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DAISY HONEY JUGGLED a cup of coffee, a cake she’d bought for her mother, a bag of two chocolate-dipped doughnuts—because a girl’s gotta have something sweet in her life, and this was about all the sweetness she had time for at the moment—and her keys.
“You sure you got that, sugar?” Margie Holmes had worked at the Town Diner for as long as Daisy could remember. With her outdated feathered hairstyle and old-fashioned, pink waitress uniform, Margie was as much a landmark in Trusty, Colorado, as the backdrop of the Colorado Mountains and the miles and miles of farms and ranches. Trusty was a far cry from Philly, where Daisy had just completed her medical residency in family practice, and it was the last place she wanted to be.
Daisy glanced at the clock. She had ten minutes to get to work. Work. If she could call working as a temporary doctor at the Trusty Urgent Care Clinic work. She’d worked damn hard to obtain her medical degree with the hopes of leaving the Podunk town behind, but the idea of relocating had been delayed when her father fell off the tractor and injured his back. She’d never turn her back on her family, even if she’d rather be starting her career elsewhere. She supposed it was good timing—if there was such a thing. Daisy had been offered permanent positions in Chicago and New York, and she had four weeks to accept or decline the offers. She hoped by then her father would either have hired someone to manage the farm or decided if he was going to sell—an idea she was having a difficult time stomaching, since the farm had been in her family for generations. Since the closest hospital or family physician was forty-five minutes away and the urgent care clinic picked up the slack in the small town, Daisy was happy to have found temporary employment in her field even if it wasn’t ideal.
“Yeah, I’ve got it. Thanks for the cake, Margie. Mom will love it.” She pushed the door open with her butt—thank you, doughnuts—just as someone tugged it open, causing her to stumble. As if in slow motion, the cake tipped to the side. Daisy slammed her eyes shut to avoid seeing the beautiful triple-layer chocolate-almond cake crash to the ground.
There was no telltale clunk! of the box hitting the floor. She opened one eye and was met with a pair of muscled pecs attached to broad shoulders and six foot something of unadulterated male beefcake oozing pure male sexuality—and he was holding her mother’s cake in one large hand, safe and sound.
She swallowed hard against the sizzling heat radiating off of Luke Braden, one of only two men in Trusty who had ever stood up for her—and the man whose face she pictured on lonely nights. When she’d decided to come back to Trusty, her mind had immediately raced back to Luke. She’d wondered—maybe even hoped—she’d run into him. Residency had been all-consuming and exhausting, with working right through thirty-six-hour shifts. She hadn’t had time to even think about dating, much less had time for actual dating. Her body tingled in places that hadn’t been touched by a man in a very long time.
“I think it’s okay.” With smoldering dark eyes and a wickedly naughty grin, he eyed the cake.
His deep voice shuddered through her. Okay, Daisy. Get ahold of yourself. He might have saved you in high school, but that was eleven years ago. He was no longer the cute boy with long bangs that covered perpetually hungry eyes. No, Luke Braden was anything but a boy, and by the look on his face, he had no recollection of who she was, making the torch she’d carried for him all these years heavy as lead.
“Thank you.” She reached for the cake, and he pulled it just out of reach as his eyes took a slow stroll down her body, which was enough to weaken her knees and wake her up.