“New York,” Thomas corrected. “I was chief of surgery at Mount Sinai.”
Okay. That was one of the biggest surprises anyone in the colorful Breslin family had thrown him. “How could you leave a prestigious position like that to deliver babies on some remote island?”
Thomas’s smiling face sobered. “At the time, I wasn’t sure that I could,” he admitted.
“But then one day, Kalena asked me if I was happy.”
His expression softened, and Donovan had the feeling that Thomas Breslin was back in the hustle and bustle of New York City. “Damnedest question she’d ever asked,” he murmured, as if to himself.
“Were you?”
“To tell you the truth, I’d never stopped to consider whether I really liked what I was doing. From the time I entered college, I just kept sticking to the plan I’d made for myself. Medical school, internship, residency…
“It took Kalena to point out that I was turning into an automaton. Turn the key in the morning and I’d go to the hospital, where, each day, I became more of a mechanic than a doctor. I never really knew my patients. I only knew their hearts or their gall bladders or their kidneys.
“So, figuring I had nothing to lose, we packed up Kalena’s chisels and my black bag and moved back here to my childhood home, where I began seeing patients as people again. Now I know enough to make sure that there’s a night-light in the room when little Keoke Santos has his tonsils out because he’s been afraid of the dark since he got lost in that lava cave last year.
“I also know that I’d better pick up some lemon drops for Debbie before I go to the hospital because her husband, who usually supplies her with them, has been stuck on the Big Island all week at National Guard camp.
“Regret not specializing?” he repeated. “I am specializing, Donovan. In people.” He flashed another quick, warm, eye-brightening grin that reminded Donovan of his daughter’s. Then he headed out to buy lemon drops and deliver a baby.
Leaving Donovan to ponder Thomas Breslin’s unexpected family story.
20
They didn’t make it to the bedroom. They were no sooner inside her cottage than Donovan pulled Lani into his arms and pushed her back against the door, holding her there by pressing that hard, magnificent body against hers. Then, with hands as deft as a surgeon’s, he yanked up her dress and ripped away the thong panties she’d bought solely for the intention of driving him insane by strutting around the bedroom wearing just the scarlet-as-sin dental floss and a barely there scrap of lace demi bra.
She mourned the ridiculously pricey ripped panties as they flew onto the table where she kept her keys, only for a mere nano-second, because, at the same time, his wickedly clever mouth was kissing her senseless. If there were an Olympic medal for kissing, Lani thought, as her own hands dragged down his pants, Donovan Quinn would take the gold.
Her dress up around her waist, his pants bunched around his ankles, he lifted her off her feet, right out of the high-heeled backless red sandals.
“Put your legs around me,” he instructed, his breath sounding as if he’d run a marathon, which was more than she could say for herself, because Lani wasn’t sure that he hadn’t kissed every last bit of breath right out of her lungs. “And hang on.”
His palms cupping her bare butt, and her back still against the door, he thrust into her, crushing his body against hers while she wrapped her legs around his waist, grabbed hold of his hair, and went along for the ride of her life, which, when it ended nearly as soon as it had begun, left her seeing stars.
“I think we’re in trouble,” she managed to gasp as every muscle and bone in her body went limp, causing his knees to buckle from her dead weight as he struggled not to drop her onto the bamboo floor.
“Unhook your legs,” he groaned against her throat. Which she did, sliding down his body as if he were a firepole. “Okay.” He staggered, managing to catch her beneath the arms before she hit the floor. “We’ve got this.”
“Thank God,” she said, as they both slowly, gingerly folded to the sisal rug, which, even as scratchy as it was, felt better on her butt than the damn thong had. “I would have died of embarrassment to have Johnny Mahuiki see me naked again.”
“Who’s Johnny Mahuiki? And do I have a reason to be worried?”
“He’s the island’s EMT, and if an ambulance has to be sent out, the odds are he’ll be on it. He’s also my cousin and we used to take baths together when we were babies. I was too young to remember it, but our mothers took pictures.”
“Pictures? You have naked pictures of yourself?” he asked, making her laugh.
“My mother does. And if you dare ask to see one, you’ll never have sex with me again.” She rolled over on top of him. Partly to get off the rug and partly because she wanted to feel his body against hers. At least the good parts that weren’t still covered by clothes.