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hell are you?”
    He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. At Boston General, he knew who he was. On assignment, he knew. But on Lobster Island?
    He had no idea.
     
    THE SILENCE STRETCHED until Tansy began to doubt Dale was going to speak at all. Then she saw his eyes flickering the way they did when he was mentally flipping through diagnoses and treatment options. He was trying to choose an answer.
    “Never mind.” She held up a hand to stop the lie. It would be one of many, she now realized, just as she now understood that the man she’d fallen in love with was nothing more than a figment of her imagination. Like mother, like daughter. Whitmore women fell for the schemers. She took a hurting breath that barely moved the stone-heavy pressure on her chest. “Tell me the truth or nothing, okay, Dale? You owe me that much.”
    When he remained silent, she nodded and hid the disappointment down deep, alongside most of the memories of her father. “Fine. I’ll check the lab equipment and see what’s salvageable. You shower, and then we can head for the motel clinic. The sooner we solve this outbreak, the sooner we can get out of here.” The sooner she could request to be transferred away from Boston. Away from Dale.
    She would not repeat her mother’s mistakes.
    When he didn’t answer, she turned toward the salt-encrusted cases piled in the hallway.
    “Tansy.” His quiet word brought her up short, but she didn’t look back. She didn’t want to see his gleaming blue eyes. Didn’t want to remember how his features had been mirrored in the faces of those two boys out in the lane.
    Didn’t want to think that she’d once imagined their sons looking just like that.
    “It’s okay, Dale,” she finally said. “I can handle it.” She crouched down near the pile of equipment and waved at the stairs, hiding her face so he wouldn’t see the hurt. “Go shower. We need to see our patients.”
    The job. Concentrate on the job. Medicine gave her control. Research told her the truth.
    Dale didn’t.
    He headed for the stairs, pulling the bulky sweater off over his head as he walked. He stopped near her in the narrow hallway, and Tansy was enveloped in familiar warmth. Only this time, it was laced with something new. Something hotter and harder than the pull she’d felt toward Dale Metcalf, playboy, or even Dr. Metcalf, field researcher.
    Her whole relationship with Dale had been based on a lie, yet she still wanted him.
    Afraid if she looked into his eyes he’d see the hunger, she stared straight ahead at the place where the sinew and bone of his shoulder gave way to the hard planes of his chest. The scorpion tattoo, blurred with time, dominated her view.
    Only it wasn’t a scorpion.
    She reached out a finger and traced the curve of a tail, the pair of wicked hooked claws. “It’s a lobster.”
    Dale sucked in a breath when she touched him, and his body went rigid. “Aye. It’s a lobstah.”
    And his voice was pure Island.
    Startled, she looked up at him. Trapped in the potent blue of his eyes, she didn’t move when he stepped closer, crowding her. Tempting her.
    “You want to know who I am, Tansy?” He leaned close so he was almost whispering in her ear. “I’ll tell you who I’m not. I’m not a prep-school boy, and I’m not a gentleman.” She quivered as his words ran across her bare neck and heat coiled in her stomach.
    She could turn her head just a fraction, and their lips would touch. She could run and never look back.
    In the instant before she made the decision, he made it for her. He stepped away. His muscles were corded with tension and he gripped the banister like a lifeline. “Check the equipment, we leave in ten minutes. And remember, I’m not the Dale Metcalf you thought you knew. The next time I have you up against a wall, I’m not going to back away.”
    Though the image churned her stomach into sharp, sizzling knots, Tansy rounded on him as he climbed the stairs. “Don’t