The Last First Kiss (Harlequin Special Edition) Read Free Page A

to the clinic.
    It was one o’clock. Typically, most doctors’ offices were closed for lunch at this hour. But for him, lunch was only a faraway dream. Other than a candy bar, he hadn’t had anything to eat—nor the time to consume it if he’d thought to bring something with him.
    He didn’t like being hungry, but they were down one doctor today, which made him not low man on the totem pole but sole man on the totem pole. Added to that, one of the nurses didn’t show and the one who did looked as if she were running on empty. Clarice, a normally no-nonsense nurse whose age he wouldn’t dare attempt to guess—he knew she had grandchildren—had been out sick for a week, and it was rather obvious to him that she needed a couple more days.
    Too bad neither he nor the clinic had that kind of luxury. There were patients to attend to, and there was no putting that on hold.
    As Dave walked out Mrs. Rayburn and her allergy-challenged twins, Megan and Moira, he paused by the reception desk to pick up the next file. There had to be a break coming soon, right?
    “How many more, Clarice?” he asked the full-figured dynamo, who was, among other things, his first line of defense.
    “You don’t want to know,” the woman informed him darkly.
    Since the clinic had originally opened its doors, Clarice Sanchez had seen doctors come, burn out and go. For reasons he wasn’t quite sure of but was eternally grateful for, after an initial butting of heads, the somber nurse had taken him under her large, protective wing. Clarice was the one who kept things moving, even when she was operating at less than her usual maximum efficiency.
    Dave read the side of the folder and was about to call the name of his next patient when suddenly, someone was calling out his instead.
    “Dave!”
    Caught off guard, he momentarily forgot about Ramon Mendoza and glanced about the waiting area to see who had just addressed him by his first name. No one did that around here. It was disrespectful. If they spoke to him, they always invoked his title in a grateful voice.
    He didn’t have far to look. His line of sight was immediately engaged by a vaguely familiar, rather sexy-looking blonde. She was striding across the packed room, heading toward him as if she were the bullet and he was the bull’s-eye. From the expression on her face, he could see that she seemed agitated.
    One thing was for damn sure. She certainly didn’t look as if she belonged here. It was like a lily suddenly sprouting in the middle of a field of weeds.
    Before he could acknowledge the woman—God, that face looked familiar—Clarice stepped in. “I already told you,” she snapped at the blonde, giving her a withering look, “you’re gonna have to wait your turn, lady.”
    “I just need to see the doctor for a minute,” the blonde insisted.
    “That’s what everyone says,” Clarice told her coldly. “Now either sit down and wait your turn or I’m going to get someone to escort you out of here.”
    Kara decided that she was going to give this one more try and then leave. Lunch was almost over and she was hungry. More to the point, she really didn’t need this kind of abuse.
    “Dave,” she called to him again, deliberately ignoring his guard dragon. “It’s Kara Calhoun. Your mother sent me.”

Chapter Two
    D ave found himself staring at the blonde, stunned. While the face was vaguely familiar in a distant sort of way, the name was familiar in a far more vivid, in-your-face kind of fashion.
    He knew only one Kara, God help him.
    That would be the only daughter of his mother’s oldest friend, Paulette Calhoun. Every single memory associated with Kara Calhoun was fraught with either embarrassment or frustrated annoyance—or both. He didn’t even try to remember one good moment spent in her company. There weren’t any.
    Back when he was a little boy, his parents and hers would get together frequently. All the summer vacation memories of his childhood had Kara in them.