Harlequin Medical Romance December 2015, Box Set 1 of 2 by Tina Beckett Read Free Book Online Page A

directly at him. Ignoring her sister just as she was ignoring her baby. “Someone will. Yes.” He was not going to let her use him to wound Jess even more.
    She left the room without so much as a thank you or another glance at her child.
    The second she was gone, Jess dropped into the seat her sister had just vacated. “Oh, my God, why on earth did you do that?”
    He wasn’t sure why, himself. Maybe the urge to protect was overdeveloped in him—the result of having no one to defend him as a child. That could also explain why he’d felt such a strong need to help the most vulnerable of humans: newborns in crisis.
    â€œWell, it wasn’t a total fabrication. We do have The Pub.” He said it as if it were some special shared memory, rather than a total washout.
    She actually smiled. “Did you have any luck after I left?”
    Dean hadn’t stuck around. He’d followed her...staying far enough behind for her not to notice, but close enough to know she made it to her car without that big Scot following her.
    â€œI decided to stick to the rules, after all.”
    â€œOh.” She blinked a couple of times as if surprised. “Well, anyway, thanks for what you did a few minutes ago. It wasn’t necessary, though. It didn’t seem to matter to her one way or the other, except maybe she finally believes I’m not after her husband.”
    â€œOh, it mattered. She just wasn’t going to let you see it.”
    If anyone knew, he did. How many times had he hidden his feelings from his father? Dean had stood there and let the man do his worst without crying or pleading for him to stop. Because he’d learned to detach himself from what was happening to and around him. As a result, he’d learned to keep his emotions tucked away to the point of almost denying he had any.
    Except when he did foolhardy stuff like pretending to be someone’s significant other for no good reason. And it had been foolhardy. Because dancing with her at the pub, getting to know the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed affected him on a level he hadn’t known existed. Maybe because he’d never bothered to truly get to know the women he dated.
    Like that thin streak of gray he’d noticed over the past couple of nights when she’d tucked her hair behind her ears. It almost blended in with the rest of the blonde strands, but not quite.
    â€œWhere did you get this?” He couldn’t resist touching the silky lock now.
    â€œThe gray, you mean?” Her smile widened. “A llama at a petting zoo decided to get a little too friendly with my hair clip when I was a kid. It yanked the clip—and a good hunk of my hair—out and chewed on them for a while before deciding they weren’t so great, after all. When the hair grew back, it was white.”
    He ran the bleached-out tresses between his fingers. “Your sister doesn’t have this, then.”
    â€œNo, she doesn’t.” She gave a slight shrug. “It’s my own personal souvenir.”
    A visible reminder of past hurt. Thankfully his own past remained invisible to the world, even if the aftermath still bubbled up inside of him from time to time. It was one reason he hadn’t wanted to work with toddlers or young children. His suspicious mind would probably jump to conclusions each time a boy or girl presented with a broken arm. Or a broken heart.
    No. This was where he belonged.
    Jess leaned forward and glanced at her niece, the act tugging her hair from his fingers. “I never even noticed the spot on her leg before,” she murmured.
    â€œBecause it’s not important.”
    â€œIt is to Abbie.”
    His fingers itched to give her hand a reassuring squeeze. He curled them into a ball at his side, instead. “It may fade with time.”
    â€œMy sister has always tried so hard to be perfect. She’s incredibly disciplined about everything she