Challenging the Nurse's Rules. Janice Lynn
of warm bodies heating up the place.
Joni finished emptying the box and stooped to slide the box beneath the table. “You going to help me set up the cake walk?”
“I thought that was my job.”
Grant!
Samantha gave her a “you are so going to tell me everything later” look. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is. Besides, I’m needed at the ticket table. A lot of work setting that up, you know.”
“You need us to help you?” Grant offered, carefully putting the box he held on an empty spot on the table.
“I’ve got it covered.” Samantha shook her head, made eye contact with Joni and did an “I’m watching you” finger motion before leaving the community room to head towards the front of the building where tickets would be sold.
“This doesn’t start for almost an hour, you know,” Joni pointed out as she watched her friend bail on her for the second time that week. Some best friend.
“I know. I came to help with set-up.” He pulled out several home-made cakes that had Joni’s mouth watering. Wow. How many little old ladies had he hit up for that stash?
She eyed him suspiciously. “Did you know I was helping with set-up?”
Not looking one bit ashamed, he grinned. “Would you believe a little birdie told me?”
“Ha. I’d believe a big birdie told you.” Her gaze went toward where Samantha had just disappeared through the double doors.
He laughed. “I can’t let Samantha take the blame for this one. Brooke in Admissions told me.”
“Brooke?” Joni shook her head. Just how many of her friends had he talked to? “Do I have no friends?”
“Oh, you have lots of friends. They all think you are a great nurse, a great person, although a bit of a control freak. You like your privacy and have no romantic life that any of them are aware of.”
Joni’s jaw dropped. “They told you all that?”
“What can I say? Apparently, they like me.”
Good thing she didn’t have enemies.
“They don’t know you like I do,” she quipped.
“True,” he admitted, taking the last of the cakes out of the box and arranging it just so on the table. “And you don’t know me anywhere near as well as you’re going to. Now, where do we start?”
Joni started to argue with him that she didn’t want to know him better, but what was the point? He would just flash that smile of his and keep right on going.
“Fine,” she acquiesced, just ready to get this enforced time with him done and over with. “Carry this box over to the middle of that section and we’ll lay out our cake-walk squares. I checked earlier and all twenty-four squares are there. We just have to get them laid out in an eye-pleasing way.”
“Eye-pleasing, eh?”
“Grant—”
“I know, I know, get to work. Such a control-freak slave-driver.” He picked up the box and began doing her bidding one cake-walk square at a time while she pretended not to notice how his jeans hugged his behind and thighs in a way that made her want to moan.
Great. Just shoot her now, because tonight was going to be a long, torturous night.
Punching the Play button on the old-fashioned boombox being used for the cake walk’s sound system, Grant grinned at his cute assistant who held the container full of numbered cards.
Apparently loving the festivities, Joni had been smiling all evening. Well, all except for when she looked directly at him.
Then she frowned. But only a few times since he’d first arrived and caught her off guard. Good, he liked catching her off guard because then she didn’t have time to slide that masked expression into place.
Not that she’d masked her expression much tonight.
Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she was having fun. A lot of fun. With him.
So was he. With her.
How long since he’d felt this attracted to a woman? This relaxed? Years, thanks to Ashley. Why had he let her take over his life so? Well, he knew why. Staying with her had been easier than dealing with the drama of breaking up.
But sometimes love wasn’t enough. In Ashley’s case that had held true. Or maybe he hadn’t been enough. Definitely not enough to keep her away from the demons that drove her.
Grant pulled his mind back to the present, determined not to let the past drag him down, not tonight. Not ever again. He’d moved to Bean’s Creek to make a new start. He’d needed to make a fresh start. He had, right down to meeting Joni and knowing he wanted more than just a co-worker relationship with her. Knowing he wanted more than just friendship with her but proceeding with caution because he didn’t want to end up right back in a similar relationship he’d been in with Ashley.
What he wanted was to peel off those snug jeans and kiss his way down the curve of Joni’s hips, the lushness of her thighs, the tonedness of her calves, right down to the arch of her foot. Was she ticklish? Would she squirm free from his embrace, giggling and retaliating with touches and kisses of her own? Or would she simply moan in pleasure?
He closed his eyes, swallowed. Hard. If he didn’t get his mind on the job at hand and off Joni, he was going to be hard. He was about halfway there already. More than halfway.
“Grant?”
His gaze went to Joni’s expectant one. She was so beautiful, so full of verve, so tempting. “Hmm?”
Brows drawn tight, she gave him a pointed look. “Don’t you think the music has gone long enough this round?”
Grant grimaced. He’d forgotten to stop the music. The cake walkers had been circling around the numbered squares for God only knew how long. He covered his slip with a grin. “I was building the suspense.”
“It’s built.” She sounded breathy, and his gaze dropped to where her sweater hugged her full chest. Never in his life had he been jealous of a shirt, but tonight he’d like to be wrapped around Joni. When he’d first arrived, the room had been cold and she’d been at high attention, had captured his notice and his imagination. Flashes of sliding his hands beneath her sweater, tweaking those taunt peaks, cupping those generous breasts, had been teasing him all evening.
“And,” she continued, oblivious to how he wanted to drag her beneath the table full of cakes and nibble his way around her body, “Mrs. Lehew is about to need to replace her portable oxygen tank if she has to make another lap.”
If he kept staring at Joni’s tight little sweater, he was going to need portable oxygen himself.
“You might be right.” He pressed the button to pause the music, pointed to the basket of numbered cards for Joni to draw out a winner. “Have at it.”
“Number eleven,” she called, casting him another odd look, before smiling sweetly at the seven—or eight-year-old snaggle-toothed boy who was jumping up and down on the number eleven block. Instantly, Grant had visions of Joni jumping up and down on the square, of her sweater outlining her breasts as they bounced and jiggled and beckoned to him. His jeans grew tighter. Too tight. Any moment he was going to lose all circulation in the lower half of his body.
Immediately after the young boy claimed his prize, Joni called for the crowd’s attention, again. “Since Dr. Bradley got a little carried away by the music …” she sent him a sugary smile “… stay on your squares, because we’re going to pick another winner.” She reached into the basket and pulled out another card. “Number fourteen.”
“Mrs. Lehew.” Despite his uncomfortable jeans, Grant laughed. “You sure you didn’t rig that win, Nurse Joni?”
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