“KODY!”
Kody woke to someone screaming his name.
“Kody!”
He blinked as sunlight streamed in through the open window. It was blinding and right in his eye.
Where the heck am I?
And it took him a moment to realize that it was morning and that Dr. Sandra Foster was curled up beside him. It all came flooding back to him then. He’d made love to Sandra. He’d become lost in the moment after they’d opened up and shared and he’d completely lost his head and all sense of reason.
Completely.
He’d never opened up about Jenny before and he’d never thought he could ever be with someone again, but Sandra had got through to him.
It had been a long time since he’d wanted someone, but reaching through to Sandra and understanding why she held people at a distance just made him admire her drive and determination more.
And she looked so peaceful, sleeping beside him. A touch of pink in her cheeks, her lips parted as she breathed softly.
He remembered the touch of those lips against his and the warmth of her embrace. The feel of her nails in his back.
He wanted her again.
You can’t have her again. One time only, remember?
And he had to keep reminding himself of that. This was a one-time thing. A moment of comfort between the two of them.
That was all it could be.
And he’d thought one time would be enough. It scared him that he wanted her so fiercely again.
“Kody!”
He recognized that voice. It was Sally calling him. He got up, trying not to disturb Sandra, and his back protested after having spent the night on a hardwood floor. He went to the door and walked outside. The temperature had dropped, breaking the heat wave that had been plaguing Austin the last couple of days. The breeze was cool and earthy, but also there was not a cloud in the sky, which meant the risk of flash flooding was past them.
He saw a team of first responders and a fire truck down the hill. And part of the first responders was his sister, Sally, who was calling his name frantically.
“Sweet Pea! Here!” He waved and Sally came running up the hill. She ran straight into his arms.
“Oh, thank God!” she said. “When I saw your truck... I was worried you were washed away, like the other one farther down the creek.”
“The SUV?”
Sally nodded, stepping back. “Yeah, we couldn’t find a body, though. Ross has his team looking farther downstream of Burl’s Creek.”
“That’s Dr. Fraser’s SUV. She was hit by a mudslide and I got her out.” Kody turned and saw that Sandra was standing in the door, looking just as confused as he first was when he’d woken up this morning.
“What’s going on?” Sandra asked.
“We’re being rescued,” he said over his shoulder before turning back to Sally. “You can call off Ross’s search party. Dr. Fraser is fine.”
“Is she hurt?” Sally asked, noticing his crude bandage job on Sandra.
“She was hurt, but it was superficial.”
“Still, it should be looked at. Both of you need to be checked out. If you have any cuts, you’ll need a course of antibiotics. You know mudslides contain bacteria that can contain flesh-eating properties,” Sally stated.
“Right,” Kody said, exhausted. He ran his hand through his hair and winced.
“You okay?” Sally asked, worried.
“Just stiff. Please take care of Dr. Fraser.”
Sally nodded and approached Sandra. He could hear them talking—Sandra was a bit standoffish. More like her old self, but he couldn’t shake the image of how it had been last night. When it had been just the two of them, as one.
His blood heated as he thought about her in his arms. The way her lips had felt on his and how tender she’d been.
It had been a long time since he’d been with anyone.
There hadn’t been anyone since Jenny, and in a way he felt guilty. Even though Jenny had told him to move on, to find happiness after she died, there was a part of him that still felt guilty. As if he had cheated on her memory.
You didn’t. Jenny’s been gone for five years.
And it was a one-time thing. He had to keep reminding himself of that. It was a one-time thing. Only he was fooling himself. Why did he ever think that once would be enough?
Either way, it had to be.
He’d promised Sandra that.
Sally helped Sandra out of the cabin.
“Let’s just go to the hospital to get checked out, Dr. Fraser,” Sally said gently.
Sandra nodded and briefly glanced at him.
“I’ll come too,” Kody assured her. “We both should be checked out.”
Sandra didn’t say much. It was almost as if she was angry with him. He had promised that there would be no awkwardness between them, but that seemed to be the opposite of what was happening here.
And he didn’t like it one bit.
They were taken to the hospital where Sandra worked. She was immediately taken off to have a CT scan; even if she was constantly insisting to the trauma doctors on duty that the wound was superficial, they wouldn’t listen to her. It was protocol, and she had some symptoms of a concussion.
Kody was checked over and Sally went off to tell his in-laws and Lucy that he was okay and had been found. They were eventually placed side by side in the same trauma pod, just a curtain separating them.
He snuck out of his bed and opened the curtain next to him. Sandra was lying in bed and waiting for test results. She looked highly annoyed. Those delicious lips of hers were pursed and she was staring up at the ceiling, her hands folded across her stomach.
“Hey,” he said gently.
She glanced at him. “I told them it was nothing, but they won’t listen to me.”
He chuckled. “I told you that doctors are the worst patients.”
She smiled quickly then, before it disappeared. “Are you okay?”
“They ran a blood test to see. I had a scrape on my leg. I didn’t even feel it, but it was dirty...wading around in the mud trying to save people’s lives.” He winked at her. “I’ll probably get some antibiotics via IV.”
She nodded and held up her hand that had an IV started. “Probably, like me. Just waiting until they tell me the CT was clear and I can get a cab to take me home since my car was washed down Burl’s Creek.”
“They found it and are retrieving it. Your insurance should cover it.”
Sandra sighed. “So that female paramedic, is she your partner?”
“Sally? No, I don’t work with her.”
Sandra frowned. “She seemed so worried about you. More than a colleague should be...”
He grinned then. “Dr. Fraser, are you jealous of my baby sister?”
Her eyes widened. “Your sister? You called her Sweet Pea!”
“It’s a name my entire family calls her.” He chuckled. “She’s my sister, which is why we’re not partners and why we never work on the same shift. She moved out here after her divorce and she helps with my daughter as well. Also, she’s stolen my best friend, Ross, out from under me too.”
“Oh.” He thought that he saw a brief moment of relief there.
“You were jealous, weren’t you?” he teased.
She glared at him indignantly. “I was not. Okay, perhaps just a bit. I was worried that I...”
“What?” he asked.
She lowered her voice. “That I slept with someone else’s partner. I never want to be the other woman.”
“No need to worry,” he said gently.
That struck a chord with him. He couldn’t blame her for feeling guilty. Heck, he felt guilty for what had happened, and he was a widower, but there was a part of him, deep down, that thought she sort of was another woman compared to Jenny. He had never felt this way about someone since Jenny died. It scared him that she’d got under his skin.
“You okay?” she asked, now looking concerned. “Are you seeing someone? We never discussed that last night...”
He shook his head and fluffed it off. “No. I’m not. I don’t have time for a relationship. I have my daughter to think of.”
Which was true. He did. There was no time to date and he didn’t want to bring someone into his daughter’s life, someone who might be taken away again. It was bad enough putting his own heart at risk, but also putting his daughter at risk?
“I don’t have time either,” Sandra said. “I meant it when I said no promises. It was one night, but that’s all.”
He nodded, but still wasn’t sure how to process all the emotions he was feeling in this moment.
“Well, I should get back to my bed. Sally said that my in-laws are bringing my daughter in to see me.”
Sandra smiled. “Thank you again, Kody.”
“For what?”
“For saving my life. I appreciate it.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that. “Get some rest and I’ll see you around.”
Kody stepped back and closed the curtain dividing their beds, but not all the way—he could still see her through a small crack. He had saved her life and wanted to keep an eye on her. Truth be told, he liked being able to see her. He would see her around, but he was going to make sure that he went out of his way not to interact with her too much. Yeah, he’d promised her things wouldn’t be awkward between them and it was a promise he wasn’t sure that he could keep.
Not when the guilt of sleeping with someone who was not Jenny was eating away at him.
Sandra dozed off as she waited for the results of her CT. The antibiotics were also making her tired, plus spending a night on a hardwood floor wasn’t exactly a comfortable experience.
Being with Kody was a comfortable experience, though.
It had been more than comfortable. It had been the best she’d ever had. What she’d had with her ex-husband was nothing compared to what she’d enjoyed with Kody in the cabin.
Her blood heated just thinking about his hands on her, his kisses and the way he’d made her feel as if she mattered.
She wanted more than just one night.
And she tried not to think about that.
She wasn’t going to get involved with anyone again. There was nothing she could offer them. One day, she’d get some money saved and she’d pursue adoption, even if adopting as a single woman was difficult.
She didn’t care. She was going to try.
She’d been adopted as a baby and had the best parents, both of whom were gone. She was pretty much alone in this world.
Sandra glanced over at Kody. She could see him lying in his hospital bed through the crack in the curtains; he’d been given some IV antibiotics and looked as if he was drifting in and out of sleep. A warm feeling swirled around in the pit of her stomach.
She wished she could trust him. She wished she could open her heart again, but she wasn’t sure that he was ready for that either. She’d had no idea that he was a widower. It had changed her whole perspective about him. For the better. She’d been wrong about him.
He’s off-limits.
Kody had a daughter and wasn’t interested in dating. He probably wasn’t lonely like her. He had a family who cared about him.
Sandra had no one.
It was better this way.
“Dr. Fraser?” Dr. Coombs whispered as she came through the drapes. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m good.”
Dr. Coombs checked her IV. “You’re almost done, and your CT is clean, but the chief of surgery wants you to take a couple of days off, just to get some rest from your ordeal.”
“It wasn’t an ordeal,” Sandra stated.
“I know, but it’s doctor’s orders.” Dr. Coombs smiled, but Sandra could tell she was nervous.
And she couldn’t help but think of what Kody had said to her about how doctors were the worst patients. He was so right, and she smiled to herself. Too bad nothing could happen between them.
“Fine.” Sandra sighed. “So I can go?”
Dr. Coombs nodded. “I’ll take out your IV and you’re free to go.”
“Thank you, Megan.”
Dr. Coombs’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’re welcome, Dr. Fraser.”
It was true Sandra tried to keep everyone at a distance to protect herself from being hurt, from losing people, but maybe if she was a bit more friendly with the staff she wouldn’t feel so alone.
Sandra lay back while Dr. Coombs took out her IV. She glanced over at Kody’s bed and then saw an elderly couple with a young girl come in. They stopped at the charge desk and then the little girl squealed, and Kody sat up as the little girl with strawberry blond hair ran and climbed up into his bed, throwing her arms around him.
“Daddy! I was so worried.”
It warmed her heart and filled her with a sense of longing as she watched Kody reunite with his daughter and his late wife’s parents, who seemed just as emotional and glad for his safety. They were a family.
Just like when she’d seen Kody with his sister.
And Sandra envied him that family. She was jealous and it made her miss her parents so much.
“You’re all done, Dr. Fraser,” Dr. Coombs said.
Sandra smiled and blinked a few times, hoping that the tears that were threatening to spill didn’t. The last thing she needed was for her residents to see her cry.
“Thank you, Dr. Coombs. I’ll see you in a couple of days.” She took her discharge papers from Megan and grabbed her purse, which was on the table next to her bed.
She glanced one more time at Kody and his little family but couldn’t see him. His mother-in-law was standing between them, almost as if his late wife were warning her to keep away.
And she would. She walked out of the ER and headed straight for the exit. There were a couple of cabs lingering and she hailed one, climbing in and giving the address, hoping that the roads were clear for her to get home.
All she wanted to do was go home and sleep. She wanted to forget what had happened last night, in the rainstorm. She wanted to forget how good it felt to be intimate with Kody, how safe she’d felt in his arms and how she wanted more.
She just couldn’t have that.
She couldn’t risk her heart again and she wouldn’t tear apart that little girl’s family.
Not for anything.