Jared turned back to the parking lot, needing a few minutes to regain his own composure, remembering the ride home from the hospital, his mother’s anger, her harsh accusations and the years of being treated as if he didn’t exist that followed.
To quell the painful memories trying to escape the remote part of his brain where he’d locked them, Jared contemplated his favorite topic of recent weeks. Nurse Ali Forshay.
He remembered their first interaction, before he had known she was his friend’s girl, in the close confines of the clean utility room. He’d brushed against her, reaching for a roll of tape, and they’d both gone still, shared a stunned did-you-feel-what-I-just-felt look. More than a tingle, he’d been jolted by an awareness, a powerful attraction that’d had him on the verge of taking her into his arms and kissing her, a women whose name he hadn’t even known.
Soulmate? Maybe.
His type of woman? If he allowed himself to have a type, she’d be it.
Pretty. Smart. Funny.
A great nurse with an unparalleled bedside manner.
If he were free to shack up for a while, she’d be at the top of his I-want-her-in-my-bed list. But he wasn’t free, mentally or legally.
“You okay?” Ali asked, coming to stand beside him.
“Just peachy. How about you?”
“You were great with Jimmy. I’m sorry you lost your dad so young.”
He couldn’t look at her. “It’s why I became a physician, so no kid would have to deal with what I went through. I’m doing a great job of it, huh?”
“You’re not God.” She set her hand on his forearm, sending a flare of soothing warmth throughout his body. He craved her touch with a ferocity that excited him as much as it unnerved him.
“You coded Jimmy’s dad twelve minutes longer than any other physician here would have,” she said. “You did your best.”
He tilted his head down and to his left, and their eyes met, held. Hers conveyed genuine concern, empathy. He’d seen it dozens if not hundreds of times over the months they had worked together, directed at her patients, never at him. Yet, instead of using the moment as an opportunity for a sincere conversation between them, he chose to ignore the unwanted, long-suppressed feelings starting to stir deep in his damaged soul for a chance to play, to forget.
“Careful, Kitten,” he said in an exaggerated whisper, taking care to make sure there was no one around to hear his term of endearment that delighted him as much as it aggravated her. “I might get the impression you’re starting to like me.” His mood lifted. “That as hard as you’re trying not to, you can’t help yourself.”
“Nah.” She looked down at her watch. “The hospital pays me to be kind and compassionate. Lucky for you I’m still on the clock.”
“Good.” He leaned in close to her ear. “Maybe we can go someplace private and you can give me a little more of your commm … passion.”
She pinched him.
Good for her. The girl had spunk. “Ouch.” He rubbed his upper arm. “Where’d the kindness go?”
She looked up at him, her light blue eyes narrowed.
“I’m on the verge of breaking down.” He wiped at his dry lashes. “I think I feel some tears coming.”
She turned and walked back toward the E.R. without giving him a second glance. And she looked just as fine from the back as she did from the front, her lavender scrub pants hugging her perfectly shaped rear, her long brown hair up in a loose knot and sensible little gold hoop earrings curving under her kissable earlobes.
“Don’t women like it when a man shows his emotions?” he called after her.
She stopped. “Lust is not an emotion, Dr. P.,” she answered over her shoulder.
“It sure is. Come over to my place after work and we’ll do a Google search. Whoever’s right gets to choose what we do next. You wanna know what I’ll pick?”
Ali hit the button beside the electronic doors.
As they started to open he called out, “Time’s running out, Ali.”
She hesitated before walking back into the E.R.
Jared waited a minute, trying to contain his smile. He knew she wouldn’t bite, but provoking her was so much fun. No one entertained him like Ali. For the first time in the two years he’d worked as an agency physician, traveling from hospital to hospital throughout New York State, Jared might actually miss someone when an assignment ended. A sure-fire sign it was past time for him to move on.
Relationships, loving someone, getting married, weakened people, made them dependent and vulnerable. His father’s death had crushed his mother’s spirit, left her brokenhearted, angry and unable to find joy. His wife’s deceit, desertion and the resulting legal problems that had him fighting to stay out of jail had almost done the same to him.
No. He preferred to go it alone. No attachments, no expectations, no one for him to disappoint and no one to disappoint him.
Ali took the patient chart her coworker held out to her. “I’m heading down for break,” the other nurse said. “I put a D&D in Exam Room One.”
A drunk and disorderly isolated in a private room at the far end of the inverted T-shaped hallway. “Thanks,” Ali said with mock appreciation.
“His friends are helping him change into a gown.”
Super-de-duper. A bunch of rabble-rousers to egg him on. She glanced at her watch. Four-twenty-two in the morning on the night shift that would not end. Opening the folder, she reviewed the Reason for Visit: patient injured at strip club. Attacked by bouncer during lap dance. Pain in left eye, left cheek, jaw, abdomen and right ribs.
Ali listened outside the door before knocking. All was quiet until a male voice called out, “Come in.”
“My name is Allison,” she said as she pushed the wedge under the door to keep it open. “I’ll be your nurse.” Before entering, she evaluated the room’s four occupants—three visitors with their dress pants and button-down shirts disheveled, two of whom were slumped in chairs, one leaning with his back to the wall. They looked tired. Sedate.
Good. She placed the patient chart on the counter by the sink and walked toward the dark-haired man sitting with his bare legs hanging over the side of the stretcher, his head hanging low, both arms braced at his hips, not quite holding him steady. “Can you tell me how much you’ve had to drink tonight?”
She placed her hand on his wrist to take his pulse and began her assessment. AOB—alcohol on breath.
He looked up. “Enough to make you the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“Gee, thanks.” Left eye swollen, partially closed, mild bruising, dried blood in the outer corner. Left cheek swollen and red. Dried blood noted to the left nostril.
He blinked as if trying to clear his vision. “Ali?” He lowered his eyes to her name badge. “Well, hot damn.” He turned to his friends, swayed and latched on to the bedrail for support. “Looks like my chances of getting lucky are on the rise, my friends.”
Hell. A guy she knew from high school. His face battered, she hadn’t recognized him. “Your pulse is fine.” She snapped the plastic covering over the thermometer probe. “Hold this under your tongue.”
“There are other things I’d rather do with my tongue.” He stuck said body part out and flicked it rapidly from side to side. His friends snickered.
“And as soon as you leave the E.R., you can do them all,” Ali replied. “But right now I need you to lift it and hold this thermometer under it.”
He smiled and slid the