Instant Gratification (Wilder #2)(14)

She was amazing. “Really?” he asked, letting loose of a stupid smile himself. “You’re going to go there?”

Still laughing, she nodded. “Yeah.”

“That’s cruel, Emma. Very cruel.”

“Sorry.”

Sorry, his ass.

She wasn’t sorry, she wasn’t anywhere close to sorry. She was cracking up, and he should be annoyed. But she looked so damned sexy as she laughed at him.

“I thought you were going to pass out a few times,” she said.

“Well you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve never seen a vagina from that angle before.”

She only laughed harder and patted his arm like he was a four-year-old, before heading toward his truck in her fancy clothes now streaked with dirt, blood and other stuff he didn’t want to think about.

God, she was hot as hell.

They weren’t finished, not by a long shot, so he followed her. “For the record, I didn’t pass out. I was in it, all the way.”

She stopped at the hood of his truck on the passenger side. “You were, for which I’m most thankful. But seeing as you’re so weak-kneed and all, maybe I should drive.”

Yeah, she was sweet and gentle and soft, all right. Like a sleeping lion.

“We need to hurry.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m on a schedule here.”

He leaned toward her, his hands on the hood as he faced her. “What are you in such a hurry to go back to?”

“I have things to do.”

He had to laugh. “You ever slow down and smell the roses, Doc?”

“I’m not a roses kind of woman.”

“How about relaxing?” he asked, thinking he figured he knew the answer. She wasn’t much into that either.

“Relaxing bores me.”

“How about fun. Do you ever have fun?”

“Yes,” she said. “But not when I’m three thousand miles from home, in a town that pays in cholesterol-laden casseroles and looks at me like I’m an alien.”

An uptight, anal, sleeping lion, with teeth. “I don’t look at you like you’re an alien,” he said.

“Yes, but you don’t count.”

“Why don’t I count?”

She hesitated. “Because you look at me in a different way.”

“Like?”

“Like…” Interestingly enough, she blushed.

“Like I’m attracted to you?” he pressed, amused.

Her eyes met his. “Yes. Like that.”

“Because I am. Very much.”

She eyed him a long beat before hopping up into his truck without a word. Not exactly a glowing recommendation but she hadn’t slammed the door on that admitted attraction either, a fact he decided meant good things.

Or so he hoped.





Chapter 5




Emma’s dad had called her twice, and she’d missed both calls, so that night she hopped into his spare truck to go visit him.

His small, remote cabin was outside of town, about ten miles up a dirt road on the shores of Jackson Lake, where he spent his days rehabbing by fly-fishing to his heart’s content.

The problem wasn’t the dirt road, or the ten miles.

Okay, that was the problem. As was the fact that she drove like shit.

She didn’t drive in New York, though she did have her license. She actually liked to drive, but she didn’t have much opportunity to do so.

Until she’d come here. First of all, the truck was huge. And crotchety. And not exactly easy to handle. She held her breath each of the ten miles, but luckily it was a dry day and she managed only one or two near misses with wayward branches, and that one kamikaze squirrel, but they’d both survived.

By the time she arrived, she was sweating buckets and her father was just coming in from fishing. He was medium built, with only a slight pudge to belie his years. He had a full head of curly gray hair that stuck straight up, whether from its own mind or lack of a brush, she had no idea. “You called. Twice.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to…connect. See if you were doing okay.”

“That was my question for you.”

“I’m doing good. The clinic driving you crazy?”

“No.” A lie.

He just looked at her, patient. Understanding. And she caved. “Yes.”

He smiled sympathetically. “Sorry. I know it’s a different pace than you’re used to. I guess I was hoping you’d enjoy it.”

“Jury is still out,” she said kindly. No use in telling him how restless she felt. “I brought more casseroles. The healthy ones.”

“I like the unhealthy ones better.” He had laughing eyes and an easy smile, but she didn’t find this funny.

“No fat,” she said, and he sighed.

“Your medical records?” she asked, as she did every visit.

“I forgot. Next time,” he said as he did every visit.

After the initial pleasantries, they stood inside his cabin, him in his fishing vest, she in the doctor coat she’d forgotten to remove, staring awkwardly at each other.

She wondered, as she did every single day—why had she come?

Because for better or worse, they were all each other had. In spite of being all work and no play, that meant something to her.