“Watch Will,” he said, turning away. “I’ll be right back.”
He washed his face then took a minute to splash cold water on it for good measure before finding a new shirt to wear. How was he going to handle this? Being anywhere near Bree was messing up the equilibrium he’d fought so hard to get back the past six months, and apparently hers, too. Getting out of the house and somewhere public seemed like a good plan. Someplace other than his house, where every room suddenly brought reminders of making love with her, and laughing with her, and planning a not-happening future with her.
He blew out a breath then walked into the baby’s room to see Bree struggling with the child’s clothes, his little shirt all twisted sideways.
“You do this,” she said. She huffed out a frustrated breath and held out the pants. “There’s got to be an easier way.”
“You’d think so.” He reached for the pants but she didn’t let go. Both held on to them for a long moment, and he found his gaze fixated on her mouth. The mouth he didn’t realize he’d been starving for until he’d kissed her on the helipad. The way she was looking at him had him wondering if she was thinking about the same thing, which then had him thinking about kissing her again to find out. Which would be real smart, considering she’d dumped him and shredded his heart into little pieces he still hadn’t managed to put back together.
He dragged his attention from her mouth to focus on the clothes as he tugged them from her hand. Pulling Will’s little foot through the pants at the same time the baby kept pulling his leg up to his chest took serious concentration, which made it a welcome distraction. Finally, he managed to get one tiny, curved leg through, then the other, before glancing at Bree again. “Getting this kid dressed is like putting socks on a clam, you know?”
Soft laughter left those beautiful lips. “Never tried putting socks on a clam, but it sounds accurate.”
They smiled at each other before he finally got the ridiculous pants pulled up and straightened the mini shirt. Feeling pretty proud of the achievement, he picked the baby up and held him up to Bree. “It was a struggle, but you’ve got to admit he looks awful cute now that he’s all dressed and manly-looking in pinstripes.”
She reached out to stroke the baby’s cheek, and the sweet, soft expression on her face shocked him. Stole his breath. “Yeah. He does. Manly might be a little bit of an overstatement for a three-day-old, but there’s no denying he’s one cute kid. No doubt he’s going to be as handsome as his uncle when he grows up.”
Her gaze moved above Will’s head to meet his, and there it was again. Something in her eyes that made his heart beat harder and his insides get all knotted up, and just as he was about to put the baby down and reach for her, and to hell with the consequences, she turned away.
“I’m going to take a short walk. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Yeah. She was feeling it, too, and getting some fresh air sounded like a very good idea. He was pretty sure sitting alone in the house with Will wouldn’t cool the heat that pumped through his veins every time she walked back in the room. But outside? They couldn’t get in much trouble on the public bike path that wound around the bay outside his house, with all kinds of people going by, right? “How about we put him in the stroller and go for a walk together?”
“What if going outside makes him start crying again?” she said, that worried pucker diving back between her brows.
“Then we’ll come back in. Worked before, didn’t it?”
“Sounds good.” Her smile showed she was happy with the idea, which managed to help him smile, too. “Where’s his stroller?”
“Not sure.” He scanned all the stuff the delivery guy had piled into the room. “Maybe still in the box?”
Bree shoved things aside to unearth it. “Here it is.” She tugged and tried to wrestle the stroller out of the box, but it seemed glued inside. “How the heck do they have this thing crammed in here?”
He tucked the baby into his arm and held the box down. “You should have been here to help put the crib together. That was a lot of fun.”
She gave a breathless laugh, finally hauling it out and plopping it onto the floor. “Oh, I’m real sorry I missed that. So wish I could have been here to help.”
“Probably just as well, now that I think about it. We’d have gotten in a fight about how it was supposed to go together, like when we built the bookcase in your apartment.”
“And I still think the back of it is upside down, which I’ll prove when I move it. If I’m right, I’ll send you a picture and gloat.” She flashed him a grin before she leaned over to pull the front and back wheels apart to open the stroller. The sight, again, of her rear and those bare legs jutting at him and moving around was now permanently branded into his brain. Which sent his libido soaring all over again and his old anger and hurt punching hard into his gut when he thought of all the fun times they’d shared. And how he could keep feeling both of those things at the same time? Over and over again?
He had no idea. But one thing he did know: it was going to be a long couple of days. With unwelcome heat and a lot of cold showers.
“WE’RE STILL TRYING to find a room for you, Mr. Grant, but hopefully one will be available soon,” Bree said to the more-than-angry patient who’d been in the ER since she’d first arrived that morning, and it was now going on six p.m. “In a big hospital like this, there’s sometimes a juggle between getting patients released and new patients into those rooms. Hang in just a little longer, okay?”
She gave him her friendliest, most reassuring smile, hoping a little niceness on her part would go a long way toward making the nurses’ jobs a little easier. Nurses who had put up with plenty of verbal abuse from the man, and who had asked her to calm him down since he’d been demanding to talk to a doctor about it. As though there were something she could do to magically make a bed become available.
And as though he cared much what she had to say anyway. There were always a certain number of male patients who, when they wanted to talk to the doctor, wanted a male doctor, and treated her and other female doctors the same way they treated nurses.
With disrespect.
Yes, it stuck in all their craws, made her chest burn and her head feel as if it were about to explode, but it was just the way it was. She’d learned that accepting it was part of the job. Discussing it with older doctors, she knew it had been part of the mentality of patients and even other physicians for years, and, apparently, was a lot better than it used to be. Those who cared about the subject were sure that, as time went on, those attitudes would eventually fade away completely. She had to hope that was true.
Sean was proof that some men had changed their attitudes. He utterly respected her work, which had been part of the reason she’d fallen so hard for him. But respecting her and knowing she could well take care of herself didn’t stop him from somehow thinking it was his job to take care of her, too. He’d protested that loving someone meant caring for them, that she was independent to a fault.
She’d learned long ago there was no such thing. If a person didn’t focus on achieving personal goals and accomplishments and independence, then what would you be? Not enough, that was what. Sean just didn’t understand, and it had been one more thing that had led to the spectacular crash and burn and utter flameout of their relationship.
Not her problem anymore, she reminded herself fiercely. Sean could go find the right wife for himself, and she’d someday, maybe,