Protecting What's Mine(9)

With the first step, he realized it wasn’t a play. Weak as a fucking kitten. Hollowed out, hungry, and tired. He clenched his jaw and tried to cover his sharp intake of breath.

Her arm came around his waist. He wasn’t fooling her. Fuck.

“Nice work, today, you two,” Dr. Ling said grudgingly as they made for the exit.

“Thanks. You, too,” his pretty doctor crutch called back.

They slowly made their way in the direction of the waiting room and paused to let a nurse leading an older woman hurry by. “Your husband’s right in here, ma’am,” the nurse said, pulling back the curtain to one of the first bays.

Nelson, a little worse for the wear, beamed up from his bed. His head was bandaged, as was his left arm. There were enough wires sticking out of him to reanimate Frankenstein’s monster. But he was alive and smiling up at his wife like they were teenage sweethearts.

Linc felt the hitch in Dreamy’s stride.

“I leave you alone for an hour and look what you get yourself into,” Nelson’s wife blustered. She leaned over him, brushing a shock of white hair off his forehead and kissing him ever so gently on the forehead.

“Have I got a story to tell you,” Nelson said. “Here. I got you these.” He pointed to the flowers a nurse had thoughtfully put in an ugly plastic ice pitcher. They were wilted, browned, the baby’s breath was singed to a crisp.

“Oh, Nelson.” His wife dissolved into tears and carefully climbed into the bed next to him.

The patient glanced up and spied Linc. “Thank you,” he mouthed.

Linc nodded at Nelson, then cleared his throat. Dreamy cleared hers. Two stoic responders trying not to let their feelings show.

“Let’s get out of here, Dreamy,” he said softly.

They made it out the front doors and into the summer evening in silence. He was sweating from the effort of not limping and groaning and painfully aware of how badly he needed a shower. This was not his best first impression.

“You can put more weight on me,” she said. “I can handle it.”

“Pfft. I’m fine. This was just an excuse to put my arm around you,” he said through gritted teeth.

“You’ve officially been upgraded from Lefty to Hotshot,” Dreamy decided.

Linc glanced over his shoulder and made sure they no longer had an audience. “In that case.” He leaned heavily on her. That lavender scent wafting up from her hair wreaked havoc on his senses.

“I’m parked pretty far out,” she said. “Wait here, and I’ll get the car.”

“No way. Gotta keep moving,” he countered. If he stopped and sat, he’d be asleep in seconds. And snoring on a bus bench was no way to charm a beautiful woman.

She sighed, and he knew she’d been there. “Suit yourself. Think we should exchange names?” she mused to him as they slowly, painfully made their way down the longest row of cars in the history of parking lots.

“Nah. What’s the fun in that?” he said.

“Good point. To give you something to look forward to, Hotshot, my car has air-conditioned seats.”

It boded well for the fresh river of sweat working its way down his back. He hoped the deluge wouldn’t short out her car’s electrical system.

“Almost there,” she said.

He had a good amount of his body weight on her, and she was barely breathing heavy. From his grip on her shoulder, he felt the telltale flexing of well-developed muscle.

They arrived finally at a big-ass dark blue SUV. She propped him against the fender and dumped both their bags into the hatch. “Can you get into your seat yourself, or do you need a hand?”

Linc searched for something flirty or the appropriate euphemism and came up dry. He blamed it on exhaustion and hunger.

She grinned at him, and he felt it in his gut.

“Relax, Hotshot. We’re not having sex. You don’t have to worry about impressing me. You’re allowed to be tired.”

“Why aren’t we having sex?” he demanded, collapsing into the passenger seat of the spotless vehicle.

“I’m new here. I could be an ax-murdering black widow with a string of dead husbands.”

He gave her a deliberate once-over, pausing on her bare left ring finger. “I’m willing to take that chance.”

“Yeah, I bet you are. And if circumstances were different, if we met a few months ago, I wouldn’t mind taking your very impressive body for a spin.”

Linc felt just the slightest bit objectified, then decided he didn’t mind one bit.

“Well, now I have to ask what happened between past Doc Dreamy and present.”

“No. You don’t,” she said cheerfully. The engine roared to life. “Just like I’m not asking you about ‘your girl.’”

“If we’re not sleeping together, then we’re gonna be friends. And friends tell each other everything,” he said, changing tactics.

She smirked at him and shifted into reverse. “Always wanted myself a gal pal.”

He laughed. She was sharp. And he was smart enough to find that very attractive.

His stomach interrupted his entertainment with an aggressive reminder that it was empty.

“Listen, I know you’re valiantly holding out on my charm. But how do you feel about food? I don’t mean to come on strong—” Lies. “—but I could eat your very shapely arm right now.”