part?” Cindy asked.
“I’m not anti-matrimony. In fact, I was married once.” He saw her glance at his left ring finger, which was bare.
It always had been. After the formal ceremony when he and Felicia had taken their vows, he hadn’t worn a wedding band. He’d given his wife a host of excuses about it getting in the way when he was working. Gloving up. Sterile procedure. But she’d seen through all the crap and realized the truth about him.
“You said was.” Cindy frowned. “Past tense. You’re divorced?”
“No.” He saw the look of surprise and clarified. “My wife died in a car accident.”
Not long after she’d left him because he didn’t love her.
She’d been right, but it wasn’t about her. Love was something he couldn’t make himself believe in.
“Oh, Nathan—” Cindy’s eyes widened with distress. “I didn’t know.”
“Not many people do.”
“That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” The fault was his and so was the guilt.
“I can’t help it. That’s what happens when you hear rumors and believe them without question. I should know better than to listen to that stuff. There’s so much talk and every time a story is told it gets—”
The words stopped as she focused on something behind him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Two of the NICU nurses just walked in,” she whispered.
“So?”
“Isn’t it ironic that we were just talking about gossip?”
Her expression took on the same wariness the day he’d tried to help her out. She’d told him to back off or it could cost her job.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Rumors will spread like the plague. You. Me. Here. Alone.” She put her elbow on the table, then settled a hand on her forehead, trying to shield her face. “Where’s a really big menu when you need one?” she mumbled.
“It’s no one’s business but ours why we’re here.”
“In a perfect world that would be true. But, trust me on this, there will be talk.”
Nathan looked up when the two hospital employees walked by. He recognized the nurses—Barbara Kelly and Lenore Fusano. The first was pretty, blonde and blue eyed. The other woman had dark eyes and hair. Also attractive. He nodded a greeting and they both smiled and said hello, then kept moving without acknowledging Cindy in any way.
“This is just great,” she said. “And the timing couldn’t be worse. I told my supervisor that everything was under control.”
“What does this have to do with your boss?”
She met his gaze. “I met with her because there was a complaint about me. Anonymous. On the hospital’s hotline.”
Nathan glanced at the two nurses and saw them look quickly away. “What was the complaint?”
“Supposedly about my work.”
He remembered what she’d said about her life getting more difficult when word got out that he was “slumming” with one of the housekeepers. Then she’d told him to leave her alone because it could cost her job. That remark was one of the reasons he’d felt compelled to talk to her. To reassure her that she had nothing to worry about.
“Someone complained because you talked to me?” he asked.
“No. Because you talked to me.”
He hadn’t really bought into what she’d said about all the social hierarchy stuff affecting her employment. But someone had gone on record and the paperwork trail had started. “You should have told me.”
“Why? What can you do?” she protested. “I already asked you to leave me alone, and we can see how well that worked out.”
He wasn’t walking away and everyone should just get over it. Including Cindy. “Backing off isn’t exactly my style.”
“Then you’re the exception.”
“I take pride in staying friends with the women I’ve taken out,” he said.
Cindy blinked at him. “Don’t tell me. The serial dater rumors are true.”
“I object to the ‘serial’ label.” He rested his forearms on the table. “I go out. In fact, I went out with one of those nurses for a while. We’re still friends.”
Cindy glanced over her shoulder and tensed before meeting his gaze again. “Don’t tell me. You dated the one glaring a hole through my back.”
“I don’t see anyone scowling in your direction. Barbara Kelly and I went out a few times. No big deal.”
“For you,” she said pointedly. “But this is going to be trouble for me. And it’s not like I don’t have enough on my plate already.”
“You’re being overly dramatic.”
She shook her head. “Must be nice to live in fantasy land.”
On the contrary. He was a realist. The reality was that the child she carried was his responsibility and he would take care of it. And her.
Whether she wanted him to or not.
The day after dinner with Nathan, Cindy dreaded her work assignment in the NICU. Facing the two nurses after being caught “red-handed” with a doctor wasn’t something that would make for a relaxed atmosphere. There were no written rules, nothing in the employee handbook, but that didn’t make it any less true. Anyone who crossed the line did so at her own peril.
There was only one thing she could do. Her job. And she did it to the best of her ability, ignoring the hostile looks from Barbara, who watched like a prison guard from her nurse’s station fortress in the center of the large room. The unit was full of tiny babies, but all was normal and quiet. Nathan was nowhere in sight.
A small thread of disappointment told her she’d started to look forward to seeing him, which was a much-needed wake-up call. Her pregnancy was the only reason he acknowledged her at all. He’d all but confessed to being a serial dater. And to losing his wife, which could explain why he was a serial dater. Heartbreak could make a guy unwilling to commit.
But understanding didn’t change the facts. By definition, seeing a lot of women meant that he had a short attention span and sooner or later he would disappear.
One thing about having lots to think about was how fast she got her work finished. She glanced around to make sure everything was taken care of and all her paraphernalia was picked up. That was when she caught
