Lucy Ryder - Resisting Her Rebel Hero

“Your sister can handle herself,” Hazel pointed out reasonably, to which the hunk sleepily replied, “Sure she can. We taught her some great moves.” He yawned until his jaw cracked. “Jus’ doin’ my brotherly duty, ’sall.”

“And look where that got you.”

The man lifted a hand wrapped in a bloodied bar towel and peered down at his side. “Bonehead took me by surprise,” he growled in disgust, wincing as he lowered his arm. “Was on me before I could convince them to leave.” He grunted. “Better my hide than her pretty face, huh?”

“You’re a good brother,” Hazel said dryly.

A wide shoulder hitched. “Didn’t you teach me to stand up to the bullies of this world, ma’am?”

“Ri-ight.” Hazel snorted, beaming at him with affectionate pride. “Blame the helpless old lady.”

The deep chuckle filling the tiny cell did odd things to Cassidy’s insides and spread prickling warmth throughout her body. Her face heated and the backs of her knees tingled.

She uttered a tiny gasp.

Tingled? Really? Alarmed by her body’s response, she backed up a step until she realized what she was doing and froze. Feeling her face heat, Cassidy drew in a shaky breath and took a determined step forward. She dropped her medical bag between his long hard thighs since he took up the rest of the bunk.

So what if she was dressed like a kindergarten teacher? She was a mature, professional woman who’d spent an entire day with babies and toddlers—not some silly naïve schoolgirl dazzled by a pair of wide shoulders, long legs and a deep bedroom voice.

Well...not usually. Besides, she’d already done that and was not going there again. Tingling of any sort. Was out.

“Nothin’ helpless about you, darlin’,” the bedroom voice drawled with another flash of even white teeth as Cassidy pulled out a pair of surgical gloves. She couldn’t see his eyes but knew by the stillness of his body that he was tracking her every move.

“Save the sweet talk, sonny,” Hazel sniffed, amused yet clearly not taken in by the charm. “And play nice. Miz Mahoney doesn’t have time to waste on idiots.”

Cassidy snapped on a latex glove and opened her mouth to correct the deputy’s use of “Miz” but he shifted at that moment and every thought fled, leaving her numb with shock as she realized exactly who she was in a jail cell with.

Ohmigosh. Her eyes widened. He really was a superhero. Or rather Major Samuel J. Kellan, Crescent Lake’s infamous Navy SEAL and all-round bad boy. She stared at him and wondered if she was hallucinating. Wasn’t he supposed to be a local hero or something? Heck, a national hero?

What was he doing in the county jail?

Besides, he’d been injured protecting his sister and saving a couple of young women from harm. And according to local gossip, everyone adored him. Women swooned at the mention of his name and men tended to recount his exploits like he was some kind of legendary superhero. And really. There wasn’t a man alive who could do half the things Major Kellan was rumored to have done and survived. Well...not outside Hollywood.

Yet, even battered and bruised, it was clear the man deserved his reputation as big, bad and dangerous to know. Looking into his battered face, it was just as clear that one thing hadn’t been exaggerated. With his thick dark hair, fierce gold eyes, strong shadowed jaw and surprisingly sensual mouth, the man was as hot as women claimed. She could only be grateful she’d been immunized against fallen angels masquerading as wounded bad boys.

Frankly, the last thing she needed in her life was another man with more sex appeal than conscience. Heck, the last thing she needed, period, was a man—especially one who tended to suck the air right out of a room and make the backs of her knees sweat.

Hazel cleared her throat loudly, jolting Cassidy from her bizarre thoughts. “Anything you need before you sew up his pretty face, hon?”

“He really should be taken to the hospital,” Cassidy said briskly, ignoring the strong smell of hops and thickly lashed eyes watching her every move. “I’ll need a lot more supplies than I have with me. Supplies I can only get at the hospital.” Especially if the hand wound was serious. Nerve damage was notoriously tricky to repair.

“Not to worry,” Hazel rasped cheerfully. “Sheriff keeps all kinds of stuff ready for when the doc’s called in unexpectedly. I’ll pull Larry off front desk and send him in. You’ll have your ER in a jiffy.” And before Cassidy could tell the woman a jail cell was hardly a sterile environment, the desk sergeant disappeared, leaving her standing there gaping at empty space and wondering if she’d taken a left turn somewhere into an alternate universe where pint-sized deputies left unsuspecting young doctors alone in jail cells with a violent offender and...and him.

Her heart jerked hard against her ribs and a prickle of alarm eased up her spine. The closest thing she had to a weapon was a syringe and, frankly, even tanked, her patient looked like he could disarm her with a flick of one long-fingered hand.

Frowning, she slid a cautious look over her shoulder, trying to decide if she should make a break for it, when his voice enfolded her like rich, sinful chocolate. It took her a moment to realize that she had bigger problems.

“Hey, darlin’,” he drawled, “wha’s a nice girl like you doin’ in a place like this?”

You have got to be kidding me.

Ignoring the lazy smile full of lethal charm, Cassidy sent him a sharp assessing look and wondered if his head injury was worse than it appeared. According to gossip, Major Hotstuff—her staff’s name for him, not hers—was smooth as hundred-year-old bourbon and just as potent. That line had been about as smooth as a nerd in a room full of cheerleaders.

Opening her mouth to tell him that she’d heard more original pickup lines from paralytic drunks and whacked-out druggies, Cassidy’s gaze locked with his and she was abruptly sucked into molten eyes filled with humor and sharp intelligence. Whether it was a trick of the light or the leashed power in his big, hard body, she was left with the weirdest impression that he wasn’t nearly as drunk as he seemed, which was darned confusing, since he smelled like a brewery on a hot day.

This close she could clearly make out the dark ring encircling those unusual irises, and with the light striking his eyes from the overhead fixture, the tiny amber flecks scattered in the topaz made them appear almost gold. Like a sleek, silent jaguar.

A frisson of primitive awareness raced over her skin and she tore her gaze from his, thinking, Get a grip, Cassidy. He’s the pied piper of female hormones. He seduces women to pass the time, for heaven’s sake. And we are so done with that, remember? Unfortunately, the appalling truth was that her hormones, frozen for far too long, had chosen the worst possible moment to awaken.

Annoyed and a little spooked, she drew her brows together and reached for his hand, abruptly all business. She was here to do a job, she reminded herself sharply, not get her hormones overhauled.

But the instant their skin touched, a jolt of electricity zinged up her arm to her elbow.

She yanked at her hand and stumbled back a step. Her head went light, her knees wobbled and she felt like she’d just been zapped by a thousand volts of live current. He must have felt it too because he grunted and looked startled, leaving Cassidy struggling with the urge to check if her hair was on fire.

Realizing her mouth was hanging open, she snapped it closed and reminded herself this was just another example of static electricity. Big deal. Absolutely nothing to get excited about. Happens all the time.

However, one look out the corner of her eye made her question whether the thin mountain air was killing off brain cells because Crescent Lake’s hotshot hero could hardly be termed “just another” anything. With his thick, nearly black hair mussed around his head like a dark halo, glowing gold eyes and fallen-angel looks, he was about as ordinary as a tiger shark in a goldfish bowl.

Giving her head a shake, Cassidy realized she was getting a little hysterical and probably looked like an idiot standing there gaping at him like he’d grown horns and a tail.

Exhaling in a rush, she looked around for the missing glove. And spied it on the bunk.

Right between his hard jeans-clad thighs.

Her body went hot and her mouth went dry because, holy Toledo, those jeans fit him like they’d been molded to...well, everything.

Tearing her gaze away from checking out places she had no business checking out, she reached for the latex glove and gasped when their hands collided. He picked up the glove and held it out, tightening his grip when she reached for it. Her automatic “Thank you” froze in her throat when she looked up and caught his sleepy gaze locked on her...mouth. After a long moment his eyes rose.

Cassidy’s pulse took off like a sprinter off the starting blocks and all she could think was... No! Oh, no. Not happening, Cassidy. Get your mind on the job.

Her brow wrinkling with irritation, she tugged and told herself she was probably just light-headed from all the fresh mountain air. Dr. Mahoney did not flutter just because some bad boy looked at her with his sexy eyes or talked in a rough baritone that she felt all the way to her belly.

“Excuse me?” she said in a tone that was cool and barely polite.

“I don’t bite,” he slurred with a loopy grin. “Unless you ask real nice.”

Narrowing her gaze, she yanked the glove free and considered smacking him with it. She was not there to play games with some hotshot Navy SEAL, thank you very much.

Setting her jaw, she wrestled with the glove a moment then reached for his hand when she was suitably protected.

“So...” he drawled after a long silence, during which she removed the blood-soaked bar towels to examine his injury, “where’s the cute white outfit?”

She looked up to catch him frowning at her pink scrubs top and jeans. “White outfit?”

“Yeah. You know...white, short, lots of little buttons?” He leaned sideways to scan the empty cell. “And where’s the box?”

“Box?” What the heck was he talking about?

“The boom box,” he said, as though she was missing a few IQ points. “Can’t dance without music.”

What?

“I am not a stripper, Major Kellan,” she said coolly, barely resisting the urge to grind her teeth. “And nurses don’t wear those any more.” She was accustomed to being mistaken for a nurse and on occasion an angel. But a stripper was a new one and she didn’t know whether to laugh or stab him with her syringe. Instead, she lifted a hand to brush a thick lock of dark hair off his forehead to check his head wound. He had to be hemorrhaging in there somewhere to have mistaken her for a stripper. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and her makeup had worn off hours ago.

So not stripper material.

“You’re not?” He sounded disappointed. She ignored him. The wound only needed a few butterfly strips and he’d probably have a whopping headache on top of a hangover. Hmph. That’s what you get for making a woman flutter without her permission, hotshot.

His left eye was almost swollen shut and a bruise had already turned the skin around it a dark mottled red. She gently probed the area and found no shifting under the skin. No cracked bones, but he’d have a beaut of a shiner and his split lip looked painful enough to put a crimp in his social life.

No kissing in his immediate future.

Wondering where that thought had come from, Cassidy reached into the bag for packaged alcohol swabs. “He did a good job on your face,” she murmured, dabbing at the wound.