Chapter One
Ace Osprey was bleeding again.
Not a surprise. The guy showed up bleeding at least once a week. At this point, Dr. May Smirnov had spent more time stitching up the handsome jackass than she had with her own skin care routine. Which, admittedly, consisted of soap, water, and inexpensive lotion.
She had walked back into her clinic after a quick lunch down the street and now stared at him in the quaint waiting room while trying, really hard, to hold on to her temper. Pictures she’d taken of the outlying wilderness decorated the walls and failed to provide peace for once. As the small Alaska town’s only doctor, she had to act like a professional, even though she wanted to smack him atop his stubborn head.
“What now?” Okay. That sounded more like a ticked off girlfriend and not a doctor. She was not his girlfriend and never would be. “Ace?”
He lounged on the newish green leather chairs she’d managed to obtain just a day ago, his legs long, his eyes a mellow green tonight. “I tripped and fell.”
She ground her back teeth together and moved toward him, leaning to study the cut above his left eye. The flow had slowed to a trickle that ran down the side of his face to land on his grey T-shirt. “Looks like a ring caught you.”
He grinned. “You’re good at this, Doc.”
The cut wasn’t bad. She could bandage it with a butterfly. “Will I have another patient coming in?”
“Nah. I dropped him fast with a punch to the gut. He was coughing out blood a bit, but I didn’t damage anything inside him. The guy was already pretty tuned up with booze, and he went back to eating his lunch.” Ace still hadn’t moved.
She knew a lecture wouldn’t help. Even so, she owed him the truth as his doctor. “You need to stop this nonsense, Ace.” The guy was always getting in fights, but he never hurt anybody. Not really. And something told her he could if he chose. It was as if he wanted to punish himself. “Again, I have several names?—”
“I don’t need a shrink, Doc,” he drawled.
The heck he didn’t. “Even if you won’t see a professional, why not drop by Smitty’s?” She could not believe she’d just suggested the old mountain man help Ace, but the guy was known to fix a head or two. At least, that’s what she’d heard. “It can’t hurt.”
“You don’t know that.” The smile widened, making Ace look even more roguish. “When Paul Leithy went up to Smitty’s for advice last week, Smitty threw him out a window. I guess Paul was being a moron.”
They were all morons. All men. Well, not all. But most. May straightened, fighting the very real urge to brush a lock of Ace’s dark brown, almost black, hair away from his angled face. He was at least half Inuit and had the strong features of his people. The very handsome features. Touching him in such a way would be very un-doctorlike, and she battled with herself every day to keep professional with him. “I’d like to throw you out a window.”
He barked out a laugh, and even that held charm. Well, a rough-edged, born and bred in the Alaskan wilderness, charm. “You know I’d let you put your hands on me any way you want.”
Ah, the flirty Ace was back. She wondered, not for the first time, what he’d do if she took him up on one of his invitations. Probably run for the jagged mountains surrounding them and disappear. He thought she was safe to flirt with because she worked as his doctor. True. He had a right to believe that. Besides, he’d been playing with plenty of the tourists in town for the fishing season. Young women looking for adventure, and from what she’d heard, they’d found plenty of it with Ace. Apparently the Alaskan native was a ‘god’ in bed.
Hah. She found that very hard to believe. The guy was immature and selfish, although she had noted a kindness in him.
“Are you going to patch me up, or what?” The blood had begun to congeal.
“That’s my job,” she said dryly, studying his eyes. Clear with normal sized pupils. “Before we move to an examination room, do you have any other symptoms?” It was doubtful, but if he passed out, she’d have trouble getting him up by herself. Ace was a muscled machine at well over six feet tall, and she, well, wasn’t. “Dizziness, nausea, headache, ringing in the ears?”
He gingerly probed the wound. “Nope. My face just hurts.”
“It’s killin’ me,” she retorted, slapping his hand away. “Don’t touch it.”
“Don’t hit,” he groused.
She sighed. “I didn’t hit you, you big baby.”
He grasped her wrist as she started to move back. “Doc? Why don’t you give in and just let me take you out one of these nights? As a thank you for all the stitches, if for nothin’ else.”
She easily twisted free of his loose hold. “You know? I should just take you up on that so you stop asking. We both know you don’t mean it.”
He sobered, his eyes turning an even deeper green. Or maybe it was just the soft lighting in the waiting room. “I do mean it. I’d give you a night you’d never forget.”
Something ached inside her. “I have enough of those. Believe me.”
His gaze narrowed. “What does that mean?”
Yeah, she sounded sad and not amused. “Not what you think.” She slid her hand beneath his arm to pull him up. “Come on. Let’s clean that and put a butterfly bandage on it. I don’t even need to stick you with a numbing needle this time.”
