he knew for a fact would jump at the chance to spend time with him—in and out of bed.
Because he wanted to fix up Jessie’s room.
Because he wanted to spend time with Scarlet, the woman who’d been occupying his mind way too often of late, the woman he’d just promised to be a perfect gentleman with. What the heck had he been thinking?
That kiss.
He adjusted his scrub pants. In his present state, one size did not fit all.
Okay, so Scarlet Miller had the good looks and trim figure he preferred. But he liked his women easy—emotionally and sexually. Did that make him shallow? Yes. But it also made him honest. With his schedule and work responsibilities, he hadn’t been looking for anything long term or challenging. And he had no doubt smart, quick, feisty Scarlet would be a challenge.
Lewis returned the flirty smile of a cute blonde woman he recognized from Respiratory Therapy as she walked toward him on the opposite side of the hallway. He considered a wink, decided against it, but glanced at her fingers anyway. No wedding ring. No engagement ring. It’d be so easy to ask her out, to do all the right things and to say what needed to be said to get her into bed.
He was, after all, a master of seduction.
Yet the idea of slipping into that role, of spouting insincere flattery, and having to tolerate uninspired, unwanted conversation for the sole purpose of getting laid no longer held an appeal. Lord help him, he’d lost his desire to play the game.
He took out his cell phone and pretended to read a message until he passed her by.
Scarlet pushed her way back into his thoughts. Her soft, plump lips. Her scent. Her taste. Her barely audible moan of surrender as she’d softened against him. He may have lost his desire to play the game, but he had not lost his desire for the opposite sex, more specifically, his desire for Scarlet Miller.
He turned the corner, getting closer to the familiar sounds of his busy department, looking forward to immersing himself in his work, of focusing his mind on something other than his daughter’s friend and confidante, a woman he could not have.
“Dr. Jackson,” one of his more experienced nurses called out when she saw him. “Your timing is excellent. The consult you requested for exam room four is being done as we speak. Dr. Griffin was able to come after all.”
Though quiet and a bit gruff with the nursing staff, Dr. John Griffin had an excellent rapport with children and was one of the finest orthopedic surgeons Lewis had ever worked with.
“And two ambulances are on the way,” she continued. “Three-year-old male fell from a subway platform. Numerous scrapes and bruises. A notable laceration above his left eyebrow. Alert and responsive.”
“What do we have open?” he asked, shifting back into work mode.
“Exam room two, bed three?”
“That works.” At the sound of sirens he hastened his pace. “And the second one?”
“Thirteen-month-old female. Possible drowning in the bathtub. Mom is inconsolable, says she got distracted by an important phone call.”
More important than her toddler? But Lewis had worked as a pediatrician long enough to know better than to make snap judgments about parents based on limited information. “Do we have a trauma bed available?”
She looked at the white board—which looked more like a red, green, and black board with all the writing it had on it—and said, “Trauma three, bed one.”
The electric doors opened. An EMT walked beside a fast-moving stretcher squeezing an ambu bag, manually ventilating his small patient. “Unable to intubate en route,” he reported.
“Trauma three, bed one,” Lewis told the female EMT pushing the stretcher, and he set his full cup of now cold coffee on the counter at the nurses’ station and got back to work.
Two hours later, finished for the day, he took the elevator to the NICU to pick up Jessie.
“Hi, Dad,” she greeted him and actually sounded glad to see him. Lewis wanted to run up and hug her and cement the moment in his memory. Luckily rational thought prevailed. “Is it okay if I stick around for a little while? Scarlet asked if I could watch Nikki for a few minutes.”
“Sure,” Lewis said, setting down his backpack and dropping onto the soft couch. “Who’s Nikki?”
The door opened and a little girl with red pigtails, a face full of freckles, wearing a pair of eyeglasses ran to hug Jessie. She really had a way with young children. Watching her, Lewis entertained the first inkling of a hope that maybe she’d follow in his footsteps and become a pediatrician.
“This is Nikki,” Jessie said.
“I’m four.” Nikki held up four fingers on her right hand.
She looked to be closer to three. “Nice to meet you, Nikki,” Lewis said. “I’m Dr. Jackson, Jessie’s dad.”
“She’s a NICU graduate,” Jessie explained. “That means she got big enough and healthy enough to go home with her parents.”
“And two,” Nikki held up two fingers, “big brothers.”
A woman with red hair similar to Nikki’s joined them. “Would you mind telling Scarlet that Erica Cole is waiting for her in the lounge? I don’t mind talking with new parents out here, but I can’t handle seeing all the sick babies.” She shuddered. “Brings back so many memories.”
“Of course.” Lewis stood. “Keep an eye on my bag, Jessie.” She nodded from where she knelt on the floor, setting out a bunch of dolls.
Lewis entered the darkened, quiet NICU, so unlike his bustling ER, and walked to the first of two nurses’ stations. “I’m looking for Scarlet Miller,” he said to a young secretary, keeping his voice low. An older nurse he recognized from the cafeteria when he and Scarlet had met to discuss Jessie walked up beside him. “May I ask what for?” the nurse, he looked at her name badge, Linda, asked.
“Erica Cole asked me to relay the message she’s waiting for Scarlet in the family lounge,” he said.
“She’s in with Joey Doe,” Linda said with a shake of her head. “If you ask me she is getting way too attached to that baby.”
“No one asked you,” a younger, nurse said to Linda. “Room forty-two,” she said to Lewis. “Come. I’ll show you the way.”
Lewis followed her. “It’s so quiet in here.”
“Not always.” The nurse smiled. “But we try to maintain a calm, soothing environment as premature infants are hypersensitive to their surroundings.” She stopped and pointed. “There she is.”
Through the half glass outer wall he saw Scarlet sitting in a rocker beside Joey’s incubator, feeding her from a special bottle, staring down at the tiny baby girl with a loving smile, looking very much like a mother caring for her own newborn. He walked to the doorway and cleared his throat to get her attention.
She looked up guiltily.
“How’s
