The Texan's Royal M.D.

“Always.”

The reply was quick but not quite as light as she’d obviously intended. Mike hadn’t survived all those summers and holidays in the bare-knuckle world of the docks without learning to pick up on every nuance, spoken or not.

“But....?” he prompted.

She flashed him a look that ran the gamut from surprised to guarded to deliberately blasé. “Med school’s been a long and rather grueling slog. I’m in the homestretch now, though.”

“But...?” he said again, the word soft against the clink of cutlery and buzz of conversation from other tables.

The arrival of the server with their drinks saved Zia from having to answer. She hadn’t shared her insidious doubts with anyone in her family. Not even Dominic. Yet as she sipped her iced tea she felt the most absurd urge to spill her guts to this stranger.

So why not confide in him? Odds were she’d never see the man again after tonight. There were only a few days left on her precious vacation. And judging from Dev’s comments about Global Shipping Inc., its president and CEO had a shrewd head on his shoulders. Granted, he couldn’t begin to understand the demands and complexities of the medical world but that might actually be a plus. An outsider could assess her situation objectively, without the baggage of having cheered and supported and encouraged her through six and a half years of med school and residency.

“But,” she said slowly, swirling the ice in her tall glass, “I’m beginning to wonder if I’m truly right for pediatric medicine.”

“Why?”

She could toss out a hundred reasons. Like the overwhelming sense of responsibility for patients too young or too frightened to tell her how they hurt. The aching helplessness when faced with children beyond saving. The struggle to contain her fury at parents or guardians whose carelessness or cruelty inflicted unbelievably grievous injuries.

But the real reason, the one she’d thought she could compensate for by going into pediatric medicine, rose up to haunt her. She’d never talked about it to anyone but Dom. And even he was convinced she’d put it behind her. Yet reluctantly, inexplicably, Zia found herself detailing the old pain to Mike Brennan.

“I developed a uterine cyst my first year at university,” she said, amazed that she could speak so calmly of the submucosal fibroid that had changed her life forever. “It ruptured during winter break, while I was on a ski trip in Slovenia.”

She’d thought at first that she’d started her period early but the pain had become more intense with each hour. And the blood! Dear God, the blood!

“I almost died before they got me to the hospital. At that point the situation was so desperate the surgeons decided the only way to save my life was to perform an emergency hysterectomy.”

She fell silent as the waiter materialized at their table to take their order. Mike sent him away with a quiet, “Give us some time.”

“I love children,” Zia heard herself say into the silence that followed. “I always imagined I’d have a whole brood of happy, gurgling babies. When I accepted that I would never give birth to a child of my own, I decided that at least I could help alleviate the pain and suffering of others.”

“But...”

There it was. That damned “but” that had her hanging from a limb like a bird with a broken wing.

“It’s hard giving so much of myself to others’ children,” she finished, her voice catching despite every attempt to control it. “So much harder than I ever imagined.”

Her doubt and private misery filled the silence that spun out between them. Mike broke it after a moment with a question that cut to the core of her bruising inner conflict.

“What will you do if you don’t practice medicine?”

“I’ll stay in the medical field, but work on another side of the house.”

There! She’d said it out loud for the first time. And not to her brother or Natalie or the duchess or her cousins. To a stranger, who didn’t appear shocked or disappointed that she would trade her lifelong goal of treating the sick for the sterile environment of a lab.

Like all third-year residents at Mount Sinai, she’d been required to participate in a scholarly research project in addition to seeing patients, attending conferences and teaching interns. Worried by the seeming increase in hospital-acquired infections among the premature infants in the neonatal ICU, she’d searched for clues via five years’ worth of medical records. Her extensive database included the infants’ birth weight, ethnic origin, delivery methods, the time lapse to onset of infections, methods of treatment and mortality rates.

Although she wouldn’t brief the results of her study until the much anticipated annual RRP—Residents’ Research Presentation—her preliminary findings had so intrigued the hospital’s director of research that he’d suggested an expanded effort that included more variables and a much larger sample base. He’d also asked Zia to conduct the two-year study under his direct supervision. If the grant came through within the next few months, she could start the research as her spring elective, then join Dr. Wilbanks’s team full-time after completing her residency.

“The director of pediatric research at Mount Sinai has already asked me to join his staff,” she confided to Mike.

“Is that as impressive as it sounds?”

A hint of pride snuck into her voice. “Actually, it is. Dr. Wilbanks seems to think the study I’ve been working on as a resident is worth expanding into a full-fledged team effort. He also thinks it might warrant as much as a million-dollar research grant.”

“That is impressive. What does the study involve?”

Lord, he was easy to talk to. Zia didn’t usually discuss topics such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, aka MRSA, with someone not wearing scrubs. Especially during a candlelit dinner.

As the incredibly scrumptious meal progressed, however, Brennan’s interest stimulated her as much as his quick grasp of the essentials of her study.

* * *

She couldn’t blame either his interest or his intellect for what happened when they left the restaurant, however. That was result of a lethal combination of factors. First, their decision to walk back along the beach. Zia had to remove her borrowed stilettos to keep from sinking in the sand, but the feel of it hard and damp beneath bare feet only added to her heightened perceptions. Then there was the three-quarter moon that traced a liquid silver path across the sea. And finally the arm Mike slid around her waist.

She turned into his kiss, fully anticipating that it would be pleasant. A satisfying end to an enjoyable evening. She didn’t expect the hunger that balled in her belly when his mouth fused with hers.

He felt the kick, too. Although his hat brim shadowed his eyes when he raised his head, his skin was stretched tight across his cheeks and there was a gruff edge to his voice when he asked if she’d like to stop by his place for coffee or a drink.

Or...?

He didn’t have to say it. Her pulse kicking, Zia knew the invitation was open-ended. “Don’t you have company? Davy and...” She searched her memory. “And Kevin and their mother?”

“Eileen took the kids back to town this afternoon. I suspect she won’t let either of them close to the water for the next five years. She wants to thank you personally, by the way. She told me to be sure and get your phone number.” Laughter rumbled in his chest. “I promised I would.”

Zia hesitated for all of three seconds before digging her cell phone out of her purse. “I’ll text my family and tell them not to wait up for me.”

Three (#ulink_1135acff-91c2-51c4-be76-9134e4134cf2)

The brief detour to Mike’s place should have allowed plenty of time for Zia’s common sense to reassert itself. Would have, if he hadn’t taken her arm again to steer her toward a barely discernible path through the dunes. His hand was warm against her skin, his body close—too close!—to hers in the silvery moonlight.

The beach house on stilts he conducted her to was obviously new. Gleaming a pale turquoise in the moonlight, it sat on a high rise that gave it an unobstructed view of both the Gulf of Mexico and the lights of Houston gleaming in the far distance. The thick pilings looked as though they went down a mile, and white-painted storm shutters framed every window.

When Mike ushered her up the stairs to the front landing and keyed the door lock, Zia still had time to defuse the situation. Once inside, she could have drifted to the wall of windows overlooking the Gulf. Could have contemplated the moon’s reflection on the dark, restless sea. Could have accepted his offer of an after-dinner brandy or coffee. Against every increasingly strident warning issued by her clinical, careful self, she ignored the view and declined a drink. Weeks of stress, indecision and near exhaustion got lost in a rush of biological need. For what was left of the night, she didn’t want to think. Didn’t want to do anything but give herself up to the hunger pulsing through her in slow, liquid rolls.

And Brennan didn’t waste time repeating the offer. Tugging off his hat, he skimmed it carelessly toward the nearest chair and cupped her face in his palms.

“You are so gorgeous.”

His thumbs brushed her cheeks, her lower lip. An answering need turned his forest-glade eyes as dark and restless as the sea. Zia felt another wild leap as she sensed the iron control that held him back. He was leaving it to her to dodge the bullet hurtling at them in warp speed...or step in front of it. She chose option B.

Dropping the stilettos she’d carried into the house, she hooked her arms around his neck. “So are you.”

“Me? Gorgeous?” He looked startled, then amused. “Not hardly, darlin’.”

The drawl came slow and rich, and the laughter in his eyes raised goose bumps of delight. That, and the quick, confident way he claimed her mouth. He was much a man, this Michael Brennan.

Very much a man, as she discovered when he lowered his hands to her waist and drew her into him. He hardened against her hip even as his lips moved over hers with dizzying skill. He’d been married, she remembered, and had learned well how to stoke a woman’s fire. She was panting when he raised his head. Eager for his touch when he fumbled the clip from her hair. The heavy mass tumbled free, and Brennan buried his hands in it, holding her steady while he explored her mouth again.