you. That sounds great.” Maybe starting over wouldn’t be as hard as she’d feared. If the job worked out, Brad might consider keeping her on. Surely Layla or someone could point her in the direction of a reasonably priced apartment. Or someone in need of a roommate.
Because Brad wasn’t going to want her to live with him for ever. And she shouldn’t want that either. Not after all that weirdness she’d felt on the back of his motorcycle.
If that feeling grew...
She rolled her eyes as they made their way to the elevator.
She would just ask him those questions she’d thought about earlier and then get out of his life. And sooner was looking a whole lot better than later.
* * *
It made his blood boil.
Maybe that old expression was true after all, because where there’d been one irritated bubble floating around a moment ago, there was now a steady stream of them rolling up and down the veins of his arms. Filling his chest. Gathering in his skull.
He scowled at the nurses’ desk, where Cade Coleman stood talking to none other than Chloe. His Chloe.
Okay, she wasn’t his. But she was under his care—which was something he never thought he’d say about a woman. And there was something about the way she looked at Cade from beneath her lashes. The ready smile that curved her lips. The color blooming along her cheeks.
His eyes narrowed when she took a strand of hair and twirled it round her index finger.
He’d been on the receiving end of plenty of hair twirls. It usually meant one thing.
Surely she didn’t find the guy attractive.
Well, she sure as hell hadn’t looked at him that way.
As for Coleman, what was he doing, making a move on one of his nurses? One who had only been here for three days.
Whatever it was, he was going to nip it in the bud because Jason would be crawling all over him if he let someone take advantage of Chloe.
“Is there a problem here?”
Chloe’s glance went to his, and she jerked upright, the lock of hair falling from her fingers to join the rest of the glossy strands. “I was just...just...” If her cheeks had been pink before, they were flaming now.
What was going on?
Cade, whose elbow had been resting on the counter, casually raised a brow. “No problem. We just hadn’t been formally introduced yet.”
An oversight Brad hadn’t even attempted to rectify. There was something about the surgeon that made his hackles rise. In all honesty, it was probably because they were both stubborn and opinionated and used to being in charge. Tensions had been high ever since he’d joined the team, but Brad had figured as long as they each stuck to his own job and didn’t get in the way of the other, they’d be able to coexist peacefully. Not if Chloe’s well-being was at stake, however.
“Chloe?”
She shrugged, her hands clasped on top of the desk. “Like he said, we were just getting to know each other.”
Brad’s jaw tightened further. Definitely no hair-twirling going on when she spoke to him. But there was a whole lot of guilt in her eyes.
What the hell was she playing at?
Before he could say anything further, Cade rapped his knuckles lightly on the desk, making Chloe jump. “Well, now that we’ve become a little better acquainted, I’ll let you get back to it. I have a few patients to see. I’ll talk to you later.”
With a brusque nod in Brad’s direction he headed for the elevators across from the nurses’ station.
“So?” His attention went back to Chloe.
“Can we please talk about this later?”
His brows went up. “If I knew what the hell ‘this’ was, I’d feel a whole lot better.”
“It’s nothing. I just don’t know how to...” She shook her head and looked away.
Sliding his fingers under her chin, he coaxed her gaze back to his. “You don’t know how to what?”
She licked her lips. “Flirt.”
The word was so low he wasn’t sure he’d heard it correctly. “I’m sorry, did you say flirt?”
The word set his teeth on edge. And sent his thoughts racing.
Tugging from his grip, she wrapped her arms around her waist, eyes flashing. “I know it must seem stupid to you, but it was one of the reasons...”
One of the other nurses came to the station and settled into a chair, smiling at both of them, obviously unaware of the tense undercurrents.
But at least that angry bubbling sensation inside Brad’s chest had eased. Chloe wasn’t really interested in Cade. At least, he didn’t think she was.
“When does your shift end?”
Ginny, the other nurse, spoke up. “I’ve been trying to get her to leave for the last half-hour.”
“You’re already off duty?”
“I feel funny just...leaving.”
The pause before “leaving” was telling. She didn’t want anyone to know where she was staying. Kind of hard since the address she’d given to Human Resources was his. For the second time in a week he wondered if housing Chloe was a good idea. But he was already committed to this course, and Jason was counting on him.
Tread carefully, bud. If she wanted to keep their living arrangements secret, then he’d better honor that decision.
“I have one other patient to see, and then I’m off as well.”
Chloe nodded. “I’ll see you later, then.”
“Sounds good.”
Walking away from the station, he tried to get his head screwed back on straight. But it was tough, because Chloe and Cade weren’t his only worries right now. Katrina hadn’t quite dropped out of the picture, like he’d hoped she would. She’d not only called and spoken to Chloe, she’d left an angry message on his voice mail. She’d also stopped in at the hospital and had been none too pleased—according to Ginny—to find they’d already replaced her.
It reaffirmed his decision to keep personal and business relationships in two separate compartments. Which made things with Chloe even more complicated. Because the contents of those particular compartments were oozing from minuscule cracks, mingling with each other.
Unlike Katrina, who’d begun on the business end of the spectrum and moved over to the personal, Chloe was the opposite. And if he wasn’t careful he’d mess things up not only with her but with her whole family. That was the last thing he wanted to do. He cared about
