When the Cameras Stop Rolling...

He put his arm around her shoulders to still her fidgeting as the camera moved in close. “How can I help you today?”

Eva thought the woman would swoon right then and there. All they needed was someone to faint on set to lose those sponsors who were hanging in there for them.

Instead, the woman grabbed the microphone and held it close to her mouth to speak into it.

From the corner of her eye Eva saw the alarm on her sound engineer’s face as he shoved slide knobs to lower the volume before the woman’s voice blasted everyone’s television speakers into mush.

But Mark purposely covered the woman’s hand and pulled the microphone away to the proper distance.

Eva was beginning to suspect he’d done this kind of work before.

The woman cleared her throat. She was now red in the face. “Ever since I was a little girl …” She stopped talking as she teared up.

Mark patted her on the shoulder. “Deep breath.”

The woman gave him a watery smile. “When I get excited, I can feel my heart try to beat out of my chest, then it just seems to stop and I feel dizzy.”

Mark raised his eyebrows as he wrapped his arm more securely around her. “Are you feeling that way now? Have you ever passed out?”

“Once or twice.”

“Please, have a seat.” Mark helped her into her chair and whipped out his stethoscope. With a shiny white smile, Mark asked, “May I listen to your heart?”

Starry-eyed, the woman nodded.

The man had charisma, no doubt about it. But that bit about her not being a real doctor still stung. Being pretty—or in his case extraordinarily handsome—couldn’t make up for being mean.

As Mark took the time to listen to the woman’s heart, the producer instructed a camera to zoom in on Eva, expecting her to fill in the dead air space. So much for thinking Mark had live studio experience.

To the camera, she said, “When a doctor listens to your heart, she is listening for several things, including a steady rhythm.”

Of course, everyone in the world already knew that, but at this point in the show Eva would spout anything that came to mind to keep the action moving along. With Mark doing personal examinations in her public forum, her only hope of making this part of the show work was to avoid a silent studio. Any intelligent information she could pass on to her audience was a bonus.

Wrestling control of her show away from her guest, she looked out towards the crowd. “While Dr. O’Donnell is performing his examination, does anyone else have questions?”

Without being called on, a young man in front of her stood up. “My son has recently developed the same symptoms as that woman. His doctor has diagnosed a congenital heart murmur and is requiring a series of tests before he’ll sign off for my son to play football. He’s played sports all his life. To tell you the truth, playing sports is the only thing that keeps him interested in school. How can I tell a high-energy teenager he can’t play a sport he loves when he’s never had any problems before?”

It was one of those questions, the kind that had no happy answer. She knew, first hand, how hard it was to keep some teenagers in school. Eva hid her sigh.

Mark startled her by answering from across the studio. “Playing sports with a congenital medical condition, particularly a heart murmur, is a topic that is under fierce discussion in the medical community. Many of us doctors know the value of sports in our children’s development. Make sure you have a doctor who will do whatever he can to keep your son on the playing field.”

Nope. Not the right answer. Eva signaled for a close-up. “You’ll notice Dr. O’Donnell said there is much discussion over this topic. I, for one, would not put my child’s life at risk over a school sport.

“But I completely understand your concern. It is very difficult to walk the line between keeping our children safe and letting them live a fulfilling life and developing the skills they need to become well-rounded adults. It is often a choice we have to make as parents.”

Right there in front of her, ducked down below the camera lens, her producer was pointing to his watch and making a dramatic cut sign. Eva snuck a glance at the studio clock.

How had that happened? She had never run this long before.

“And that’s a question each parent must answer for their children. Remember, moms, you can’t take care of your children if you don’t take care of yourselves first. So if you think you are having a heart attack, go to the emergency room.”

She went into her sign-off. “Thanks for watching Ask the Doc. If you have questions, we have your answers. See you tomorrow.”

She thought she’d done rather well at turning back to their topic of the day. Why, then, was her producer grimacing?

A closer look at the clock explained it—a minute over. The little red lights on the cameras went dark as Eva wondered which commercial they had cut. There would be an angry sponsor to answer to. They would have to offer them an extra slot to make up for it even though the show needed all the sponsors they could get. If they received any more production budget cuts, they’d have to start shooting the show with their camera phones.

Turning to Mark O’Donnell, Eva braced herself for saying the polite thing, even though he’d caused her show to be more topsy-turvy than a cheerleader doing backflips.

Trying to ignore the sexy way his shoulders filled out his lab coat, she said, “Thank you for—”

“You weren’t serious, were you?”

What did he mean? “I’m sure I was. I always am.”

Her husband had always encouraged her to lighten up, but it wasn’t in her nature.

Her husband.

Finally, she could think about him without that tearing pain to her heart. If she could only find absolution for herself in her soul.

“What, in particular, were you referring to, Dr. O’Donnell?”

Maybe she’d had enough of his grandstanding in front of her audience, or maybe she was lashing out at him because of the hurt she still carried for her husband, but either way she lost her temper.

Gesturing off stage, she said, “Maybe you’re talking about the way you came in an hour late and didn’t have time for a pre-show briefing. Or the way you began to ad lib your presentation instead of following the bullet points. That could have ended up disastrously if either of our imaginations had failed us. Or how about that remark about me not being a real doctor?”

She took a breath, feeling her heart pound in her ears as well as in her chest.

“Or maybe you thought I wasn’t serious when you decided to perform an examination on an audience member, while we all sat around and waited for you to listen to her heart beat. I’m sure our television audience enjoyed that stimulating bit of action. Or how about telling that father to go ahead and let his son do whatever he wanted despite the boy’s doctor’s advice. How dare you?”

Mark quirked his lips at her. “How dare I?”

“How dare you?” She was so angry she could feel the heat radiate off her body. “How dare you undermine another doctor?”

“Somehow, I’m sure the boy’s doctor won’t mind.”

“And you know that how?”

This time the man had the audacity to give her a full-on smile. “Because I’m him.”

“What?”

“I’m the boy’s doctor.” Mark shrugged his massive shoulders. “I asked my friend to show up, you know, for moral support. He said if he saw the show faltering he’d ask a question and he did. Now I owe him a beer.”

Eva stared, for once in her life without words. Her rage had burnt them all to cinders.

“It sounds like I owe you a beer, too, Eva. I didn’t realize I was being such a screw-up.”

“You are the last person I would consider sharing a beer with.”

“Ouch.” He gave her a laughing wince. “I guess that means, no, thanks.”

“No, it doesn’t mean, no, thanks. It means not in your lifetime, buddy.”

“Alrighty, then.” He looked at his watch. “Gotta run. It’s been—I had thought this was fun, but it seems I was mistaken.”

Was he expecting her to reassure him? She glared, daring him to blink first.

He didn’t. Again there was that quirky twist of his lips, although this time they were tight instead of laughing. “It’s been an experience.”

As he turned to leave he stopped and raised an eyebrow, oh, so condescendingly. “You do pretty well for a TV doc.”

CHAPTER TWO

“YOU’VE GOT TO be kidding me.” Eva paced round the conference table, earrings swinging as her agent cringed and her producer looked anywhere but in her eyes.

Stan, the show’s executive producer, glared at her, too used to working with drama queens to be bothered by her display of temper, which made Eva even angrier. “A three-week series on high-school athletics to get the ratings up and get our audience used to field experience, then, if the ratings are high enough, you get your drug-abuse series. You’ve been asking for this and now you’re complaining?”

“I didn’t ask to work with someone I’m so obviously not compatible with, though.”

“That’s not what our audience surveys are saying. They loved Dr. O’Donnell and they loved the two of you together.”

“Together.” Eva stopped pacing to stare into Stan’s eyes, gaining the slightest satisfaction that in her heels she towered over him. “I’ve worked hard for you. I’ve proved myself time and time again. O’Donnell waltzes onto the set, flashes a sexy grin and you beg him to take on a field assignment when I’ve been trying to negotiate one for the last two contracts?”

Phil, her daily producer and usually her ally, gathered up his courage to try to soothe her. “With sponsors pulling out, none of us have a lot of room for negotiation. We have to do something big to make up for cutting back our on-air schedule from five days to three.”

“What? They’re cutting our schedule?”

Phil seemed to shrink in on himself. “You didn’t know?”

Both the producer and the executive producer stared at her agent as if her lack of easy agreement was all his fault.

She couldn’t throw her kind-hearted agent under the bus.

“Henry’s not to blame. I had to cancel our meeting yesterday.” Her grandmother had been having a bad day, confused and agitated with all her caregivers. The sweet little lady who had raised her would never have raised her voice if she had been in her right mind. Dementia was a terrible disease.

And an expensive one to try to manage, too.

She needed this job. She had to remember that.

The money she could make by going back into clinical practice would easily take care of all her grandmother’s needs with plenty left over. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Not even for her abuelita.

“Talk to her,” Stan demanded.

Henry sent them all a firm, noncommittal look. “Give us a moment.”

Once the room was cleared, Eva leaned back in her chair, a feeling of unease building in the back of her neck. “What else haven’t you told me?”

Mark O’Donnell watched his nephew run drills on the same high school field he’d once run them on. The coaches were new, but the discipline was the same.

Without sports and dedicated coaches to instill boundaries, Mark didn’t know where he might have ended up.

Hopefully, he would provide a better father figure for Aaron than his absent dad had been.

“So she agreed?” Mark had been certain Eva Veracruz would turn down the assignment faster than she could say manicure.

He still wasn’t sure why he’d agreed himself. Maybe it had something to do with feeling more alive while on set than he had in a very long time.

Maybe that energy had more to do with Eva than it did with the television cameras. It was a question he didn’t have to answer since the show and Eva went together.

And if she nixed the idea, he wouldn’t have to worry about the why of it all, then, either, would he?

“She agreed,” his newfound talent agent assured him. “She’ll tape the shows live on Mondays and Wednesdays. You two will share a set on Fridays. And the rest of the time, for the next three weeks, she’ll shadow you when you’re doing your volunteer work at the high school, learning how you and the school system works with parents to keep our young athletes healthy both on and off the field. The executive producer wants to start filming on Tuesday.”

Mark thought of how those boys on the field would react to having Eva in their locker room. Wasn’t going to happen under his watch.

Second thoughts swamped him. He could hardly believe he was agreeing to do this. But he needed to break out of the rut he could see himself falling into and here was a sure-fire way to do that.

“I still find it hard to believe she graduated medical school, even though I looked up her bio on the station’s web page.” The bio’s headline had read, “Single, Sexy and Smart.” It had gone on to explain that Dr. Eva Veracruz was a New Orleans native with a degree in medicine from the state university. She’d been on the show for two years, having taken over from Dr. Todd Marsiglia.

Mark remembered Dr. Marsiglia’s show. It had been dry, a filler for the thirty minutes before the noontime news. He’d often turned it on for the monotony to key down after the night shift.

“Did she even spend time practicing medicine before turning to television?”

Henry, who was also Eva’s agent, shrugged. “I can’t discuss that with you. Confidentiality. And I’d advise that you don’t ask her about it either. Eva has some issues there.”

“I’ll just bet she does. She strikes me as the kind of woman that has issues about everything from her toenail polish to her hair color.”

Henry gave him an unyielding frown, so unexpected from a man who made his living from negotiation and compromise. “There’s more to Eva than most men bother to see.”

“I’ve seen beneath the surface of women like her. I was married to a high-maintenance woman like Eva for longer than I care to admit.” Mark realized he’d given his standard knee-jerk response. His statement wasn’t the only thing jerky.

Apparently, not only had his ex destroyed his self-esteem, she’d turned him into a judgmental jerk, too.

Before Mark could retract his glib response, Henry gave one of his characteristic shrugs and turned the conversation. “You asked about the confidentiality of the students. Staff will need signed release waivers from anyone they film. For anyone under age, they’ll need the waivers signed by either a parent or a legal guardian or we can’t use the film. You can use that as a way to keep your interactions confidential if you need to.”

“I understand. Thanks for checking on that for me.”

“I consider it part of my job. Despite any preconceived ideas you have about us, agents really do take care of more than the paperwork.”

“I’ll remember that.” Mark raised his hand in promise. “From now on, no preconceived ideas about agents or about doctors turned talk-show hosts.”

Henry gave him a nod. “That would be a good thing to remember.”

A good thing would be to wear sensible shoes on an athletic field. But Mark had stuck his own foot in his mouth enough already, so he refrained from saying it out loud as he watched Eva approach him.

To keep her heels from sinking into the grass, she had to take mincing steps on tiptoe, making her hips sway even more than he’d noticed earlier.

He’d always been a sucker for curvy women. His ex had cured him of a lot of his downfalls, but apparently not this one.

Mark had to exert great willpower to keep from gawking as Eva walked towards them.

Instead, he turned back toward the practice field where his nephew was now doing push-ups as punishment for some transgression, likely mouthing off. Mark worried about the boy. Aaron was too much like him at that age. The kid was going to get into real trouble if he didn’t change his ways.

But no amount of advice was going to keep Aaron safe from himself. Again, experience talking.

Mark gave the assistant coach a nod and a knowing look, even though the man wouldn’t see it with his attention focused on Aaron. If not for the dedication of men like him, he wouldn’t be who he was. He didn’t know how he would have turned out without such dedicated role models, he only knew he would have become someone a lot, lot worse.

Aaron had a good heart. But he also had a hot head. Between his mouthiness and his temper, he was too much of a handful for Mark’s sister to handle along with her new husband.

In the three months since Aaron had moved in with him, Mark’s grocery bill had quadrupled, his electricity bill had doubled and his social life had become non-existent.

Which explained why the Hispanic hottie in front of him captured more of his interest than he wanted to give her.

Time for a date night. What did he do with that cute little history teacher’s number?

Eva pointed her clipboard at him. “I’m only doing this for the numbers.”

“What numbers?”

“Ratings.” She looked out at the field then back at him. “Let’s get this right out in the open. It wasn’t my idea to partner with you, but I’m a professional and intend to make the best of it. I’m hoping you’ll extend me the same professional courtesy.”

Mark knew what she was referring to. “Professional courtesy like acknowledging your medical degree?”

“That’s a start.”

“I looked you up. You’re legitimate.”

“I looked you up, too.” She gave him a hard stare up and down. “You do a lot of volunteer work for the local high schools, this school in particular. You’re well respected among the educators and the coaches in the area. I’m impressed with your work.”

He hadn’t been expecting a compliment. “Thanks.”

“But you need to understand from the beginning that I’m the lead on this project. Got it?”

“Got it.” Mark gritted his teeth. It went against his nature to follow anyone’s lead. But his years in sports had taught him how to be a team player even if he couldn’t always be team captain.

Apparently, his tone didn’t convince her, because Eva put her hands on her hips, straining the fabric across her breasts as she drove her point home. “Those tricks you learned for getting through those five-minute press-release interviews you did when you were in high school won’t always save you when you have to fill a thirty-minute segment.”

She was a lot of woman. Swimsuit model came to mind—not the über-skinny kind selling women’s fashions but the kind that made it into men’s sports magazines, the kind that were substantial enough for a real man to put his hands on.

Women had always complimented his large hands.

He concentrated on her mouth instead. But those full red lips were as much of a distraction as the two buttons that threatened to pop.

Eyes, Mark. Look in her eyes and no lower.

“Are you listening to me, O’Donnell? This is a topic I’m very passionate about.”

Those flashing black eyes echoed her words. Yes, she was a passionate woman.

“Don’t worry, Dr. Veracruz. I’m a big fan of passion.”

Her brow furrowed, warning him she was readying herself for another impassioned lecture. As much as he would enjoy watching her deliver it, he also respected what she’d said.

“Give me a chance to try again with a better reply.” He was usually quicker thinking on his feet than this. He held up a hand, buying time as he gathered his thoughts.

“I have to admit, if you hadn’t stepped in and helped when I was explaining the heart-attack symptoms, I would have been sunk.” Mark always gave credit where credit was due. “To do this series the way it needs to be done, I’m going to need your experience.”

Eva was a sucker for a man who admitted he needed her. But Mark O’Donnell would be her exception. He was one of those kinds of men all smart women avoided, the kind of man who would scramble your brain and break your heart.

And she hadn’t yet got her mind straightened out from the last man she’d given her heart to.

Automatically her fingers felt for the missing wedding band that held a special place in her jewelry box. Almost two years.

The pain had finally become a dull thud instead of a sharp ache.

“Bad break-up?” Mark noticed her hands. He seemed to notice everything.

“You could say that.”

But she wasn’t about to trip down memory lane with this man in front of her.

“I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Maybe she would talk about it one day, but not today and not to this man.

Her camera crew awaited her signal as they sat in their steaming van on the coaches’ parking lot. Mid-September with both the temperature and humidity in the high nineties didn’t make waiting a pleasure.

She gave them a big wave and they tumbled out, dragging equipment with them.

Mark glared at them. “What’s this?”

“We’re here to get filler video, get the feel of the environment, maybe do an impromptu interview or two, that kind of thing.”

“I just agreed to do this show with you. How have you come already prepared?”

“It was happening with or without you.”

“So should I think of myself as expendable or as a bonus?”

“Whatever floats your boat, baby.” There went the sarcasm again.

He arched his eyebrow at her. “Baby?”

The second she’d called him “baby”, she’d known she shouldn’t have. But she knew how to handle men like this one. She looked him straight in the eye, challenging him. “You’re not going to file a sexual harassment complaint against me, are you?”

“Not if you promise to kiss me next time you call me ‘baby’. After all, if you’re going to sweet-talk me, I think I should get the whole benefit of it.”

“Fine.” She shouldn’t have said that. But it had been a while since she’d done anything she shouldn’t. And the man intrigued her. Few men did.

She widened her eyes and leaned forward, knowing he would respond to her body language. “Anything to get out of all the paperwork your complaint would cause me.”

Without waiting for his retort, she turned towards her crew, who were setting up with a good view of the practice field in the background.

A bead of sweat rolled down her cleavage, tickling her sensitive skin. With a clear conscience she could blame it entirely on the heat. She had always been a cool one with men and this man would be no exception.

But they’d need make-up to cover the effects of the temperature on both of them. Sweat beaded on his brow. She could feel similar beads on her upper lip. How would Dr. Mark O’Donnell feel about heavy-duty face powder?

She saw the crew’s make-up artist walking towards him, and saw Mark wave the woman away. This could get interesting.

Instead, Mark walked toward the canopy set up at the end of the practice field just as one of the coaches blew his whistle.

The boys scurried to the canopy, jostling each other as they queued up.

As they received sports drinks or water, Mark would occasionally pat one on the shoulder and point toward a bench in the shade. Near the end of the line, one of the larger boys tried to protest. Even from this distance Eva could see Mark’s stance stiffen as he stared the boy down.

After a tense two seconds it was over. The boy stomped past the bench to the field house, teenage anger apparent in every line of his body.

The incident seemed to take the energy from the team as adult shoulders squared and teenage shoulders drooped all around. Eva could almost smell the testosterone in the air.

Unlike the football team, her video team was jazzed up and raring to go.

“Ready, Eva?” her cameraman asked. He was a veteran at field assignments and excited to be out of the studio.

She took the huge directional microphone from a gaffer and planted her feet.

“Ready.”

Her producer counted her down, “On three, two, one …”

Eva put on her television smile and resisted looking around for Mark. It seemed she would be working without a partner today.