As the door to Gus's new office opened, he heard the uncertainty in the soft feminine voice that spoke, "Oh . . . thank you so much."

With her hand flittering up around her neckline and a pinkish hue on her cheeks, Michelle Callahan all but floated into his office. The door was shut behind her by an unseen hand. She glanced around the cramped space, making no comment about the noticeable drop in status.

"There's a man sitting outside," she whispered with wide eyes, glancing over her shoulder toward the door as though she were delivering an invaluable secret.

"You can ignore that asshole," Gus muttered. "He wasn't rude was he?"

"Oh, no," she cooed. "He was quite the gentleman. He opened the door for me."

Inwardly Gus seethed. He hated being watched over like an errant child. It didn't help that the man Louis had assigned to do the job was well over six feet tall with an abundance of muscle, a bald head, and a pearly white smile. With all that testosterone shadowing him, Gus felt like an errant child every time he stepped outside of his office. The fact that the fucker had an easy time of it with the ladies—according to Michelle's flush that refused to fade—only added to Gus's feeling of inferiority.

And he vented it all on her.

"He won't be so gallant once he finds out why you come here every month."

The lingering smile fell from her face as her eyes sought out the ground.

Not so giddy now are we? Gus stood up and walked over to her. She was as beautiful as ever, hair falling in a shiny blonde tumble to her shoulders and ending in a flip, makeup done with a classic look. The red lipstick was a bit much for his taste, but whatever—where those lips were going, smeared lipstick was not a problem.

It used to stroke his ego that she would spend the time to look good for him despite the fact that it was a forced arrangement. Now it just irritated him.

But lately all women irritated him.

"Let's get down to business, shall we?" he said, unzipping his fly.

With a lift of her chin, she gave off a haunting pride reminiscent to that of a sinking ship as she slowly lowered to her knees in front of him.

"Um . . . you're . . ."

"Shut up and do something about it." Gus closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts as her hands touched him. It was no use. The stress, irritation, and fury born from the events of the last few weeks refused to give him a moment's peace.

He was as flaccid as warm dough. Nothing was going to make it rise.

"Get out," he yelled, pushing her away to do his pants back up.

Michelle scrambled to her feet looking confused. "What about—"

He grabbed her arm and propelled her toward the door. Yanking it open, the sight of Mr. Clean standing at the other side had his dick shriveling even further. Fury roared through Gus's veins and he gave Michelle a hard shove.

As she stumbled through the doorway, the guard put his arm out to steady her. After a shaky "I'm okay" from the damsel in distress, her hero let her go and gave Gus the filthiest of looks.

Gus slammed the door in his face and reached for his cell phone.

When Enzo's mediocre replacement finally picked up, he hissed, "I want that cop bitch found, and I want her found now!"

)l(

"Hey, Major. Your doctor is here."

Bruce twisted his head in the direction his observant dining buddy was nodding. The lunch hour was winding down and most people had already left the hall. Sure enough, Claire was lowering her tray onto the surface of one of the long tables across the aisle. It was a shock to see her—she never ate in the mess hall.

"I hear she's a bit of a loner," another of his other companions proffered.

"Kind of like Morris—the way he disappears into that little room of his," the only woman in their group muttered.

Bruce's head did a quick snap back. "He disappears?"

"Yeah," the woman scoffed. "You go in to talk to him, and poof, he's gone. Once I timed it. I had to wait forty-five minutes before he came out."

What in the hell does he do in there for forty-five minutes? Bruce wondered.

"I heard," the eagle eye added, his concentration still on Claire, "that she turned down offers of teaching positions from two high-ranking medical schools in order to come here."

Wow, Bruce thought. Although it didn't surprise him. Claire was well-known for her ability to recognize symptoms, no matter how obscure or irrelevant they might seem to the patient. She was smart, proficient, confident, compassionate, dedicated . . .

And she wore that professional demeanor like a buttoned up lab coat.

"I'll see you guys later . . ." Bruce untangled long legs from under the cafeteria-style bench and picked up his tray.

After turning it in, he headed over to Claire and straddled the bench to sit beside her. As he stared at her delicate profile, she stiffened, and he sensed he was about to get the push off. Then she turned her head and saw it was him.

"Oh . . . it's only you," she said, her shoulders sagging.

"Way to slap down a man's ego."

She smiled. "Yours could use a little slapping down."

Their working relationship had improved, had grown from one of tension to one of tolerance. In other words, he worked at being charming and she, for the most part, tolerated him.

He had tried his damndest to get her to step outside of the clinic, inviting her to accompany him to the gym, challenging her to a game of ping pong at the recreation building, asking her to join him for dinner. Each time she had made an excuse. Even a walk to get a cup of coffee together had been refused for chrissakes.

If he were smart, he would just give up on her, let her isolate herself with her test tubes, reports, and medical journals.

The problem was, Bruce didn't want to give up on her.

It wasn't her looks, although she was beautiful. It wasn't the challenge, despite the urge to toss her over his shoulder. And it sure as hell wasn't her personality, because most of the time she drove him crazy.

No, it was . . . he was— Ahh hell, he respected her. It was as simple as that.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

She looked around as if expecting someone to call her out at any moment. "The maintenance guys are fixing that leak in the lab's sink."

"No, why are you here . . . in Afghanistan? I heard you were offered teaching positions back home."

She frowned and stared down at the tray, clearly not happy about being the subject of gossipy discussions.

Good one, Morgan, he thought. Way to push her back into her shell. Hoping to ease the effect, he added, "Sorry, it was just mentioned in passing. You don't have to—"

"My parents were both teachers," she blurted. "High school. Science. They're retired now. My father was diagnosed with MS a few years ago. They had always talked about travelling, but never quite got around to it, never had the time or the money. And now, with Dad being sick and all . . ."

She took a deep breath and looked over at him. Bruce stayed absolutely still, didn't risk even a blink. This was the first time she had offered something personal, and he didn't want to spook her.

"They wanted me to go into teaching. I would never say it to them of course, but when I was younger, I thought it was such a sad way to spend your life—a station on the assembly line of other people's careers, repeating the role over and over again. I joined the Navy to"—she drew an arc in the air with her hand—"see the world, but it was more than that. I was terrified of becoming like them. I needed to get away, fearing that each passing day brought me one day closer to that repetitive existence.

"As I've gotten older and a little wiser, I've come to realize that teaching is a very noble line of work. I'm just not sure it's for me."

Bruce smiled. "You and I aren't all that different."

"Oh really," she drew out, giving him a skeptical smile.

He nodded. "My mother teaches, my father is in construction . . . regular folk, good parents. When I was young, I thought they could handle anything—until my younger brother came along. He's one of those temperamental genius types, a handful from the start, never obeying the rules, always getting into trouble. He butted heads with them all the time." Bruce got caught up in the memories, his voice drifting. "There was so much yelling. . ."

Realizing he had stopped talking, he cleared his throat. "By the time he was sixteen, they had pretty much given up on him, and the strain of it all had them heading toward divorce. I stepped in, offering to take him off their hands if they promised to stay together for at least a year and make a go of it."

"That's a big responsibility," she said softly.

"The only thing I could think of that would straighten him out was the Marines. The day he turned seventeen, we both signed up, and I've been watching him ever since."

"You're a good brother."

Bruce laughed. "I don't know about that. You'd have to get Steve's opinion."

"Did they stay together?" She was leaning in his direction, like a child waiting for the ending to a story being read aloud. A piece of her hair had escaped captivity and hung down by her ear. It swayed under the draft from the ceiling fans, and he had to fight the urge to reach out and play with it.

"Thirty-eight years this summer," he murmured, his focus on the strands of gold.

Relief softened her posture as she leaned back. "Family," she breathed, "can be both a blessing and a curse."

"Amen to that."

She hadn't touched her lunch. "Eat," he said, pointing at her tray and noticing the magazine sitting beside it. He turned it to read the cover: THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

A hand came up to cover her mouth while she finished chewing her first bite. "There's an article about soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with dyspnea. I thought it might be useful."

He knew his face reflected his befuddlement when she added, "Shortness of breath."

He nodded.

"Read it to me while I eat."

"Uh . . ."

"You can read, can't you?"

He frowned. "Of course I can read!"

She gave him a complacent look. "Then read."

He narrowed his eyes but pulled the thing over and opened it, flipping the pages until he found the article in question. As he began, she turned her attention back to the food in front of her. Every so often he would stop on a term or procedure he didn't know, and she would explain each one. Succinctly. Patiently. Enthusiastically.

Before he was even halfway finished, he had come to the irrefutable conclusion that Claire Wilson—while unlikely to admit it—was one hell of a teacher.

END OF CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

What does Morris do in that room for so long? Any theories?

And for those of you missing Virginia, @suttongirl 😉, the next chapter is for you.

Dedicated to @Nightingale63 for supporting my work as much as you do and for having the uncanny knack of combining words in the most imaginative and hilarious ways. My favorite? Finafuckinglly 😂

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