Seventeen
My phone woke me at five in the morning, and Dane was on the other end, reminding me I had to deliver the envelope with the charity information to the hospital before nine.
I was groggy, but I told him I was all over it.
He grunted like maybe he wasn’t sure I was coherent enough, and I asked him why he couldn’t take it over himself.
After clearing his throat, he reminded me that as he was en route to Powers Lake, Wisconsin, for meeting with a client, being in two places at once was difficult, even for him.
“That’s a lot of arrogance for this time of the morning,” I assured him.
He snorted out a laugh before he hung up. I lay there a moment, listening to the silence of the apartment, and realized I was alone. I got up and went room to room just to make sure before I called Sam. He was on-site at a crime scene somewhere, and his voice sounded funny when he answered.
“What’s wrong?” I asked gently. “I woke up and you were gone.”
“You looked so sweet lyin’ there, all warm and…like a kitten.”
“A kitten,” I said after a second.
Sam chuckled, and I smiled because I’d caused that.
“I’m really glad you called.” He sighed deeply. “You sound so good.”
“I sound sleepy.”
“Exactly. I wish I was there—in bed with you. I’m freezing out here.”
“Are you okay?”
“No,” was all he said.
“What can I do?”
“I dunno, kitten. What can you do?”
“Okay, enough with the kitten crap,” I warned him, smiling into the phone. “Just tell me. Please, Sam. Say something. Anything.”
He cleared his throat. “Okay. You can pack a bag and go to my place and wait for me. Can you do that?”
“I can do that.”
“’Cause if I could come home and you’d be there…that’d be good.”
I heard the tremor in his voice. Whatever he was looking at, standing in, was bad.
“Okay.”
“I wanted to stay with you.” His voice cracked, got very quiet. “I didn’t wanna come out.”
“’Cause you like me all warm and naked in bed with you,” I teased him.
“Yes” was all he got out, his voice hoarse. Something was eating him up.
“I’ll be there. What time are you getting off?”
“Six. Meet me there at six. I’ll get some food and—”
“I’ll get it,” I told him. “You just come home.”
“Just come home?”
“Yeah. Your part’s simple.”
“Okay. I’ll see ya.”
“Bye.” I smiled.
“Wait.”
“What?”
Long silence. “Nothing.”
He wanted to say something or he wanted me to say something. “Tell me.”
“Be careful walking around, okay? Call me if you need me.”
“I will. I’ll see ya at six.”
“I left my extra set of keys on your nightstand.”
“You did?”
“I did.”
“Okay.”
“Those are yours to keep, all right?”
“Sam,” I said breathlessly, “are you sure you wanna—”
“I’m sure. I’ll see ya later, kitten.”
“Sam, you gotta stop with the—”
But he cut me off when he hung up. I went to my nightstand and picked up the keys. The key chain was obviously new, and I had to smile at the rhinestone-encrusted J. That had to be thrown out right away. How gay did he think I was?
It was a silent auction to benefit the pediatric unit at the hospital.
Originally my boss had been contacted to be one of the bachelors silently auctioned off, but he’d declined and said he would provide free services instead.
The hospital had been smart and accepted.
A house designed by Dane Harcourt was worth its weight in gold as a symbol of status and luxury.
If you had a Harcourt house, you had arrived.
As I walked up to the window in the emergency room, I saw Nick Sullivan leaning on the desk on the other side of the glass.
When he turned to look out toward the lobby where I was standing, I was going to duck down and wait until he went away, but I was a grown-up and raised my hand and waved.
He came through the sliding glass doors seconds later.
“Hey.” He smiled wide. “What’re you doing here at the crack of dawn? Have you even been to bed yet?”
“Ha-ha.” I smirked at him, yawning.
He stepped in close to me and took hold of the lapel of my peacoat. “I’m sorry for everything I said the last time we spoke. I was a jerk and—”
“I deserved it for how I treated you.”
“No,” he assured me. “You deserved to be ignored, as you did me. You didn’t deserve all the gross things I said, and I—”
“It’s okay.”
He took a shuddering breath.
“Really.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” I smiled at him. “Let’s be friends again.”
“If I didn’t care so much, I wouldn’t have been such a jerk.”
“Then you must really care, ’cause you were a total dick.”
Ignoring my words, he put an arm around my neck and led me through the doors to the ER. “What’re you doing here, J?”
“I have an envelope for the lady in charge of the silent auction tonight.”
He gave me an odd look.
“Did you know there’s a huge charity event tonight, Doctor, to raise money for the children’s ward?”
“Yes, very funny. I know. I have to be there, after all.”
“So that’s why I’m here. I need to see the lady in charge.”
“Oh.” He let me go. “Phyllis Woodstone. Let me call her down here for you.”
“I can go to her office if you tell me where it is.”
“No, no.” He smiled at me. “I’ll call her. Wait here.”
So I stood there while he walked behind the desk to make a call.
“Jory, right?”
I looked up into lovely pale blue eyes. The woman smiling at me had the nicest face.
“Yeah. Who’re you?” I leaned on the desk.
“I’m Gail St. James. I just transferred in from San Francisco.”
“Why?” I asked her like she was high.
She chuckled. “My family’s here.”
I nodded. “So how’re you liking it?”
“I like it, except that I got kind of a rude awakening last week when I discovered that the man I had my eye on actually has his eye on you.”
“Oh.” I smiled sheepishly. “Doctor Nick.”
“Mmmm. The man is edible.”
“Is he?” I teased her.
“Yes.” She arched one eyebrow for me. “He’s a great doctor, good with kids, funny, smart, sarcastic, and do I even need to add gorgeous? Have you not noticed those emerald eyes?”
I nodded. “You should do his PR for him.”
She smiled impishly. “You’re adorable. I get why he’s smitten.”
“Was smitten,” I corrected her.
“Is smitten,” she corrected me right back. “He told me what a jerk he was at the club. You know he’s sorry.”
“I do.”
She tilted her head to look at me. “And have you forgiven him, Jory?”
I nodded. “I have.”
She leaned forward to look into my eyes. “You know, I’m standing here looking at you, and my goodness, you’re even prettier than Doctor Nick.”
I grinned at her.
“I would kill for your eyelashes.”
“Jory.”
I looked up and Nick was back. He looked from me to Gail and back again. “I called Phyllis. She’ll be right down. What’re you guys talking about?”
“Just trying to think of a good place to take Gail for a night on the town,” I told him, straightening up, reaching out to fix his collar under his white lab coat. “Any suggestions?”
He froze under my touch; letting me smooth out his collar, tighten his tie.
“I dunno, J.” He stared at me. “But after you give Phyllis the envelope, will you have breakfast with me? I’m just getting off, so…whaddya say?”
I squinted at him.
“Please.” He smiled at me. “I’ve got stuff to say.”
I shrugged. “All right.”
“Great.” He beamed at me. “I’ll be right back.”
Gail and I watched him walk away before we returned our gazes to one another.
“Wow.” She chuckled. “I had no idea the man had it quite that bad.”
“Knock it off.”
“Oh, Jory,” Gail said suddenly, and her voice had a breathy quality that had been missing before. “I googled your boss and—is this him?”
I leaned over the desk. On her computer screen was the website for Harcourt, Brown, and Cogan, and there, larger than life, was the one and only Dane Harcourt.
It was a particularly good shot. The photographer had been lying on the ground looking up at him, and it had been a cloudy day, so the sky and his eyes were the exact same color.
“It is a good picture, isn’t it.” I waggled my eyebrows at her.
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “You took it.”
“I did.” I chuckled. “Dane didn’t like the guy Miles and Sherman hired—thought he was arrogant—so since we had a deadline for the site…I got elected.”
“It’s a good picture, Jory, perhaps helped by the fact that his eyes look very kind. He obviously likes you if he’s looking at you like that.” She fixed me with a long stare. “Is he gay?”
I snorted out a laugh. “Uh, no. He’s actually the exact opposite of gay. He’s, like, the über-straight guy.”
“You mean—”
“I mean he’s, like, a serial dater.”
She giggled. “Maybe he just hasn’t found the right girl yet.”
“Maybe.”
“Well…” She swallowed. “I get how he can…date so much.”
“Yep,” I agreed. “Much prettier than Doctor Nick or me.”
“Nothing pretty about that man,” she remarked, and I saw the bemused look in her eyes. “How tall is he?”
“He’s six-five.”
“Oh.”
“His eyes are gray.”
“I can see that.”
I chuckled, and she looked up at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re just evil.” She smiled at me.
“Why don’t you gimme your number and we can have lunch next week. I’ll invite my boss.”
She wrote it on a Post-it note for me without hesitation.
Phyllis Woodstone came down and collected the envelope from me, gave me a hug, and thanked me profusely.
She said that she would love to meet my boss sometime.
I told her I’d try to arrange that. She said she was sure the design plans would go for a higher price than the sports car they had and I said I wouldn’t be surprised.
A house by Dane Harcourt was one of a kind.
I watched Gail’s eyes widen just listening to me talk.
“He’s a big deal,” she said when Mrs. Woodstone left.
“A very big deal,” I agreed as Nick came to stand beside me.
“C’mon, let’s go.” He smiled at me, hand on my back. “I know the perfect place.”