Not to anyone would Zeke admit that he’d been a bit bored lately. Yeah, he’d gone on several missions to places that a normal person wouldn’t have survived the first five minutes. Just last week, he and his team had been waist deep in a crocodile filled swamp. Thankfully, the crocs had stayed away long enough for his team to get through the muck, finish the mission, and get out again.
So the prospect of convincing the pretty doctor to have dinner with him seemed like an excellent way to keep busy.
Chapter 2
“You get shot at and then get a date out of it?” Mike demanded.
Zeke had just entered Mike’s office but stopped short at the abrupt question. Looking behind him, he spotted PFC Jones who had accompanied him to the emergency room. The guy had the audacity to grin.
“He’s going to be in hell this afternoon!” Zeke muttered, stepping deeper into the office and slamming the door behind him.
Mike threw back his head, laughing at his friend. Normally, Zeke didn’t mind being the butt of a joke. Members of the team took the teasing as just part of the job. But his back hurt like a mother…! And it itched. From experience, Zeke knew that he couldn’t do anything about the itching because it would pull at the stitches. So last night, he’d struggled to sleep, torn between bouts of intense itching and, when he finally fell asleep, intense lust as he dreamed about the pretty doctor with the long, dark curls and big, green eyes. He hadn’t gotten a good look at her figure because of the scrubs and doctor’s requisite lab coat, but knew that she wasn’t too thin. The good doctor had lots of enticing curves on her figure.
While Mike laughed, Derick and Joe meandered into the office, wanting to find out what had their boss so amused.
“What’s going on?” Derick asked, crossing his arms over his chest. Derick was shorter than Zeke, but not by much. He was six feet, three inches tall. Joe was about the same height as Mike at six, two, but both were just as buff as Zeke. All four were neck and neck in the muscle department, thinking that it was their duty to be stronger and more adept than the men they led. Which meant that their teams worked harder to be just as strong, which pushed the officers even harder.
Mike muffled his laughter long enough to explain. “Zeke…he gets shot by a gravity defying bullet then refuses to let the doctor work on his back until she agrees to go out to dinner with him.”
Joe chuckled, and Derick filled in the rest. “From what I hear, he was shot down by the fair doctor. No deal. No dinner with the gorgeous woman.”
Just to annoy Zeke, Joe spoke up with, “Maybe she’d like someone who isn’t built like the Hulk.” He grinned when Zeke glared. “Perhaps Joe and I should try our luck. If she’s as pretty as Jones says…”
Zeke moved in, cringing only slightly when his tensed-up muscles pulled at the stitches. “Stay away from her!” he warned with a low, threatening growl.
Joe and Derick’s mouths fell open, then they burst out laughing. Mike was the only one able to speak and said, “So, that’s the way it is? Another of the mighty has fallen?”
Zeke shrugged his shoulders slightly, trying to alleviate the tense muscles. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he grumbled and moved back to the opposite wall. “But the doc is mine.”
“Ah!” Mike replied, leaning back in his desk chair, hands laced over his flat stomach. “I completely understand.”
Zeke paced slightly, but there wasn’t much room in the small office, especially with four, huge men in it. “I have no idea what you mean by that, but…” he paused, shaking his head. “She interests me. That’s it.”
Joe chuckled. “It’s been a while since any woman has interested you. So who is she?”
Zeke stared at his friend. “What the hell does that mean?”
Derick explained. “You haven’t shown interest in a woman in far too long, Zeke. We were starting to worry about you.”
Zeke thought back to their nights out over the past few weeks. But not a single woman came to mind. He thought back longer. And then a few more months. He’d just been thinking that going six months without sex would be misery. But now that he thought about it, Zeke couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d last had sex!
“Well, hell!” he muttered, but for some reason, the idea that he’d just gone a long time without a woman made him feel better. It put his obsession with the pretty doctor into perspective. At least he wasn’t losing his mind, he thought. So last night’s interrupted sleep and his lustful thoughts, his almost immediate attraction to the lovely woman, was only because he hadn’t had sex in way too long. That made much more sense!
“I think it’s more than just his lack of recent interest,” Mike muttered. “But we have more important issues to deal with.” And with that, all four men leaned forward, ready to listen to the latest world issue that needed their intervention skills.
“So?” Cathy whispered when Abby stepped up to the nurses’ area of the emergency room. “Did you see him last night?”
Abby felt her cheeks heat up, but she kept her head down, writing in her patient’s chart. “See who?” she asked, even though she knew exactly who Cathy was referring to. Lieutenant Colonel Zeke Jeffers, hero at large and wannabe Hulk.
Cathy snorted. “Oh please! I was ducking out of the way from all those sparks flying between you two yesterday!”
Another doctor walked up to the counter. “What’s going on?” he asked, handing Cathy the patient’s chart.
“The patient in exam three needs to head down to X-ray,” Abby explained, finishing her notes before handing the chart to Cathy as well. “I think his leg is broken.”
Abby walked away, but not before giving her friend and co-worker a meaningful look to not gossip.
But as soon as Abby was out of earshot, the other doctor, Tommy Calips, leaned forward conspiratorially. “Did she go out to dinner with him?”
Cathy shrugged. “No idea,” she whispered back. Cathy thought it was cute that Abby thought she could keep her soon-to-be relationship with the handsome and oh-so-buff officer a secret here in the ER. This place was like a gossip petri dish! Everyone knew everyone’s business. Thankfully, no one was malicious about their whispering comments, but everyone knew each other’s business. And everyone had heard about Abby’s interest yesterday. Not just that, but everyone had also heard about the guy’s heroics as well. The officer had a bullet graze across his back and had still sprinted across the training fields to tackle the enlisted man before he shot another round. Which had probably accounted for the extraordinary amount of blood loss.
The doctor watched Abby step into the next patient’s curtained-off area, greeting the person with an encouraging smile. “She definitely needs someone,” he said, then sighed as he turned to greet his next patient, taking his cue from Abby and smiling in greeting.
Chapter 3
“What are you doing?!” she muttered to herself.
Standing in front of the apartment door, she lifted her hand to knock, then dropped her hand and scurried back toward her car.