First Real Kiss

What he didn’t know was I was a champion walker. “It’s not good-bye. It’s until next time, Dr. Hotwell. Or, should I say, until you hear from my attorney. I’m suing you for malpractice.”

This brought him to a sudden halt. He whirled around.

Momentum from my speed carried me, and I barreled right into his chest. It was a solid landing pad, and my forehead whacked right into his rock-hard pectorals.

Ouch.

“Sorry.” I stepped back and looked up, rubbing my head.

Dr. Hotwell was eyeing me with a fire in his brooding, Luke Perry eye. “You don’t have grounds to sue me.”

“Then I’ll gather up all the families of your past patients and launch a class-action lawsuit against you.” I stepped back a little, just so I wasn’t nose-to-ribcage with him and his, wow, very masculine scent.

“For what?”

“For wrongful death.”

“Ha.” His chin lifted. Or, I should say, his square jaw lifted. “I’m the best heart surgeon around, on track for becoming the MVS—Most Valuable Surgeon—of cardiology for not just Torrey Junction Hospital but for the whole regional hospital network. I’ve performed more valve replacements in this calendar year than most surgeons do in a lifetime. I haven’t lost a single patient on the operating table.”

“Yeah, because you drain their will to live before they can even get that far!” Smoke was probably billowing out of my ears.

Roland deserved better than these excuses. He’d been a troubled guy, but so earnest. Such a sweetheart, like a big Saint Bernard, really. Emphasis on big. Sure, his size probably had a lot to do with his heart trouble, but he and I had been working on that. He’d made great strides. He’d deserved to live with hope—for much longer than six days!

“There will be no lawsuit.” He glowered down at me, his frown infusing my soul.

Was he threatening me? “If not for wrongful death, then for intentional infliction of”—I forgot the word Jane used, so I pinch-hit with—“pain and suffering.”

“I alleviate suffering, Ms. Chandler. I’m a doctor. Now, goodbye.” He tugged at his lanyard, swiped his doctor badge against a security plate, and disappeared inside a staff-only door.

He left me frothing in the hospital hallway? With the tip of my nose smelling like his Dove+Men body wash? So infuriating! My heart could’ve given out from the race it was running, caused solely by our unpleasant conversation, and I wouldn’t have had him as my competent heart surgeon to save me.

“You’d better watch out!” I yelled through the crack between the doors. “Karma is going to get you!”

I’d sic Jane on him, and then he’d be sorry.

Nobody wanted to go up against a pregnant lawyer during a jury trial. And with her fourth baby barely at the halfway mark, Jane was showing like she was nine months.

Yeah, Dr. Luke Hotwell had better watch out.