“You know him?” Scarlett asked.
“Not well. We went to high school together. He’s a doctor.”
Malcolm stopped in front of them. “Clara, it’s good to see you.”
“You too. You’re in the running group?”
“I am. As a doctor at the hospital, it would have been frowned upon to miss it. You’re here to run?”
“Probably not well, but my legs will be moving.”
He laughed.
Scarlett cleared her throat.
“Oh, sorry.” Clara turned toward her roommate. “Scarlett, this is Malcolm Trundle. Malcolm, this is my roommate, Scarlett Calloway.”
The widest smile Clara had ever seen spread across Scarlett’s face as she reached out a hand. “Hi, Dr. Trundle. It’s nice to meet you.”
And her voice. What wasthat? Soft and friendly and completely unfamiliar.
Malcolm returned the smile, obviously not realizing he was talking to a Scarlett Clara didn’t recognize. “Just Malcolm. And you too. Are you an acupuncturist like Clara?”
“Oh no. I dabble in writing.”
So Scarlett wasn’t revealing that she was an investigative reporter. Was that the norm in their industry?
Two other women stopped beside Malcolm, and he turned to them. “Clara, Scarlett, this is Helen and Deb, nurses at the hospital.”
Helen looked to be in her thirties, with bright red hair, while Deb was older, maybe sixty, with a few grays woven throughout her long brown locks. Both women had large smiles on their faces and looked fit. In fact, everyone here looked fit.
Scarlett cocked her head, eyes still on Malcolm. “I feel like I’ve seen you before.”
Helen slipped an arm around Malcolm’s shoulders. “That’s probably because Malcolm here is the face of a new, revolutionary early detection and rapid response protocol for sepsis.”
Deb nodded. “It’s pretty great. It reduces mortality rates from septic shock.”
Scarlett nodded. “Yeah, I remember now. You were in papers all over the country.”
Clara didn’t know that. “Congratulations.”
Malcolm lifted a shoulder. “I was just doing my job.”
The four of them continued talking about the protocol, but Clara got distracted by the sight of some very broad shoulders a few feet away.
She straightened.
Wait…she knew those shoulders. And that hair. Hair that had been in her freaking dream this morning.
No…
The man turned and—yep. Holden, in the flesh, standing only a few feet away, wearing running shorts and a T-shirt.
Really? She’d told him no and he’dstillcome? She shouldn’t be surprised—it was a Holden move. The man had made his intentions to come today pretty clear, but dammit, she’d made her desire for himnotto come clear, too. She was actually surprised her brothers hadn’t joined him. But, man oh man, she was angry.
She was a microsecond away from storming straight over to him when suddenly, his gaze caught hers.
And a part of her—the part she absolutely did not like in this moment—felt something other than anger. Something warmer that sat low in her belly and made her cheeks grow hot.
