by Janice Lynn
But before she started, she spotted Ty entering the unit. Her breath caught. The man was way too beautiful. Tall, dark, handsome, fantastic in bed.
A flashback of her naked body tangled with his flashed through her head. Images of their bodies molded together, gyrating, thrusting, exploding. How was she ever going to look at Ty without remembering? Without thinking of all the marvelous ways he’d touched her body?
He headed straight for her and although she might have tried had she thought she’d be successful, there was no place for her to hide.
“We need to talk about what happened last night.”
Hoping no one was close enough to overhear their conversation, she glanced around the nursery. No one seemed to be paying them the slightest attention, but looks could be deceiving.
“Can’t we talk about this later?” She really didn’t want to talk about it at all. She just wanted to forget.
“Tonight?”
She shook her head. “I’m busy.”
Ty’s face clouded. “All night? Or you just don’t want to spend the evening with me?”
“I have plans.” Did reading the latest medical journal and going to the gym count?
His lips pursed. “Cancel them. We need to discuss what happened last night.”
Knowing they had to be attracting attention, even if only Linda’s, she glanced around the room again. “No, we don’t, and especially not here.”
Seeming to recall where they were, he glanced around, sighed. “Fine, then go out with me tonight so we can talk somewhere that’s not here.”
“No.” She couldn’t risk going out with him again. She wasn’t that strong, might end up begging him to kiss her, touch her, take her to heights previously unknown.
“But if you insist on having this conversation right now, let’s at least go somewhere private.”
“You have time for a coffee?”
If it got them away from the prying eyes and ears of their coworkers then she’d make time.
“If we make it quick.” She glanced at her watch as if she was doing him a favor by agreeing. At least, she hoped that’s how it came across. Every instinct within her told her to not let Ty know how he’d blown her away the night before, to protect herself. “Let me finish my assessment and I’ll be right with you.”
Hands shaking, heart thumping, blood raging through her vessels, she examined the baby, entered in her notes and new orders, then headed out of the NICU. For coffee.
With the man she’d touched all over with her mouth.
With the man who’d touched her all over with his mouth.
Best she forget. He probably wanted to take her out so he could make sure she knew last night meant nothing.
“Or something,” Linda reminded her of her earlier comment with a grin when Eleanor walked by the smug nurse.
Eleanor’s face flamed, but she kept walking, not meeting her coworker’s eyes.
Yeah, the sooner she got the coffee break over with the sooner she could forget the previous night had happened.
At least, she hoped she could forget.
Ty ordered two coffees, grabbed a couple of sweetener packets and cream and sat down at a table.
“Hey, Dr. Donaldson,” a cute little brunette from the surgical floor greeted him, stopping at his table and smiling prettily at him. “You want some company?”
Automatically he grinned at the woman, but he shook his head. He gestured to the second cup of coffee. “I’m meeting Dr. Aston.”
Looking disappointed, the woman nodded as if she understood. “Maybe next time.”
Although usually he would have flirted back with her as naturally as taking his next breath, Ty didn’t say anything, just stirred sugar into his steaming cup of coffee. He hadn’t even called her darlin’. What was up with that?
“We can do this later if need be.”
He glanced up and knew exactly what was up. Ellie and the night they’d spent together. The amazing, out-of-this-world night they’d spent together.
Her face was red, her gaze wouldn’t meet his and she sounded agitated. A new wave of frustration hit him.
“Why would we need to do that?” He took a deep breath, reminded himself that patience was a virtue even if his had felt in short supply from the moment he’d awakened and realized she was skipping out on him.
She gestured in the direction of the departing woman.
He pulled out the chair next to his. “Have a seat.”
She sat. Not in the chair next to his but in the one directly opposite. He almost laughed at her bullheadedness. Any moment he expected her to cross her arms and glare at him in her stereotypical fashion.
If he knew what the hell he’d done to deserve her antagonism, it would be one thing, but as best he could recall, the night had been amazing all the way around.
With care, he slid the cup of coffee across to her along with two packets of sweetener and one cream.
Surprise flickered across her face. “You know how I take my coffee?”
His lips twitched. “We’ve had coffee together several times over the past week. I pay attention to details.”
She tore the packets of sweetener open and poured the contents into her cup. “You’ll get no argument from me on that one.”
“Meaning?”
She popped the top of the creamer, her face blazing red. “I’d think it obvious. You knew how I take my coffee so you must pay attention to details.”
She made a production of stirring, then taking a sip. Ty had to force his gaze away from her mouth to keep from staring, to keep from remembering where that mouth had been during the night.
Why had she been leaving that morning without waking him? Why was she acting as if she was angry with him? Had she not felt the same things he had?
“About last night,” he began, but she held up her hand.
“Don’t worry about it.” She took a slow sip of her coffee as if to stress her next point. “Last night was no big deal.”
Ouch. He studied her pale face, trying to read her thoughts, but, as she had for most of the morning, she held her emotions in check. Her face was a blank slate.
“You’re sure?” He wasn’t. Every aspect of the night had felt like a very big deal. Like something new and wonderful.
“Positive.” She set her coffee cup on the table, looked into his eyes, but quickly glanced away, toying with the empty sweetener packet papers. “We drank too much champagne and got caught up in the celebration.”
Sounded feasible to him, except that nothing similar had ever happened before and he hadn’t had that much champagne.
As he searched Eleanor’s eyes, her claim didn’t feel right. Just as the blank expression on her face didn’t feel right. Not after having seen her so alive just a few hours before. He wanted a glimpse of her smile, just to see if he’d imagined how his pulse reacted. He wanted to touch her to see if he’d imagined how his body responded to her skin against his.
“Okay, so we drank too much and got caught up in the moment.” He didn’t buy it, but he’d go with the flow for now. “You were leaving without waking me. Why?”
What was wrong with him? Mornings-after were no big deal. At least, they never had been before.
“If we hadn’t gotten called in to the hospital, I would have made you breakfast,” he added with a grin, but the gesture didn’t feel natural.
Just as she hadn’t in the delivery room, Eleanor didn’t respond to his grin other than to get pink splotches on her otherwise pale face. “Is that what you usually do? Cook breakfast for your … guests?”
He had cooked breakfast for women before. Several times. But never at his place. He didn’t have women at his apartment. Going to their place kept things simpler. Easier to walk away when it wasn’t your place you were leaving. He had brought Eleanor to his apartment, made love to her in his bed and she’d been the one who’d been going to walk away. He hadn’t liked that one bit.
Ty sighed. He’d had a great time the night before. Not just the
sex, but the entire evening. Truthfully, he wouldn’t mind a repeat—several repeats. Obviously, she wasn’t of the same mind. She’d seemed to enjoy herself well enough, but maybe the champagne really had been why she’d relaxed and smiled so freely at him.
It seemed she wasn’t overjoyed that she’d spent the night with him. Actually, she was acting as if he’d been one big disappointment all the way around.
That was a feeling he was all too familiar with.
Well, hell.
“Breakfast?” Ty downed the rest of his coffee in one gulp, not caring that the hot liquid scorched his throat, then stood and answered her question. “Not always, but at least you got a cup of coffee out of the deal.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
LEANING BACK IN her chair and staring at the computer screen, Eleanor brushed a loose hair away from her face. Her entire body ached with fatigue and she’d been fighting nausea all morning.
She’d been at the hospital since about 4:00 a.m. Not that she’d been sleeping much since the night she’d spent with Ty. Sleep evaded her and when she did finally drift into sleep, memories haunted her dreams.
She rubbed tight muscles in her neck and left shoulder, forcing herself to quit thinking about Ty yet again. She’d survived five weeks without him and she’d survive the rest of her life, too. She just needed to focus on one day at a time, focus on work.
Rochelle wasn’t doing well. The tiny little girl had taken a turn for the worse and nothing Eleanor did seemed to be making a difference.
She studied the baby’s chart, looking for anything she might have missed, anything she could try that she hadn’t tried already.
There wasn’t a logical reason why Rochelle had taken a turn for the worse. The baby had been getting a little stronger each day and then she’d just stopped.
The baby’s father hadn’t been to see his tiny daughter, was still grieving the loss of his wife and couldn’t bear becoming attached to a baby he felt certain wasn’t going to live. Eleanor had called him, told him that she was concerned about Rochelle’s sudden failure to thrive and that she wasn’t sure if they were going to be able to turn the baby’s prognosis around. She’d asked him to come to the hospital, but he hadn’t made any false promises.
“I heard you were still here.”
Eleanor’s heart jerked, slamming hard against her rib cage. She hadn’t heard Ty walk up to where she worked in the small, private dictation room.
“You not talking to me?”
Taking a deep breath, she glanced up from the computer screen she’d pretended to study to keep from looking at him. She wanted to look so badly it scared her. She wanted to throw herself into his arms. Perhaps never having been the center of all that sexy Texan charm would have been better.
“Sorry,” she said slowly, thinking about each syllable in the hope of preventing a stutter. “Just thinking.”
“About Rochelle?”
About anything and everything to keep from thinking about him. But she wasn’t about to admit how much she’d missed him when he’d obviously not missed her, had obviously moved on with his life, with her not having made a speed bump’s worth of difference.
So she told him about the tiny baby girl who she feared had taken a turn for the worse she wouldn’t pull back from. “She’s dropped weight over the past week.”
Ty sank down in the chair next to hers, stretched out his long legs. “I thought she’d pull through. That she was going to be a success story.”
He was so close. Close enough she could smell the spicy clean scent of him. Close enough that his body heat radiated toward her. Close enough that all she had to do was reach out to touch him, to feel his skin beneath her fingertips.
She swallowed. Hard. “Me, too.”
In silence, he studied the baby’s record. “You’ve done everything possible.”
She knew that the very nature of what they did meant they wouldn’t always be successful. “I just keep thinking I’ve missed something, but I can’t figure out what.”
“Maybe it’s more who you’ve missed rather than what.”
Her breath catching in her throat, her gaze jerked toward him. “I haven’t missed you.”
Much.
She’d missed him like crazy.
She’d relived every touch shared between Ty and herself, and had cried more tears than she cared to recall.
“Darlin’, for the record, I was referring to Rochelle’s father.” The corner of Ty’s mouth twitched, but she wasn’t sure if it was with annoyance or an almost smile.
She felt his gaze on her, but she refused to meet his eyes. She just couldn’t. “Oh.”
“But since you’ve brought up the subject of missing me—”
“Perhaps you misunderstood,” she interrupted, feeling sweat pop out on the back of her neck. “I said I hadn’t missed you.”
“Perhaps we should discuss just how much you haven’t missed me.”
“What?” She squinted at him from behind her glasses. “That makes no sense.”
“About as much sense as you avoiding me the past few weeks.”
Maybe she should take pity on him. After all, he had attempted to talk to her a few times in the NICU when their paths had crossed, but his expression had seemed so forced, his conversation so stilted and underlying with anger that she’d wanted cry. So she’d held fast, avoided him, refusing to become just another woman Ty loved and left by beating him to the punch and keeping distance between them.
“I didn’t see you seeking out my company,” she pointed out, knowing she probably sounded accusatory.
“Did you want me to seek out your company?”
Had she?
“No.”
“Would you have granted me your company if I’d sought you out? Because I got the distinct impression that you wouldn’t.” He sighed, took her hand in his and studied their locked fingers. “I’m here to find out if you’re still going to Texas with me next week.”
She’d wondered if he’d want her to, but then had written off the possibility as crazy. Of course he wouldn’t want her there. Not after what they’d done. Not after five weeks of awkwardness between them. When she couldn’t do more than stutter and blush around him.
“I could see why you might want to reconsider our agreement, but I did keep my end of the deal, which means you owe me.”
He really expected her to go with him? Why did that secretly thrill her as much as it scared her? Because she’d missed him and felt desperate for his attention? Lord, she hoped that wasn’t it, but feared it just might be.
“Well,” she began, glancing toward the computer screen and focusing on a random word, “technically, it was a deal between you and my father, but a deal is a deal, so I really have no choice.”
“There’s always a choice. If you don’t want to go with me, I won’t hold you to it.”
That got her attention. “Is that your way of telling me you don’t really want me to go?”
His expression darkening, he shook his head. “If I didn’t want you to go, would I be here talking to you? I want you to go.”
What was one weekend with Ty in the grand scheme of life? She could do this. She’d prove to herself and to him that she could do this and then they’d go back to being just colleagues. Plus, maybe the awkwardness would disappear. “I’ll go.”
“Hey, Dr. Aston?” With a quick rap on the open door Linda poked her head into the dictation room. “I think you’ll want to see this.” Noticing Ty sitting next to Eleanor, she added, “That you will both want to see.”
Silently, they followed the nurse, pausing just outside the nursery.
“Look who stopped by for a visit,” Linda whispered excitedly. “Apparently whatever you said to him when you called made all the difference.”
Eleanor’s heart quickened at the site of Rochelle’s father standing next to his tiny daughter’s incubator. It was the first time he’d seen her.
Ty grinned. “I always did think you were one smart wo
man, Ellie.”
Her breath caught at the use of the nickname and she found herself wishing she really did take his breath away each and every time he called her that name. Ellie. How crazy that rather than flinching at the nickname, she wanted to grab the moment and hold it close to her heart?
She cleared her throat. “Babies are smarter than we give them credit for. Rochelle needs her father.”
They watched as he gowned, gloved, masked and eyed his baby girl in the incubator. He spoke in a low voice to the little girl. The glistening emotion in his eyes told Eleanor everything he was saying without her being able to hear his actual words.
This was what Rochelle needed. What no tube or medicine or surgical correction could give. She needed her father, the interaction between parent and child.
As if sensing that he was being watched, the man turned, his gaze meeting Eleanor’s. “Can I hold her?”
Yes! was all Eleanor could think. Oh, yes! Rochelle needed her father to bond with her, to hold and love her.
Eleanor joined him at the incubator, aware that Ty stayed just a couple of feet back. She gently went over the proper way for Rochelle’s father to hold her, then she prepared the baby to be removed from the isolette.
“If you want to sit in one of the rocking chairs, I’ll bring her to you.”
Looking uncertain, the man nodded, then did as she’d asked.
“Oh, Rochelle, honey,” she told the sweet baby girl. “Today is the day you’ve been waiting for since you were born. Today you met your daddy and now he’s going to hold you and fall hopelessly in love with you.”
“You want me to get a bottle to let him try to feed her?” Ty asked from beside her, helping to straighten a wire as Eleanor repositioned the baby.
She glanced at him, smiled. “That would be perfect. She’s not been taking much by mouth for the past few days, only by her feeding tube, but maybe, just maybe, today is a day for miracles.”
She unhooked what could be unhooked, bundled the babe up and with Ty’s assistance they brought the baby to the waiting father.
“You won’t go far, will you?” he asked, his eyes full of fear when Eleanor lowered the baby into his arms.
