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There had been something in his eyes when he’d looked at her. Fin still shivered when she thought about it. Something exactly like what she had seen in Rafe’s eyes when he’d looked at Jillian.
Or Lacy’s husband when he looked at her.
A smile kept playing with the corner of her lips, one she couldn’t control. She hadn’t felt like this since she had been a young girl. He had been seventeen; she had been fifteen. It had been before.
Before the world had changed to darkness.
He had moved on with his life by the time she even realized there was life still left in her. Those years after Sierra had been some of the darkest of her life. And it hadn’t helped that she’d lost both of her parents four years after that.
All she’d had since then had been Margo and Thomason. Though she suspected he had delayed retirement because he’d not wanted to leave her alone.
But now...she and Virat hadn’t discussed exactly what they were doing.
It could be that it was just friends that had turned into something sexual. Fin wasn’t stupid, nor was she not aware that those types of situations weren’t all that uncommon. Rumor mill at FCGH had long made that abundantly clear.
But she didn’t think it was that.
She hoped.
Heck, Fin was probably the worst person she knew at figuring out actual relationship-type stuff.
She needed help.
Her meeting had gone well with Rafe, but the hospital was going to face some direct changes. No surprise. It had been changing constantly since Dr. Daniels had been arrested for prostitution.
Rafe was one of those good changes. And he was determined to make Finley Creek General as best it could be.
Fin was just as determined to help him do that.
But right now, she didn’t need her boss. Fin needed other women.
She headed toward the ER. The first person she saw was Nikkie Jean.
Something was going on with the other woman, but Fin hadn’t been able to figure out what it was yet. Nikkie Jean looked green around the gills. And shaky. “Hey, Nik. Are you doing ok?”
The other woman bolted straight toward the nearest restroom. Fin followed. Hopefully, Nikkie Jean made it in time. And they couldn’t have a sick physician on the clock. Too easy to spread germs that way.
She waited until Nikkie Jean emerged, pale as a ghost and shaking. With tears on her cheeks. “Hey, you need a few days off?”
“Maybe. I think I ate some bad fish last night.”
“Nik, you don’t eat fish.” Her friend was adamantly against seafood of any kind. Nikkie Jean claimed it had always made her ill.
“I tried some last night at the diner because it smelled good. You’d think I’d remember, right?”
“You want a shot of something to settle your stomach?”
“I’m good now, I think. But remind me never to eat fish again. What are you doing out here? I thought Rafe was keeping you locked up in his inner sanctum while he dealt with those buyers?”
Fin nodded. It wasn’t what she wanted to think about, but the hospital had been sold before. It very well might be sold again.
The hospital was her family’s legacy, though. And she wanted to protect it as much as she could. Fortunately, Rafe felt the same way, even though his family hadn’t founded it.
But it had become everyone’s family around there lately. “I needed a break. And some female conversation. The buyers are all men.”
“They seem ok?” Nikkie asked. “Like they know what they are doing?”
Fin nodded. She hadn’t been wowed, by any means, but they had impressed her with what they had suggested for the hospital. They’d been sedate and businesslike and experienced.
If they stuck to what they said, it might be a positive change for the hospital. And maybe then her uncle would step down as head of the board, and some real progress might be made. “They actually might. It could be good for things around here. They have a decent reputation on the east coast, too. But it’s still too early to tell.”
“So what’s on your mind? I see it in your baby blues, Finnie,” Nikkie Jean said as they headed toward the locker room near the surgical department.
“When are you leaving?”
“Fifteen minutes. I had an extremely early surgery today.” A flash of something went over Nikkie Jean’s face. “It didn’t go well.”
“I’m sorry.” Nikkie Jean was one of the best pediatrics residents Fin had ever seen. Fin had finished her own residency in general practice two years ago. Even though they were around the same age, Nikkie still had a year or two to go. But Nikkie Jean was phenomenal.
She blew Rafe and Lacy, two other highly gifted physicians, completely out of the water.
But she took every child patient to heart.
Nikkie Jean’s heart bruised too easily for this job sometimes.
“There may still be a full recovery, but the odds are far longer than I wanted.”
Fin just nodded. She understood.
They had just hit the corner of the corridor when a man in dark-green scrubs rounded it.
Fin smacked straight into his chest.
“I’m sorry. I really need to check the mirrors—” They had safety mirrors to make certain gurneys didn’t collide, but Fin sometimes forgot to even look. She looked up at her victim.
Brown eyes were looking down at her.
Strong hands wrapped around her waist.
“Hi.” The word came out soft and breathless.
Oh, hell. She just wanted to curl up right against that chest for the rest of the night. Maybe forever.
Fin laid her head over her his heart for half a second.
They weren’t exactly hiding what was happening between them—but they weren’t shouting it from the rooftops, either.
She turned her head.
And looked right into Nikkie Jean’s laughing hazel eyes.