Jill Shalvis - Luke

The waterfall in the reception area was on, the sound of the water cascading gently over a riverbed of rocks soothed the waiting patients, along with soft music she'd handpicked, the gentle lighting, and comfy ergonomic chairs. All in calming colors from the natural palette.

Definitely, deliberately, a world away from the E.R. Any E.R. "What do you think?"

"Well, no one is screaming in the waiting room," Luke said. "Always a good sign. Hmm, I suppose I can forgive the beaded curtains behind the receptionist. Who do you have on staff?"

He was a man used to being in charge of everything and everyone around him, she reminded herself. She couldn't fault that about him. He did have incredible skill, the reason she'd agreed to have him here in the first place. "Today we have two naturopathic practitioners, myself and Shelby Dodd, and also a massage therapist." But adding an M.D. on staff, one with Luke's prestige and incredible reputation, would surely boost her clientele.

And her checkbook. She hated to be so bottom-line about anything, but at the moment, hovering in the red, she had to be.

"Before we start," he said in a low voice, turning from his inspection of the place to look at her. "I just want you to know, I never said the clinic was worthless."

She stared up at his solemn features and nearly got lost in those light blue eyes. "The newspaper said-"

"They exaggerated." When she raised a brow, he sighed. "The hospital let twenty-five housekeeping employees go, employees who were forced to work four hours a week less than the full-time hours required for full benefits. The hospital insisted on that to save money, and then they let them go anyway, stating budget issues. The next day they sent your clinic a tidy sum."

"And you objected to that."

"Yes." His jaw went tight. "I objected to that."

She stared up into his face and felt an unexpected connection. "I would have objected, too," she said softly.

His eyes reflected surprise, but before he could say something, Shelby came around the corner and waved Faith down. "I just paged you. Woman in labor in room four. Fully dilated, fully effaced, freaking out, won't push, won't let us even take a peek anymore."

Faith set her purse down and started walking fast with Shelby at her side. "First baby?"

"Oh yeah. And she's a screamer."

"Get Guy-"

"He's already in there. If anyone can soothe a terrified pregnant lady…"

"Guy can." Guy Anders, their therapeutic massage therapist, had a voice that could sedate a gangbanger, and hands from heaven. He was their ace in the hole in situations like this, but still, as they rounded the corner and heard the screams, Faith cringed, both in sympathy for the woman and the people in the waiting room. "Dr. Walker-"

"I'll assist," he said from right behind her, and in fact, pushed into the room ahead of her.

Shelby lifted a brow, and Faith sighed. "He's used to being in charge."

Shelby let out a low laugh. "Well, since you are, too, this is going to be interesting."

They stepped into the room, where the screaming had stopped. Their patient, a woman in her midtwenties, lay in the bed, eyes huge on one Dr. Luke Walker, tall and leanly muscular, scrubbing his hands at the sink and talking to her the entire time. Then he hunkered down at her side, holding her hand, murmuring words too softly spoken for Faith to catch.

On the other side of the bed stood Guy, also tall and handsome, though unusually so with a purple stripe in his hair, and interesting tattoos and piercings. He shot Faith a bemused glance at being usurped, but didn't say a word.

Luke lifted his head and searched out Faith. "Margaret's ready to push now. I'm going to examine her first. Do you have a spare set of scrubs?"

"No!" Margaret sat straight up, not an easy feat with forty pounds of belly, and grabbed Luke by the collar. "No scrubbing, no changing! I want to push now!"

With her fists embedded in his shirt, Luke simply nodded calmly. "We can do that," he said in a soft, utterly authoritative yet kind voice, accepting gloves from Faith and snapping them on. To everyone he said, "I'll deliver in my street clothes."

Faith had just scrubbed and was already moving around to the foot of the bed. As a nurse practitioner she'd delivered more babies than she could count, simply because the doctors tended not to make it in time. Since she'd opened the clinic, there'd been hundreds more. Delivering babies was her favorite part of the job.

But Luke beat her to it. Leaning in, he murmured for her ears only, "She's obviously low pain tolerance, let's get her an epidural-"

"Her chart says she requested no drugs when she arrived."

He leaned in closer, stooping a little to stand eye-to-eye with her, and since they were eye-to-eye, she had no trouble seeing his carefully reined-in anger. "You don't believe in epidurals?"

"She requested to do this naturally," she repeated.

"Ah, the barbaric way then," he said. "Have you ever had a baby naturally, Faith McDowell?"

"No, and I'm fairly certain you haven't either. There are plenty of other methods of easing pain-healing touch, herbs, imagery, pressure point therapy-"

"Let the patient decide against conventional pain meds," he said in a low, harsh whisper. "Let her decide in the moment, as in right now, not before she knows what she's getting into. And don't let your beliefs drive the decision, that's unfair."

"Fine." She shoved her chin in the air. "Clearly you have this situation under control. I'll tend to the other patients."

Without responding, he turned his attention to Margaret, his big body leaning over hers protectively, talking in that same low, gentle voice he'd never used on Faith.

She should be thankful for small favors, because that voice he didn't share with her made her tummy quiver and her legs feel funny. Boneless.

She really wished she'd had some chocolate.

* * *

Margaret delivered a beautiful eight-pound girl-without the epidural.

Faith delivered herself a pounding tension headache, the kind she'd had daily once upon a time, when she'd worked at the hospital.

"I need a new set of scrubs," Luke told her a couple of hours later on a rare two-minute break between patients.

"Fine." She strode down the hall, jerked open the supply closet and flipped on the light. She could smell him behind her, and one would think after hours of working with patients and running at a fast pace, he'd at least smell like it, but no. He smelled delicious, quite frankly. "How do you do that?" she asked grumpily.

"Do what?"

"Still smell good." She didn't point out how annoying that was. Or that her nose was straining to catch the scent of him.

"My mother always told me to smell good."

That startled a laugh out of her. "Really?"

"No." He was smiling. Good Lord, he shouldn't do that, because like his voice, it did funny things to her insides. "My mom didn't tell me anything," he said. "She had the nanny do it."

"Ah. Poor little rich boy, Dr. Walker?"

"Luke. And nah, not rich. My mother just didn't like messy things, and my brother and I were about as messy as they came."

No. No, she didn't want to hear this, that he was human, that he'd had a mother who hadn't mothered him, that he had a brother he'd obviously shared a lot with, that he… that he just might have had as lonely a childhood as she.

She found him a pair of scrubs, and as she pulled them off the shelf, she fought back a laugh. Pink flowered scrubs. Smiling at the petty revenge, she turned around to hand them to him and found him much closer than she'd anticipated, as he'd stepped into the supply room behind her, craning his neck to check out the shelves. The last time she'd been this close to him, this morning, in fact, he'd been only half-dressed and tousled. Now his short, spiky dark hair had been combed, though his jaw still showed a shadow, probably because she'd given him the bum's rush, not giving him time to breathe, much less shave. It didn't change the potency of being this close to him. So close she could have leaned in a fraction of an inch and-

"Nicely stacked."

She watched his lips move, heard the words, and her jaw fell open as she looked down at the front of her scrubs, which so effectively hid her breasts. She had no idea how he'd-

"The shelves," he repeated slowly, frowning at her reaction. "They're nicely stocked. Organized."

Nicely stocked. Stocked, you idiot. Good God, she needed to get it together. This was her arena, her clinic, and lust, or whatever had happened to her genes and hormones since she'd set eyes on him, didn't have a place. Nope, no matter how big, bad and pulse-jerkingly magnificent the man standing close enough to grope was, she needed to ignore it all. "Um… thanks."

He'd complimented the clinic. Okay… maybe this could work, maybe they could find a happy medium-

"For a froufrou clinic," he added.

Nope. No happy medium.

Faith decided it must be a full moon, as besides their scheduled massage therapy, acupressure and aromatherapy appointments, they had an unusual number of women in labor, walk-ins and emergencies.

Either a full moon… or curiosity about Dr. Luke Walker. She decided it didn't matter. She loved knowing people came to Healing Waters for help. She ended up eating lunch on the run, which she hated to do but it couldn't be helped. And by late afternoon, she felt that familiar light-headedness-the one that signaled her resistance was down-and still had that monster headache that wouldn't quit.

If she didn't want to get sick, she needed a break, horizontal on her couch in her office. And she'd get it, she promised herself, as soon as she saw the seventeen-year-old waiting for her in room seven who wanted to get on birth control pills without her mother's permission.