Obsession (Southern Comfort) (10 page)

She slapped two coasters down on the high top table
and put on her public smile.  “Hi, I’m Shelley and I’ll be your… Doctor Wellington.”  Her mouth stretched even wider when the man who’d had his back to her turned around.  “Lookin’ just as fine as always, I see.”

“
Shelley.”  Surprise, and just the faintest tinge of discomfort, colored his face.  She probably shouldn’t be so blunt – her new employers might not appreciate her flirting with the customers – but he was just too damn cute not to tease some. 

“I didn’t know you worked here now.”

“First week.” She leaned a hip against the table.  “I just couldn’t go back to Jugs after… well, after what happened.”  She still woke up at night, sweating, hearing the sound of glass shattering in her dreams.  And sometimes when she closed her eyes, she could see Natasha lying in a pool of blood.  But she didn’t like to remember that, so she turned up the wattage on her smile instead.  “Your friend, Ms. Harding, recommended I apply here.  It’s a pretty good gig.  Stays plenty busy and the people I work with are nice.  And I don’t have a constant wedgie from those tight satin shorts.”

The dude he was with made a noise that sounded like he was choking back a laugh, but
Shelley ignored him, watching to see if disapproval dawned in Doctor Cutie’s gorgeous, smoky eyes.  Ms. Harding was her rehab counselor.  Shelley wasn’t proud of the fact that she’d been an addict, but she
was
proud of the fact that she was clean, and had been for nearly a year.  So she wasn’t going to hide it. 

Not even from him.

“The Murphys are good people,” he said, no trace of superiority in his voice, and his eyes remained friendly on hers.  It was what had impressed the hell out of Shelley initially. That he was a real person, down to earth. 

Well, that and the fact that he had saved
Natasha’s life with plastic wrap and a roll of masking tape.  It was kind of hard not to be dazzled by that.

“So what can I get you to drink?” she asked, realizing that
she was going to fall behind if she didn’t move it.

“Do you have Guinness on tap?”

Shelley looked up in response to the question coming from across the table, and had to blink.  “Oh man,” she said without thinking.  “You two just
have
to be related.”

“I’m
James. The younger, better-looking sibling.”  The other man grinned lazily, flirting with his eyes, which were even more lethal than his brother’s.  Same dark hair, similar builds.  Although this one was clearly trouble. To the female half of the population at least.  “If you do have Guinness on tap, I’d be delighted if you’d bring one my way.  And I for one think it’s a pity about the satin shorts.”

She turned back to see Doctor Wellington
shaking his head.  “I’ll just have some coffee, no sugar” he told her, leaning back in his seat.  “And maybe a muzzle for my brother.”

Shelley
chuckled.  “I’ll see what I can do.”

AFTER
her shift, Shelley practically skipped up the steps to her apartment.  The stairwell smelled like someone had tossed up their box wine again, but she just breathed through her mouth, not about to let that spoil her good mood.  She’d made a killing in tips, not the least of which had come from her very favorite MD. 

Shelley
indulged in a little fantasy about just what exactly he had going on beneath those scrubs as she stuck her key in the lock.

“Oh,” she squeaked, startled,
when the door opened before she could unlock it. 

“I heard you coming down the hall,”
Natasha’s sister explained, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle from her ivory dress.  The cashmere sure looked warm, but her voice – as usual – was frosty with disdain.  “You were singing again.”

“Was I?” 
Shelley deliberately kept her tone bright.  Anne was a bitch, but she was Natasha’s sister, and Natasha did not need any extra tension right now.  “I guess I don’t even notice I’m doing it anymore.”

“
Natasha’s sleeping.”

“Well, then I will be sure to keep it down.”

Shelley brushed past her, ignoring the stony look on Anne’s face, then came to a dead halt.  Her temper rattled against the lid she’d just clamped on it.

“What the hell is this?”

“I rearranged a few things.”

“Rearranged?”  Pulling her eyes from the spotless – and unrecognizable – living room,
Shelley looked at the older woman with disbelief.  “You call this ‘rearranging?’”  Because it looks to me like you
bought
new
furniture
and
moved it in here
.”

“Calm down,” Anne said with the faintest hint of irritation
, darting a glance over her shoulder toward the bedrooms.  “That sofa was hideous. It needed to be replaced.”  

“That sofa was
mine.
”

Shelley
had worked her butt off to buy that sofa five years ago.  Big, overstuffed, a totally convincing faux suede.  Maybe it wasn’t in the best condition, but it was comfortable as hell.  Not to mention that she had some very fine memories involving that sofa and a certain Marine she used to date.  Very fine.

And it pissed her off that
Natasha’s sister had taken it upon herself to
rearrange
a few things.

“
It had a tear in one arm, and the springs were shot.”

“
So?” Shelley shot back.  “I liked it that way. And what concern is it of yours, anyway? This isn’t even your apartment.” Natasha hadn’t wanted to stay with her sister during her recuperation – for obvious reasons, if you asked Shelley – but that meant they had been graced with Anne’s presence far more often than she would like.

“No, but it is
Natasha’s.”  Anne’s dark eyes were annoyingly cool as she explained her position.  “She needed something better.”

“You mean better than me.”

Anne sighed. “That’s your interpretation.”

“Look bitch – ”

“What’s going on?”

Shelley
whirled around to see Natasha, pale and owl-like, standing at the end of the hallway that led to their bedrooms.  The T-shirt she wore hung almost to her knees, and with the weight she’d lost after her surgery, she looked lost in it, like a little girl.

Shelley
felt like crap for waking her up.  Natasha had been having a hell of a time sleeping.

“Nice work,” Anne murmured, and
Shelley resisted the urge to smack the superior look from the woman’s face.

“I’m sorry sweetie,”
Shelley said, but Anne was already hurrying over, taking Natasha by her frail-looking arm.  Shit.  Had she lost even more weight?  Shelley was going to have to start force-feeding that girl some doughnuts if this kept up.

“
Your roommate and I were just discussing the new furniture,” Anne said soothingly.

“What new furniture?”
Natasha said before blinking in confusion at the beige, straight-backed couch, which looked about as relaxing as the uptight bitch who’d picked it out.  “Where’d that come from?”

Her friend
’s gaze shot to hers so Shelley pasted on a cheerful expression.  “It seems that your sister bought us a present.”

“What?”
Natasha divided a frown among the new sofa, Anne and Shelley.  “Why?”

Because she was a
n overbearing, controlling snob, Shelley wanted to say, but didn’t.  Instead she changed the subject.  “Guess who I bumped into tonight?”

“I think you should be resting,” Anne interjected. 

“Who?”

“
Natasha – ”

“I’m fine, Anne.  Really.” 
Natasha shook her sister off, coming to sit on one of the barstools at the counter while Shelley took a soda from the fridge and popped the top for her.  “Who’d you bump into?”

“
Dr. OhMyGod.”

“
I thought he was Dr. Cutie.” Natasha smiled and took a sip from the can, her eyes looking considerably less dull.  “What were you doing at the hospital?”

“Not the hospital, you goof.  He came into Murphy’s.”

“Geez, I’ve really been out of it, huh?  I haven’t even asked you how that was going.”

“It’s going great.” 
Shelley leaned her elbows on the counter, filling Natasha in on the customers, the other wait staff.  Cracking jokes to make her laugh. Just like old times.  From the corner of her eye, she saw Anne gathering up her purse from the little table beside that awful sofa.  Her back was ramrod straight, a sure sign that she was pissed.

Good.  That made two of them.
 

“
And guess what?” Shelley said, just as Anne announced “I’m leaving.”

“Okay.” 
Natasha gave her sister a careless wave.  “See you later.  What?” she said as she turned back to Shelley.

Shelley
watched with satisfaction as Anne took her glacial ass out the door.

Then she wiggled her eyebrows at her roommate.  “Good news about Dr. OhMyGodWhataCutie. 
You won’t have to fight me for him. Looks like he has a brother.”

CHAPTER NINE

LIKE
a capricious woman, Mother Nature followed up the cold snap with several abnormally warm, sunny days that urged people out of doors, where they could be heard talking hopefully of an early spring.  Knowing that her mood could change again in an instant, Justin mostly ignored the talk, but he did take advantage of the weather.  It had been weeks since he’d gone for a run on the beach.  Moving quietly through the house so as not to wake up his brother, Justin eased out the back door.

He started down the steps, paused,
and then turned back around to engage the lock.  It was likely a needless precaution – one with which he didn’t usually bother.  But since he’d had the uncomfortable experience of being robbed last week, he’d been a little more cognizant of that sort of thing.

The sun was just beginning to paint its watercolor rays across the sky, and there was still enough chill in the air to make him glad he’d opted for a windbreaker.
  It would likely end up around his hips before too long, but for now it kept things comfortable.

Comfortable, Justin mused, as his footsteps rattled the weather-beaten wood of the boardwalk at the end of his street.  Sea oats swayed gently in the early morning breeze, and down the beach a couple of seagulls argued
noisily over the remains of some dead creature that had washed up on the sand.

He’d been
comfortable
for a while now, hadn’t he?  Sure, James coming to stay with him had put a little wrinkle in his routine.  But that was actually working out to be a bonus.  He was getting to know his little brother not just as a sibling, but as a man.  And he liked what he saw.  James wasn’t entirely sure where he wanted to go, but he knew where he
didn’t
want to be, and he’d had the balls to get out before he got so comfortable he couldn’t leave.

Justin guessed the same could be said of him with this business with Mandy.  He’d gotten out while he still could.  Although as
frustrating and awkward as that had been, it hadn’t really amounted to anything.  She’d gone out of her way to avoid him since their altercation in the elevator, and he’d returned the favor.  Casual relationships ended all the time.  Justin didn’t really consider that he’d done something to take himself dramatically out of his comfort zone.  It hadn’t exactly altered the course of his life.

His sneakers pounded the sand, a muffled accompaniment to the breaking surf.  He looked around at the virtual
ly deserted beach and wondered when he’d become such a wuss.

Oh s
ure, his job was challenging.  Each and every individual he operated on presented a unique test of his skills.  But even though it was often literally a matter of life and death, this was a goal he’d worked toward for years, and it fit him like a glove.  Losing a patient was brutally hard, but his logical mind knew that he couldn’t save everyone.  He wasn’t God.  He was just a surgeon.  He could only strive to be the best damn surgeon possible.

But outside of work, Justin realized he was a creature of habit.  He worked on his house.  He tinkered with his trucks.  Up ‘til recently, he had fairly regular sex with the woman he dated steadily.  And he went to lunch with Kathleen.

Jesus H. Christ, he was dull.

And the one thing he’d done which had been outside of his comfort zone – namely assaulting Kathleen with his mouth under that damn mistletoe – had thrown him for such a loop that he hadn’t seen her, except accidentally, in weeks.

What bullshit.

Waves lapped against the sand, the lulling rhythm failing to soothe his raw nerves.
Annoyed with himself, Justin fumbled around in the pocket of his pants for his phone.  Looping back toward his house, he didn’t give himself time to think, time to second-guess.  He just pulled up his contacts.  Then he shot a text off to Kathleen and hit send.