Page 13 of Rescuing Dr. Marian (Made Marian Legacy #1)

FOSTER

I’d regretted coming to dinner the moment I’d arrived and seen Tommy Marian sitting at one end of the table, looking like angels themselves had laid the man gently on earth to tempt me.

The setting sun had brushed warm golden stripes across his hair and face, creating shadows that sharpened his jawline and defined the muscles under his shirt.

But then he’d looked up at me, and I’d caught the flash of hurt and confusion on his face before his eyes had skittered away again.

Tommy’s expression made me both angry and guilty. Angry because I hadn’t been the one to withhold critical information before kissing the man. And guilty because I also hadn’t been the one who’d remained professional when realizing we were going to be working at SERA together.

But now, I was even angrier for an entirely different reason. “ What the fuck kind of sister calls her brother Nimrod?” I snapped as we approached the truck. “Your family is a bunch of assholes.”

Tommy’s eyes widened in surprise before his jaw clenched, and he shoved Chick’s leash into my sternum, hard. The breath punched out of me as I caught the leash out of reflex.

“Fuck you.” He turned on his heel to leave. I quickly reached out and grabbed his biceps.

“You running away again? Seems about right.”

“Leaving isn’t the same thing as running away.” He turned and shoved me off him before backing me up against my vehicle with forefinger pokes to the chest. “You don’t know shit about me, and you don’t know shit about my family. So back the fuck off.”

Tommy’s entire body leaned toward mine. His face was close enough for me to make out warm amber striations in his irises. To smell the scent of red wine on his breath.

I carefully clasped my hand around the wrist of his poking hand and lowered my voice. “Your body isn’t asking me to back off, Dr. Marian.”

I’d meant it as a tease, to provoke him and remind him of his blatant lack of self-control in Hawaii, but it came out sounding sultry and intimate.

It came out sounding like pure, unadulterated want .

Desire that sounded way more real and intense than I’d wanted to reveal to him. Or even admit to myself.

Tommy’s cheeks darkened. For a split second, he looked… tired. Exhausted, really. Like he’d been carrying the weight of several small planets on his shoulders .

I had a momentary flash fantasy of him stepping into my chest and simply resting there. Letting me wrap my arms around him and be a safe space for him while he gathered his strength?—

But then I remembered this wasn’t a fantasy. I wasn’t heading back to SERA hand in hand with my happy boyfriend. I was facing off against my angry enemy slash reluctant obsession.

Even so, when his tongue came out to wet his bottom lip, I almost, almost leaned in to taste it. We’d done it before, after all. Hell, he’d even thanked me for it.

It was a good thing I didn’t because he might have bit my tongue clean off.

“Just because my body wants to fuck yours,” he said in a low growl, “doesn’t mean I want to hear your ignorant opinions about my family.”

The admission sent heat straight through me, swelling my dick and stealing my breath… but it was immediately followed by a cold wash of reality.

I might still want Tommy Marian, despite my better judgment. Despite his mixed-up sexuality. And despite the fact that he lived in New York…

But he was married to someone else, and no matter how much I wanted him, that was the ultimate dealbreaker.

The thought made my jaw clench.

“Forgive me for thinking you deserve better than a sister who calls you hurtful names,” I hissed.

He let out a breath and seemed to deflate. “It’s a term of affection. ”

I scoffed. “That’s a shitty way to show someone affection.”

Tommy’s eyes met mine again. “Don’t tell me Anna never calls you names.”

My eyes flashed to his. He remembered my sister’s name?

I didn’t want to interpret it as anything meaningful, like him caring enough to remember. A man who’d succeeded at medical school probably had a crack-shot memory. That was all.

“She’s been known to throw an asshat my way a time or two,” I admitted before stepping back, if only to keep myself from forgetting what the word “dealbreaker” meant and doing something stupid. “But Anna would never have called me a derogatory name in public.”

“I told you it’s not like that,” he snapped.

Once we were loaded up in my sheriff’s vehicle and Chick was sniffing happily through the partial opening in the nearest window, I noticed Tommy clenching his hands together in his lap so hard his knuckles were white.

No ring, I noticed for the first time, but plenty of people who worked with their hands didn’t wear them.

“Then what is it like?”

“It’s an inside joke,” he muttered. “You know what? Never mind. We don’t need to talk. Let’s just go back to SERA and let this day fucking end, okay?”

I glanced over at him as I shifted into gear. Once again, Tommy looked tired and stressed. I wanted to know why. Wanted to know what had happened in Hawaii after I left. But none of it was my business.

I cleared my throat. “So are you, like, taking a summer sabbatical or something?” I asked, trying to be normal. To ask him the kind of question a professional peer might ask. “I’m surprised the hospital let you go.”

Tommy kept his gaze focused away from me and out the passenger window as we moved slowly through the pedestrian traffic in town.

“They didn’t have to. I quit.”

The surprising words sat between us like a fishing hook with an irresistible lure dangling from it.

So I bit.

“You quit? St. Ignatius is the top trauma hospital in the Northeast. A dream job for a high achiever like you. Why the fuck would you leave?”

He turned to me, eyebrows dipping in confusion. “How did you know I was at St. Ignatius?”

Embarrassment prickled my skin. “You must have told me that night. Does it matter?”

“Well, no. I just?—”

“Wait, you’re at SERA permanently?” I blurted, suddenly wondering if he’d done it. If he’d made the big change from big-city trauma ER to practicing the medicine he seemed drawn to. My heart leapt at the idea he’d be so close, only a few hours’ drive instead of a day’s worth of airline travel?—

“No. God, no. It’s only temporary. I’m interviewing for positions back home.” He cleared his throat. “In California.”

I raked my bottom teeth over my upper lip and nodded. “Right. Sure. Of course.”

Tommy looked like he wanted to say something more, explain or maybe even judge me for being less than enthusiastic. But he didn’t. He faced out the window on the opposite side of the truck.

The tension was killing me. This man who’d lived inside my head as a living, breathing obsession was sitting eighteen inches away from me in my own damned truck.

And he seemed a million miles away.

I swallowed and focused on the road out of town. SERA was several miles away on a large plot of land at the base of Slingshot Mountain. The sun was already behind the peak, and shadows filled the valley around us.

“Thank you,” he said softly without turning to look at me. “For caring. About what Hazel said. I promise she didn’t mean anything by it, but I do appreciate you standing up for me. Especially after…” He shrugged.

“Why does she think we’re fucking?” I blurted. Her comment had been itching under my skin since she’d said it. “Did you say something to her?”

He finally turned to face me. “No! I only told one person in my family that we… that we kissed, and she wouldn’t have told anyone else.”

“Kissed,” I said with an unamused huff of laughter.

Jesus, what an anemic word for what had actually happened.

“Yes. Kissed.” Pink heat bloomed on his cheeks as he lifted his chin. “Twice.”

I glanced at him again, if only to drink in his adorable flush. “You counted.”

“Kind of hard not to notice when a guy’s kissing you,” he muttered, looking away again .

I watched him closely. “You’d never kissed a guy before, I take it?”

“I told you I was straight,” he reminded me. This time, he glanced at me, and I caught his eyes.

“Tommy, why did your sister think we were sleeping together if you’re so straight?”

His cheeks were painfully crimson now. I wanted to reach over and feel the heat on my fingertips and lips.

“I don’t know.” Tommy turned back to the window again.

“My family doesn’t know anything happened between us.

They know you were there, and they know I acted…

” He gave a little snort. “Let’s just say I acted very much not myself.

They’ve come up with their own explanations for that, and us hooking up was an easy one since our situation was similar to how my uncles met, like I told you. ”

“And I was wearing your shirt,” I suggested.

He nodded and looked away again. “And you were wearing my shirt.”

I glanced at him, taking in the flush still painting his cheeks, the way his lips were slightly parted. The urge to pull over and kiss him senseless hit me like a freight train.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, gripping the steering wheel tighter.

Tommy caught the word. “What?”

“Nothing.” But it wasn’t nothing. It was the realization that sitting here, talking like this, pretending we could be friends or colleagues or whatever the hell this was, felt like the cruelest kind of torture. “Just… maybe we should focus on tomorrow. On work. ”

The temperature in the cab seemed to drop ten degrees.

The rest of the drive passed in charged silence.

Every time Tommy shifted in his seat, I caught a whiff of his scent—a hint of expensive deodorant over masculine sweat—that made my palms itch.

When he reached up to run his fingers through his hair, the movement drew my attention to the line of his throat, the way his shirt pulled slightly across his chest.

I forced myself to focus on the road.

“Foster—” Tommy started as we pulled into SERA’s parking lot.

“Long day,” I cut him off, throwing the truck into park with more force than necessary. “And an early start tomorrow.”