Summer almost smiled; he sounded so much like a balky little boy. Like David in a snit. Instead, she gave a put-upon sigh. “Lord above, you’re a stubborn man. All right, I guess I’ll have to see what I can do. Please tell me you at least have a first aid kit?”

He did, in the mudroom. David came clumping up the stairs just then, out of breath, eyes sparkling with his eagerness to help, so Summer took the ice tray and oven mitt from him and sent him back down for the first aid kit. Then she turned to Riley. “Okay, where do you want me to do this?”

“I don’t know-I guess the bathroom’s the best place.” He turned and marched down the hallway and through a doorway.

Hurrying after him, Summer found herself a moment later in another of those circumstances she would never in a million years have ever expected to be-in Riley Grogan’s bedroom. She had time only for brief impressions: the warmth of honey toned wood; soft green walls and furnishings in deep, mysterious blues, colors that were repeated in the Persian rugs and in the framed art-mostly watercolors-that hung on the walls. Somehow she knew they weren’t prints, not even the signed, limited-edition kind. It’s so like him, she thought. This room, like everything about him, was handsome and graceful, classy and elegant, well-ordered and…not impersonal, exactly, but… intensely private. Like everything about him. Except us. The children, the animals and me. We don’t belong here. We don’t fit.

Riley hobbled across the room without stopping. Summer followed him through a pair of open double doors at the far end, through a dressing room larger than most bedrooms, with walls lined with built-in shelves, drawers and closets in the same golden wood-no wonder he always looks so nice, she thought, trying not to stare-and into what was simply the biggest and most luxurious bathroom she had ever seen.

“My word,” she breathed, staring in frank awe at an enormous tile-enclosed whirlpool tub in a sky-lighted alcove filled with blooming orchids, “does it come with dancing handmaidens, too?”

“Of course,” said Riley, without missing a beat. “But I thought it best to give them all a vacation of unspecified duration-”

“-with pay, of course,” Summer chimed in with a nod and a wry smile. She looked around, hands on her hips. She thought, it’s like being inside his skin… His scent, the unique and indefinable man-smell along with touches of soap and aftershave, mingled with the residual dampness of his morning shower, seemed to hang in the air like fog. It was inescapable; it permeated her being with every breath she took.

“Okay, well… here, I guess-” she indicated the commode, lowered the seat and lid “-it may be tried and true, but it’s still the best place.” She looked Riley in the eye, gave the lid a pat and said firmly, “Rex-sit.”

He gave her a look and a snort of surprised laughter, but obeyed. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he remarked as he surrendered his shirt to her outstretched hand.

“Oh, yeah,” she said dryly. Okay then-this seemed to be the way to handle the situation-keep it light. Silliness and banter. Jokes. She could do this. With a shallow breath of relief, she dropped the shirt onto the floor and bent over him. “Okay, let’s have a look…”

Oh, how wrong she’d been. Light banter and silly jokes were no match for the wave of sensation that washed over her the moment she touched him. She’d doctored angry pythons and terrified pit bulls with steady hands and nerves of steel, dealt with traumatized horses and fighting, clawing cats without a qualm. So why, as she felt the damp silkiness of this man’s hair on her fingertips, was her heart in her throat and her belly filled with knots?

She had to ask him to bend down, but found that she could only whisper it. Why, when every inch of her seemed soaked in sweat, did her mouth feel dry as dust?

And instead of doing as she’d asked, Riley simply looked at her. Time stopped. Suddenly, for Summer, the world consisted of the busiest, noisiest silence she’d ever heard, empty of words but filled with booming pulses and humming nerves, crowded with unspoken messages, discoveries, declarations… denials. This can’t be happening!

But the thought was there in her mind, plain as day and delicious as sin, the same one she could see in the eyes that held hers in thrall with their hot, smoky look, intoxicating as whiskey. He wanted to kiss her. And she wanted him to kiss her. Oh, yes, she could see it in his eyes, in the pulse that throbbed at the base of his throat, in the sudden, reflexive tightening of his hands on his thighs; hear it in his quickened breathing; feel it in the heat that rose from him in almost palpable waves to envelop her like a wet towel. She could taste it-taste him-smooth skin over firm muscle, sweat-slick on her lips, salt on her tongue…the sweet, salty taste of a man’s sweat… Oh, God, it had been so long.

Her stomach knotted and coiled. Almost on a level with his ears! Would he hear it? She was trembling inside. If she touched him now, he would have to know!

“Mom! Mom, where are you guys?” Summer closed her eyes as sneakers squeaked on tile. “Oh, there you are. Is this it? I looked where you told me to and it wasn’t there, so I just looked around and…I found it.”

She turned to take the large metal box from her son’s proudly outstretched hands. “Yes, honey, thanks-that looks like just what we need.” Behind her she could hear Riley take a quick, deep breath and let it out, long and slow. Her own heart was racing like a panic-stricken rabbit’s, but her voice was calm, and her hands, she was pleased to note as she placed the first aid kit on the countertop and popped the latch, did not shake.

“Can I watch?”

“No, you may not. What you are going to do, young man, is go and look for your sister. Now. You got that? And don’t come back until you’ve found her.”

David addressed an unhappy “Yes, ma’am” to his shoes.

Riley watched as Summer took the boy’s face in her hands and tilted it up for a quick kiss, then turned him around and gave him a firm but gentle push toward the door. And he felt a familiar ache forming like sickness in his chest

He heard her take a quick breath as she turned back to the counter and the box of first aid supplies. “Well, now, let’s see what we’ve got.”

She kept her eyes averted, he noticed, carefully avoiding looking at him, or at her own image in the mirrors that stretched the whole length of the counter. There were mirrors behind her, too, and Riley watched her without her knowledge as she sorted through the kit, taking out what she needed and setting it carefully aside on the tile. He studied her angular, almost patrician profile, noticing the way her hair grew in a cowlick on one side of her forehead and gave her face a quirky, slightly asymmetrical look; noticing that when she wore it pulled up in a ponytail like that, it showed darker, almost doe-brown underneath, with streaks of sun-yellow above; noticing the soft tendrils of drying hair that wafted around her temples and along her neck. Oh, she did have a lovely neck…

Once she raised her head, tilted it slightly but without looking directly at him and murmured, “Cotton swabs?” Distracted, he indicated the drawer he thought the most likely, and she nodded and went to look, giving a nod and a satisfied “Ah” when she found them.

She turned to the sink then, and Riley went back to studying her while she turned on the water and let it run hot, pumped liquid soap and worked it into a lather, which she slathered all the way up above her elbows. She had long, firmly toned arms…strong, broad shoulders…supple back…slender waist.

Thank God, he thought, she wasn’t ever going to know how close he’d been to putting his hands on that waist, spanning that firm and supple back and, if she was willing, pulling her down astride him right there where he sat. And if he was lucky, she was never going to know how much he still wanted to do that very thing, or guess that even now he could feel the weight of her smooth-muscled thighs pressing on his, feel the moist heat of her body soaking through his old shirt…imagine himself opening it, and the slick-slippery meeting of her breasts with his chest…the slap of her belly against his…the taste of her mouth, the feel of those supple, mobile lips moving under his…the ripe-peaches smell of her hair…and her hands, those strong, no-nonsense hands making imprints in the muscles of his back…

“Ready?” Was it his imagination, or did she sound as breathless as he felt, standing there looking at him with her eyes alight, drying her hands on a towel. She handed him the towel almost absentmindedly; he took it and gave his face and neck, shoulders and torso a cursory wipe with it before laying it across his lap-a seemingly casual act, but oh, how grateful he was for that towel just then.

“I could sure use a shower,” he muttered. A cold one.

“You can shower when I’m finished…I’ll lend you one of my shower caps, if you like.” She was frowning at his scalp. “Am I to assume you’d rather I didn’t shave off too much of your hair? Just kidding.”

Riley snorted. “You’re a regular not, Doc.”

“Gee…my other patients don’t seem to mind. Okay, hold the towel up to your face while I pour some of this hydrogen peroxide into the cut…little bit more…okay, that’s good. Now some antiseptic…”

“Ouch!”

“Don’t be a baby…the sting just means-”

“It’s doing its job, I know. Hurry it up, will you?”

“Almost done. Now-I’d like to put a couple of these little butterfly bandages across the cut to close it, but I’ll have to snip off just a lit-tle teeny bit of hair. Is that going to be okay? You won’t even see it, I promise.”

Lord, how vain did she think he was? “Do it,” he muttered. “Get it over with.” He closed his eyes and held his breath; it wasn’t pain he was trying his best to shut out, but her scent, her nearness. His stomach growled; he was helpless to stop it.