He saw the pink blush begin on her cheeks and spread rapidly to her neck and ears.
He wasn’t a monster. He felt bad that he’d made her feel so uncomfortable, but someone should have warned her about trying to involve him in anything social. Brooke had clearly fallen down on her supervisory duties.
All he wanted to do was go home, hide in a dark room, and bury his sorrow in a glass of perfectly aged Scotch. The world didn’t need to know that today would have been Lisa’s thirty-sixth birthday. How the hell would it look to be chatting in a bar on a day like this?
“I can’t.” He stood to signal their meeting was over.
“I double-dog dare you.” She grimaced.
He folded his arms and one eyebrow quirked. Was she serious?
With a look of desperation she whipped her arm from behind her back, revealing the silly blue balloon sword he’d made for her earlier. “It’s just that I was hoping to buy a drink for the man who saved my day, today. You and that jar of latex-free balloons on your desk.”
By the earnest expression on her face he knew it hadn’t been easy for her to come into his office and beg him to meet with his staff at a pub. A staff he kept socially at an arm’s length yet depended on, no, demanded they give his patients the best medical care in New York. He’d always assumed their paychecks were thanks enough. Maybe dumpling had the right idea.
He didn’t have a clue, neither did he care, what would make her need to include him. But the employees were all probably at the bar having a good laugh at the new nurse’s expense about how they’d managed to set her up for failure. What a dirty trick. Some nurses really did like to eat their young and this Polly was definitely that. Young. Innocent looking. Fresh. Sweet. Ah, hell, be honest—attractive. He gave a tentative smile. She instantly responded with a bright grin and raised brows, and he was a goner. How could he let someone down with a reputation on the line?
Surely Lisa would understand.
“Okay,” he said.
“Sweet!”
“One beer and you’re buying.”
She nodded, triumph sparkling in her bright blue eyes. “Gladly, sir.” She pointed the way to the door with the balloon sword.
“That stays here,” he said as he passed her on his way out.
She stifled her giggle when he impaled her with his dead serious stare.
One thing she’d already proved to him. This girl...er...woman named Polly was fearless. He liked that.
* * *
John had to admit the tall glass of house draft tasted great and felt smooth going down. His newest nurse, in keeping with her promise, had fronted the money to buy it for him, which made it taste all the better. She really wanted him there. When was the last time he’d been wanted anywhere other than in the orthopedic operating room?
The look of surprise on the faces of the group of nurses and techs when he’d walked into the bar had been worth the effort. Everyone had gone quiet for an instant before slowly winding back up to their usual pub noise. He could only imagine what they thought about him showing up, and wondered if anyone had taken bets. He and Polly had shared a quiet but victorious glance.
Chatty Polly had burned his ears on the stroll over, too. She’d practically burst with excitement explaining how much coming to New York and landing a job at such a famous hospital as Angel’s had meant to her.
Good for her. The world could use more idealistic nurses. Yet he craved the silence of his apartment, where he could sit in the dark and stare out over the neighborhood—remembering the vacancy where the twin towers used to be, nursing his Scotch, which could never fill the bottomless hole in his heart. Shifting his thoughts to the here and now, he took another drink of his beer and gazed at fresh-faced Polly to help banish the image.
She sat beside him on a barstool, sipping pale ale that left a hint of orange on her breath as she continued to chew his ear. “I wasn’t always interested in orthopedics. I saw myself as an emergency nurse.” Her eyes went wide. Even in the darkened bar they sparkled. “That is, until I worked my first shift on a busy night with a full moon.” She covered her face with long fingers and clear-varnished nails, and shook her head, then quickly peeked up at him. “I thought I was going to die!”
Was everyone this animated, or had he quit noticing? He’d be dead between the ears if he didn’t admit she was cute, and likeable. She shrugged out of her sweater and he realized she’d changed her nursing scrubs, which had baby koalas patterned over them, for a clingy pink top that dipped just enough to reveal a full-grown woman’s cleavage.
How had he not noticed that all day?
He took another drink and tried his damnedest not to stare. She removed her hairband and put it inside her combination backpack-purse, and those light waves curtained her face in an alluring way, coming to rest on her shoulders...which led his eyes back to her breasts.
He certainly wasn’t dead. Just severely inactive.
But this wasn’t right, staring down her shirt. He needed to change his focus. “Bartender, the next round for this group is on me.”
Everyone clapped and cheered, even a few people he’d never seen before in his life, and he took another drink of beer, feeling almost human again.
Polly wrapped her arm around his and squeezed. “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome,” he said, tensing, staring straight ahead, knowing his answer had come out clipped. He hadn’t made contact with a woman like this in, well, longer than he cared to admit.
She must have sensed his tension and unwrapped her arm but moved closer on her stool. “So, Dr. Griffin, I’ve told you all about me, but I don’t know where you come from.”
The bartender delivered the drinks along the counter, and refilled the bowls with pretzels and mixed nuts.
“I’m a New York native.”
“So your whole family is here, too?”
“My parents retired to Florida a few years back, and my sister lives in Rhode Island now.”
“Are you married? Do you have any kids?”
If Lisa hadn’t been killed he would have been a father of an eleven-year-old by now. But his world had officially ended the day he’d spent digging people out of debris as a first responder on 9/11. His always simmering emotions boiled and he snapped, “Look. I’m here for a drink, like you asked. My personal life is none of your business. You got that?”
A flash of hurt and humiliation accompanied her crumbling smile. One instant she’d been bubbling with life, the next he’d crushed it right out of her. Good going, Johnny. He had no business being around people.
She recovered just as quickly, though, straightening her shoulders and sticking out her chest, eyes narrowing, as if this routine was nothing new to her. “Sorry for crossing the line, Doctor.” She slipped off the bar stool and gathered her things and the glass. “Thanks for the beer.” Then she wandered over to a group of nurses a few stools away and joined in with their chatter.
