course! That had to be it. He’d taken a breather or two in the stairwell himself. Or used it to sneak a kiss with a pretty young nurse. She had to be there.
He found Clare sitting on a step halfway between the fourth and fifth floor, arms roped around her legs, head on her knees so her face was hidden.
“Here to harass me in my moment of weakness?” she asked without looking up.
“How did you know it was me?”
“Because that’s the kind of day I’ve been having.” She lifted her head, sniffling and wiping tears from her cheeks with the heel of her palms.
Tears?
Clare was crying?
Just when he thought she couldn’t be more interesting, or perplexing, she threw him a curveball.
“And I know how your shoes sound,” she added. “From hearing you walk up and down the halls.”
He would be flattered that she paid attention, but she paid attention to everything on the ward.
“Are you all right?” He offered her one of the tissues he kept in his lab coat pocket. He dealt with parents of sick children on a daily basis. Tissues were a part of the uniform.
She took it and wiped her nose. “I’m okay. Just really embarrassed. I don’t know what happened in there.”
“You choked,” he said, knowing Clare would want an honest answer. “It happens to the best of us.”
She lifted her chin stubbornly. “Not to me it doesn’t.”
If she had been standing, and was a foot taller, he was sure she would be looking down her nose at him. “At the risk of sounding like a tool, all evidence is to the contrary, cupcake.”
Outraged, she opened her mouth, probably to say something mean, or respond to the cupcake remark, then something inside her seemed to give. Her face went slack and her body sort of sank in on itself. She dropped her head to her knees again, groaning, “You’re right.”
He was? She really must have been out of sorts because she never thought he was right about anything.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“You know those days when you feel like you could take on the world? When everything goes exactly the way you want it to?”
“Sure.”
She looked up at him with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. “This is not one of those days.”
He cringed. “That bad, huh?”
She dropped her head back down to her knees. “Choking on the job is just the icing on the cake.”
Clearly. “So you really never choked?”
She shook her head, making her messy bun flop from side to side, and said, “Not even in nursing school.”
He took a chance and sat down beside her. She didn’t snarl or hiss, or unsheathe her talons, so that was good. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Shoot me and put me out of my misery.”
“I think you’re being a little hard on yourself,” he told her. He had heard of surgeons who choked during surgery and never got their confidence back, but this was different. This wasn’t a matter of confidence, this was pure human emotion.
“What if it happens again, when she needs me?” Clare said, looking up at him. She had the prettiest eyes, and she smelled amazing. It would barely take anything to lean in and kiss her. Her lips looked plump and delicious. It might even be worth the concussion afterward, when Clare clocked him.
“If there hadn’t been fifteen other people in the room to compensate, if it had been just you and me, or even just you, I have no doubt that you would have performed admirably,” he said.
“It’s getting more difficult to be objective with her,” Clare said, looking genuinely distraught. “When they called the code I thought for sure that this was it, that this time she wouldn’t snap back. It made me sick inside, like she was my own flesh and blood.”
“Your compassion is what makes you such a good nurse.”
“Yeah, I’m awesome,” she said. “I was so limp with fear I barely made it out of the elevator. I was sweating and my heart was pounding and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and all the way down the hall it was like I was walking through quicksand.”
It sounded like a panic attack, but to suggest it would probably only make her feel worse. “These are special circumstances.”
“How do you figure?”
“Until they find Janey’s mother, or get her into foster care, you and I are the only ‘parents’ she has. She may be a ward of the state, but it’s up to us to see that she gets the best care. That’s a huge responsibility.”
“You’re right,” she said, sounding cautiously optimistic. “Maybe that’s why I have this deep need to protect her.”
“Right now, she needs protecting.”
She looked up at him and there were those lips again. Plump and juicy and pink. She had pale, flawless skin and the brightest, clearest green eyes that he had ever seen.
He would never forget the day he’d met her, when she’d walked into the staff meeting and the administrator had introduced them. He had been totally blown away. He’d probably held her hand a little too long when he shook it, and all through the meeting he hadn’t been able to stop staring at her. Which, in retrospect, might have seemed a little creepy. Maybe they’d just gotten off on the wrong foot.
“I’m not sure if I’ve ever said it, but you’re a really good doctor,” she said.
He wiggled his brows and said, “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“Now if we could just do something about your personality,” she grumbled with an exasperated shake of her head, but there was the hint of a smile, and a twinkle of something sly and impish in her eyes. She was teasing him.
“Admit it,” he said, teasing her right back. “I’m starting to grow on you.”
“I admit nothing,” she said, nose in the air, trying not to smile, but he could see that she was having as much fun as he was. “Though I will say that after this, it might be a little more difficult to dislike you.”
He grinned and wiggled his brows. “Then my evil plan is working.”
* * *
Clare laughed. She couldn’t help it. Because it was just so Parker. And boy did it irritate her that she knew him well enough to say that. Five minutes ago she’d felt lower than low; now he had her laughing. How did he do that?
Try as she might to push him away, he always pushed back a little harder. Was this campaign to keep him at arm’s length a futile waste of time? Was falling for him an
