you there,” the paramedic told Peter just before he closed and secured the rear doors of the ambulance. Walking to the front of the vehicle, he opened the driver’s side and got into the cab.
Bethany looked at Peter. “You’re going back to the hospital?”
Peter brushed off as much snow as he could before putting his overcoat back on. She sounded surprised, he thought, trying to gauge her tone. “Yes.”
She wanted to dissuade him. His hours were over. The man wasn’t a robot. “Whoever’s on call at the E.R. can take care of him.”
It didn’t matter who was on call. The teenager had become his patient the moment he’d applied the makeshift bandage to his wound. “I started this, I might as well finish it.”
He actually meant that. He was willing to give up his evening, his free time, for a stranger. She looked at him for a long moment. Everything he’d said before wasn’t just lip service or arguing for argument’s sake. Though she tried not to be, Bethany had to admit she was impressed.
“You really are as dedicated as they say, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea what they say.” He didn’t do things based on what someone else might or might not say or think. He did things because they were the right things to do. “So I can’t answer that.” To his surprise, instead of saying anything, Bethany placed herself in front of him, blocking his path to his car, and began unbuttoning his overcoat. What was this all about? “What are you doing?”
“You mis-buttoned your coat,” she said, beginning to rebutton the overcoat correctly. “Not that putting the right button into the right hole really matters. You still look like a homeless person,” she declared. Stepping back, she shook her head. His coat was a mess. “You’re not going to be able to get that blood out.”
Peter glanced down at his coat. She was probably right. “Small price to pay for saving a man’s life,” he commented.
She tried to picture her father saying that with any kind of true feeling and couldn’t. Her parents had a completely different set of sensibilities than Wilder obviously did. And there was something almost hypnotically fascinating about his world.
About him.
The unbidden, fleeting thought jarred Bethany right down to the roots of her teeth.
Maybe hypothermia was setting in and she was hallucinating. She really wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Especially not since he’d kissed her.
Peter paused for a moment. “You’ll be okay going home?” Because if she felt uneasy for some reason, then he’d follow her home before going to the hospital.
What a strange question, she thought. The man was a roving, card-carrying knight in shining armor.
“I have been up to now,” she assured him. She had no idea why she added, “So I guess the cup of coffee is over.”
He’d begun to walk to his car and stopped to look at her. A strange pang nipped at his stomach. Peter realized that he didn’t want it to be over. But of course it was, and after all, it had only been a cup of coffee, not an actual date. Not even a preliminary meeting to set up a date.
But it could have been.
And then an impulse burst over him. “That fund-raiser Henry’s throwing together, the one to raise money for the new MRI machine …”
Bethany bristled slightly. Wilder made the reference as if she wouldn’t be aware of what the fund-raiser was for without his sidebar. He didn’t think much of her, did he? As the efficiency expert, she was very aware of everything that was going on in the hospital. Maybe even more aware of things than he was. She was in the business of knowing everything about the hospital’s operation.
“What about it?” she asked formally.
“Are you going?”
Why? Didn’t he think she’d attend a fundraiser? “Yes.”
He almost stopped, thinking it wiser to keep his next question to himself. But that same impulse he’d had a moment ago experienced a fresh surge and he heard himself ask, “With anyone?”
“No.” That was the honest answer. The next moment, she backtracked. “I mean—” This was where she pulled a name out of a hat to cover herself. To make it seem that she wasn’t the social loner she actually was. Why she felt her lips moving and heard her voice repeating “No,” she had no idea. The only answer seemed to be that she was turning on herself.
Caught up in her own unraveling, she certainly didn’t expect to hear him say the next words.
“If you’re not going with anyone, would you mind if I took you?”
Stunned, she recovered fast. “No, I wouldn’t mind.” Bethany felt her mouth curving in response. “Are you asking me out, Dr. Wilder—um, Peter?”
He grinned. “I guess I am.”
Say yes. What’ve you got to lose? She took a deep breath. “All right.”
“All right?” he echoed quizzically. He didn’t know if she was agreeing with what he’d just said, or if she was agreeing to go to the fundraiser with him. This woman, above all others, should have come with a set of instructions or some kind of manual.
“All right,” she repeated. “I’ll go to this fundraiser with you. Since we’re both going,” she added. After a slight pause, she added more. “We can economize and use one car. Less gas—”
His eyes met hers. “Bethany.”
His eyes seemed to pin her in place. She stopped in mid-sentence. “What?”
He smiled at her. “You don’t have to justify your decision to me.”
“I’m not,” she said. Lowering her eyes, she addressed her shoes. “I’m justifying it to me.”
“Oh.” Turning the key, he started his car. It instantly hummed to life. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She nodded, rooted to the spot, watching him drive away. Was that a throwaway phrase he’d just uttered, or was he planning on actually seeing her tomorrow? Except for the board meetings and when she deliberately went out of her way to look for him, they didn’t see each other ordinarily.
Her body was tingling when she turned away, whether from the cold or anticipation, she couldn’t decide. She was hoping for the former.
Turning away, she went to her own car a few steps away. She knew what she needed—to make her mind a blank, to think about nothing and no one.
That wasn’t the easiest thing to do, especially not after he’d kissed her.
He’d kissed her.
The thought vividly brought back the sensation. Instantly, she became warm. So much so that for a moment, she simply sat in her car, frozen in the moment. Enjoying the moment.
And then she became disgusted with herself. She was pathetic, Bethany
