There’s very little I’m certain on, but I know I don’t want to get rid of it.
But I don’t want to lose Xander, either.
As harsh as the talk with my girls was, they’re painfully right. The only one who can give me an answer is Xander.
Speculation gets me nowhere and assumptions just spin around my mind like a string in the wind.
I told myself I’d wait until after Christmas, but that has to become a plan I stick to because?—
“Holy shit!” The driver’s sudden cry of alarm drags me from my thoughts and I glance up as the car lurches sharply to one side.
I’m blinded by glaring headlights spearing through the windshield, then I’m thrown against the door as the taxi swerves and the driver cries out in alarm.
As I’m thrown back into the cab, the screams of several car horns flood my ears and the last thing I hear is the earsplitting screech and crunch of metal.
32
XANDER
“What happened?” Fred slides to a stop next to me as I exit the operating theater, removing my skull cap.
“Driver ran a red light at the crossroads at the top of the hill out of town and skidded on the ice,” I say as he falls into step next to me. “Hit every fucking car on the way down and collided with two more at the bottom. I just had to rearrange an eight-year-old’s guts while Hasley amputated her right leg. Fuckingidiots.”
“Holy shit.” Fred stumbles slightly as he pulls at his tie. “Where do you need me?”
As we reach the staff room, I finally notice what he’s wearing. A fancy black suit with a floral shirt underneath that parts as he rips his tie from his throat. “What are you wearing?”
“Huh?” Fred pushes past me and into the staff room. “Clothes, Xander. You know, people clothes? That people wear when they’re not working? Not that you’d know anything about that.”
“I wasn’t working. I was sleeping because you were covering my surgeries.”
“Have you seen what time it is?” He points at the clock as he pulls himself out of his suit and into scrubs. “I covered all your surgeries and pushed one back because that dude with the kidney problem had his wife sneak him a cheeseburger, so I couldn’t operate. And while you were sleeping, I went on a date.”
For a moment, the carnage of the crash fades from my mind as I glance at the clock. Two in the morning. “A date?”
Fred smirks. “Well, it was a really good date and it was about to turn into something else when I got the call. Overwhelmed, were you?”
“Fred—”
“Sorry, I know. I saw the trauma ward on the way in. All this from a run red light. Never fucking stops, does it?”
“No,” I sigh, rubbing my face. “Listen, I’ve got a woman in the operating theater that I need to operate on and there’s another woman in the burn ward I want you to take a look at. She’s hysterical, understandably, so I’m hoping you can work your magic and soothe her.”
“Sure,” Fred replies, attaching his badge to his scrubs and closing his locker. “Y’know, for a guy that doesn’t want the Chief’s position, you’re pretty good at bossing people around.”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, Boss,” he says mockingly as we return to the hall.
Before I can take a step, a soft squeak of alarm rises up behind me and Fred’s arm shoots out to grab my elbow.
“Careful!” he barks, hauling me away from where I nearly caught poor June between me and the wall.
“June, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even see you there.” As she glances at me, I do a double-take.
Never have I seen her with such applied makeup before and she clutches at her silver purse while standing there in a gorgeous black dress. Far too fancy for anything other than a date.
I glance between them but both of them stare hard at me, unwilling to look each other in the eye.
