The next few days seemed to be somewhat of a conspiracy in terms of Trevor and Riley having no time together. Either he was called in because of emergencies, covering shifts, or just plain nuisances, or she was called in, which was always a shock.
There very rarely were dental emergencies, yet she had two this week. One kid who got his tooth chipped horsing around and his parents were distraught over it. And an adult who had too much to drink with friends, tripped and fell, knocking her two front teeth out.
Wednesday afternoon, she was getting ready to examine Gail Duggan. She was older than Dr. Fielding, or as some of her colleagues back in New York would say, “Older than dirt.” She still had the majority of her teeth, so she was doing something right.
“Hi, Mrs. Duggan. I’m Dr. Hamilton, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Do you refer to all of your patients as Mrs. or Mr.?” Gail said, eying her hard.
She hesitated, then said, “Not usually.”
“Then don’t to me. Gail is just fine.”
So much for showing some respect to the elderly. “Well then, Gail, how are you doing today? Any problems I need to know about?”
“I’m doing just fine. My teeth are all in place and staying that way. Don’t be telling me they have to come out, because my answer is no.”
Riley felt her lips twitch. “I wouldn’t even consider it. Especially since they look so nice.”
Gail huffed, then cracked a grin. “I hear you’re getting friendly with the chief in town. He needs a girl like you.”
Oh boy, not again. Riley decided to sidetrack that conversation. She grabbed a tiny disposable cloth and put it under Gail’s bottom lip. “Can you stick your tongue out for me?” She wrapped Gail’s tongue up and moved it side to side, looking underneath it. “Everything looks good.”
“Told you it did,” Gail said. “Back to Trevor. Don’t you be avoiding my question.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Riley said, smiling. She’d never had to deal with this in New York. “But I don’t recall you asking me a question.”
“You’re a smart one. I like that. Bet Trevor does, too. We always knew he’d come back here. Even after he’d spent some years being a Ranger.”
“Trevor was a park ranger?” That didn’t seem to fit him at all.
Gail laughed. “Of course not. He was an Army Ranger.” Gail lowered her voice a touch. “He was a sniper, but he doesn’t like it when people bring that up, so I wouldn’t if I were you.”
Riley had no response to that. She knew there were levels to Trevor that were deep under the surface. He wasn’t as laid back as he appeared, it seemed. She didn’t know much about the armed services, but she knew Rangers were an elite group, snipers too. You had to be cold as ice and hard as steel for something like that.
It didn’t seem to her they were talking about the same person right now. Not Lake Placid’s Chief of Police, who walked around handling disputes with neighbors over scratches on cars and stolen vegetables.
“My lips are sealed,” Riley said. For now.
So later that night, when Trevor showed up at her house for a visit, she had a hard time looking at him in the light that Gail had painted him. And since she’d promised not to bring it up, she wasn’t going to.
Still, there was something really sexy about thinking of him in an army uniform, a hard cold look in his eyes. Hmm, yummy. Maybe she would bring it up just to see if it was really true or not.
“No emergencies tonight?” she asked him when he walked in her door, then gave her one hell of a kiss that told her he had a domineering side after all. One she might not mind seeing more of.
“Not at the moment, and hopefully you didn’t just jinx it by saying that. How about you?”
“Nothing. Not unless someone knocks another tooth out. I can’t believe that’s happened twice now.”
“Summer months and people are just out having fun. Nothing wrong with that. Especially if it’s innocent fun.”
She understood that. “You’ve got a point. Have you eaten yet?”
“No. I’ll grab something later. I just wanted to see you.”
“I’ve got pizza. I picked it up on my way. There are six slices left,” she said, lifting her eyebrow at him.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take a few off your hands.”
She got him a plate and filled it with two slices. “It’s not cold, but not warm either. Want me to heat it up?”
“Nope. I’ll take it just like that. Sit down and chat with me,” he said.
She got a beer out of the fridge. “Are you on duty?” she asked, wiggling it around.
“Nope. I’d kill for that right now.”
She grinned and poured him a glass. “Is it only me, or does the whole town know we went on two dates?”
Gail hadn’t been the only one to bring Trevor’s name up to her. She’d dodged those conversations as best she could, but she actually lost count of the number of times it slipped into conversation during a patient’s exam.
“Small towns. Sorry. Unfortunately, your name has come up a few times, too. Does that bother you?”
“No. Should it? My brother and father know, so it’s not even a secret in my family.”
“I ran into them at the hospital after the accident on Sunday. I get the feeling they were giving me the third degree, or their form of it. I wanted to ask how they knew about us, but figured it was one of two ways. Either you told them, which was totally fine with me, or they heard it through gossip at Max’s office.”
She liked how easygoing he was about this conversation. “Max’s office for Max. I told my mother. I slipped the other night when we were talking about my little fender bender. She told my father, which surprised me, as that’s not normally a topic that comes up with them.”
“Why’s that?” he asked around a mouthful.
“It’s been two dates. I’ve dated before. Names and details don’t get thrown around that early. At least not usually.”
“Why now? Like I said, it seems I was getting an inquisition.”
Which was very odd to her. “What did they say?”
“Something along the lines that I needed to have the patience of a saint to date you, and that I needed to keep you safe. Max laughed the whole thing off, so I guessed it was a joke.”
Riley was stunned. First off, there was no reason for her father to say she needed to stay safe. She’d never let on about anything to them. To anyone in her family. Nothing. Second of all, the patience statement annoyed her.
“I’ve been known to be the one that wears the pants in a relationship,” she said, her voice dryer than she planned on it being.
He stood up and walked behind her to put his dish in the sink. “They’re pretty nice pants, too,” he said right before he slapped her ass…the sound echoing in the house.
She yelped, not expecting that. No one had ever done that to her before. No one would dare. Yet, she found she actually liked it. Maybe if it didn’t sting so much, though.
She turned and looked at him, caught his grin, and yanked him forward by his shirt, bringing her mouth close to his. “So no problem with it then?” she asked.
Her eyes shifted to his, trying to read his thoughts. All she saw was arousal, mirroring her own. “Sometimes you can wear them. Sometimes I can wear them. And sometimes, neither one of us will be wearing them.”
“Sounds fair,” she said, then lowered her head and kissed him with all the pent-up energy and sexual frustration she’d felt for the past several days.
He must have been feeling the same amount of frustration as her, because his hands were everywhere. Taking her over, taking her under, and taking some control. Control she gladly handed over.
They were circling her kitchen right now, moving around it, moving out of it, then somehow making their way toward the stairs. He pulled his head back. “Am I finally going to see your room?”
She hadn’t realized that she was leading them there until he asked that question. “First, I need to ask you something.”
“Ask away,” he said, his lips on her neck now. He wasn’t giving her a lot of time to think, let alone form a question.
“How long are you staying for?”
He stepped back and looked at her. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, are you going to get up and leave when you’re done? Go home, or stay the night?”
“I’ll give you points for being blunt.”
“Takes the guess work out of things. So?”
“I make one mean omelet that I was hoping to cook for you, but if you’d rather I leave afterward, then I can do that too.”
She smiled, slid her hands down to his hips, and pulled his shirt out of the waist of his jeans and over his head. “I love omelets.” She tossed his shirt to the floor, grabbed his hand, and pulled him to her room.