Dancing in the Moonlight - Harlequin.com

RAEANNE THAYNE
59
She had needed his support and encouragement desperately
in those early days. But the three days he spent
in D.C. had been a nightmare. She didn’t think he had
met her gaze once that entire visit—and he certainly
hadn’t been able to bring himself to look at her stump.
One time he happened to walk in when the nurses
were changing her dressing and she would never forget
the raw burst of revulsion in his eyes before he had
quickly veiled it.
She had given him back his ring at the end of his visit,
and he had accepted it with an obvious relief that demoralized
and humiliated her.
She couldn’t put herself through that again. She had
been devastated by his reaction.
If a man who supposedly cared about her—who had
e-mailed her daily while she was on active duty, had sent
care packages, had uttered vows of undying love, and
who was a surgeon—found her new state as an amputee
so abhorrent, how could she ever let down her guard
enough to allow someone new past her careful defenses?
She couldn’t. The idea terrified her. Like her career
as a nurse practitioner, sex was another part of her life
she decided she would have to give up.
No big whoop, she decided. Lots of people lived
without it and managed just fine.
She hadn’t even had so much as an itch of desire since
her accident, and she thought—hoped even—that perhaps
those needs had died. It would be better if they had.
If she wasn’t ever tempted, she wouldn’t have to
exercise any self-control in the matter.
To find herself responding on a physical level to any