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Their contentment.
He groaned.
Lids batting seductively, she smiled up at him. “Definitely not gay.”
“I wasn’t finished if you need more proof.”
Her expression grew quizzical, slightly guarded, her big eyes searching his. “Is that what you’re doing? Proving a point?”
Part of him wanted to act macho and say, yes, that was what he’d been doing. But he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t lie to Madison. Not about this or anything, and that left him exposed in an unfamiliar and unwanted way.
But that guarded look had undone him.
Someone had hurt her in the past. Hurt her and left her in need of rescue. Hell. He was no white knight. Couldn’t be even if he wanted to be. After all, his father’s blood ran through his veins.
“If you’re referring to the point that I want you…” he stuck with a question he could answer “…then, yes, that kiss was all about proving a point.”
“Excellent point.” Relaxing against the blanket, relief spread across her face and filled him with similar relief.
He laughed, clasping her hand within his. “I like you, Madison. A lot.”
Never had he seen a more brilliant smile on her lovely face. “I like you, too. I have from the moment we first met.”
He remembered the moment well. “You were wearing scrubs with Woodstock on them the day we met.”
She blinked, staring at him in surprise. “I was doing what?”
“The first time I saw you, you were wearing blue pants and a scrub top with that little yellow bird on it,” he clarified, wondering if the fact he recalled what she’d been wearing that day signified anything more than that he had a good memory.
And that she’d made a lasting impression on him.
“It’s one of my favorites,” she said softly, looking a bit as if she’d been hit by a stun gun and hadn’t fully recovered and wasn’t sure she ever would.
“Mine, too.” Because each time she wore that shirt he was reminded of that day and that memory made him feel better inside, made him…dared he say it, happy?
She twisted her fingers together, then caught what she was doing and slid them beneath her thighs, securing them between her legs and the chair canvas. “You’ve dated a lot of women who work at Angel Creek Hospital?”
Oh, Madison. Whoever he was, he hurt you badly, didn’t he?
He lifted her hand to his mouth, pressed a kiss to her soft, capable fingers. “Yes. Because of proximity and the time constraints, a lot of the women I’ve dated work at Angel Creek Hospital. If that’s a problem for you, then we need to discuss that right now, before you and I go any further.”
And what would he say if she said his past was a problem?
He couldn’t change the fact that up to that point women had, for the most part, been interchangeable in his life. Sad, but true. God, he had been turning into a chip off the old block, hadn’t he? A mirror image of dear Dad.
No, he’d never hit a woman. Never would.
Maybe he did have a bit of a white knight in him. One who wanted to pound any man who hit a woman.
“I’ve not dated anyone at Angel Creek Hospital, but I’m not a virgin,” she surprised him by saying. Her eyes flashed in challenge. “Is that a problem for you?”
Was that a trick question?
“Uh, no,” he admitted, but as soon as the answer left his lips the idea that some man had once made love to Madison reached in and gripped his stomach in a vise. A green-coated one. When had he ever been jealous of a woman’s past lovers? Never. He wouldn’t start now. But he had been jealous of whoever she’d spent the previous night with.
He didn’t want her spending time with any man except him.
“Good.” She smiled smugly, almost as if she could read his mind, had seen the flash of jealousy. How did she do that? Look at him and know his thoughts? “Then you’ll understand when I say that your past is just that, in the past. Just as mine is.” She stared him straight in the eyes. “You can’t change yours any more than I can change mine.”
