom called it hyperfocusing. He called it a pain-in-the-butt symptom of his ADHD.

“I, uh, didn’t mean to startle you,” she said, but he noticed she wasn’t looking at him when she spoke. Correction: she was definitely looking at him, just not at his face. The skin across his bare chest tightened, causing his pectoral muscles to flex slightly. He remembered her list and wanted to suggest she add something about physical attraction as a quality she might appreciate in a man. Not that he considered himself all that attractive, but after several years of playing professional sports and living out of hotels, plagued by groupies and jersey chasers, he knew when a lady was sizing him up. Or at least when he hoped she was.

“That’s a decently sized incision, there,” she said. Not cut. Not wound. Incision. So maybe the doctor wasn’t sizing him up so much as taking a professional interest in his anatomy. An unexpected feeling of disappointment washed down his torso. “When did you have a full shoulder replacement?” she asked.

He squinted at his shoulder before looking at her doubtfully. Maybe she did know who he was after all. She’d have to be living under a rock to not know, but the few times he’d met Just Julia, he’d gotten the impression that was where she liked to keep herself hidden. “So you heard about my surgery?”

“No. I can tell from your incision.”

Of course she could. Otherwise she wouldn’t have asked when he’d had it. Rather than making himself look like more of an idiot, he tried to concentrate on her words as she kept talking. “Your surgeon used the extended deltopectoral approach, which is normally only suitable for total shoulder replacement with an open reduction and internal fixation of a proximal humeral fracture.”

He ran his hand across the lower half of his face, but that didn’t make him resent her easy use of fancy medical jargon any less. “You sure like to use a lot of big words, doc.”

“Here,” she said, walking toward him. He tried not to flinch when she traced her finger along the pink scar tissue. “Your incision extends from the outer end of your clavicle to the coracoid and follows the medial edge of the deltoid muscle.”

She must’ve mistaken his annoyance for a lack of understanding since she was now restating the obvious as though he hadn’t been the one to undergo the procedure. However, he couldn’t be sure since he could barely hear her voice over his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. The soft caress of her cool finger was making gooseflesh rise on his exposed skin.

“Why would someone your age need such an extensive surgery?” she asked, and he could feel the warmth of her breath.

Would she believe him if he said “car accident”? Probably not. Dr. Smarty-Pants was proving to be too damn intelligent for Kane’s own good. But right this second, with her finger still tracing his scar and sending shockwaves throughout his body, he really didn’t want to think about the pissed off player who’d charged the mound and attacked him with a Louisville Slugger. “Random baseball bat injury.”

“Hmm.” His eyes were drawn to her mouth. She didn’t wear an ounce of makeup, not even lipstick, but the pink fullness of her upper lip was enhanced by the deep bow in the center. “That must have been quite a baseball bat. Still...”

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