Page 4 of Late Harvest

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” his brother-in-law responded smoothly from inside the office, clearly in peacekeeper role.

It had been quite the jolt to his system to witness his little sister’s teenage crush as a grown man. And a doctor, like Brinder’s own dad. Also, apparently, some C-suite bigwig. He’d always liked Brinder when he’d dated Honor during high school. Considered him part of the family, or at least the inner circle of their family-friend group. Then his sister ghosted him and ran away to film a movie, and he hadn’t seen the guy since.

Bash knew the whole story now—the then-teenagers madly in love but also somehow recognizing that their timing was off. They’d each needed space and time to grow up. And appreciate each other. Eventually, time brought them back together, like two magnets unable to resist connecting.

He was happy to see his sister finally truly happy, but the PDA between Brinder and Honor was getting to be a bit much. They were constantly kissing, touching each other, sharing loving glances. It was enough to make him want to gag. Except that he recognized his own deep-seated, but unlikely, desire for something similar.

Because, of course, to thine own self be true.

Brinder’s voice carried from the office. “We’ll address consequences of this with you and our graduate medical education team this afternoon, Dr. Lynch. You must respond to pages immediately. No excuses.”

Bash heard a low murmur, which sounded like assent, coming from the office.

“Your reputation will follow you, Dr. Lynch,” his angel added, arms folded, her tone gloriously unyielding. Christ, she was stunning. “This isn’t an easy field for a woman. It’s a sad but true fact that there will usually be more aggressive and judging eyes on us than on our male peers. If you want to succeed in orthopedics, or any surgical specialty for that matter, you need to be better, sharper, more careful, more dedicated than others. The bar is high for us, Dr. Lynch.” Angel let that sit for a beat before adding icily, “Don’t undermine yourself or your female colleagues by becoming a stereotype.”

This was clearly a sensitive conversation, and he probably should’ve stepped away, but Amani hadn’t booted him out. Moreover, his feet were rooted to the ground. He couldn’t walk away. Not yet.

Bash surreptitiously scanned the woman in the doorway. Ok…in honesty with himself—because, true to self et cetera—he visually devoured her. Like a ravenous lion assessing a particularly tasty-looking wildebeest. Navy scrubs. Nondescript clogs of some sort. Shiny dark brown hair pulled back into a serviceable ponytail. Bash’s fingers tingled with the desire to pull out the hair band and run his fingers through what he knew would be silky strands. She looked to be about six inches shorter than his own six one (which made him a giant in his own family). Her eyes, flashing in anger, were the color of her scrubs. No. Of sapphires. Beautiful gems glittering—right now in anger, but he’d wager they’d emanate the same heat as he pleasured her.

Bash closed his eyes, a brief image flashing of him fucking this angel as she wore only sapphire gems at her elegant neck and in those delicate ears pinned so perfectly against her head.

He was thoroughly infatuated. Or in lust. Same thing, really, for him. Both happened quickly and faded just as fast. If not faster. He’d long since given up on his heart’s ability to form longer-lasting bonds with the fairer sex.

“You should head back to the unit, Dr. Lynch,” Brinder’s voice continued.

Moments later, a figure scurried past his Scrub Angel, and him, and practically darted toward the door that led from Amani’s office to the executive suite waiting room.

“Get it together, Lynch,” his angel called after her with a fierce glower.

“Yes, sir. I mean ma’am. I mean—” The young resident fluttered her hands, her cheeks growing bright red as her gaze landed on Bash and her eyes widened in recognition. “I mean, Dr. Remington. I’m sorry, Dr. Remington. I won’t let you down again.” The resident was visibly shaking. With something that almost looked like a small curtsey, and another darting glance at him, the young doctor skittered away, banging her shoulder on Amani’s door frame in her haste to flee.

“See that you don’t, Lynch,” his future bed partner called after her with asperity—a tone that clearly scared the bejeezus out of the young doctor while simultaneously rendering Bash’s cock as hard as marble.

Dr. Remington. Even her name was fucking sexy.

A sharp pain at the back of his ankle snapped him to attention. Bash couldn’t help the high-pitched ‘oof’ that slipped out. He looked down to see Amani’s foot slide back, her eyes darting to his angel in scrubs and back to him, then a quick, discreet shake of her head.

Ah, so he wasn’t, perhaps, as subtle in his perusal as he’d thought.

At his vocalization, which he pretended came out very manly and not at all like a small shriek, Brinder came to the office door, moving past Dr. Remington.

“A moment please, Remy.” His brother-in-law held out a hand, a warm smile on his face. “Bash, good to see you. I just need to wrap this conversation and we can head out. Café ok with you?”

“Y-yes,” he croaked, as if he’d never actually used his vocal cords before. What the hell was that? Did his voice just fucking crack? He cleared his throat, filling his lungs with diaphragm breathing in rote habit, and bringing his suddenly high voice down an octave or three. “Yes,” he repeated, smoothly that time, completing the brotherly shake. “Sounds perfect.”

The stare of an ice angel burned into his cheek. Instead of turning the full force of his trademark smolder on her, he opted for subtlety, allowing his eyes to oh-so-casually meander in that direction, landing on two cool sapphires.

His breath caught in his throat. “Hi,” he squeaked. Seriously—what the fuck? Bash cleared his throat, once again forcing his voice back to a more respectable octave. “Bash Wheatley. Pleasure to meet you.” He held out a hand and offered her his highest-octane version of The Smolder.

“Please forgive my rudeness,” his brother-in-law inserted, drawing his attention away from Scrub Angel. “Remy, this is my brother-in-law. Bash, meet Dr. Remington. She’s our chief of orthopedics.”

From under his lashes, he leveled her with another infallibly potent gaze from his fine-tuned arsenal.

With a small frown, she took his hand, shook it, and summarily released it. Brief. Businesslike. Her grip firm. Her hand cool.

Huh.

Clearly his smolder was rusty, as his designated target seemed impervious and he’d caught Amani shaking her head in his peripherals.