Dating Dr. Delicious

by Laura Iding

  They argued lightly over the issue of global warming as he drove to her apartment. Parking wasn’t exactly easy to find, and his frustration made her laugh. “See? I told you we should have taken the subway.”

  He finally found a spot several blocks down and pulled in. “No, we should have gone to my place. I have reserved parking.”

  She rolled her eyes and reached for her backpack but, as before, he was quicker. He came around the car and fell into step beside her.

  “I hope my car is okay here,” he muttered.

  Before she could try to reassure him, a familiar voice called her name. “Hannah? Is that you?”

  She stopped and turned, her heart plummeting when she recognized Tristan. Or TJ, as his friends called him.

  He was dressed head to toe in black with several new piercings on his face and huge tattoos along both forearms. Two of his buddies, also dressed in black, flanked him. For a moment she could only stare at him in shock, barely recognizing the young man.

  Jail had obviously changed her brother. And not for the better.

  Jake scowled and stepped protectively in front of her, as if she might be in danger. “Get lost,” he advised her brother and his friends in a low voice. “We’re not looking for trouble.”

  Tristan and his friends burst out laughing, as if Jake’s comment was hilariously funny.

  She glared at Tristan in a way that told him to back off.

  Though when had Tristan ever listened to her?

  Never.

  “We’re not lookin’ for trouble, either—right, sis?” Tristan said in a purposefully loud voice. “Tell your boyfriend to back off. I need to talk to you for a few minutes. Alone.”

  Jake sucked in a harsh breath as he swung an incredulous gaze in her direction. “Sis?” he echoed in shock.

  His reaction was exactly what she’d expected, and really she didn’t blame him for it. How on earth had she thought this could actually work between them?

  Very simply, it couldn’t. They might share the same profession, but their personal worlds were on different planes of the universe.

  Despite how she’d pulled herself out of that dark place where she’d grown up, her mother, and now her brother, held her back.

  She couldn’t ignore her brother. No matter how much she wanted to.

  She yanked the backpack from Jake’s grasp and flashed a tight, humorless smile. “I’m sorry, but I have to cancel our date. If you’ll excuse me, I have some family business to take care of.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  JAKE was stunned speechless when Hannah tossed her backpack over her shoulder and walked toward the guy and his friends, who all looked as hard-core as any gang members he’d ever seen.

  Her brother?

  He muttered a curse under his breath and stood with his arms crossed over his chest, unwilling to leave her alone with the three men who could easily be considered dangerous. Although probably not armed. Hopefully not armed. He only relaxed a little when her brother’s two friends hung back, giving Hannah and her brother some privacy.

  She’d mentioned that her mother, who had arthritis, couldn’t work and lived in low-income housing, but why hadn’t she mentioned her brother?

  What else hadn’t she told him?

  And why did the question bother him so much?

  He wasn’t proud of the flicker of doubt that crawled over his skin. Yet he couldn’t stop thinking of what other secrets Hannah might be keeping from him. He tried to focus his gaze on Hannah and her brother, who were speaking in low, urgent voices.

  Arguing? He couldn’t tell. Unsure what to think, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, waiting impatiently. He was surprised when she reached into her backpack, took out her wallet and handed him several folded bills.

  Her brother shuffled through them quickly, counting the bills before he stuffed them into his black cargo pants pocket.

  “Thanks, sis.” Her brother gave her a halfhearted, one-armed embrace before turning back toward his friends. Jake dropped his arms and took a deep breath when the three guys headed in the opposite direction.

  Hannah turned to face him. She lifted her chin but didn’t say anything.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you have a brother?” he asked, finally breaking the silence and trying hard not to sound accusatory. She didn’t understand how much he’d wanted to trust her.

  Needed to trust her.

  She shrugged. “It’s not easy for me to talk about my family. You overheard me talking to Devon, didn’t you? I told you I was speaking from experience. Tristan’s experience. He was just released from prison. And as a result of the felony on his criminal record, he hasn’t been able to get a job.”

  Prison. For a felony conviction. He tried not to look as shocked as he felt. No wonder she’d given him money. “That must have been hard on you.”

  She let out a harsh laugh. “Yeah, but worse for Tristan, don’t you think? Listen, Jake, I’m tired and I really need some time to myself. I’ll—uh—call you later, okay?”

  Before he fully understood what was happening, she’d swiftly unlocked the door to her building and disappeared inside, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  * * *

  Back at Gregory’s condo, he tried several times to call Hannah, but she wouldn’t answer her cell phone. After leaving one voice-mail message, asking her to call him back so they could talk, there didn’t seem any point to leaving more. Still reeling from the abrupt turn of events, he stretched out on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

  With all the problems in her family, he couldn’t imagine how Hannah had managed to put herself through four years of undergraduate training, four years of medical school and now a surgical residency program. Not to mention financially supporting her family, too.

  Knowing about her past and the hurdles she’d overcome to get where she was today only made him admire her more.

  Yet he was bothered by the fact that she hadn’t confided in him.

  Honesty was important. Especially after the way Allie had lied to him, right from the very beginning. He’d fallen for her, yet she hadn’t felt the same way about him. Instead, she’d made a fool out of him after they’d broken up, spreading horrible rumors throughout the hospital grapevine.

  Yet, as upset as he’d been then, he felt even worse now. Because he cared about Hannah. Had opened his heart to her, only to wonder if he’d made another horrible mistake.

  He got up and called Hannah again, hoping she’d pick up. But she didn’t. Maybe she’d already fallen asleep.

  No, he didn’t really believe that. The longer she went without calling him, the more he knew she had no intention of calling him. Not later today.

  Not ever.

  Leaving so abruptly like that was her way of breaking up with him.

  He cared about her, but she obviously didn’t feel the same way about him. But unlike the situation with Allie, this one was mostly his own fault.

  The sick sense of failure wouldn’t leave him alone. The truth mocked him. Here he’d been comparing Hannah to Allie, and yet they couldn’t be more opposite.

  Hannah hadn’t purposefully sought him out. She hadn’t jumped into a relationship with him the moment she knew he was an attending physician. In fact, she’d pulled away.

  Because she was ashamed of her past. Of her brother.

  Yet he was the one who stupidly hadn’t pried the truth out of her earlier. He’d overheard her conversation with Devon, their young prisoner patient, but he hadn’t pressed further. He should have kept after her.

  Reassuring her that nothing she could say would change how he cared about her.

  Battling a wave of self-loathing, Jake gave up trying to sleep. He checked his cell phone, noticing with despair that she hadn’t responded to his voice-mail message. Even if he decided to head back over to bang on her door until she let him in, he couldn’t force her to talk to him.

  While the idea held a certain appeal, he knew the result would be th
at Hannah would only listen politely while he said his piece before sending him on his way.

  With a sigh, he settled down at his laptop computer and booted up the machine. At dinner the other night, Gregory had asked how his apartment-hunting was going. Jake figured it was well past time he found another place to live.

  And as he’d arranged for another attending to cover Steven White’s shifts for tonight and tomorrow night, because of his now nonexistent plans with Hannah, he had the rest of the weekend off.

  Searching for a place to live might help keep his mind off the way he’d messed things up with Hannah. He started with the free advertising website that the general public used to offer places for sale or for rent. He didn’t find much for sale, so he moved on to the rental section. He wasn’t in a rush to buy anyway, as he didn’t know enough about Chicago to know where he wanted to live. Renting would be easier and give him time to find exactly what he wanted.

  Most of the ads were for roommates, but he wasn’t anxious to share a place with anyone else. However, one particular ad caught his eye.

  Two-bedroom loft apartment in former Brady Street Warehouse, on the corner of Brady and Webster, available for immediate occupancy: either to share or to sublet. Call 555-7810 if interested.

  Surprised, he read the ad for a second time to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. But he’d called Hannah’s cell phone enough over the past few hours that he immediately recognized her number. It was her apartment all right. Hannah was either looking for a roommate or was looking to get out of her lease entirely.

  A reluctant smile tugged at his mouth as he scrolled through the attached photographs. He’d only been inside her place that one time, and he’d been a bit preoccupied with kissing her, so he hadn’t taken the time to look around. Now he found he was impressed with the eclectic layout of her apartment.

  He tried one more time to call her, but again the call went straight to voice mail. So he stared at the photographs of her apartment and began to formulate a plan.

  He’d find a way to force her to talk to him, one way or another.

  * * *

  Hannah sighed and crawled out of bed after sleeping only for a little over an hour.

  Every time she closed her eyes she saw the shocked horror reflected on Jake’s face when he realized the pierced, tattooed man was her brother.

  Tristan couldn’t have shown up at a worse moment. Although, really, would there ever have been a good time for Jake to meet him? She seriously doubted it.

  She couldn’t blame Jake for his reaction. Her world was far from anything he was accustomed to. Better to forget about what had happened. Forget Jake. Picking up her cell phone, she saw several missed calls from him on the screen. Her fingers hovered over the redial key until sanity returned.

  Forget about him!

  Her stomach rumbled with hunger so she set the cell phone aside and walked over to the fridge to find something to eat. She frowned at the mostly empty shelves. There was half a head of brown lettuce, a jar of pickles and a mostly empty bottle of champagne from when she and Margie had celebrated her engagement.

  That was it.

  With a sigh she closed the door, realizing that food wasn’t going to appear on the shelves magically, as she’d given Tristan her grocery money for the next month.

  Rummaging in the cupboard, she found a half-empty box of stale low-fat wheat crackers. They tasted like cardboard, but she ate them anyway, washing them down with water out of the tap. The sharp edge of hunger gnawing her belly eased.

  The situation wasn’t as bad as she was making it out to be. Certainly not as bad as when she’d been growing up. At least she could get free food at the hospital with her ID badge. So, if she really got desperate, she could always head back there to grab something to eat.

  Even though going to the hospital on her weekend off wasn’t high on her list of fun things to do, it was an option. Better than sitting around the apartment, staring at the four walls and going crazy. The first thing she’d done when learning of Margie’s plans to move out had been to discontinue the cable service. It wasn’t as if she had time to watch much TV anyway.

  But no cable also meant not having internet access, either. She’d have to log on to her e-mail at work to check for any responses to her roommate advertisement. She’d asked Andrea to move in, but Andrea was living with her boyfriend and had declined.

  Her gaze fell on her phone again. She sighed, knowing she couldn’t avoid Jake forever. They worked together, after all. She needed to call him to let him know that their relationship, if that’s what you wanted to call what they’d had, was over. She didn’t really think he’d mind, especially now that he knew about Tristan.

  Besides, she’d been crazy to think a lowly first-year resident could really hold the attention of a guy like Jake, who happened to be Chief of Trauma Surgery. They were at completely opposite points in their respective careers.

  And in their personal lives, as well.

  Tears pricked her eyes and she dashed them away impatiently. Her heart squeezed in her chest and she took several deep breaths to fight back a rush of desolation. This was ridiculous. She couldn’t have fallen for Jacob Holt this quickly.

  Yet somehow, illogically, she had.

  She loved him. Loved Jake.

  She sniffed and told herself to stop it. Since when did crying and wallowing in self-pity ever fix anything? She’d survive this, just like she’d survived working two jobs while going to medical school.

  She just had to stop thinking about what she’d lost, that’s all. And focus on what she had.

  Determined to pull herself together, she rose to her feet and tossed the empty box of crackers aside. Time to get out of here. Maybe she would head to the hospital. Watch some trauma activity. Learn something.

  Eat a decent meal.

  When her cell phone rang she immediately thought the call might be from Jake, but instead there was an unknown number on the screen. Swallowing her disappointment, she answered. “Hello?”

  “Hi, uh, I’m calling about the ad for the warehouse apartment.”

  The voice was oddly muffled, but she didn’t think too much about it. She was thrilled that she’d gotten a response to her ad so soon, considering she’d only placed it yesterday morning before heading to work.

  “That’s great. Are you interested in subletting my lease?” The more she thought about it, the more she’d like to get completely out of the financial burden of the apartment. What if she didn’t get along with the new roommate? Then she’d be right back where she’d started.

  Besides, she’d already found a few potential places to live that were much cheaper. There were some tiny efficiency apartments that had caught her eye. Sure, she’d miss watching the sun rise over Lake Michigan in the mornings, but having food in the fridge would be nice, too.

  “Yes. When do you think I could come and see the apartment?”

  She hesitated, thinking fast. “I’m around this weekend, so you tell me what works for you.”

  “I can probably be there in about an hour.”

  An hour? So soon? She forced enthusiasm into her tone. “Great. I’ll see you then.”

  The caller hung up so fast, she didn’t have time to catch his name. At least, she thought the person on the other end of the line was a man.

  Energized by the possibility of getting the place rented to someone else, she washed her face, hoping her red eyes wouldn’t be too obvious, and quickly cleaned up the few items she’d left out. Margie had scrubbed the bathroom before she’d left, so that was good.

  When the buzzer rang almost exactly sixty minutes later, she released the lock. A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. She ran a hand through her blond hair and pasted a bright smile on her face before opening the door.

  Her expression fell. “Jake? What are you doing here?”

  He stepped inside, as if fearing she’d slam the door in his face. “Actually, I’m here about the apartment. We had an appointment,
remember? Do you mind if I take a look around?”

  Her jaw dropped in shock, but he appeared to be serious as he gazed around the open-concept living area intently. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say when he crossed over to glance out of the large windows.

  “Nice view,” he murmured.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her gaze. Why was he doing this? As a joke? She wasn’t in the mood. “You know very well your view is better. Be serious, Jake. You’re not interested in renting an apartment. You already own a fancy condo.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. “The condo isn’t mine. It belongs to Greg Matthews. He’s letting me stay there until I find a place of my own.”

  The glass-and-chrome condo she’d hated on sight belonged to the chief of surgery? Seriously? She stared at him, unable to judge whether or not she should believe him.

  But again he looked around, as if he was seriously considering renting the place. When he walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge, she tried not to wince.

  “The appliances obviously stay with the apartment,” she said hastily.

  “Hmm.” Thankfully he didn’t say anything about the barren state of her fridge, but continued moseying around. He looked inside every single cabinet and drawer.

  It felt very odd to have Jake snooping around her home.

  “Two bedrooms upstairs?” he asked, gesturing to the open staircase.

  “Um, yes. Feel free to go on up to look.” No way was she going anywhere near her bedroom with him there. It was hard enough to keep the conversation between them neutral.

  She was oddly disappointed that he seemed to be truly interested in the apartment. Or at least he was giving a mighty good impression of being interested.

  He was acting as if their night together had never happened.

  The same night she couldn’t get out of her memory.

  “Thanks.” He went ahead and climbed the staircase.

  She strained to listen as he went into each room. Margie’s was completely devoid of any furniture so his steps were easy to trace as he moved across the hardwood floor.

  Closet doors opened and shut. More footsteps. Another peek into the bathroom. He was certainly covering all the bases, wasn’t he? She didn’t know what to think. Finally, he came back down to the main level.