The Nightshift Before Christmas. Annie O'Neil
to pull herself together. Shock didn’t even begin to cover what she’d felt when Josh had walked into her ER. Love, pain, desire, hurt...those could kick things off pretty nicely.
“Of all the ERs in all the world, he had to walk into this one.”
Talking to herself. That was a new one to add to her list of growing eccentricities. Maybe she should have fostered some of those friendships she’d left behind in Boston.
“Sounds like the start of a pretty good movie.” Josh’s legs moved into her peripheral vision as his voice filled her ears.
“More like the end of one.”
“No, that’s the start of a beautiful friendship.”
“Well—well...” She trailed off. Playing movie quotation combat with Josh was always a bad idea.
She huffed out a frustrated sigh. Couldn’t she just get a minute alone? She should have gone to the roof. No one went there in the winter, and she relished the moments of quiet, the twinkle of Copper Canyon’s Main Street. She swiped her hands across her cheeks again, wishing the motion could remove the crimson heat she felt burning in them. Against her better judgment she whirled on him and tried another retort.
“Should I have said ‘of all the stalkers in all the world’?”
“Oh, so going to the supplies cupboard to track down some mandated holiday scrubs has turned me into a stalker, has it?” he asked good-naturedly.
The five-year-old in her wanted to say yes and throw a good old-fashioned tantrum. The jumping-up-and-down kind. The pounding-of-the-fists kind. The Why me? Why you? kind. The Katie who’d shored up enough strength to finally call their marriage to a halt knew better. Knew it would only give Josh the fuel he wanted to add to a fire she could never put out.
She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much she still cared. That had been his problem all along. Too trusting that everything would be all right when time and time again the world had shown him the opposite was true. Who else had become an adrenaline junkie after their daughter had been stillborn? Hadn’t he known how dangerous everything he’d been doing was? And she’d always been the one who’d had to pick up the pieces, apply the bandages, ice the black eyes, realign the broken nose... Trying her best to laugh it off like he did when all she’d wanted to do was curl up in a corner and weep.
Couldn’t he see she had to play it safe? That losing their daughter had scared her to her very marrow? If she were ever to feel brave enough to move forward—let alone try and conceive again—he needed to call off his game of tug-of-war with mortality.
She scratched her nails along the undersides of her legs before standing up, using the pain to distract herself from doing what she really wanted.
“Large or extra-large?” she bit out.
“Guess that depends on if you need me to play Santa later.” He grabbed a pillow from a shelf and stuck it up his shirt.
Without bothering to examine the results, Katie yanked a pair of extra-large scrubs from a nearby shelf. Not because she needed a Santa but because she didn’t need to see how well he filled out the scrubs. The first time they’d met—woof! And she was no dog owner.
The first time they’d met... He said it had been in the library, but she was convinced to this day that he’d made it up. The day she’d first seen him—easily standing out in a crowd of junior residents, all kitted out in a set of formfitting scrubs—his eyes had alighted on her as if he’d just gained one-on-one access to the Mona Lisa herself... Mmm... That moment would be imprinted on her mind forever... She’d never let anyone get under her skin—but she’d been powerless to resist when it had come to Josh.
“Green! Good to see you remember red always makes my complexion look a bit blotchy.”
Katie blew a raspberry at him. She wasn’t playing.
“Or is it that you remember green always brings out the blue in my eyes?” He winked and took hold of the scrubs, trapping her hand beneath his.
Just feeling his touch reawakened things in Katie she had hoped she’d long-ago laid to rest. Her eyes lifted to meet his. Stormy sea-gray right now. Later... He was right. Later they’d be blue, and later still the color of flint. She had loved looking into his eyes, never knowing what to expect, trying to figure out how to describe the kaleidoscope of blues and grays, ever-shifting...ever true.
As the energy between them grew taut, the butterflies that had long lain dormant in her belly took flight, leaving heated tendrils in their wake. She tugged her hand free of his and gave him a curt smile. Physical contact with Josh was going to have to be verboten if she was going to keep it together for the next eight days. It was bad enough he’d seen her red-rimmed eyes.
She glanced at her watch.
T-minus...oh, about one hundred and ninety-two hours and counting!
“Twenty-four hours.”
“Beg pardon?” Josh shook his head.
Hadn’t he been riding the same train of thought she had? If she’d gone off on a magical journey down memory lane, the chances were relatively high he’d done the same thing. Different tracks—different destinations.
She cleared her throat. There was about half an ounce of resolve left within her and she needed to use it. “I’m giving you twenty-four hours.”
He raised his eyebrows and gave her his What gives? face.
“Oh, don’t play the fool, Josh. You’ve ambushed me. Pure and simple. And on—” She stopped, only just missing having her voice break. “It’s the minimum notice I have to give the agency if I want a replacement.”
“What are you on about, Kitty-Kat?” He pulled himself up to his full height. Josh always played fair and he could see straight through her. This was a below-the-belt move.
She jigged a nothing-to-do-with-me shrug out of her shoulders, her eyes anywhere but on his. “If it’s quiet enough we might be able to let you go earlier without telling the agency.”
She might not want him here, but she didn’t want to tarnish his record. He was a good doctor. Just a lousy husband. She squirmed under his intent gaze, pretty sure he was reading her mind. A sort of, kind of lousy husband.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Christmas is always busy! You’re going to need me. What kind of man would I be, leaving you to deal with a busy ER all on your own?”
“That’s terribly chivalrous of you, Josh. I’m going to need a doctor—yes. But I don’t need you.” She looked at her watch again, not wanting to see how deep her words had hit. Laceration by language was way out of her comfort zone—but tough. Josh had pushed her there—and she had an ER to run.
“Sorry, I’ve got to get to this patient.”
“Yup! I’m certainly looking forward to mine!” He mimed snapping on a pair of gloves with a guess-it’s-time-to-suck-it-up smile.
If she was feeling generous, she had to give it to him for keeping his cool. Assigning him a rectal examination as a “welcome gift” was not, she suspected, the reunion he had been hoping for. Then again, finding out her estranged husband would be her locum for the next week wasn’t much of a Christmas present for her, so tough again! Hadn’t two years’ worth of sending him divorce papers given him enough of a clue?
“Uh... Kate?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to move so I can get my patient’s Christmas ornament back on the tree?”
“Yes!” she blurted, embarrassed to realize she’d been staring. “Yes, of course. I was just...” She stopped. She wasn’t “just” anything. She stepped back and let him pass.
“I’m happy to see you, too, Katiebird,” he said at the doorway, complete with one of those looks she knew could see