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Just Surrender...
Kathleen O'Reilly


Straitlaced surgeon Tyler Hart hops into a cab at JFK…and goes on the ride of his life. Punky, funky, fly-by-night cabbie Edie Higgins takes him on an all-night New York City adventure involving a flat tire, a strip club and diner food. Oh, and a mind-blowing early-morning romp in a notoriously naughty hotel.So when Edie offers to become newly single Tyler's love sensei, he thinks, why not? Especially since she's a very hands-on teacher.They couldn't be more different, but they're about to learn the same lesson: to just surrender. Everything.









Someone was kissing his neck, and it wasn’t Cynthia.


Cynthia didn’t believe in neck-kissing. Tyler considered opening his eyes, but he’d decided he was dreaming, and he didn’t want to quit the dream. Not yet.

“Tyler,” whispered the dream. The dream had a low, sexy voice that tickled his ear. Tyler stayed still, his eyes firmly closed.

“We have a room, love. A very quiet room. It’s so much more comfortable than this booth. So much more private than this booth. Wouldn’t you like that? I would like that, Tyler. I want to see you, I want to feel you. I want to taste you.”

One eye opened, because when tasting was involved, reality was always better than dreams.

Oh, Edie.







Dear Reader,

Eight years ago we moved from Texas to New York, and it was an eye-opening experience. There are two separate cultures, both with their positives and negatives, and for many years, I would simply people-watch, listen and crack myself up.

I have always enjoyed hearing people’s stories, and my friends and the anonymous checker in the grocery store have no idea how much these little bits of their life inspire me.

Family secrets are a staple of drama, but recently, I’ve seen how real-life secrets, how the sudden realization that life isn’t always what you think it is, can turn a family inside out. And thus, Just Surrender… was born.

I hope you enjoy visiting with the Hart family. They’re a little wounded, but very, very loveable.

All the best,

Kathleen O’Reilly




Just Surrender…

Kathleen O’Reilly







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Kathleen O’Reilly wrote her first romance at the age of eleven, which to her undying embarrassment was read aloud to her class. After taking more than twenty years to recover from the profound distress, she is now proud to finally announce her career—romance author. Now she is an award-winning author of nearly twenty romances published in countries all over the world. Kathleen lives in New York with her husband and their two children, who outwit her daily.


To Kathryn Lye.

We writers get obsessively attached to our words.

So often I hear other authors complain about the editors who make their words worse.

Thank you to the one who makes mine better.




Contents


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue




1


EDIE HIGGINS DRUMMED her black-polished nails happily as she sat behind the wheel of Barnaby’s cab. The midnight rain flowed down the windshield in rivers, her Mickey Mouse watch said 1:07 a.m., but JFK airport was still bustling with life. The May air was warm, but not too warm, which was a good thing, because Edie had quickly discovered that the A/C in Barnaby’s cab had gone out since the last time she’d driven it. Not that the brakes were in great condition either, but it so happened that Edie had a lead foot, which worked just as well for stopping as speeding up.

Curious, she scanned the soggy travelers that were waiting in the long taxi line. Since she had been a kid, she had always adored the drama of airports. The heart-squeezing hugs of families coming home, the long, wet kisses of reunited lovers and the misty-eyed wave from a forlorn six-year-old who didn’t understand why Mom was going away. That was life. The connections people craved. That was what made Edie sigh.

By her own rudimentary calculations, this late on a Thursday should be the pièce de résistance: tourist night. A boredom-busting extravaganza during which she could drive dewy-eyed couples to their getaway destinations. Or whisk away families to the overpriced tourist trap that was the Great White Way.

Hey, whatever made them happy. And that was the part she liked most. Watching people as they bubbled with anticipation, their faces glowing from that champagne-like awareness. The knowledge that good things were about to happen.

Now that made her sigh.

She grabbed her phone and checked her voice mail, just in case he had called.

“You have no messages,” the voice answered, and Edie stuffed the phone in her bag. No reason to think about missing phone calls, about people who didn’t need her, when there were thousands of people desperate to get out of the rain, which was exactly the reason she was here.

Slowly she inched the cab forward. The water-soaked attendant was shoving passengers into yellow cabs like yesterday’s garbage. Beneath the flickering security lights, Edie perused the cab line, counting heads to discover her prize. The gnarly attendant, not on board with the whole “customer service” concept, ripped open the back door. Edie shot a look over her shoulder, anticipating what exciting adventure the passenger lottery had shelled out tonight.

Would it be canoodling lovers, or shrieking families? No. Instead, it was Mr. Overly Practical, No-Champagne-for-Me Trench Coat, who clearly wouldn’t know adventure unless he looked it up in the dictionary. He wore a dark suit and a striped tie secured in a perfect Windsor knot, which she knew only because her dad—the esteemed Dr. Jordan Higgins, M.D.—loved the Windsor knot. It was crisp, professional and reeked of glory.

Just. Like. Dr. Jordan Higgins.

As with so many things that the esteemed Dr. Jordan Higgins loved, Edie despised the Windsor knot.

Not to be overly critical, but okay, she hated the striped ties, too. They were an oxygen-stifling invention, similar to women’s hose, meant to entrap humanity in a constricting uniform of sameness. Taking a sneak peek in the rearview mirror, she noted the man’s impeccable reflection that defied travel wrinkles…or any semblance of life.

Great. She’d given up free drinks with Anita to drive the cab, and yes, Barnaby could always twist her arm—not hard because of her must-be-recessive sucker-gene—but still…

At least his hair was mussed, she thought as he settled his briefcase neatly next to him on the seat. The rain had darkened his rampant locks black with one woebegone strand hanging damply into his eyes. Impatiently he pushed at it, restoring it to its normal spot.

It was a pity because he was so much more appealing when he was mussed. But hey, not everyone could identify and exploit their intrinsic advantages like Edie could. Not that she would say a word. Trench coats never took criticism well, so she pulled onto the Belt Parkway, aka Pothole Crater of America, and eased into the slow-moving traffic. “Where to, mister?”

“The Belvedere Hotel,” he answered, which startled her only because the Belvedere was more than a little naughty, completely not a Windsor knot type place—unless the ties were the kinky silk and satin kind. Edie scrutinized her passenger with new, more appreciative eyes. Kink?

“Seriously?”

“Just drive,” he instructed, his voice crisply impersonal, accustomed to being obeyed. Edie, never a lapdog, tapped her fingers on the wheel.

“Meeting somebody at the hotel?” she asked.

Cooly he met her eyes in the mirror, then glanced at the ID tag on the visor. “You don’t look like Barnaby.”

“The marvel of medical science. Two years of hormones, a few surgeries and voilà, Barbara.”

“Not likely,” he muttered, choosing to spoil her fun with his nay-saying truth. When she glanced in the mirror again, that lock of hair had stubbornly fallen back into his eyes. Edie smiled. Sometimes there was a God, and sometimes She had a sense of humor.

“Barnaby’s my ex,” she admitted.

“Your ex lets you drive his cab? That has to be illegal.”

Edie shrugged. To her the law was another constricting set of mandates, much like the Windsor knot. “His Uncle Marty is some hoo-haw at the taxi and limousine commission. I don’t think they’re actually related—it’s an implied relationship, informal and forged through extensive bribes. Barnaby gets away with more than most.”

“What’s your real job?”

“Real job?” Edie scoffed. “What is that, exactly? Some greed-inspired drudgery that people consider socially acceptable. Eight hours of vomitus detail, mind-eroding minutia and arguments over possibly purloined office supplies. No thank you. However, in the interest of full disclosure and because I don’t want to get Uncle Marty in trouble, I don’t drive the cab very often. Mainly when Barnaby sets up a date with Sasha, which usually falls on Thursdays when he’s supposed to have class—not that he’ll be at school, because he dropped out last semester.”

“Why all the secrecy?” he asked, and immediately Edie knew that he had never had an overbearing, interfering family. Not that she had one, either. But she’d always longed for one—something big with lots of loud brothers and sisters, like the ones on sitcoms.

As she cruised through the toll booths, she decided to let him in on the ins and outs of the American Family Dynamic. “They keep the relationship in the closet because Barnaby’s family doesn’t approve. She’s from Oklahoma, and his parents are really uptight about the whole situation because they have this weird anti-Oklahoma thing, so sometimes he calls me up, and I drive the cab. Usually on a Thursday, which I like because it’s a good night for a people person like myself.”

With a sharp veer to the left, she shot in front of a cabbie who hadn’t learned the ropes, and then swore as the traffic ground to a full stop. Tonight the Belt was packed with cars, red brake lights glowing eerily through the rain. Somewhere up ahead, there was the unfulfilled promise of road construction.

Given the pouring rain, it followed that there would be no crews on the job. Which left only the department of transportation-mandated lane closures. There was a screwy logic to New York, you just had to embrace it. Mr. Trench Coat wasn’t the embraceable type.

Seeing an opening two lanes over, she sped up before slamming on the brakes, and then tried not to smile when Mr. Trench Coat hit his head.

Edie believed there was a certain responsibility in playing the part of a New York cabbie. There were expected rude behaviors and bad-driving norms. Frankly, it was all fiction—well, not all—but Edie chose to give people their money’s worth.

“You don’t care that your ex is seeing someone new?” he asked, completely calm.

“We didn’t click,” she explained as she creatively maneuvered the traffic, but not once did he blink, swear or wipe sweat from his brow. Damn it.

After jamming down on the horn at one excruciatingly slow Jersey driver, she grinned and then cursed the entire garden state to various transportation woes including rate hikes, speeding ticket quotas and exploding water mains, with liquid glowing green.

A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that her passenger was ignoring her driving, which disappointed her and made her wonder if she was losing her touch. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

“I tried to make it work,” Edie continued, dodging to hit every road crater that she could. “The sex was pretty good, but Barnaby never knew what to talk about, no imagination. Not a romantic bone in his—frankly, a little on the skinny-side—body. I have to tell ya, it got boring fast. Never a good sign in a relationship. Besides, a woman can tell. Within five minutes I know if a guy is the one.”

“Five minutes? That long?” She heard the disbelief in his voice, but she had been confronted by doubters before, and Edie loved to argue. There were universal truths in the world, especially when it came to romance, and the more men that were educated in said truths, the better for womenkind everywhere.

“Oh, sure, pretend you don’t do the same thing. Science has proven that people know pretty much instantly. I prefer not to waste my time. Life’s too short to ignore what’s in front of your nose. Or what’s not.” Much of what she said was complete nonsense, but the last part was true.

“And what are these signs that a person is supposed to be looking for to recognize the one?”

He was mocking her, making fun of what he thought was foolish, silly and possibly naive. She hated that her shoulders immediately tensed, but she had been branded the fool before—by people whose opinion mattered—and it didn’t bother her. Much.

“You can think whatever you want, but as for me, I’m looking for lightning. Thunder. AC/DC playing in my head. The world has to tilt and shift—and I have to forget how to breathe.”

“That’s not love, that’s stress cardiomyopathy.”

She knew that man-tone, that Sahara-dry voice, dismissing anything that couldn’t be proven through the scientific method. As if love could be proven or disproven. It simply was. “Wiseass, aren’t you?”

Obviously accustomed to the insult, he chose to ignore it. “How often have you experienced these symptoms?”

“Never.”

“You’re setting yourself up for failure,” he pronounced, a blow to Hallmark, romance and the entire speed-dating industry.

“Life is full of failures. If you don’t fail, you’ve failed to truly live. I’ll take my chances.”

It should have made her happy that he didn’t argue further, but it didn’t. Dr. Jordan Higgins never argued, either. No matter how outrageous, no matter how controversial. Edie cranked up the radio, but the volume wasn’t working, and it wasn’t loud enough to drown out the silence, so Edie switched it off.

Eventually, she broke down and turned to classic dinner-party conversation. “You’re Cancer, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Not the last time I checked.”

“Your sign. Cancer. Reticent, inflexible, deep thinker.”

“Gemini.”

Dazzling wit? Impulsive? “No way.”

“Yes way,” he insisted.

Unable to reconcile this astrological anomaly, she abandoned personal conversation until they hit the BQE. As they zoomed along, she pointed out the various tourist sites flying by, but her “Welcome to New York” spiel was interrupted by a beep.

Mr. Trench Coat had a text message.

She stopped talking, easily imagining the words on his phone. For his sake, she hoped it was something sexy, possibly visual, suggestive, earthy, but not tacky. Subtle went a long way in seduction. Edie considered herself something of an expert at the art of love.

After a second he swore, euphemistically alluding to the carnal arts, but not in a sexy way. He sounded pissed.

When she checked his expression, she noticed the way the brows furrowed into the broad forehead. The hair was still in his eyes.

The dude was screwed.

“Something wrong?” she asked, trying to sound innocent rather than nosy.

“Nothing.”

Ha. If that was nothing, then she was a rocket scientist. Not that she couldn’t be if she wanted. Edie had aced two courses in astrophysics at NYU, but had changed majors after a heated discussion with the prof on the viability of red giants, white dwarfs and the antifeminist fairy-tale ideology that perpetuates the idea that one woman should be subjected to the sexual demands of seven professionally challenged men with severe Napoleon complexes.

There were some who thought it was a giant leap of logic to go from stars to anti-feminist literary tropes, including her professor, whom she affectionately called Professor Moriarity. He was not amused, much like her silent passenger, who was staring blindly out the window. She felt a quiver of sympathy, which caused her to frown, because Windsor knots and trench coats did not deserve sympathy. Of course, they usually didn’t swear, either.

“Something’s interrupted your plans?” she asked.

“The only plan I have is to sleep.”

Edie laughed, and then exited toward the Whitestone Bridge. “At the Belvedere? Not that your accommodations are any of my business, but I’m dying to know, so if you want to volunteer the details, I’m a very captive audience.”

He looked away from the window, and met her eyes in the mirror. Perfectly arched brows furrowed with momentary alarm. About time. “What’s with the Belvedere? Is there a problem?”

“You’ve never stayed there?”

“No. My brother is going to stay there next month, so I though I would try it.”

Edie snickered under her breath.

“Damn it.”

Poor guy, losing it left and right. Edie didn’t want to be nice. First of all, because it would ruin the whole snarling cabbie mystique, but also because trench-coat arrogance was not what she considered a positive trait. And so, yes, for the second time that night, the sucker-gene kicked in. Carefully she picked her words, doing her best not to scare him. “It’s not too bad. Different than your typical accommodations. Kind of a couples thing. I knew you didn’t look the type, but you know, still waters run deep. And I’ve been wrong before. Once.”

He snickered. She heard it, which made her feel better because laughter, even the scoffing kind, counted for something.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m beat. Give me a shot of scotch, clean sheets, a decent surface and I’m out anyway.” He ended up with a careless shrug, this from a man who didn’t do careless at all.

Edie squinted through the windshield, the rain pelting down, the wipers squeaking. “What are you here for? Business? Pleasure?” she asked, merging to the right to escape the upcoming traffic.

“I was meeting someone.” When he answered, his voice was flat, missing both thunder and lightning. In fact, Edie would bet copious amounts of cash that he didn’t even know who AC/DC was.

“And thus the Belvedere,” she surmised. A romantic getaway for the romantically challenged. “You should thank your brother for the hotel suggestion when you get back home.”

“After I kill him.”

This time, she heard the dip in his voice, the Southern drawl so disdained by every self-respecting New Yawker. “Where’s home?”

“Houston.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s a good city.”

“It’s not New York,” she corrected.

“Have you ever been to Houston?”

“Once. I had an ex who was a bull rider. Leon ‘The Ball-Breaker’ Braker. I completely bought in to the image until I went to the Houston livestock show. The bull threw him off in two-point-seven seconds, and that was it. I broke up with him the next week. Faker.”

“That’s very cold of you.”

“Nah. I fixed him up with this chick I met in the hotel bar. She was a chiropractor. They’re married now.”

He resumed the blind stare out the window. He was either directionally challenged or emotionally numb. She was betting on the latter, which made her try even harder to cheer him up.

“This weather’s hell. Where’s the girlfriend? Flight delayed?”

Instead of cooperating, he stayed silent, choosing not to spill his most private thoughts to a complete stranger.

Since he left her mind to its own creative devices Edie assessed his situation. Girlfriend wasn’t showing and he was crushed. Windsor knots never took rejection well, although he didn’t seem as heartbroken as she thought he should be. She wondered if he liked quiet redheads because Patience needed to meet a guy who didn’t yell. Somebody who knew how to keep his emotions in check, and Mr. Trench Coat was nothing if not repressed.

“She’s not showing, is she? Tough beans, but hey, the Belvedere’s great for getting to know people. I’ll bet you’ll meet someone new tonight, a leggy blonde, or maybe twins.”

He chose to ignore her attempt to perk him up, which annoyed her, because she was going out of her way to be nice, and why didn’t he appreciate it? Most of all, Edie didn’t do silence well. Never had.

“Oh, come on. We’ve got another thirty…fifty…ninety minutes. People bond in long car rides, and I don’t like talking to myself. Let’s try something easy. Like…how long you two been together?”

“Do we have to talk?” he asked, as the cars behind them started to honk.

“Yes. I’m trying to give you the full New York cabbie experience, so couldn’t you try to be a sport? It’s an easy question. Just something to keep me going here.”

She heard the deep indrawn breath, a slow glacial defrosting sound. “Three years. Or maybe five?”

“You don’t know?” she blurted out, not bothering to hide the horror.

“Not exactly. Can we drive now?”

Whoa, boy. No wonder he was getting the cold shoulder. Forget fixing him up with Patience. She deserved better. Gingerly, Edie got the cab moving again. “I can see the problem.”

“And I’m sure you have advice.”

“No way, buddy. You dug that hole all by yourself. A grave is a dark, damp place late at night.”

“If you sleep well, you never know. I always sleep well.”

She glanced in the mirror, noted the confidence in his eyes, his face, even the rigid posture, all the while enduring a death-defying motor-vehicle experience. A humiliating moment in Edie’s bright cab-driving career that was getting dimmer by the minute.

“I bet you use meds for sleep,” she muttered, because she didn’t like being a failure at anything. It was a trait inherited from her father—one of the very few that she admitted.

“No meds. You have to be smart about your life. Control stress, eat healthy, exercise.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“It’s your funeral,” he answered.

“Hey, I’m not the one sleeping alone tonight,” she shot back. Perhaps it was a petty taunt, but it wasn’t like his ego couldn’t take it.

“Barnaby?” He sounded shocked. Disapproving.

Delicious.

“Nah,” she answered smoothly. “I’ll go out trolling after I drop you off. Premeditation takes all the spontaneity out of it. It’s like walking around with a lightning rod over your head and pretending to be surprised when the storm hits. What fun is that?”

And he completely bought it. “You’re going to go hook up with some stranger?”

“Oh, sure,” she gushed, finally discovering which buttons to push. “It’s a lot more exciting that way.”

“It’s unsafe.”

“Not if you’re smart.”

“What if he’s a criminal?”

He sounded genuinely concerned. It was sweet, but unnecessary since Edie didn’t believe in one-night stands. Sex was part of the biological symbiosis that wove through the earth. You had to follow the strands of karmic DNA that were laid out in front of you, and picking up strange men in clubs was forging a connection that didn’t exist.

She noticed his worried frown, and should have eased up on the man. But not yet. “You can tell a killer by the eyes, cold and flat, missing the soul.”

“By that definition, I’m a serial killer.”

She smiled. “No, you’re not. I can read your eyes.”

“Right,” he shot back. Cocky, but clueless. Typical. “What do my eyes say?” he asked, possibly because of her dismissing snort. “You really want to know?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on, you know you want to.”

And once again, he sighed. “Go ahead.”

She considered fibbing, but Mr. Trench Coat needed something to perk him up. “You’re cold and flat, but you still possess the soul. However, you belong in the Hilton, not the Belvedere.”

“Flattering.”

“Yet, true,” she dared him to deny it.

“Why is Manhattan that way?” he finally asked, his hand pointing to the west. “Shouldn’t we be headed in that direction?”

“I thought you’d like to see more of the outer boroughs. Most people don’t appreciate the architectural diversity of the city. It’s very picturesque.”

“I’m not going to pay extra because you got lost.”

Lost? Edie? Ha. “Flat rate from the airport to the city. It’s the rules.”

“Now you’re law-abiding?”

“You’re just fun to joke with, and you look like you needed cheering up.”

“It’s late. I’m tired. I want to get to the hotel.”

“Are you always this crabby when you’re tired?”

“No.”

“Don’t you want to see Underground New York, the part that tourists always overlook?”

“No.”

“At some point, you’ll have to get out and see the sights. You can’t let rejection get you down. She’s not worth it.”

“She’s not getting me down.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Believe what you want. Tonight, when you’re alone in bed staring at that mirror on the ceiling, you’ll see those empty eyes. And before I know it, you’ll be the front page, having jumped naked from the Brooklyn Bridge.”

“A mirror on the ceiling?” he repeated, picking out the least inflammatory bit of her sentence. It said so much about his sexual psyche.

“Of course. You should check out the theater.”

“What theater?”

“At the hotel. It’s live. The guests can reserve a time slot, and ahem…perform for whoever wants to watch. I heard the seats fill up fast.”

“Please, no.”

Edie grinned at him in the mirror. “I’m kidding.”

“I thought so,” he told her, so obviously a lie.

“I’m kidding about the reservations. It’s first-come, first-serve.”

“I don’t believe you,” he answered stiffly, but she noticed him pulling at the knot at his throat.

Certainly, some of the Belvedere tales were urban legends, and then some were nothing but Page Six gossip, although Edie firmly believed that where there was smoke, there was usually an arsonist with a can of kerosene and a match that didn’t want to light. Frankly, a viewing room sounded fun—as long as the man was sexy, and the woman didn’t have leg hair. Edie always shaved. A woman needed some standards.

“Suit yourself.”

“Can you just take me to the hotel?” he asked, impatience finally starting to show. Sadly Edie realized that her joyride, such as it was, was over. She’d have to go back to the apartment. Have to listen to her upstairs neighbor and his girlfriend getting hot and sweaty between the sheets. She’d have to stare at bad TV, and listen to the clock ticking in the dark. All of which she hated with a passion.

So okay, perhaps when she took the U-turn in the middle of Nostrand Avenue, it was a little reckless. The car rocked over the curb and Edie jerked at the wheel, pulling tight to the left. At last all four tires were firmly back on the ground. Perhaps a little too firmly because that was when she heard the noise.

For a split second, panic struck her, until she met his gaze in the mirror. Unmoved, and completely in control. Jerk. Quickly, she cleared the anxiety away, and when she spoke, her words sounded almost calming. “What was that?”

His lips curled at the corners, and the cool, emotionless eyes gleamed like the devil. “A flat.”

Oh, hell.




2


IT WAS THE NIGHT FROM HELL. If it hadn’t been for the raw nerves in the cabbie’s expression, he would have been furious, but he’d seen that panic before. In his line of work, he saw the fear of death everyday, and the instinct to take control was second nature to Dr. Tyler Hart M.D.

“Does Barnaby have a spare?” he asked patiently, using his clinical voice.

At his question, she turned to face him, and he could see the shakes receding. Her color was better and the quiver in her eyes was gone. “I don’t know.”

His mind ran through the steps, making a mental checklist of tools and procedure, and he was happy for the diversion. Changing flats, performing a quadruple bypass—these were the things that he was prepared for. A kiss-off from Cynthia? Not in this lifetime. And Tyler hated being unprepared. “We’ll check the trunk.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, already falling into blind obedience, which peopled tended to do at the sound of his clinical voice. Was it uncertainty, or a sheeplike personality that suddenly made her so agreeable? Considering the magenta streaks in the short blond hair, he was betting on the uncertainty.

The rain pounded on the roof, but regrettably his trench coat would have to go. Tyler wasn’t about to sacrifice it to axle grease and New York grime. He took a deep breath, rolled up his sleeves and headed for the great outdoors.

The great outdoors showered his head, and he bit back a curse. Tyler didn’t believe in using disrespectful words. It indicated a lack of control, as well as a juvenile vocabulary. Neither of which were necessary because he thrived on bad circumstances. He had pulled off aortal coarctations that were nothing short of miraculous. In the big scheme of things, rain was nothing.

Except a damned inconvenience.

As he waded toward the trunk, he felt her presence behind him. Tyler smiled with relief when he spotted the jack, the lug wrench and the treadless doughnut. Not great, but it’d do.

“Thank God,” she whispered in an awed voice. For the first time she didn’t sound quite so cavalier. None too soon, either.

It was no surprise when she started to unwedge the tire from the trunk. In fact, he had expected it, but he stopped her with a polite tap on the arm. “I can do this.”

“I should do it,” she insisted, tugging uselessly on the tire. “I flew over that curb like a rabid bat. And it’s my personal dogma that when you do bad, you need to immediately make right, or something worse will come down the pipe.”

Something worse? What was she expecting? Famine, pestilence?

Patiently, he met her eyes, watching the rain stream down her face, waiting for wisdom to dawn. Tyler believed that at some point, a person needed to abandon principles and simply do what needed to be done. Her stubborn jaw-line didn’t bode well for foregoing principles, but her irises were getting a little smarter. Eventually, she nodded.

“At least let me help,” she suggested—almost sensibly. “If you’re going to get soaked and be miserable, I should, too.”

Her T-shirt was transparent. Yes, Cynthia had blown off their relationship in a text message—in a text message—a fact that really grated, because it seemed rude. Not that he was hurt or disappointed, and he wasn’t sure why he wasn’t hurt or disappointed, but a text message? Perhaps that was why his macular muscles kept straying to her chest because Tyler wasn’t a big fan of carnal philandering. He never had the time nor the inclination, however, the sight of jutting nipples was torpedoing his normal restraint. “Not necessary. Wait in the cab,” he instructed.

“Please,” she asked, and it was a testament to the power of the sexual dynamic that he stood there, foolishly dripping wet, his gaze locked on her face, which was—unfortunately—nearly as tasty as the twin nipples that he didn’t want to want.

Her blond hair was cut short, which he wasn’t normally a big fan of, but it worked for her in that “I’m too sexy for a boy” look. His eyes tracked down her chest, then tracked back to the trunk. The flat. “Do you have a flashlight? Maybe Barnaby has one in the glove box?”

He didn’t need the light, but he didn’t want her breasts near him while he worked. The rain, the text message, the punctured tire—everything was starting to flat-line his common sense.

“I don’t think Barnaby’s that well stocked,” she argued, shoving her hands in her jean pockets, which only drew the shirt tighter.

“Can you check? Please?” he pleaded, needing to have her and her tightly packed body out of his sights.

Happily she disappeared, but then returned in a too-short two seconds with a flashlight. Of course. Trying to help, she directed the light beam in the direction of the rear wheel. “I remembered I had one in my bag. It was a giveaway at this Hudson River wildlife and fisheries symposium. It was a few months back, so I’d forgotten.”

“Lucky me,” he murmured, setting the jack under the axle, and starting to twist off the lug nuts. Twisting tight. Painfully hard. Until he felt something give. Principles. Dogma. Ironlike restraint.

“I’m Edie,” she told him, because apparently now was the perfect time for introductions.

Edie. A cute, perky name. With cute, perky breasts. And gamine brown eyes that sparkled in the rain. Sparkled. Tyler gave the nut another vicious twist.

“What’s your name?” she asked. Her conversation wasn’t what he was used to. Tyler liked coldly impersonal, eight-syllable words that didn’t involve sex, emotion, or—god-forbid—nipples.

Instead of replying, he pulled even tighter.

“Don’t be mad. You know rain is very good for the planet. It’s cleansing and nourishing, feeding the parched earth.”

“Not in New York,” he said, wiping at his face, feeling the moisture cling to his skin. Dirt was unsanitary, a breeding ground for flesh-eating bacteria and flesh-licking sex. Quietly, he groaned.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. Obviously she was finally feeling the guilt that she should have felt several thousand hours ago.

Fully intending to give her a well-deserved lecture, Tyler glanced up, but she looked so…so needy. “I’m Tyler.”

“Tyler. Pleased to meet you. You got that?” she asked, just after he finished with the nuts, and was prying off the hubcap.

“Yeah. Doing great,” he answered, flinching when a city bus cruised by to splash him from head to toe.

He tried wiping the muddy residue away, not happy when he saw her expression. If she were a nice person, she wouldn’t be laughing at him. She would be grateful. Deeply grateful.

“Is there a problem?” he asked, polite, thoughtful, trying to set an example. Although on the plus side, the situation did keep him from staring at her nipples.

“Nope. No problem,” she answered, stifling another laugh. Then, of course, she had to cross her arms over her chest. The nipples were back.

“Good,” Tyler agreed. However, he had a painful problem in his pants, and he wondered if this two-month interventional cardiology fellowship in New York was really a great idea. Of course it was a great idea. Working with Dr. Abe Keating, competing for the ACT/Keating Endowment Award. The cardiology fellowship was a chance to showcase his talents, and most of all, give him a shot at Keating’s endowment, a chance to work side by side with the surgeon for another three years, doing the research that would change the way cardio-vascular surgery was done forever.

Spurred on by the drenching rain, the occasional honking car and his barely restrained sexual frustration, Tyler changed the tire in record time. He twisted hard on the wrench, tightening the nuts on the doughnut, feeling his nuts tighten with each miserable twist.

Just as he was putting the flat in the trunk, a cop car slid to a halt beside them. The officer rolled down the window.

“Need any help?” asked the officer, his eyes straying to Edie’s chest.

“All done, Officer,” Edie replied agreeably, possibly with a newfound respect for the law. Probably because she was driving without a proper taxi license.

“You need any help, miss?” the cop asked the criminal cabbie, because apparently the dripping, greasy-handed cardiothoracic surgeon now looked the part of the perp.

Tyler scowled and then stepped in front of her chest. “She doesn’t need anything,” he told the officer, because the last thing he needed was for her to get thrown in jail. If that happened, then he’d never get to the hotel. He’d never get sex…. Sleep. Sleep was what he desperately needed.

The cop, sensing there was no criminal activity afoot, drove away, and Tyler and Edie climbed back in the cab. This time when she drove, Edie took the corners as slow as a grandmother, humming happily.

Tyler examined his ruined shirt, pulling it free from his pants, ready to burn the filthy thing. He looked up into the rearview mirror and met her eyes. “Why are you smiling?”

“You look good in dirt,” she told him, and he noticed the dimple on the right cheek, which was completely free of both dirt and guilt.

“You’re not helping.”

“I’m trying to cheer you up.” She sounded sincere and completely comfortable. Not painfully aroused. Not wondering what he would be like naked.

“Get me to my hotel,” he growled, too tired to use his clinical voice. “That’ll cheer me up.”

“Why don’t you like me?”

“Because you feed on people’s pain.”

“I do not,” she insisted.

“Then why are you so intrigued by the fact that I got dumped?” It stung. Yes. Stung. Tyler wasn’t used to pain. He cured pain. He prescribed meds for pain. He analyzed pain, and monitored pain, but damn it, he did not feel it. It wasn’t even Cynthia so much as the idea that he wasn’t good enough. It was a pain he’d stopped feeling a long time ago. Or so he thought.

“Aha, I knew I was right,” Edie chirped, rubbing salt into the wound. “Not that I’m happy you got dumped. Satisfied, yes? I mean, I do like to be right, especially about reading people. Don’t you like adventures?”

Adventures were the nation’s number one cause of death.

He blamed Cynthia for his foul mood. She had forced him into this embarrassing juvenile behavior. Edie had merely pummeled him until he had no choice but to regress even further.

“Sorry,” he apologized politely.

“Why don’t you let me buy you a drink?” she asked, apparently not sensing his still painful sexual arousal.

“Why?” he asked, stalling for time, because the first answer that leaped to mind was yes.

“I owe you. You’re doing a nice thing, and you didn’t say a word when I tooled all over the five boroughs. Tonight you’ve changed a flat and your girlfriend of some indeterminate amount of time dumped you, all of which happened when you should be getting well laid at the hotel. If there’s anybody in the world that needs a drink, it’s you. Maybe a shot of tequila, or ouzo. I know this Greek bar….”

“I don’t want to go to a Greek bar,” he told her, shifting uncomfortably, finding an exposed spring in the seat, feeling it cut into his thigh. Probably severing the femoral artery, thereby letting him bleed out a quick and painless death. In which case, Cynthia would have to feel bad since she had dumped him in a text message.

“How about an American bar?” Edie suggested, as if all his immediate pains could be solved with alcohol.

A bar was a recipe for disaster, but since Tyler had apparently not severed his femoral artery and was going to live, alcohol now seemed like a good idea.

“If I let you buy me a drink, one drink—will you drive me directly to the hotel?” There was a roughness in his voice that worried him. This wasn’t about a drink. He should’ve been fantasizing about a shower, a bed. No, there were darker forces at work. Darker forces that were visualizing her. Naked in his shower. In his bed. Even naked proudly offering him one drink.

“I’ll drive you straight back to the hotel. I swear,” she promised, but Tyler knew when disaster lurked around the corner. He didn’t like to think it was a premonition because that implied his subconscious was guiding his decision—or worse, his penis.

Tonight Cynthia had dumped him. Texas’s number-four-ranked cardiothoracic surgeon with a net worth of over four million, who had saved her father’s life, not once, but three times, not that anyone was counting. If there was a woman in the world who owed him the simple courtesy of a proper goodbye, it was Cynthia.

So what if he wanted to be a jackass? If he wanted to have a drink or wild sex with a woman who felt some deep-seated desire to make him feel better, then by God, he should. If he wanted to do something spontaneous and hair-raising, then he had a premeditated right to go for it.

It was because of such elaborate rationalizations that his father called him Shit-For-Brains Sophocles, but Tyler always shrugged it off. Although now he did wonder if Sophocles ever created meaningless justifications in pursuit of wild sex. Probably not. Probably Sophocles never had shit for brains. Only Tyler.

“One drink. An American bar,” he agreed, resigned to his decision.

“A friend of mine works in a strip club.”

He smiled at her, mud-splattered and grimy with an agenda that was just as black.



THE CLUB WAS LIKE AN underground cavern with rotating lights, an abundance of surgically enhanced body parts and a low heavy rhythm that could have aroused a dead eunuch. Identifying all the cheap marketing tactics designed to titillate him did not erase the fact that the place was getting to him.

Or maybe it was her.

Edie Higgins.

A woman with a four-hour repertoire of dirty jokes, and a body that had never been under a scalpel. The body in question had sultry curves and a rosebud tattoo that rode high on her left breast—regrettably a little too high. Yes, he was feeling shallow and a bit debauched, but in his own defense, he also acknowledged her curiously appealing joie de vivre.

The club’s whiskey was overpriced and probably watered down, but it didn’t matter. He hadn’t touched his glass, and already he could feel himself loosening up. Her smile was infectious—in the manner of avian flu or staphylococcus, he added as an afterthought. Dr. Tyler Hart was ready to take this woman every way, any way, she’d let him.

Edie slipped an orange slice into her mouth, the juice dribbling down one side of her lip. She had luscious lips. Not collagen-full, not schoolmarm-thin. Juicy, he thought with a stupid grin, his mind wondering what her mouth tasted like. He was allergic to citrus, but was anaphylactic shock so bad? He hadn’t been tested for allergies in years, and people outgrew them all the time, so theoretically, he had probably outgrown his. Tyler leaned closer, taking a deep whiff of orange and Edie, which promptly sent him into the first throes of sexual dysphoria.

“What was her name?” she asked, and he had to blink twice in order to focus on the words. Words.

Slowly his mind formed a suitable answer. “Cynthia.” At the name, some of the sexual dysphoria evaporated.

“Cynthia,” she repeated in a snotty voice and then giggled.

It made him want to smile, or maybe it was the way her eyes tracked his face, as if he were the most fascinating man ever. His med school roommate, Ryan, had called him an alcoholic lightweight. Because of that, Tyler was usually careful when it came to drinking. Tyler lifted his full glass and took a hesitant sip.

“Was Cynthia blonde?”

“You’re blonde,” he pointed out, but then worried that he had a type. What if he was fatally attracted to toxic blondes? Quickly he slammed the last of his whiskey.

“I’m not a natural blonde.”

“Neither was Cynthia,” he volunteered in unchilvarious fashion.

Edie giggled again. This time, Tyler smiled back.

“I could buy you a lap dance,” she offered, sounding so sympathetic it should have touched his heart.

You could give me a lap dance, he thought, and decided he wouldn’t drink anymore. Someone needed to stay in charge. God forbid that it was her.

“Do you know why she dumped you?”

“She didn’t dump me,” he protested, although why he was lying he didn’t know. Cynthia had dumped him. Rejected him. Humiliated him. And if he were smarter, he’d be milking this for all the sympathy points that he could get. As a specialist in coronary bypass, Tyler understood how easily the heart could be manipulated.

He lowered his head, the very picture of dejection. “You’re right.”

At his words, Edie put a comforting arm around his shoulders, and Tyler shamelessly moved in closer, drawn to her warmth, her generous nature, the feel of her warm and generous breasts brushing against him. Unsurprisingly, some of the sting of rejection disappeared.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and once again he heard the tenderness in her voice. He was a virtual stranger, and an unchivalarous stranger at that. Before meeting Edie, he had thought that New Yorkers were hard-hearted and cynical, unmoved by the pathos of human suffering…

Except for this one.

He met her eyes. “Thank you,” he told her, feeling sincere, grateful and yes, still painfully aroused.

“Do you want to meet paradise?”

“I’d love to,” he agreed, his mind already transported to a lurid paradise where there was no dirt, no naked gyrating dancers…unless it was Edie. He’d let her dance. As long as she was naked. Paradise sounded perfect.

However, instead of taking his hand and leading him away from this chaos, she stood and waved her hand, gesturing wildly to one of the dancers.

Enlightenment shouldn’t hurt so much.

“Is that paradise?” he guessed, as the buxom redhead bounced and buoyed her way toward him. Painful enlightenment rolled in his gut.

“What do you think?” asked Edie, looking extraordinarily pleased with herself as she started on the introductions.

“Tyler, meet Paradise, aka Anita.”

Anita held out her hand, and politely Tyler shook it, not wanting to stare at what had to be 42 Double D, but somehow he knew that laws of nature and gravity had both been violated in the altering of her breasts.

“You have to be nice to Ty. I put him through crap tonight. Girlfriend dumped him, then I had a flat, which he changed in the rain by the way, and didn’t even complain. Not once. He let me drive into Brooklyn, and didn’t bitch about it, even though I knew he knew we weren’t in Manhattan. And he’s a visiting Gemini from Houston.”

Her words were tribute to a man who was swimming upstream in a tide of lascivious spawn, and whose very life now depended on getting Edie Higgins out of her clothes. Not wanting to disappoint her, Tyler adopted the humble aspect of a man who could do no wrong.

“You poor man,” Anita cooed, as Edie wandered over to the bar.

The dancer moved in closer, eyelashes aflutter, and began stroking his arm.

Tyler tried to focus on her face, rather than her bare breasts, and happily noted the absence of forehead wrinkles that indicated either skin injections or a curious lack of stress in her life. He scanned the room, noted the glistening skin, the sultry dips and shakes, and knew it had to be BOTOX. If he spent every night in this place, he’d be ready for BOTOX, too.

“How do you know Edie?” he asked, finding a square of ceiling tile to concentrate on.

“We met at NYU.”

“You’re a student?” he asked, proudly not jumping when a dancer gyrated dangerously close to him. “Economics.”

“Of course,” he answered absently, searching out Edie at the bar.

“She’s a peach.”

“I noticed.”

“You like her?” she asked, looking at him with naked curiosity.

Tyler protested quickly. Apparently too quickly because Anita smiled with blatant sympathy. “It’s okay. You don’t have to feel bad. All the guys love Edie.”

“Really?” he asked, noting where Edie was, leaning against the long, silver bar.

Loving Edie was bad. She was too chipper, too needy, had a well-shaped nose for trouble…and a great ass, he thought, leering at her skin-tight jeans.

Hastily he swallowed air.

“See the bartender?” Anita pointed toward the hulking creature with a chain tattooed around his neck, and Tyler dragged his bleary eyes away from Edie.

“I see him.”

“They had a thing a few years ago, but she dumped him.”

“Who’d she fix him up with?”

Anita laughed, chucking him on the arm. “You’re brighter than most.”

“Thanks. So, who was the next victim?” he asked, even though he already knew. Anita was watching the chain-painted bruiser with sappy eyes. After only a few hours in the city, Tyler was now convinced that the stereotype of the hardened New York heart was flat-out wrong.

“The next victim was me.” She sighed, confirming his hypothesis.

Saps. All of them.

A happy patron walked past and curved a hand over Anita’s naked thigh, and she only smiled. The bartender didn’t blink.

Tyler shook his head, surprised. “That’s very uh, open of both of you that he doesn’t get jealous.”

“I’m putting him through acting school. It eases the pain.”

“Yes, I get that.” His eyes again found the bar, drawn to Edie immediately. In a naked sea of female perfection, the bartender was ogling the one female who was completely clothed. And Dr. Tyler Hart completely understood.

As if she sensed his weakness, Edie turned, met his eyes and smiled from across the room.

“She’s not into relationships,” warned Anita.

“Me, neither.” Tyler watched as Edie came toward him, carrying four shot glasses. Just then the music volume increased, and a gravel-throated singer moaned about the Highway to Hell.

And tonight Dr. Tyler Hart was riding her for all he was worth.




3


EDIE WASN’T SURE WHY she’d brought him to the diner. She didn’t usually reveal this part of her life to anyone. Maybe it was the Edie-induced grease stains on his hands, maybe it was the Edie-induced mud stains that had permanently ruined his pristine white shirt. Maybe, possibly, it was the arrogance in his melancholy eyes. She knew that kind of arrogance. She had lived her entire life with it, but her father had never looked that lonely. Not once.

It was after three in the morning, the darkest part of the night. Except in Manhattan, and especially at her diner. Here it was never dark, never night. Ira’s had bright yellow walls, four-hundred-watt fluorescent lights and a waitstaff with dreams that didn’t involve the food service industry.

After Edie ordered for them, she continued on her current mission. Trying to take the loneliness out of his eyes.

“You know, there’s nothing wrong with reaching out to someone, forming a connection, even if it’s temporary,” she told him. Tonight she’d introduced him to Paradise, Passion, Lulu and Honey and it disappointed her that he’d turned them all down.

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it,” he insisted.

“Well, you didn’t find anybody at the club,” she argued, pointing out the obvious discrepancy between what he said, and what he didn’t do.

“Do I look like the stripper type?” he protested, and she rolled her eyes, surprised at his cluelessness.

“Every man is the stripper type. You’ve just got it buried deeper than most. All that emotional repression takes time to undo.”

His brows drew together. “I’m not repressed.”

“You’re an emotional brick, but don’t feel bad. It comes from being loved by a woman named Cynthia. What did you love about her?” she asked, curious about what would attract him, since it wasn’t the allure of topless females.

Carefully he arranged his silverware, silently laying out the utensils until he lifted his head and gave her a curious look. “Why do you think I loved her?”

His answer was a total dodge. She knew it. “Why were you with her, if you didn’t love her?”

“Cynthia is beautiful, good company, intelligent and very fond of literature.”

Oh, yawn, Edie thought to herself, so what was the source of attraction? Ha. There could be only one.

“A wildcat between the sheets,” she surmised. She’d seen it before. Her old roommate, Scott had been dumped fourteen times by his girlfriend, but kept crawling back because she blew his mind—in the allegorical sense. Edie looked at Tyler sympathetically, genuinely sad that he was caught in such a web of sexual slavery. Men could be such dogs.

“I’d prefer not to discuss my sex life,” he insisted, a flush rising on his cheeks.

“Sorry,” she apologized. He was a cute blusher. All buttoned up and trying so very hard to be polite. Having known her share of uncouth males, the old-fashioned gallantry was new, fun…sexy. “Okay, we won’t dwell on the painful past of your sex life. Instead, let’s concentrate on the new and exciting future. There’s a lot of women out there. Like that one, for instance.”

The waitress Edie pointed to was nearly thirty, heir to the Petrovich fortune, and always enjoyed meeting new fab people. “That’s Olga,” Edie explained, and started to wave her over, but Tyler grabbed her hand, holding it painfully tight.

“It’s okay,” he said, still holding her hand, but the tension there became something new, nice…warm.

Not liking this friendlier line of thinking, Edie started on her selling job. “Olga’s great. She’s so easy to talk to, and she has this great sense of humor. Ask her to do her Joan Rivers impression. She’ll have you rolling.”

“I’m sure she would, but I don’t need you to take care of me.” He looked down at their entwined fingers, smiled, and then let her hand go. And no, she didn’t miss the contact. Not at all.

“Don’t take it personally,” said Edie, laughing it off. “I like taking care of people. And you’re new to the city, and you’ve had this miserable night, and it’s completely my fault. I’d feel ten times better if you let me do something else for you.”

“I don’t want you to owe me,” he insisted.

“But I do,” she insisted, too.

“No, you don’t. Couldn’t we be…friends, just because we actually get along?”

Get along? Trench coats and tattoos? Ties and toe-socks? It sounded…impossible.

Or not?

“Maybe,” she answered, then shifted uncomfortably in the vinyl booth. “But I still feel responsible.”

“You can buy breakfast. We’ll call it even. Unless you can’t afford it.”

Edie grinned, grateful for her own financially viable position, none of which was her own doing. Dad called her a shameless loafer. Mom called it ADD. Edie merely considered herself smart. “Dad’s a doc. Money is not a problem.”

“What sort of doc?”

“The ‘I’m bigger than God’ sort of doc.”

“That’s no answer. They’re all like that,” he said seriously, and she laughed, because he seemed to understand.

“People don’t understand why I don’t think he’s the best father ever. He’s charming and funny, and his patients adore him. There are four buildings named after him because apparently three wasn’t enough and—”

“Why don’t you like him?”

Even though her mother understood Edie’s jealousy about the time and attention he gave his patients, she never complained about his long absences from their lives. No, Clarice Higgins was a saint. Unlike Edie, who believed that saints got what they deserved. Usually an early death.

She dismissed her jealous feelings, easy squeezy. “Men don’t get it. It shouldn’t be so hard to do the little things. The human things. The fatherly things that fathers are supposed to do.”

“But what about the good that he does? Doesn’t that make up for it?”

Yes, the eternal justification for endless work hours, skipping out on birthdays, anniversaries, spoken like someone who didn’t have a doc in the family. “Very few people are going to understand because they aren’t the ones shut out. I don’t like being shut out.” She balanced her chin on her palm, needing to change the subject. “What do you do?”

“I’m taking a class.”

“Where?”

“At Columbia.”

She nodded. She could definitely see that, the square-jawed face with the scholarly vibe. “I love to learn. What sort of class?”

“Roman artifacts.”

“Oh, that sounds so cool! Who’s teaching it?”

He frowned, as if trying to pull the name out of his head. Eventually he blurted out, “Dr. Lowenbrow,” looking proud of himself for remembering.

Lowenbrow? Edie checked her encyclopedic memory banks. “I don’t think I know him.”

“It’s a big school.”

“But I’ve taken a lot of classes,” she told him, not wanting to say exactly how many.

“Haven’t found one subject that sticks with you?” he asked, as if she couldn’t be the egghead-student type, which was probably true.

Edie paused, not sure how much she wanted to say. She glanced at his hands, newly washed, almost back to pre-Edie status, and decided that, while she could fool him with her pseudo-intelligentsia facade, it was too early in the morning, and she’d pushed him enough. The truth seemed more appropriate. “I get bored easily.”

“You just haven’t found your passion yet,” he said, nicely defending her as if his current opinion of her wasn’t so awful. She frowned, bothered by the idea that his opinion of her might be awful, and then bothered because she was bothered.

“Life is my passion. If more people cared about people, the world wouldn’t suck quite so much.”

“It takes more than passion to fix things.”

“It helps.”

They talked over breakfast and then she ordered him a strawberry smoothie because Ira, the diner’s cook, made the best smoothies in the world. And no, strawberries wouldn’t make up for what she’d put him through tonight, but he did seem to like the drink.

She noticed as they talked that he was cagey, not prone to personal disclosures unless she specifically asked—which, of course, she did. Tyler Hart was a museum curator, specializing in antiquities. He had one younger brother, Austen, who he wasn’t sure he knew as well as he should. Their mother was technically “missing,” but Tyler assumed that she was dead, but he didn’t know for sure, and he pretended he didn’t care. In her absence, the two boys had been raised in West Texas by their father, who was a mean son of a bitch, and Tyler had been on only two continents, North America and Europe, although he wanted to go to Africa someday.

Edie explained the ins and outs of African safaris, making him chuckle. She watched his eyes crinkle at the corners, noticing the hypnotic swirls of brown and gold, and was that a hint of green? Yes, she thought so. A less self-focused individual would feel guilty about the shadows under said sepia eyes. Or beaten themselves up because there was a slight bloodshot tinge to them. After all, Edie was responsible for the lot, but then he smiled at her, a quick twitch of his mouth, and the last qualms disappeared. Tyler Hart was different from the norm. He was too honorable. He didn’t want to talk about me, me, me. And best of all, he made her feel…well, not quite so much alone. As it was four in the morning that was something of a miracle for Edie.

After Olga had cleared the plates and Edie had signed for the tab, she knew she had to drive him to the Belvedere, and that was when the doldrums descended.

Edie navigated the streets carefully, since he’d already had the full New York Cab Ride From Hell. After she double-parked the cab in front of the hotel, she popped the trunk. At first Edie tried to yank out his suitcase, but the rat wouldn’t let her, and Edie, being somewhat of a closet diva, stood back and allowed him to assert his manliness.

Without thinking, she followed him a couple of steps, watching the easy confidence of his walk. Not tired, she noted, still cruising on cylinders that Edie had long burned out. Yes, he’d had eggs and she’d had pancakes, which only partially explained why a museum curator should be fully functioning after thirty-six hours of no sleep. Frankly it boggled her already-boggled mind, but then he stopped in his tracks. He wanted to pay for the cab ride from hell, which Edie politely declined. Even for Edie, taking a fare for that ride would have been way out of line.

The front of the hotel featured ornately carved gothic wood doors. If you looked closely, you would notice the various mythological creatures in Kama Sutra positions. Tyler seemed to be looking closely, but he didn’t look quite as afraid as she would have expected. Although his museum probably had tons of porn. Those Renaissance types liked their women running naked and free—much like modern man.

She struggled to align museum curator, who saw nudity on a daily professional basis, with the buttoned-up stripper-rejecter that she had dragged around all night. Not that she needed to worry about it much. She wouldn’t see him again because…

Because, she told herself firmly, and then left it at that.

His Windsor knot was now completely loose and he didn’t look nearly so arrogant, nor so lonely, either, she thought, mentally patting herself on the back. Yes, there were grease stains on his shirt, but shirts could be replaced. In fact she’d buy him a new shirt and have it delivered. Something in white. “You’ll be okay?”

“I’ll be okay,” he assured her, pulling his gaze from the door, his trench coat hanging competently over his arm.

Dawn was close, but not close enough. The night was still clinging, and Edie was hesitant to leave. “If you need anything, you can call. If you want to know the best place to get a slice, or which clubs are overpriced, or a quiet place to study.”

His smile was tired, but sincere. “Tell Barnaby thanks. He needs to buy a flashlight, and there’s a hole in the backseat that should be fixed.”

They were goodbye words. Two strangers who would be going their own way. Being something of an expert in these words, Edie knew them when she heard them. Nervously she met his eyes, although she didn’t know why she was nervous. She was never nervous, never without a smartass reply, never unable to breathe.

Tyler frowned at her, not so nervous, not so breathless, and yes, there were smartass tendencies within him as well, but they were disgustingly repressed. As such, she had no right to feel the sense of loss inside her.

“Edie?”

“Yes?”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Go back to the apartment.”

He cocked his head, studying her intently. “You’re not going to pick up some guy, are you?”

She couldn’t help but laugh because he took everything so seriously.

“Nah. I was just kidding….” she started to explain, but her voice trailed off when she noticed the very real question in his eyes. Suddenly she wasn’t feeling so non-serious anymore. In fact, the pitch in her stomach was downright serious.

A car drove by, honking at her poor parking job, but the sound was foggy and far away. Her whole world seemed foggy and far away because of the sudden pornification of her previously PG-rated brain. Now she only had thoughts of naked flesh and Windsor knots tied in untraditional locations.

Her nerves began to itch and heat in untraditional locations, as well.

“You’ll be okay?” she repeated stupidly, needing to stick with easy words, and not the intricate visuals that were spinning in her head. Two bodies. Joined. Entwined. Not alone.

Tyler looked at her, disappointed. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

No, she wasn’t worrying about him, she was wondering about him. Right now, she wondered about how his mouth would feel against hers. She wondered about the feel of his body shuddering above her, inside her. It was an intense sort of wonder, a liquid sort of wonder. Impulsively Edie pushed aside her goodbye words and found hello words instead. It was easier than she had expected.

“I’m not worried. A lot,” she said with her best cheeky grin, which was usually termed irresistible by males and females and crotchety landlords. The man was going to be toast. “But you know, it’s New York, and there are all sorts of people out there. Bad people. People that will take advantage of you. They’ll milk the cab fares, make you change tires, kidnap you rather than let you go home. It’s a rotten city.”

“I thought you loved the city.”

She lifted her shoulders, taking in the way his eyes rested on her chest, clearly noticing the way her nipples had perked up in response. “Well, sure, I love the city, but I’m tough. I know what’s what. You’re a—a city virgin.”

It was awkward and stupid, and the most idiotic-sounding sexual come-on that she’d ever uttered.

“Not a city virgin anymore,” he remarked, equally awkward-sounding, but his eyes weren’t awkward, or stupid. They were pulling her into dark, sexy places. Places that Windsor knots shouldn’t know about.

“So, uh, what if somebody else comes along, and wants to take advantage of your generous nature and your tenderhearted Texas ways?”

His mouth curved up, not so tenderhearted. Some of the arrogance was back, but she didn’t mind it. Much. “Maybe I’d let them,” he told her, his voice pitching low, right along with her stomach. Again.

“See? What did I tell you? You’ve just proved my point here.”

“What are you going to do now?” he asked again.

The first rays of dawn were reflecting off the windows, the rain made everything smell fresh and new and the city was coming alive. It was contagious, infectious, and she knew that she wasn’t going home. Not yet.

“Now? I think I’m going to pick up somebody,” she told him, lightheaded and giddy, pleased with the dawning life in his eyes, not so lonely anymore.

Tyler’s suitcase landed on the sidewalk with a loud thud. “What if he’s a criminal?”

“I can read his eyes,” Edie answered, sure and certain. She still didn’t believe in one-night stands, but if she worked very hard, she could convince herself that staying with him, laying with him, making love with him was in his best interest. The ultimate pick-me-up, in a literal sense.

“What about his eyes?”

Edie glanced over at the X-rated doors and then shook her head because there were some lies that she wouldn’t perpetuate. This was one. “He belongs in the Hilton, not the Belvedere.”

Undeterred, Mr. Hilton touched a finger to her mouth, sending the touch of a thousand silk feathers trickling down her spine. For the first time, Edie considered the idea that she might have misjudged him.

Nah.

Before her world completely tilted out of control, Edie picked up his suitcase and they fought over it all the way inside.




4


THEY HAD GIVEN HIS ROOM away and the next one wouldn’t be ready for another three hours.

For Dr. Tyler Hart, it was the clot that burst his brain. All night, he had been so well-behaved, so thoughtful, so deserving of a single shining moment in time where the world recognized that he was not some bit of garbage that was stuck on someone’s shoe.

But did the Belvedere Hotel give one good goddamn about Dr. Tyler Hart?

No. To the stuck-up clerk at the front desk, he was just another pervert needing to get his rocks off, and yes, that was true, but there were many other phrases that could have been used. Better phrases. Less demeaning phrases.

In the end, Edie grabbed his bag, grabbed his hand and they were directed to the empty bar, which didn’t serve alcohol until noon because of some antiquated liquor laws. In New York.

“I’m sorry,” she told him, apologizing for the eightieth time. “I’d offer my place, but the exterminator is scheduled today.”

“It’s probably for the best,” he assured her, trying to make her feel better, trying to make him seem not so much the world’s biggest rebounding cad, which unfortunately, wasn’t a far cry from the truth.

“Probably,” she agreed, which immediately ticked him off because goddamn it, he was a prize. He was a sexual stud. And perhaps, perhaps, he might be deficient in the romance quotient, but didn’t saving lives on a thrice-weekly schedule count for something?

Oh, yeah. Not to her.

She must have noticed the frustration in his eyes, which wasn’t his intent by the way, because she took his hand and rubbed her thumb along his palm. “I would have loved to have had sex with you.”

She used the past tense. “Thank you,” he answered politely, fighting the urge to drop down on his knees and beg. God, he needed sleep. No, he needed sex.

“I could wait around until the room is ready….”

“No—” He thrust his hands through his hair, and clunked his head down on the table, hoping he hadn’t just concussed himself.

“We could find another hotel,” she offered.

“No. There comes a time when you have to throw in the towel,” he said, feeling the cold wood against his cheek. Then, Dr. Tyler Hart, the man who never gave up, fell into a much-needed, dreamless, sexless sleep.



WITH TYLER CONKED OUT, Edie parked the cab properly, bought a cup of coffee and then returned to the bar to watch him sleep. Gently, her fingers stroked his hair—only once—and she was pleased to see how soft it was, how the strands didn’t conform to one direction or another. Of course, she could have told her the truth and offered her apartment, but Edie had rules. She didn’t like to bring males home because it implied things she didn’t want to imply. Not even to good, honorable men like Tyler.

She wanted to have sex with him, she wanted to watch him without the coat, without the tie, without the grease-stained white shirt—which she wasn’t going to feel guilty about because she would replace it. So there would be no guilt. None at all.

Feeling guilty, Edie went to the clerk at the front desk and used her best Manhattan sophisticate smolder. “I know you don’t have a room, but my lover is exhausted and I was hoping we could find some place where he could sleep. He just flew in.”

“You’re with Dr. Hart?”

Doctor? A Ph.D.? Really. Suddenly, she perked up. He was like her. A student of higher learning. She should have seen it early. He, so unassuming and humble. Not caring about credentials or building dedications.

Now she definitely had to have him.

Driven by new inspiration and renewed lust, Edie counted out one-two-three-four Ben Franklins under the clerk’s greedy eyes. The bills were crisp, directly from the bank next door that she hit a few minutes ago because cash always solved a myriad of problems. Another lesson learned from Dr. Jordan Higgins, who regularly gave her cash in lieu of family dinners or atta-girl pats on the back.

Edie leaned on the mahogany counter, batting her eyelashes shamelessly. “Can you do something? Please?”

The man looked left, then right, before nodding once and sliding the bills into his pocket. “The theater is empty. There’s a bed in there.”

“Theater?” Perhaps some of the shock came through in her voice.

The clerk’s look all but shouted, “amateur,” and Edie shook off her nerves. She was Edie Never-Say-Die Higgins, who was unafraid of nothing, who walked away from nothing, who currently had a half-dead Ph.D. that needed some Edie-love.

Amateur, my ass.

“Won’t the voyeurs be disappointed in mere sleeping? Although later, perhaps…” she trailed off, brushing her knuckles on her shirt.

The clerk merely yawned. “No one is watching. The theater viewing rooms aren’t open until eleven a.m. The city has ordinances.”

“A pity.” Edie sighed, feigning disappointment, idly glancing into the candy bowl. “I was looking forward to the experience—the freedom of giving myself over to the rites of passion in front of strangers. Oh, well. I suppose this will have to do.”

She took another look into the bowl. That wasn’t candy. It was condoms.

Condoms.

She picked up one, noticed the man’s raised eyebrows, and then went back for seconds and thirds, stuffing them into her pocket.

The clerk penned some numbers on a slip of paper and slid it across the desk. “Here’s the keycode. Through the double-doors, past the Medici hallway.”

Medici hallway? Edie nodded, then pressed her fingers to her lips and kissed them, Medici style.



SOMEONE WAS KISSING his neck, and it wasn’t Cynthia. Cynthia didn’t believe in neck-kissing. Tyler considered opening his eyes, but he had decided he was dreaming, and he didn’t want to quit the dream. Not yet.

“Tyler,” whispered the dream. The dream had a low, sexy voice that tickled his ear, his neck. His cock surged, wanting its own piece of the action, but Tyler stayed still, his eyes firmly closed.

“We have a room, love. A very quiet room. So much more comfortable than this table. So much more private than this table. Wouldn’t you like that? I would like that, Tyler. I want to see you, I want to feel you. I want to taste you.”

One eye opened because when tasting was involved, reality was always better than a dream.

Edie.

And at that moment, he knew, deep in his cerebral cortex, that his dreams had never been this stunning.

Wanting to taste her, needing to taste her, he took her mouth and kissed her, energy flowing through him, his body firing awake in an instant. Oh, yes. This was so not Cynthia.

Edie.

She kissed him, her tongue pushing inside his mouth. Not shy. Not genteel. Never again would he hate New York.

Tyler locked his arms around her, pushing her shirt up, wanting to do more, but she laughed, put a hand to his chest.

“Follow me…” she trilled, but Tyler wasn’t sure why he needed to. They had space here. They had privacy here. What more was required?

“But…” he protested, stumbling on his words, afraid that some new disaster lurked around the corner only waiting to knock him down again.

“Tyler,” she said, and then he watched as she unzipped her fly, and placed his hand there. Tyler followed.



EDIE PUNCHED IN THE KEYCODE, opened the door and dashed toward the bed. Tyler fell on top of her, a master of sexual efficiency. He kissed her mouth, her neck, one hand was pushing at her jeans, the other was groping inside her shirt, finding her breasts, and her body shook with the pleasure.

She could feel him against her. His sex was heavy, full…and waiting. Her breath caught as that fullness ground between her thighs. There were too many layers. Too many clothes between them.

“Pants,” he muttered, and voilà, her jeans were gone. She fumbled at the perfectly tailored wool slacks and marveled at how soon they disappeared. He pulled her shirt over her head, and pushed her back into the pillows, his mouth feeding on one breast, pulling, sucking, and she pressed her hips against his, because…of this.

This.

His questing fingers delved low in her panties, finding her, pushing into her, matching the persistent pressure of his dazzling mouth. Her hips followed rolling up toward his exquisite fingers, riding the strokes, because he knew exactly where to touch her. Exactly how to please her.

Tyler buried his face against her neck and sighed happily and Edie memorized that tiny sound because she knew in her heart that Tyler did not sigh happily. She’d done that for him, and she was going to make him gasp, make him come.

The first whisper of the dawn was new and full of possibilities and her hand searched the covers, finding the condoms, grasping one, and trying to rip it open. Sensing her frustration, possibly due to her colorful vocabulary, he took it from her, and she could feel him moving, adjusting and then…

Yes.

The aching in her stilled when he filled her, so thick, so hard, so good.

So perfect.

The air burned, her whole body flush with the heat, until he rose above her, putting a long distance between them. Those steady eyes settled on her face, studying her before he sighed again. Not so happily this time.

“Why are you here?”

Edie froze at his responsible tone, wondering if this was a trick question, hoping it wasn’t because he felt so good, so right. But, alas, all that goodness slid out of her. Alone again.

Foolishly, she pushed at his hair even though it was too short to be in his eyes. She wanted to touch the dark strands that hung low on his face. Wisely she knew that this wasn’t the time.

Dammit.

Edie sighed, not so happily, either. Although she couldn’t blame him. In fact, she should have expected it. In fact, before he had made her forget that she expected it, she had expected it. And prepared for it, as well.

Not so prepared now, are we?

She smiled her fly-by-night smile that said no big deal, and pulled out the standard Edie Higgins script. “We’re having a connection, a momentary joining of two bodies who have stumbled across each other, groping in the darkest of nights, moving toward some feeling of soulful humanity.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, rolling off her and her soulful humanity.

“Well, that is one way of stating it. Two animals copulating in a primitive ritual of procreation and species sustainability. Although the condom takes care of most of that.”

He turned his head, and met her eyes, and she hated the maturity there, the practical wisdom that saw past her words.

“Why are you here?”

Edie rolled to her side of the bed, her hands knotted in the ruby spread. “I wanted to feel better. That’s all. Sue me.”

The room was so quiet that she could hear the exhale of his lungs, the shifting against the covers, away from her. Rejecting her.

Slowly she opened her eyes, watching them in the mirrored ceiling above the bed, her eyes a little too bright, her smile a little too flip and her hair a little too casually messed. There were so many differences between them, so why did it hurt? Consistency wasn’t a fixture in Edie’s life—unless someone needed her for something. Everything in her life was part of the universal economy of bartering. Something given, something taken in return. Now Tyler wanted to disrupt her system. Tyler, the scrupulous keeper of scruples. Even without the trench coat and tie, he was who he was. Not the sort who traded favors easily. His chest was broad, strong. His legs reliable, the kind that changed tires in the rain. Legs that didn’t collapse no matter how much shit she piled upon him.

“I don’t want you to owe me.” His words were spoken quietly, but they were a lot better than what she had imagined. Edie rolled a few inches closer. “Why are you here?” she asked, curious what had finally broken him down. Wounded pride? Exhaustion?

Or Edie?

“It’s my room,” he answered, which was no answer at all. Gingerly he lifted himself on his elbows, scanned the velvety bordello furnishings and then collapsed back into the pillows. “I’d hoped it was my room. Is this my room?”

“For now,” she hedged, not wanting to say more, waiting for him to say more, which he didn’t.

“Why are you here?” she asked again, needing to know. People were simple, motivated by basic pursuits. They didn’t forgo pleasure easily. They didn’t forgo happiness—usually. Before she laid down her cards, he was going to have to have a little more skin in the game. The important kind, not the naked kind.

Tyler moved closer and touched her, skimming one gentle finger down her arm. It was a nice touch, but a careful touch. “I want this. I want you. For most of this night, I’ve willingly followed you through hell, panting like a dog. I imagined you above me, below me, surrounding me. I’m pretty much at the end of my rope.”




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