Page 4 of Paging Dr. Summers

“She’s really pretty. Like so, so pretty.” Sophie batted her blue eyes at me.

“So you mentioned.” I saw where this was going, and I wanted no part of it. It irked me that Eden would even go down that road. She, more than anyone, knew I wasn’t ready to date again. We’d had this discussion more than once.

Eden had the decency to pretend to be abashed for half a second before she said, “I just thought you would want to meet Brooke in the name of being a good neighbor.”

A loud buzzing noise sounded in my ears. “Did you say Brooke?” It couldn’t be, right? There were plenty of Brookes in the world.

“Yeah,” Eden responded. “Brooke Crawford. She’s from Nebraska. She has quite the interesting story about why she’s in Aspen Lake.”

“I know,” I said without thinking, an irrational, juvenile panic building inside of me—one that a man my age should have outgrown by now—at the thought of the beautiful woman. Among her ramblings in the ER, she’d already told me why she was in Aspen Lake. What were the odds she was renting the house next door?

“How do you know?” Eden questioned.

“I can’t say.” Patient confidentiality forbade it. “But she can’t come here.”

Eden tilted her head. “Are you all right? Your face is all flushed.”

I cleared my throat, feeling like an idiot. “I’m fine. She just can’t come here,” I repeated, not wishing to admit the reason why. It had nothing to do with me treating her earlier.

The doorbell rang.

Eden’s eyes lit up as she walked around the island. “Too late.”

I gripped the nearest barstool, trying to get my act together. I would have bolted for my bedroom, except Sophie was staring at me like she didn’t recognize me.

“She’s really nice, Uncle Logan,” Sophie tried to comfort me. What did it say about me that I needed comfort from a ten-year-old?

“I’m sure she is.” Unfortunately, she probably was. But there was an equal chance she might be psychotic. That said little about my judgment, seeing as I had thoughts of wanting to ask her out. However, I had married the most incredible woman, so my judgment couldn’t be all that bad.

Within seconds, I heard Brooke Crawford’s lyrical voice drifting through my house. “You are the sweetest. Thank you. I can’t believe I get to bake with Eden Russo.” Eden kept her married name for Sophie’s sake. “My best friend, Claire, is flipping out knowing I met you. We are your biggest fans, even though neither of us can really cook. A few months ago, we totally botched your lemon poppy seed Bundt cake. We couldn’t even get it out of the pan, and we almost needed a saw to cut through it.”

Eden giggled. “Before the night is over, I’ll have you baking like a pro.”

I held my breath, waiting for Eden to appear with Brooke. My plan was just to mumble something incoherent and hole up in my room until she left. After that, I would forbid Eden from inviting her over—like I could forbid her from doing anything—and do my best to never run into Brooke Crawford again.

It was the most immature plan I’d concocted since I was fifteen and placed an air horn under Gillian Prescott’s chair during Geometry, hoping to get her attention so I could ask her to homecoming. It got her attention all right, but for some reason she didn’t find it as romantic as I thought she would, and she had flat out turned me down.

Eden and Brooke appeared, talking animatedly until Brooke noticed me. She froze, her smooth cheeks flaming red. “Uh ...” She bit her supple lip, coated in a lovely shade of peach gloss. “Dr. Summers, what are you doing here?”

Instead of using any of the words I had in my vast vocabulary arsenal, all I did was stare at Brooke in her pink sundress, her shapely, toned legs on display, still sporting bandages. A few strands of honey-blonde hair escaped her messy bun, softly framing her gorgeous face. I hated myself for these thoughts, but I couldn’t stop myself from being attracted to her.

Eden helped me out and said, “Dr. Summers is my brother, but we just call him Logan around here. He’s the one I told you we were staying with for the summer.”

“You live here?” Brooke yelped. “Oh, my gosh. I word vomited all over you in the ER today.”

Eden spat out a huge laugh. “Word vomit?”

Brooke nodded. “When I get nervous, I can’t stop talking. I feel it coming on right now. Lots of word vomiting.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Maybe the woman was crazy, but she was also adorable. I needed to stop thinking like that.

“You don’t need to be nervous here.” Eden patted Brooke’s back. “Right, Logan?” Eden gave me a poignant look.

I nodded before walking off toward my bedroom. I would eat dinner later.

“Dr. Summers,” Brooke called. “I’m so sorry I intimated that I wanted you to be my summer fling.”

Eden’s laughter rose to an out-of-control level.

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