“No, I’ll let her know. I don’t want to be dishonest,” he said, dabbing at a splotch of green paint on his scrubs with a rag.
Of course not. Opie would never lie.
As if he’d read my mind, he said, “I watched a couple episodes about that Opie kid on the internet last night.”
“The Andy Griffith Show? Me, too. We could’ve watched it together. You have paint on your cheek, by the way.” I pointed to the right side of his face. He wiped at it a few times, missing it completely.
“Let me.” I stepped over and tugged on his scrubs, and he leaned down. I blotted his cheek with a towel, and then wiped my fingers over the slightly red mark it left.
“Did you get it?” Cole asked.
“Yes.” I continued to caress his face.
“Then why are you still rubbing my cheek?”
“Can’t help myself, Opie.” I wagged my eyebrows at him.
He straightened. “I’m not Opie,” he said with a half grin.
“No? Tell me something about yourself that’s not Opie-like,” I challenged.
“I once owned a motorcycle.” He looked at me triumphantly.
“Once? What happened to it?”
“I sold it,” he said casually, keeping his eyes on the paint brush in his hand.
“Why?” I pressed.
“Because . . . because it’s too dangerous. Do you have any idea how many motorcycle accident victims come into the ER?”
As he went on and on about the gruesome motorcycle accidents he’d seen, and about the statistics of surviving an accident while riding one, I counted the freckles scattered across his nose. Twelve. I wanted to kiss each and every one. I also noted the strawberry blonde strands he had running through his hair that I hadn’t noticed before. I couldn’t help but grin at the way his eyes crinkled after tripping over his feet trying to put some space between us. Yup. Opie was freaking adorable from the tip of his strawberry blond hair to the ends of the tattered leather clogs on his feet.
Whoa. I needed to rein myself in before I fell for this guy big time. Come on, girl, keep it together.
“You’re not listening to me, are you?” Cole observed.
“Yes. You’re describing all the horrible motorcycle accident victims you’ve treated. But you forget, many people ride motorcycles every day without getting into an accident.”
“True,” he admitted grudgingly.
“You can’t live in a protective bubble, Cole. Life is meant to be experienced. You need to fall every now and then, get a little scraped up. You need to take a chance. Fall in love at the risk of getting your heart broken.” I dipped my paint brush in the bucket, wiping off the excess on the can’s lip. “Have you ever been in love?”
“Yes.” He answered with a tenderness that pulled me around to face him. “In my freshman year in college. We were engaged to be married that summer.” He knelt down, needlessly adjusting the paint can.
“What happened?”
He looked up at me and shrugged, pain filling his eyes. “She got a better offer. My roommate, Craig, was studying to be a neurosurgeon, and in his last year of college with a lucrative career looming in front of him. A surgeon makes much more than a simple family practice doctor. Or an ER doctor, for that matter,” he said it nonchalantly. He even laughed as if it were no big deal, but it still hurt him. At least that was what his eyes said.
“She was a fool, Cole, and I for one am grateful you never married the little gold digger.”
“What bothered me the most were the lies. She told me she loved me every day. The evening I found them together, in my car, mind you, going at it like a couple of teenagers at a drive-in, she ran after me, begging me to forgive her, swearing that she still loved me. Even after all the deception, she had the nerve to ask if we could still be friends.”
“And you said yes.” I stroked his soft hair, painfully aware of my own lies as he continued to play with the can of paint.
“How did you . . .?”
“Opie. He’d never hurt someone’s feelings, even if they did deserve it.” I carefully kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry. You deserve so much better than that.” To my surprise, his ears didn’t turn that red. “Broken hearts sound so romantic, but in reality they suck,” I said, moving back as Cole stood.
“Okay, Lilah. Since this afternoon has turned into True Confessions, how about you? Have you had your heart broken?” he questioned.
Oh boy, have I. I took a deep breath and nodded. “For the most part, I was the one breaking hearts. I think I had ten different boyfriends in high school. I’d get bored and toss them aside. As you can guess, I fall in love easily.” I shook my head. “No, not love. Infatuation. I infatuate easily.
“But there was one guy I thought I loved. I wanted to spend forever with him, except my family wasn’t good enough for him. He dumped my sorry butt and fast. That one hurt, badly.” I left out that he was actually my husband, and when he learned Daddy was a notorious drug dealer he ditched me.
“It sounds like you’re better off without him. I can’t believe he didn’t approve of your family.” He shook his head. “What does your dad do? He’s not a hitman, is he?”
I diverted my eyes at his joke. Hitman? No. Drug smuggler? Yes.
“He’s retired, actually.” Okay, so it was a forced retirement. “Now he just butts into my life and tries to run it.”
“He probably isn’t ready to see his little girl grow up yet.” Cole turned back to the door trim, adding, “I mean, how old are you? Nineteen, maybe twenty-years-old?”
“Is that what you think?”
“Am I wrong?” He glanced at me, waiting for an answer.
“Cole, a woman never tells her age.” I flashed a bright smile. “Tell me, Opie? Do you prefer your women young, or are you more into the whole cougar thing?”
“You’re a flirt,” he said, pointing a paint brush at me. “And I’ll bet I’m not the first person to tell you that.”
“I’ll bet you’re right.”
“You’re not going to tell me how old you are, correct?”
“Correct.”
He muttered something incoherently under his breath and went back to painting.
**
“Good morning.” Cole smiled at me brightly as I dragged myself into the office early the next morning.
“You’re a morning person, aren’t you?” I plopped down on the office chair, ignoring the fact that a paint tarp covered it.
“Yes. I’m guessing you’re not?” Cole had a paint brush in his hand. I glanced up to see if he’d finished the cutting in, but he hadn’t. He must have just gotten here.
“What time did you get up?” I yawned, stretching my back.
“Six. I went for an early run, showered, and then came directly here.” He wiped at a fresh splotch of paint that dripped from his brush onto his scrub top. The scrubs were covered in splotches now. It brought a smile to my face.
“You run in the mornings?” I sat up straight. I loved running, only I hated to go alone.
“Five, maybe six miles, usually three days a week. Do you like to run?” He pressed down the corner of a bandage on his left wrist I hadn’t notice before.
“I do, only I hate going alone. Too many nut jobs.” He nodded in agreement. “Maybe we can go together,” I said, testing the waters.
“Sure,” he said. “But I’m not very fast.”
“Me neither. I do it to clear out the cob webs. Do you want to start Wednesday?” I leaned forward, yawning again.
“Are you sure you’ll be up for it? You look pretty tired,” he said with a cocked eyebrow.
“Nightmares.” I had another heated discussion with Daddy last night. In true Daddy style, he went ballistic on me for spending too much time with Cole and not enough trying to build a relationship with Prescott or Gatto. I then accused him of lying about the murders. It wasn’t pretty. Running would be the perfect way to clear Daddy out of my brain.
“Anything I can do to help?” h
e asked, studying my face.
Make my father disappear? Help me grow a spine and stand up to him? “No. They’ll pass. They always do.” As soon as I do what I’m forced to do.
Cole’s phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket, dropping his paint brush on his pants in the process. I pinched my lips together to keep from grinning. His klutzy ways were an embarrassment to him, only I found them endearing.
I took a deep breath and stood. “Let’s get this party started, girl.” I dug around in the supplies for a brush and poured myself some paint into a white plastic bowl as Cole spoke to another doctor about a patient. I stopped dead rounding the filing cabinet. On the wall he’d painted something gross. Cole stepped in front of me and waved a finger, signaling to me that he would explain everything in a minute.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked as he hung up.
He offered me a half-grin.
“It’s the small bowel.” He stepped over and added a few short strokes. “It’s kind of hard to paint a bowel with this big of a brush. I should have drawn it on paper.”
“Why?” was all I could say.
“I came in an hour ago fully intending to get all the cutting in done, but then this idea hit me before I even started.” He tipped his head, examining his art work. “The surgery’s tricky. There must be an easier way to resection the bowel so the patient doesn’t have to suffer so much trauma.”
I didn’t realize my mouth had dropped open until Cole looked at me. “Are you angry?”
I snapped my mouth shut. “No. Shocked maybe.”
“You can thank my father for this.” He pointed at the drawing. “He designed bridges and he’d drag all of us around the United States with him. To keep seven high energy boys under control in a Suburban, he invented the Brain Game. He’d create near impossible scenarios and have us boys figure out a way to solve them. I’m afraid whenever I’m faced with a dull task, my mind automatically pulls up scenarios for me to solve. Not that painting is mundane,” he quickly added, for my benefit I’m sure.
“It’s okay, Cole. This part of painting’s very mundane. I hate the taping off and the cutting in, though I can honestly say,” I shook my head, “I’ve never painted a bowel on the wall to alleviate the dullness.”
“I guess it is kind of an Opie thing to do.” He chuckled.
I watched as this gorgeous creature added yet another stroke to the small bowel on the wall and was struck at the differences between us. My father would never in a million years have played a game with us. In fact, he went on many business trips and never once did he take me. Then again, he dealt with contraband.
I walked over to Cole, stretched up and kissed his cheek. “I think you’re a kind and loving man, Cole, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to meet you.” His ears turned red before I finished my statement.
“Um, thank you.” He looked nervously around the room. “I guess we’d better get started.
“I guess so.”
Over the next six hours, I found myself touching Cole without even realizing it. I touched his arm whenever I spoke to him. We were cheek to cheek at one point as we cleaned up the painting supplies before lunch. I could feel the heat from his cheek on mine as his face turned red at my touch.
He never once flirted with me, though. In truth, it made me uncomfortable. All my life I’d been able to get guys to do whatever I needed by simply batting my lashes. But not Cole. Oh, I could embarrass him, make him feel uneasy, but never once did he flirt back. Maybe the dowdy me, with crazy hair and little makeup, just wasn’t that appealing to him.
“Would you like a soda?” he asked as I sealed up the paint cans.
“Yes, thank you. I’m dying of thirst.” I slipped my hand on his arm as we strolled down the hall to the elevators.
“Um, maybe we shouldn’t walk like this around the staff. They may get the wrong idea,” he said, stumbling into the elevator, but I noticed he didn’t pull his arm away. This guy’s a hard one to figure out.
**
Even though he wasn’t supposed to be working today, Cole got called into the ER to help with multiple victims stemming from a three-car accident along a notorious stretch of Route 96.
“Sorry, Lilah. The victims will be here in ten minutes. I have to help. The Widow Maker doesn’t care I’m not scheduled to work,” he explained, wiping paint off his hands.
“Widow Maker?”
“It’s a nasty curved section of road along Route 96. We lost a family of three on the curve just last spring. Very sad,” he said, tugging on the stuck office door. He groaned and tugged harder, the cords of muscles in his arms bulging. Impressive.
I stood next to him. “I’ll let you go on one condition,” I said as he continued to tug on the door.
“You’ll let me go?” he chuckled. “What? Did you put a spell on the door or something?”
“Maybe.”
He stopped tugging and turned to me. “All right, what’s the condition?”
“You’ll come to dinner at my place tonight.” I grinned into his eyes, which he then rolled.
“Okay. If you can open this door with one pull, I’ll agree,” he said smugly.
“One try? That’s hardly fair,” I complained.
“That’s my offer.”
“Fine,” I said frowning. I pushed him aside and waved my hands dramatically, and then crossed my fingers. He laughed. I tugged and the door easily gave way. Cole darted down the hall, murmuring under his breath while I laughed.
Needing a break myself, I wandered into the ER and its hum of activity. I stayed back, out of the way. Two student nurses stood off to the side, each texting rapidly on their phones.
“I’m sorry, but that Dr. Cole is a hottie,” the one with the red phone said to the other.
“I know, right? Those blue eyes of his are so awesome,” black phone girl said without looking up.
The nurse with the Korean flags on her scrubs flew by me, grumbling to another nurse who nodded in agreement as she said, “If Twiddledee and Tweedledum don’t stay off their cell phones, I swear. . . .”
I laughed softly as she approached the student nurses and demanded the cell phones. The sound of Cole’s voice pulled me away from the side show.
A little girl dressed from head to toe in blue ruffles, including her little sneakers, sat on a stretcher, her arm laying out on a small metal table in front of her. I guessed her to be about four.
“What’s your favorite color?” Cole asked her.
“Bwoo,” she said, wiping her eyes with her good hand.
“Blue? Me, too,” he grinned widely.
“Wewey?”
“Really,” he assured her.
“Wiw it hurt?” she asked, more tears tumbling down her cheeks as she pointed to her injured arm.
“I promise I’ll try with all my might not to hurt you,” he vowed. “Can I start?”
“I want my mommy.” Down came more tears with her request.
“They’re taking pictures of her legs, like we did with your arm. She’ll be right back.” As he spoke, Cole removed a vinyl glove from the box and blew it up, knotting it off. He took the pen from his breast pocket and drew a little face on the glove, positioning the thumb as the nose. The child grinned as he handed it to her.
“Can you hold my balloon while I wrap your arm?” he asked. She readily agreed.
I stood in awe, watching him wrap the blue cast on the little girl. Gone was the klutzy Cole, and in his place stood a master. He never fumbled once as he gently wrapped her arm, not even after the little girl accidently kicked the metal tray. Cole caught it, along with a roll of gauze and some tape, in one smooth motion. By the time he finished, the little girl was all smiles.
He repeated the smooth efficiency with three more patients.
Cole was in his element. In charge and in command, making decisions with confidence and authority. This was exactly why a guy so young had been promoted to assistant ER head. Cole’d been born to do this. My impression of
him grew leaps and bounds as I watched him. I could feel myself falling for him, too.
No, Lilah. Not going to happen. Think about what you’re going to do to his friends.
Saddened, I walked back to the office and sat on a pile of tarps, angry with myself for making such a selfish deal with my father.
“Cole deserves someone much better than you, Delilah.” I laid my head down, wishing I’d made better choices in my life.
Chapter 9
“Stop it, Alan, or I’m telling Daddy.” I grabbed what remained of my dress and held it against me, shaking violently. Alan twisted his meaty fingers around the fabric and jerked, shredding the dress completely. He laughed, tossing it aside. I folded my hands over my chest and backed up as he pulled his pearl-handled knife out.
“You tell Dad or your mom, princess, and I’ll do to you what I did to that stupid bird of yours.”
My mind jumped to my beautiful scarlet macaw, lying dead in the grass, a long jagged gash up the middle, its feathers scattered across the lawn. Daddy said a cat had gotten to it. He was wrong.
Alan stomped over to me. “Yeah, you remember what I did to that stupid bird. I can promise you, princess, your mommy will look even worse.” He took his knife and flipped some bangs off my forehead, the icy steel blade skimming across my brow.
“Please, don’t hurt my mommy,” I pleaded, my eyes pinched shut. “Please don’t, Alan. Please!”
“Lilah, wake up. It’s just a dream.”
A gentle hand caressed my head and softly shook my shoulder. “Lilah. Wake up.” I took me a second to register who spoke. I pried my eyes open and stared at the kind blue eyes looking down at me.
“You were having a nightmare,” Cole said, sitting down next to me. “Are you all right?” I nodded soberly, leaning my head up against the wall behind me.
“Sorry. I laid down for just a second.” I pulled my knees up to my chest.
“You’re trembling.” Cole wrapped his arm around my shoulders, rubbing my arm as he did. “Would it help to talk about it? I’m a good listener.”
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