I blinked at the cup of coffee that was suddenly thrust in my face. I had briefly registered the cup Jacob was holding firmly in his hand but thought it was his.
“Oh.” The surprised gasp slipped from my lips when upon taking the warm cup from his hand, my fingers brushed against his. It was as if a light switch had been turned on throughout my entire body from the small connection. The same feeling I felt the night before when his large hand encircled my wrist.
Ignoring the fact that he was carefully watching me the way he often did, I lifted the coffee cup to my nose, inhaling the vanilla scent. My taste buds instantly watered and I moved fast, taking my first sip. It was perfect. Made just the way I like it. Sweetened with vanilla creamer and one packet of stevia.
“That’s good,” I pushed out, already feeling the effects of the warming liquid as it moved through my body.
And just that quickly my eyes popped open and I stared curiously at Jacob, who, of course, continued to watch me.
“How did you know how I take my coffee?”
“I guessed.”
“Bullshit.” My short retort fell from my lips with ease. I hadn’t thought about it or its effects. But something I couldn’t have ever imagined occurred from my snarky response. A smile actually crested on Jacob’s lips, and it pulled a sound from his throat that had me stumbling backwards a couple of steps.
Jacob’s smile and deep chuckle were the stuff miracles were made of. His usual deep, brooding, and stormy gaze were irresistible. But his smile and slight laughter made me want to follow him around for all of eternity just to get a glimpse of it again.
“Thanks … for the coffee,” I managed to say, holding up the cup as if he didn’t know what I was referring to. “I need to go clock in for my shift.”
There was no looking back, no second guessing, and no hesitation. I needed space. I needed to get the hell out of that hallway and as far from Jacob Reynolds as possible … for the time being. He had my damn senses all out of whack and I had no idea what to do about it.No onehad ever thrown me off so much from his laughter alone.
****
Jacob
The sound of my own laughter was foreign to my ears. I found myself just as surprised as she obviously was when I laughed at her quick comeback. I wasn’t one for laughing much. Didn’t see too much in this world that was a laughing matter. But Grace had pulled it out of me without even trying. And that turned me on.
So, as I watched Grace scurry down the hallway of the burn unit, away from me, with her coffee cup in hand, I knew that I wasn’t going to let her get away so easily. She felt it, too. All of it.
From the moment I put my hand on her the night before, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. When she finally said my first name something inside of me turned on and wanted more. I memorized the coffee order she made the previous night in the cafeteria, without really even trying, and it was the first thing I ordered once I entered the cafeteria this morning. After a couple of hours sitting by Johnny’s bedside, I headed downstairs to get coffee for both Grace and I. It was even a thought or consideration. It just felt natural.
Just as Grace rounded the corner, the pager resting at my hip went off. Pulling the pager off my scrub bottoms and reading it, I recognized a colleague of mine was requesting a consult. On my way down to the consult, I stopped by the nurses’ station of the surgical floor.
“I’ll need Nurse Grace to assist in today’s surgery,” I firmly stated, barely glancing at the charge nurse who was positioned at the computer.
“Oh, I was going to have—”
“Grace. With me, assisting with the scar removal surgery. And Johnny Westbrook should be ready for the skin graft surgery tomorrow. I will need Grace in that surgery as well.”
I glanced downward, again plucking my beeping pager from my hip and frowning at the interruption. Noticing I hadn’t heard a confirmation from the nurse, I peeled my eyes away from my pager and placed them on the woman who was staring at me, stunned, mouth wide.
“Is there a problem?”
She shook her head. “Not at all, Dr. Reynolds. I will have Nurse Young assist in both surgeries. She’ll begin prepping your patient just as soon as she completes her rounds.”
I nodded and headed off in the direction of the colleague's office who requested the consult.
“You requested me,” Grace stated in a hushed tone as we emerged from the hospital room of a patient who would be rolled off to surgery soon.
I glanced down at her face, which was covered in a quizzical expression. “I did.”
“Why?”
I paused before answering that question because the immediate response I wanted to give was that I enjoyed having her in the operating room with me. That for some unknown reason I felt calmer and more stable with her standing next to me or across the table in the OR. And I wasn’t a man who ever feltunconfidentin the OR. It was my home. The one place on this planet I know I was born to be.
“I only request the best in my OR,” I simply answered.
The surprise on her face quickly turned to wariness, as if she was trying to discern what my angle was.
