Finn flexed his fingers, hoping it would rid them of the urge to reach out and touch her throat, smooth his thumb across her pounding pulse point. From the meter or so he’d put between them, he could still tell her skin looked as soft as silk. But her spirit? Solid steel.
The combination pounded a double hit onto his senses. Primal. Cerebral.
Problem Number Two.
He bashed the primal response into submission and channeled his thoughts into figuring out what made her tick.
Work.
That much was obvious. Not that he kept tabs on the woman, but he’d only ever seen her in work clothes. Never did she shift to casual or night-out-on-the-town outfits as loads of other doctors did when they threw their scrubs in for washing. Then again...he wasn’t exactly a social butterfly either.
She was top of her game. No one came more highly recommended in her field of pediatric physio than she did.
Snap. He was up there in the top-rated limb specialists.
She was opinionated.
Snap again.
Fair dos to the woman, she hadn’t blinked once when he’d all but marched her to an empty room a few doors down from Adao’s and wheeled on her.
He counted to ten in time with her heartbeat before he’d steadied his own enough to speak.
“So.” He crossed his arms and tipped his head toward Adao’s room. “What was that all about?”
She gave her head a quick shake as if she didn’t understand.
He waited. His failsafe technique.
Far more effective than saying the myriad of things he could have:
“There’s only one person in charge in that room and it’s me.”
Not his style.
“Since when is a physio a psychiatrist?”
Ditto. He wasn’t into tearing people down, but he did like explanations for outbursts.
The seconds ticked past.
Naomi threw a quick look over her shoulder, stuffed her hands in the pockets of her Hope Hospital hoodie then said, “Okay. Fine. I just feel for the little man, you know?”
He loved the way she said “feel”—even if it was a verb he didn’t include in his own vocabulary. She said it as if the word had heft. Gravitas, even. As if it meant something.
What a thing to have all that emotion churning round in your chest. Way too much extra baggage to haul around the hospital if he wanted to do his job properly. If he professed to know one solitary thing about himself it was this: Finn Morgan did not do baggage.
Ha!
He coughed into his hand to hide a self-deprecating smirk.
If his ex-wife could read his thoughts, she would’ve pounced on them like a mouse on cheese.
One of the last things she’d said to him before he’d left his past where it belonged was that he was “Made of baggage.” And one day? “One day,” she’d said to him, “all of that baggage will tumble open and wreak havoc with the man you keep telling yourself you are.”
How about that for a “let’s keep it friendly” farewell.
On a good day he recalled her “prophesy” as tough love.
On bad days? On bad days he tried not to think of her at all.
He shifted his weight off his knee and brought his thoughts back to Adao and Naomi. “How do you ‘feel’ for him? Are you from Kambela?”
“No, I’m...” She started to say something then pressed her lips together and started again. “I know what it’s like to arrive somewhere new and feel...overwhelmed. Not know who to trust.”
“Oh, I see. So you’re the only one he can trust here, is that what you’re saying?”
Why was he being so confrontational? She was clearly doing what any employee of Hope Children’s Hospital should be doing: Holding the patient’s needs first and foremost in their mind. At all times.
Take it down a notch, man. She’s trying to do right by the kid.
He shrugged the tension out of his shoulders and adopted what he hoped was a less confrontational pose. “I see what you’re saying. The kid’s been through a lot. But the one person he’s got to trust is me.” He let it sink in a minute. He was the one who would be holding the scalpel tomorrow. He was the one who would be changing Adao’s life forever.
“You’re the one who will help him live. I’m the one who’s going to help him rebuild his life,” Naomi shot back.
Wow. The pronouncement was so loaded with barbs he could take personally he almost fell back a step. Good thing he didn’t take workplace slanging matches personally.
The surgery and recovery Adao required was a step-by-step process. And they weren’t anywhere near rehab. No point in popping on rose-colored glasses at this stage. Whether she liked it or not, Adao had a long road of recovery ahead of him, and the first step was the operating table. Finn’s operating table.
“You got the order right,” Finn said. “Life first.”
And that was the simple truth of the matter.
Naomi didn’t respond verbally. But the pursed lips followed by a swift inhalation told him all he needed to know. She knew the facts as well as she did. She just didn’t like them.
“C’mon.” He steered her, one hand pressed to the small of her back, toward Adao’s room. “All the basics should be taken care of right now. How ’bout you sit in while I talk Adao through his first twenty-four hours here at Hope?”
If she was surprised, Naomi masked it well. If she noticed he dropped his hand from her back about as quickly as he’d put it there, she made no sign of it either. As if the moment had never happened.
The tingling in his fingers spoke a different story. When he’d touched her? That flame in his core had tripled in size.
* * *
Leaning against the doorframe, having refused Finn’s invitation to join him, Naomi had to silently admit the truth.
She was impressed.
As cranky and gruff as Finn was with her...with Adao?...he was gentle, calm and capable of explaining some incredibly complicated facts in a way that didn’t patronize or confuse. When Adao spoke or asked questions, she recognized the same lilting accent she’d acquired when learning English from American missionaries or aid workers. Hers, of course, was softened by years in the UK and was now predominantly British English. His was still raw—lurching between the musical cadence of his mother tongue and wrestling with all the new English words.
“We can go over all of this again,” Finn was saying, “whenever you want. But the main thing is we’re here to help. Okay, little man? Anything you need?”
Adao shook his head now, his small head and shoulders propped up on the big white pillows. He was a collection of bandages with little bits of his brown skin peeking out at intervals. And his eyes...those big brown eyes rimmed with tears...spoke volumes.
Fear. Bewilderment. Loneliness.
He nodded at Finn but said nothing.
She got that.
The silence.
Admitting there was something or someone you missed so much you thought your heart might stop beating was as good as admitting a part of you wished it would. And despite the anxiety creasing his sweet little brow, she also saw fight in him. He wouldn’t be here otherwise.
She ached