She almost laughed, and it was the moment she took to fight the amusement down that Lynnette realized her body had begun to relax. Just at the sound of his voice, faintly distorted, through the phone. That seemed bad. “That question is a little bit too suggestive.”
“That was nothing, sweetheart.”
She balked as a flush stole through her. “We both know you didn’t miss your nurse.”
He clicked his tongue. “I don’t miss the hospital, or being stuck in a bed with wires taped and poked into me, or dealing with all theotherstaff members and their outward assholes.”
She snorted.
A grin brightened his voice as he continued. “But I do miss my favorite nurse. The one who gave a shit, and kept it real, and shared lunch with me. You might know her—beautiful, auburn hair, about five-seven, brown eyes with these sparkling golden flecks inside, and the most fucking mesmerizing freckles splashed across her cheekbones, just below her eyes. Thirty-eight of ‘em.”
The blush she’d felt earlier paled in comparison to the full-bodied heat that consumed her as he finally went quiet. Her mouth hung open, but no words formed. She couldn’t even draw breath. Sweat broke out along her skin as her heart thundered in her ears. What he’d said was simple, arguably, but nothing about itfeltsimple.
When she finally found her voice, all she could blurt was, “What the hell is mesmerizing aboutfreckles?”
He barked out a laugh and she could too easily picture his relaxed expression and that gleam no doubt shining in his pale green eyes. If either of them had features worth waxing poetic about, that person was him. But she was going to keep her lips firmly shut. “They’re part of you,” he said.
That was it. That was his entire explanation.
Lynnette had never been so grateful for the visual privacy of a phone call in all her life, because there was no stopping her body’s reaction to his words. And the tone of voice in which he’d spoken them. She’d never been so affected. It was drizzling outside and chillier than the past few mornings had been, but suddenly she was oppressively warm. The kind of warm thatmade her want to tie up her hair and peel off her usually comfortable clothes. Then there was the deeper ache, inside, that she did not want to think about.
She dragged in a hard breath.He was my patient.She squeezed her eyes shut and willed her body to get a grip. Aloud, finally, she said, “Has that line worked for you often?”
“Never really bothered with cheesy lines before,” Lance replied.
Lynnette huffed. “You expect me to believe that?”
“At the risk of painting myself in the wrong colors,” Lance said, “you are, without a doubt, the most respectable woman I have ever pursued. So, while I gather you would appreciate the straightforward approach as a general concept, youdeservethe effort of something a little more than me flashing a dimple and suggesting we ‘see where this goes’.”
Her stupid lungs failed her again. She pushed to her feet and forced her body to move, just to try and excuse the rapid thumping of her heart. “Is that what you want? To ‘see where this goes’?” She knew what all his words meant, but the notion that he was saying them to her—after how they’d known each other not forty-eight hours prior—was absurd to her. It made it difficult to wrap her mind around.
“You say that like it’s unheard of,” he teased.
“Lots of patients have hit on me,” Lynnette responded, the frantic energy consuming her mouth and causing it to run faster than her brain. “Making passes at the nursing staff is a very common way for people to distract themselves from the uncomfortable situation that landed them in the hospital and whatever feelings they have about it. So, it happens regularly. But that’s never aboutme. I’m a stand-in, and as soon as they’re free, I’m a memory they quickly let go of.”
“Is that your way of saying you figured I’d forget about you?” he asked the question quietly, with an odd calmness that only further unsettled her.
“Of course. And I never would have taken it personally.” The words certainlyshouldhave been true, but for some unfathomable reason, it hurt to push them out.
Lance made a low, vibrating sound that didn’t quite qualify as a hum. “You at the hospital today?”
She winced at the question. Of course, he didn’t know. There was no reason for him to have learned that she only lingered at the hospital those last couple of hours because they had special circumstances to adhere to. He might have glimpsed her de-scrubbed before he was truly released, but it was only natural he’d assumed she had merely clocked off. And she wasn’t sure he had even seen her. “No,” she said. “Catching up on chores at home.”
“Don’t suppose you’d tell me where that is?”
“Why would I?”
“How’s a guy supposed to take his girl out if he doesn’t know where to pick her up?”
Lynnette sighed. “You shouldn’t even be driving on that leg, anyway.” Another thought occurred to her and she frowned. “Since when do you have a car? Locally, I mean.”
“Jon called some buddies into the area,” Lance replied, his voice grinning again. “They rented a couple. They can spare one.”
She rolled her eyes. “Setting aside the legality of that, again, it’s too soon for you to be driving on that leg.”
“Well, I don’t have a place to offer to let my modernist girlfriend pick me up from, so we’re gonna have to stick with the old-fashioned approach.”
Her knees nearly buckled and she caught herself on the back of a kitchen chair. “When exactly did I become your girlfriend?”
