Their Six-Month Marriage Ruse
Author
Kristine Lynn
Reads
18.2K
Chapters
15
We're back with the staff of Mercy Hospital in Kristine Lynn's latest Harlequin Medical Romance story! When two best friends have to fake being married, will they uncover real feelings? THEIR MARRIAGE IS FAKE. THEIR ATTRACTION — ANYTHING BUT! Trauma doc Millie would move mountains for her best friend, psychiatrist Dexter, who's been by her side through thick and thin. But now she needs the ultimate favor. To secure her dream job as an equine therapist, Millie must be one half of a physician couple who can live and work as a team. Which means pretending to be married and sharing a bed for six months with the gorgeous — and suddenly tempting! — Dex…
CHAPTER ONE
DR. DEXTER SHAW hung his stethoscope around his neck and resisted the urge to slam the office door. The silence was suffocating. The cool air blanketing the sterile hallway did nothing to tamper the heat boiling beneath his skin. A tingling sensation crept up his arms and his feet itched.
He knew the signs. The onset of a panic attack if he couldn’t breathe this one away.
One, two, three.
He inhaled through his nose and out his mouth and it worked, at least enough to keep the edge off. But it was getting harder to keep them in check.
They’re getting more acute. More frequent, too.
Bing. Dexter’s pager went off, the vibrations barely breaking through the blanket of worry. He clenched and unclenched his hands but the regular techniques—techniques he’d created to help patients deal with their anxieties—weren’t working as well anymore. If Dexter was going to permanently outwit the attacks, something was going to have to change, and fast.
Starting with figuring out how he’d been able to keep them at bay for ten years and why they were back now.
Damn thing was his triggers kept changing. Forget the benign dreams-of-my-dad’s-death-from-free-climbing-triggers-my-anxiety onslaughts of his youth. These adult versions were sneaky SOBs, ambushing him when he walked by day care and saw his ex, Kelsey, and her husband with their daughter, Emma. Or pouncing on him when he walked through the antiseptic psych wing on the way to his office.
Fears scratched at the door he’d locked them behind after years of being on the patient end of therapy sessions. They whispered something unexpected, something he’d never considered, not after losing his dad so young, then growing up between foster homes without any stability, any consistency.
Maybe you chose wrong, they hissed when he laid in bed, alone. Maybe your life is too sterile, too empty.
Sterile was safe, and empty meant no surprises, but still...
He’d tried to stave the worries off with something new and cautious, first by attempting to play the doting dad to Emma when Kelsey adopted her. Maybe he’d been scared of fatherhood for nothing. Then the baby had gotten sick in day care, her temp skyrocketing for thirty-six hours until Kelsey had her hospitalized.
Turned out that kids were the most dangerous threat of all—at least for someone hoping to avoid as much risk as possible so he’d never feel again the way he felt when he lost his dad—like his world was spinning wildly out of control. So he’d tried again with something slightly safer and without the personal attachment he feared—a proposal for a trauma psych program at Mercy—but the hospital’s board couldn’t find a suitable team to staff it with, so it was on hold.
“Dammit,” he swore. “I need to get my act together.” A nurse in gray scrubs—one of his staff—gave Dexter a wide berth.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m supposed to be the one in charge, not the one having a breakdown, I get it,” he grumbled under his breath.
He groaned into his hands, leaning against the wall of Mercy Hospital’s clinically immaculate psych wing. It was his fault—all of it. The problem was he’d willingly cultivated the life that fed his feelings of obscurity, making way for something more serious.
From the moment he’d left the inner-city hospital—a building that had been torn down for a wellness spa since—after almost dying from exposure at eighteen, he’d been a man possessed. He’d sprinted through his twenty-year plan—one designed to leave his tumultuous childhood in the distant past once and for all—and made every single choice that led him to where he was today.
He’d broken up with Kelsey when he realized he couldn’t be a dad—not without worrying every minute of every day for the rest of his life. Besides, what could he offer a child when he’d had such a crappy upbringing?
He’d taken the chief of psychiatry position at Mercy instead of the trauma psychologist gig at whatever remote horse ranch Kelsey found that helped first responders work through their PTSD. The chief job had provided the stability he not so secretly craved after a lifetime without it, whereas the horse ranch would have been temporary, in an unfamiliar environment, and—since the job had called for a committed couple to fill the two vacant positions—it had been too dependent on Kelsey.
It wasn’t that he was completely immune to the desire for connection with another person, but a wife? No way. No spouse meant no encumbrances, no one to slip between him and his armor. It meant he could simply work and help patients—the one constant in his life.
Bottom line? He was no victim of his circumstances. He’d made every choice that haunted him.
The question was what was he going to do about it now that those choices no longer served him and, by proxy, his patients?
His phone rang, loud and obtrusive in the empty corridor, more difficult to ignore than his discreet pager. But his scowl dissipated when he saw the name on the caller ID. Some of the tightness in his chest loosened as he answered it, and he shoved through the double doors toward the employee parking lot.
“Well, look what the army dragged back. Sergeant Tyler, as I live and breathe.”
“That’s Staff Sergeant Tyler to you. Reporting for duty.”
“Damn. Congrats. I didn’t know if or when I’d hear from you. This is a nice surprise.”
After talking to his best friend every week for fifteen years, he’d missed Tyler. This was the longest they’d gone without talking.
“Don’t get all sentimental on me now, Shaw. Just wanted to let you know I’m back in town.”
“I’m glad to hear your voice. It’s been a minute.”
“A year and a half. Got held up with the trauma center over there. Would you believe the government pulled their portion of the funding in January?”
“My surprise is overwhelming,” he said, keeping his voice monotone and robotic. Sergeant Tyler laughed.
“We got it back, but it took forever to get the center up and running.”
“I’m proud of you. Most medics would’ve quit. Anyway, welcome back. I know some folks that are gonna be happy to hear you’re safe.”
“Hold the welcome parade for now. Not sure how long I’m sticking around.”
“Really? But you just got home. How long till the army yanks you back?”
The silence on the other end was punctuated by the crunch of Dexter’s oxfords on the gravel parking lot.
When the hell is this renovation gonna be done so I can stop wrecking my shoes on this shit?
“I’m not going back.”
Dexter stopped, the dust he’d kicked up settling on the brown leather of his shoes.
“What do you mean, you’re not going back? You’re a career army medic.”
“I was.” Dexter could picture Tyler’s furrowed brows on the other end. “Now I’ll be some kind of other career doctor.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. Job’s getting stale.” Dex smiled at that one. Tyler was impossible to pin down. The opposite of him, in almost every way possible.
“What else?” Dexter knew his best friend better than anyone. Tyler wasn’t being honest.
“I’m lonely,” Tyler whispered. If Dex hadn’t been standing parade-still, he’d have missed it.
“Oh.” Of all the responses, he hadn’t expected that. “I thought you’d finally found a solid group of friends.”
“I did. They were like family, but they’re...they’re moving on with their own actual families, starting to put down roots.”
“And you want to do the same?” Hope barricaded the fears from earlier. If he could convince Tyler to come back to where it was safe, maybe he’d sleep better at night.
“Not exactly.” Dexter recalled the time Tyler had come home with a swollen eye and sliced arm from shrapnel. Dexter had begged Tyler to leave then, before the injuries were more severe. Or worse still, Dex, as Tyler’s emergency contact, was delivered the remains of his best friend in a plastic bag. “But I’ll fill you in later.”
He understood. Tyler might crave the adventure Dex avoided at all costs, but they both wanted the same thing deep down—something that was theirs, something no one could take from them.
Maybe his best friend could find that a little closer to home. “Well, I’m sorry it went down like that. I know how much you liked the people, the travel and hell—even the danger.” He raked a hand over his chin, stubble pricking his palm. He’d keep his mouth shut about how relieved he was that Tyler was getting out of a life of risky trauma work, no matter the reason.
“You’re the only one who understands that. Thanks for listening. Anyway, I didn’t call just to complain. I wanted to know if our Freedom Fridays still stood. I could use a drink.”
“Hell yes. But I’m buying.”
“Of course you are. Same place, same time?”
Dexter smiled. He and Tyler did these “Freedom Fridays”—the freedom to say anything without judgment—every week Tyler was in the States. The tradition had been going on since Dexter had hit a telephone pole one night after a long shift and without Tyler’s lightning quick army medic reflexes, he would have died. A grisly burned-in-his-car death.
Dex offered to take Tyler out for a drink to say thanks when he was out of the hospital—that and to say he owed Tyler one. One drink had turned into them closing the bar followed by a decade and a half–long friendship.
Suffice it to say, Dexter needed that drink, too—and the friendship that had gotten him through some shit.
Death. Deployments...
Panic attacks for mundane nonsense?
“Yep. Maniac MacGee’s at six?”
“You done with work by then?”
Dexter’s laugh was more a humorless bark. “Whether or not I am, I’m outta there.”
His admission was met with a dry laugh. “Wow. I’ve never known you to leave before the cleaning staff forcibly removes you so they can empty your trash.”
Dexter kicked at a small pebble in the shape of a heart.
“Things are changing for us both, sounds like.”
“Sounds like we need to tell Mac to keep ’em coming. You have anything tomorrow you need to be sober for?”
Dexter cringed.
Just figuring out what to do about my life and these panic attacks that have been cropping up the past year.
He had a sneaking suspicion it might include leaving a decade-long career at a hospital that had shaped his time as a psychiatric trauma specialist.
“Nah. I’m good.” Tomorrow was a lot of drinks away and he wasn’t on call. Hopefully the liquid clarity would help him make some tough decisions. Because as he thought of Mercy, of its austere white walls and tranquility, of Kelsey and Liam, her husband and new Mercy trauma doctor, walking through the halls and pointing out his own failures as a boyfriend and father, the painful truth settled in his chest.
He needed to leave. And sooner rather than later.
“Okay, then. Fair warning, I’m gonna talk your ear off once I have one drink. My tolerance is shit these days.”
“Noted and acknowledged. All I hear is you’re cheap, so that works for me.”
The laugh from the other end was laced with a gravity Dexter wasn’t used to. A shiver ran down his spine, tickling senses he’d honed in his profession.
Sergeant Tyler was in trouble, which made Dexter’s problems seem like dodging mosquito bites during a firefight. His anxiety—and the panic seizing his chest every third day—would have to wait.
Millie smiled, letting the cool air wash over her. There wasn’t a lot in her life worth smiling about, but the spring breeze was a welcome change. She’d lived in surface-of-the-sun heat the past year.
Her smile deepened when she caught the orange neon glow missing the “Gee’s” so the sign read “Maniac Mac.” That tracked. Mac—her friend from boot camp—hadn’t made it past his first deployment when he decided the medical field, especially one in which bombs were being hurled at him while he triaged patients, wasn’t for him. He’d quit after his first enlistment and opened Maniac MacGee’s, a bar frequented by service members and first responders.
Good thing, too. If it weren’t for this watering hole, Millie wouldn’t have gotten through the past decade. Her hands trembled as she opened the door, but the shrill twang of a steel guitar worked on her like no therapy could.
She smiled and tossed her unruly curls over her shoulders.
“Well, holy shit. I didn’t think I’d see your militant ass in here again.”
“Mac, you wouldn’t know militant if it shot you in the ass.”
“Listen, I’ll have you know my commanding officer said I had the best IV placement out of any medical recruit if I just—”
“Didn’t get that damned case of sciatica,” Millie finished.
Mac scowled. “Will you quit bein’ mean and come give me a hug? I missed you but making fun of my medically documented realities,” Mac whined as Millie mouthed the same words along with him, “is no way to treat the man who’s gonna be feeding you drinks all night.”
“Good point.” Millie walked over to the serving window and reached through, embracing Mac. It felt good, holding something solid when her insides felt like they were flapping in the wind. “It’s good to see you, Mac.”
He squeezed her tight enough to pull the breath from her. “You, too, kid.”
“You’re three months older than me, Mac.”
“Yep. And as your elder, I demand you take a shot to gain entrance into this fine establishment.”
“Fine. Whiskey. And not your cheap shit. As the outranking officer here, I’m also gonna demand you join me.”
“If you insist.”
Mac made a poor attempt at a salute, then poured them each a shot.
“Yikes. That had some teeth,” Millie hissed when hers was down, the slow burn of the liquor waking her up like a shot of espresso. “I’ll take another, but with a dram of water this time. No need to rush this buzz, it’ll come all on its own tonight.”
“That bad, huh?”
Millie shrugged as Mac placed three fingers of whiskey in a rocks glass in front of her. Only one person would understand the loss she felt at willingly saying goodbye to a family she’d built, anyway.
“Yep. Hey, uh, not that I’m not glad to see you, but is he here?”
“You know, if you were at all my type, I’d be pissed you’re abandoning me for another guy.”
She shrugged again, a crooked smile on her lips.
“Sorry, Mac.”
Mac nodded to the back, to the booth that had kicked off the friendship all those years ago. “Back there. Here, bring him this,” he said, putting another whiskey on the mahogany bar. “I’m not a cocktail waitress.”
Millie climbed atop the barstool, leaned over and placed a kiss on Mac’s cheek.
“You’re the best. I owe you one, Mac.”
“I’d settle for an introduction to that man you were in a picture with on Facebook. The hottie in camo. Not everyone can pull off that look, you know.”
“Sure thing.” Millie laughed as she walked toward the back of the bar, which was shrouded in shadow. Mac had the same taste she did—tortured men with their own abandonment issues.
When she rounded the post at the edge of the dance floor, she halted in her steps. A smile spread across her cheeks at the same time heat built behind her eyes.
“Dex,” she whispered. He couldn’t hear her—she was still too far away—but he rose and strode over to her, holding a bouquet of purple daisies that were crushed when he wrapped her in his arms and cradled her head against his chest. The dam holding back a torrent of hot salt water broke and her tears fell.
“Damn, Tyler, you’re gonna give a guy a complex if he hugs you and you start sobbing.”
She choked out a laugh on the edge of a sob and he chuckled, his thick barrel chest vibrating beneath her cheek.
“Okay, okay. No more teasing.” He stroked her hair. When his lips pressed against the wild curls, her breathing slowed along with her tears.
Millie pulled back, wiping her damp cheeks with the back of her hand.
“It’s good to see you, Dex. You look...strong.” She didn’t let her eyes wander down his frame, which had filled out with hard-earned muscle since she’d last seen him. But her expertly trained touch—a lifesaver when she performed surgery—came in handy. “Been working out?”
He nodded, his shoulder muscles taut. No more runner’s body for this guy. He was a brunette Thor now. Like she needed another reason to ignore his pull on her heart.
“Got some stuff to work through and running doesn’t do the job by itself anymore. I need to throw a little weight around.”
She appraised him through wary eyes.
“Will you settle for sixteen-ounce curls? Because we’ve got work to do tonight,” she said.
His smile broke through. “Hell yes, we do.” Dex nodded to the second drink in her hand. “That for me?”
She gave it to him, sipping her own as she sat in the booth. “Mac sends his love.”
“Good man. Hey, cheers to you being back in the States. It’s really freaking good to see you, Millie.” She bristled under the use of her first name. It didn’t rub her the wrong way, just made her skin tingle. He’d called her “Tyler” as long as she’d known him. It kept a distance that felt...safer with Dex.
Until... The way his gaze dipped to the deep vee of her light blue blouse added stomach flipping to the mix. Great.
He just hasn’t seen you in a while and you’re different, too.
Millie had always been on the curvier side of the army’s regulations, but she’d been doing runs of her own to exorcize the demons that had followed her since childhood. She was still tall and full figured, but with some tone now.
“So, what’s been going on with you? Because you look—”
“Like hell?” he finished for her.
“Maybe. A little. Just tired, I guess.” That was only partially true. While he did look exhausted, the circles under his eyes textbook markers of sleeplessness, he also looked pretty damn fine. The auburn scruff dappling his cheeks and jaw didn’t hurt, nor did the gentle Clark Kent wave in his espresso-colored hair that had grown out since she’d last seen him.
When had he gotten so handsome?
Please. You’ve always thought he was hot. Do not shove your neuroses on your best friend, her subconscious warned.
It wasn’t wrong—she did have a propensity for falling for the wrong guy. Usually that was purposeful; scratching an itch didn’t mean the guys had to buy her dinner or anything. It just meant she got what she wanted and could count on not being disappointed when they turned out to be something other than they advertised.
Dex was different. She’d turned him down once—a long time ago, when she was a different younger woman who somehow knew the man whose life she’d saved would mean more to her than just a casual hookup. What that might mean had scared her to death.
Unfortunately, what it had actually meant was she’d guaranteed he only thought of her as a friend since.
So, she’d gone back to casual relationships with emotionally unavailable guys instead of crushing on the one man she couldn’t have. Thank goodness, since she’d gotten a best friend out of the deal.
She didn’t regret the route she’d forced them down but from time to time, especially as she healed from her childhood baggage, she wondered...
What would it have been like to say yes to Dexter Shaw?
Either way, he was off-limits now.
“It’s nice being here. Feels familiar,” he said. “Remember the first time?”
“Like I could forget. You still had bandages on your head like you escaped a psych ward.”
He chuckled.
“This place has heard some shit, that’s for sure.”
“No joke,” she said.
She might have saved his life the day he’d slammed into her life via the pole on Hollywood Boulevard, but he’d been her white knight ever since. Who else could have brought her back to herself after her stepmom—a textbook narcissist—had turned Millie’s dad’s death into a reason to stop parenting the stepchild she’d never wanted in the first place?
Millie had raised herself from age twelve until Dex came along, the night he got in an accident.
Yeah, he’s great, but don’t forget he’s high maintenance, too, her heart chimed in.
That’s an understatement.
While she’d be fine with a toothbrush and running shoes for a week, Dex wasn’t his best self unless there was a full-service spa within a hundred-meter radius. That was part of the reason they’d promised, after he asked her out that first week of knowing each other and she shot him down, not to ruin their friendship with a hookup.
They were night-and-day different and what they had was so much more important.
So, yeah. Ignoring the way his looks affected her decision-making was the new standard operating procedure.
“Well, anyway, you’re not wrong. I feel like hell. They’re back, Millie.”
“The panic attacks?”
“Yeah. And worse. They’re happening at work now, too.”
“Crap. You can’t have that.” She reached out and took his hand in hers. The familiar warmth that settled between them was punctuated by small bursts of something...warmer. With more energy.
“Nope. Not when I’m the literal expert at that place for kicking anxiety and depression.”
“What’re you doing about it?”
Another shrug. “The usual. Breathing, counting, working out.”
“You considered treatment?”
“Long term?”
She nodded.
“I dunno. I’ve been there and it helped, but... I’ve been thinking about some other ideas.”
“Like?”
Dex shrugged and she tilted her head. “Did you get the trauma team going? That idea sounded right up your alley.”
“No, and that’s part of it.”
“What else?” she asked.
Millie leaned back against the bar and gestured that he continue.
“It seems ridiculous with everything you’re dealing with.”
“Nope,” Millie said, shaking her head. “If I were your patient spouting the same nonsense, you’d tell me not to compare traumas. It’s hard for you right now. Period.”
“That’s fair. Well,” he said, running his hands through his hair, “I’m thinking about quitting.”
“Your job?” Millie sat up straighter. Damn. That threw a wrench in her plans for the evening.
“Yeah. It might not be the source of the anxiety, but being there isn’t helping; I’m sure about that much.”
“Can’t you step down as chief and just practice?” She bit the corner of her lip. Everything she knew about her best friend said the job was perfect for him—it was safe, consistent and as reliable as a Swiss train.
Selfishly, she needed that to still be true.
Dexter shook his head and only then did she notice the dappled gray hair above his ears, the depth of the lines around his eyes. He looked more than tired. He looked done.
“It’s not that simple.”
“What’s Kels have to say about all this?” She’d called out her big guns with that one. Millie knew Kelsey wanted kids, marriage and the whole shebang. She also knew Dexter didn’t.
“We’re through.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Millie said, snorting.
“No, this time it’s for good. She adopted a baby and then the dad came looking for the kid and, well, they fell in love. It was a whole thing.”
Millie felt the warm bar air settle in her gaping mouth.
“A baby? She fell in love with someone else? What the—”
“You missed a little bit while you were gone.”
“Apparently.”
He filled her in on a story that sounded like a made-for-TV movie. When he was done, they sipped in silence for a while, the weight of Dex’s story heavy on Millie’s mind. A tiny voice broke through the fog.
He’s single.
She silenced it with an admonition. It doesn’t matter. Only helping him through this does.
“How about you, Tyler?” Dexter asked when their glasses were more ice than liquid. The return to her last name was jarring. She kind of liked the way “Millie” rolled off his tongue. “I’ve been patient and unloaded all my trauma at your feet. Your turn.”
It was always that easy with them.
She took the last sip of her whiskey, relishing the chilled liquid that still managed to warm her from the inside.
“Well, I’m guessing now isn’t a good time to ask you for a job.”
