Charlotte walked through the hospital, realizing that even after ten straight hours of being on her feet, she was feeling good. Even cheerful. Weird as it might be to anyone not in the field, she loved her life here. Loved everything about what she did. Helping people. Healing people.
It distracted her from her own life.
As for why she needed that distraction in the first place—well, she wasn’t one to dwell, so she didn’t go there.
Realizing her stomach was grumbling and that she hadn’t eaten in far too long, she headed toward the staff room. Surely it was someone’s birthday and there would be goodies.
She loved goodies.
As she entered, the large room went silent. Interesting. They weren’t a silent bunch. They were highly educated know-it-alls with a social immaturity that came from being in college for half of their lives. She narrowed her eyes. “What?”
It was dinnertime, so the room was fuller than normal. There were staff on the two couches, at the two tables, standing in the small kitchenette area.
All looking at her.
“Did I miss a call?” she asked.
“You won the pool.” This from Mateo. His voice was its usual husky tone, the one that tended to give her goose bumps. Goose bumps she pretended meant he grated on her nerves.
A big fat lie. “Which pool?”
Valid question. Important too. There were at any given time ten to twenty different pools going on at the hospital. Yes, the staff members were swamped and run ragged almost every minute of the day. But in those rare seconds they could socialize, it was almost always about their ongoing wagers.
Could Lonny make it through his shift without one of his four-year-old twins calling 911 to talk to their “daddy.”
Could Rae keep herself from pranking anyone.
Could Mateo manage to not get hit on by a patient or patient’s family member.
Could Charlotte keep herself from going in on a new bet for a whole shift.
Note that the last one had been the only bet she’d failed so far.
“You won for the most compliments in a twenty-four-hour period from non-hospital staff,” Mateo said. “Which I had to double- and triple-check because I still don’t get how your patients and patients’ families never fail to make sure everyone in the hospital knows how amazing you are.”
“You doubt the compliments are genuine?”
His eyes darkened. “No. Because I know exactly how amazing you are.”
The parts of herself she’d closed off squirmed. She ignored those parts. “Then what’s the problem?”
“You’ve won every pool this week.”
“And?” she asked.
“And you’re getting rich off us.”
She laughed and held out her hand for the envelope of cash, not a single regret in her mind because everyone in this room made enough money. “So I’m a little competitive, so what?”
Mateo snorted. “A little? You still haven’t forgiven Montana for beating you out on the number of surgeries you performed in a twenty-four-hour period last week.”
“That’s because she cheated.”
“I did not!” Montana pointed at her with a soda can. “It’s not my fault I got called onto the floor for one last surgery before the end of shift.”
“It was fifteen seconds until the end of your shift. It shouldn’t have counted. In fact, let’s just have a redo.”
Montana suddenly beamed. “Yes, let’s.”
Charlotte nodded her head.
“Ha!” Montana practically bounced up and down as she clapped. “You just lost today’s bet, the one where you promised not to go in a pool today.”
Well, damn.
“Your hot streak is over,” Montana said.
“Temporarily only,” she said.
The crowd went back to talking and eating. Well, everyone except Mateo, who was just watching her, slowly shaking his head.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“It’s something,” she insisted. “Let’s hear it.”
He looked at her for a long moment. Then he smiled with his eyes. “Maybe another time.”
“Why?”
“You’re not ready.”
And then he walked off. She found herself watching him go. “When will I be ready?”
He turned and caught her staring at his ass, and the smile hit his mouth. “Maybe sooner than I thought.”
AN INCREDIBLY LONG week—which felt like five years—of “rest and relaxation” later, Levi finally escaped the family house for a doctor’s appointment. After an exam and the removal of his stitches, he walked out of the doctor’s office to where Tess was waiting for him in the parking lot. He slid into the passenger seat of her car, relieved as hell.
“Well?” she asked. “Is your head still scrambled?”
“Only slightly. Headaches might be a thing for me for a while yet.” He could live with that. “The good news is my freedom’s been obtained. I’ve been cleared to drive again.” And the relief was nearly overwhelming. He’d forgotten what it’d been like to live at home.
“Prepare for the inquisition, then,” Tess warned. “You know Mom’s been holding back for this very moment, trying her very best not to hound you about Jane, and why she hasn’t checked in on you.”
“Maybe we’ve been texting and calling.”
“Maybe.” Tess looked out at the parking lot. Her voice was flat when she asked, “You’re going to hightail it out of here now, aren’t you.”
“Eventually,” he said. “But not yet.”
She looked over at him, her eyes too shiny. “Not yet?” She sniffed. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.” He was surprised by her show of emotion, and also concerned. It wasn’t like a Cutler to be anything other than “perfectly fine.” “It’ll be another few weeks before I’m fully recovered, and you know Mom wants me to stay until their anniversary party.” She still hadn’t told him what she’d called him up to Tahoe for in the first place, insisting it was nothing for him to worry about while he was recovering. “What’s going on, Tess?”
“Nothing.”
“Try again.”
She sighed. “I didn’t tell Mom and Dad, but Cal and I didn’t have a prenup.” She drew a deep breath. “He took all the money out of our accounts before he ran off to Bali with the babysitter.”
“What the—” He scrubbed a hand down his face. His anger wasn’t going to help her. “What did the police say?”
“Turns out that neither screwing the babysitter nor taking money out of joint accounts is illegal.”
Maybe not, but Levi would like to have a minute alone with Cal to teach him a little respect. With his fist to the guy’s face. Since that was not the reaction Tess needed, he kept it to himself. But the money thing, that he could do something about. “I could help—”
“No. I don’t want your money. I want my own life back.” Angrily she swiped a few tears from her cheeks. Then she gripped the steering wheel tight and leaned in closer to the windshield to eyeball the car cutting in front of her in the roundabout. “Hey! Asshole!” she yelled, punctuating each syllable with her horn. “I have the right of way!” Then she took the roundabout on two wheels.
“Maybe I should drive.”
“I’m fine!”
“Yeah, I can see that—” He winced. “There’s another car coming—”
“I have the right of way!” She sped up, and when the second car honked at her, Tess told him he was number one. With her middle finger.
Five minutes later, she whipped into the parking lot of Cutler Sporting Goods. Levi let out a relieved breath and uncurled his fingers from the dashboard. Look at him. He’d survived a blizzard and his sister’s driving.
“I’ve got to get to work,” she said. “I’ll get a ride home with Mom or Dad. Take my car and go rest.”
“You’re picking up a lot of hours.”
She shrugged. “I’m taking on extra shifts when I can fit them in between Peyton’s dance classes or when she’s at a friend’s house.”
“Saving up to move out?”
“To fund my depression drugs.”
“Tess,” he said quietly.
“It was a joke. Well, sort of. I am eating a lot of barbecue-flavored potato chips. Supposedly not habit forming, though, so no worries.”
When Tess got out of the car, Levi moved into the driver’s seat. Funny how adrift he’d felt while being unable to drive, how out of control. Felt good to be in charge of his destiny again.
He ran two quick errands, stopping for a pizza and then at the Cake Walk for a specialty cupcake. He took the pizza to the hospital and asked for Mateo.
His oldest friend appeared at the front desk five minutes later, looking surprised to see Levi. “You okay?”
“Getting there, thanks to you.” He pushed the pizza across the greeting desk. “I didn’t bring the beer to go with it since you’re working.”
Mateo picked up the box. “I don’t need the thanks. But I definitely need the pizza.” He looked at Levi. “Is this a do-over pizza?”
“Yes. Is it working?”
“Possibly.” Mateo started to walk away, but stopped to say, “Keep them coming.”
Levi left the hospital and drove up to the North Diamond Resort. He parked and stared out his windshield at the imposing snow-covered mountain in front of him.
The sun was out, making the snow sparkle like diamonds—hence the resort’s name. At 7,500 feet, the air was crisp but somehow also warm at the same time, and the sky was so clear and sharp blue it looked photoshopped. Feeling an odd and uncomfortable sense of déjà vu, he got out and breathed in the harsh, cold, crisp air of winter, welcoming the freezing freshness of it. He turned his face up to the sun, but the air was too cold, too all-encompassing, to warm him. He didn’t mind. Winter worked for him. Winter invigorated him.
Even if it’d almost killed him.
The parking lot was full, the lifts were running, and given all the skiers and snowboarders on the ski runs, business was booming in spite of what had happened with the gondola only a week ago.
The investigation had yielded a decision that it’d all been a freak accident. Earlier on the day of the storm, there’d been some construction work done and somehow a piece of debris had been left behind. A small chunk of wood. The vicious wind had knocked it onto the track.
The odds against such a thing were astronomical.
But Levi still didn’t get onto the gondola.
Instead, he found a friend who happened to be on ski patrol and hitched a ride on his snowmobile up to the urgent care clinic at mid-mountain. He entered the clinic and asked if Jane was working. He’d called earlier. He’d called all the clinics. He couldn’t get anyone to tell him who was on duty. So here he was . . .
“She’s not on our schedule today,” the nurse at the front desk told him.
He drove to High Alpine Resort next. No luck there either.
Two hours later, Levi walked into the last urgent care clinic in the area. This one was in Sunrise Cove, right next to the hospital.
There was no one behind the front desk, but he didn’t need help because Jane was standing in the middle of the room wearing scrubs and a familiar attitude, staring up at the only other person in the room—a huge guy, at least six-five, and clearly a fan of daily lifting at the gym.
His expression was dialed to royally pissed off, his entire body taut with tension. “Hell, no,” he growled at Jane. “Not happening.”
Jane, maybe five-four, and that was including the pile of wild dark red hair knotted on top of her head, was hands on hips, head tilted back to see the guy’s face, clearly not at all impressed by the macho display. “We’ve been through this before, Nick,” she said calmly. “And we both know who won. So you can either walk to the back of your own free will”—she gestured toward the door behind her, which presumably led to the patient rooms—“or I can call your wife again.”
The guy seemed to shrink. “Ah, man, why do you gotta be so mean? I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“No. You need a Tdap shot today.”
“I don’t need whatever that is.”
“It’s a tetanus shot, and yes you do. You stabbed your thumb on a rusty nail. But I promise, it’s just a little prick.”
“You’re a little prick,” he muttered, then swiped his hand down his face. “Shit, I’m sorry. That was automatic.”
“Understood. Now can we . . . ?” Jane pointed at the back again.
Nick and his mountain-wide shoulders sagged. “I just don’t see why it has to be today. I said I’d come back another time.”
“Please refer to my earlier answer of no.”
Nick huffed out a huge sigh and started shuffling into the lab. Halfway there, he turned back.
Jane was still pointing.
With a huge sigh, he vanished through the doorway.
Jane turned to Levi, registering nothing but a quiet surprise. “Tarzan.”
He grimaced. “Tell me you remember my real name.”
“Of course I do. But then again, I’m not the one with a head injury.”
“I’m fine.” He knocked on the top of his head. “Hard as a rock. And you?” He gestured to her wrist, which wasn’t splinted.
“I’m good.” Her dark green eyes gave nothing away, including how she felt at seeing him again.
As for what he felt, it seemed a whole lot like relief. “I wanted to thank you for saving my ass.”
“You’d have been fine if I hadn’t been there. You only got hurt because you were trying to protect me.”
“I liked the company,” he said, and while she looked to be absorbing that comment, he made another. “You ducked out on me at the hospital.”
“Hey, I made sure you were going to live first.”
This made him laugh. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Are you in need of medical attention?”
“No.”
She looked him over anyway. He’d like to think that there was some attraction as well as assessment in her pretty eyes, but she was damn good at holding her own counsel. “Okay then,” she said. “Welp, I gotta get back to work. Make sure the door shuts behind you. The latch doesn’t always catch.”
He smiled at being so thoroughly dismissed. “Nice bedside manner. Sexy. Only you’re not the boss of me, Jane. I mean . . . unless you ask real nice first.”
“Now you’re just trying to fluster me.”
“Didn’t know I could.”
She rolled her eyes and pushed a few loose strands of hair out of her face. “Like you don’t know you have that effect on most women.”
“But not you.”
“I’m not most women. How did you find me anyway?”
“First, I braved North Diamond’s mountain looking for you, only to find out that you weren’t scheduled at that urgent care today. Or at Sierra North, Homeward, or Starwood Peak . . .”
That won him a low laugh, but her smile slowly faded. “I’m off rotation at North Diamond for now.”
He hated the idea that she was afraid to go back up there, but he certainly understood it. “I nearly had a panic attack at the idea of getting on the gondola,” he admitted. “I had to get a buddy from ski patrol give me a ride on his snowmobile.”
That had her looking at him again, her gaze softer now. “It’s not often people try to find me,” she said. “Usually it’s been the opposite.”
That effectively swiped the smile from his face, remembering what she’d told him, that she didn’t have family. His family was a huge pain in his ass, but he couldn’t imagine not having them. “Can we talk?”
Those sharp eyes assessed him, taking in the scar the stitches had left through his eyebrow. “I’m glad you’re okay. But I don’t know what there is to talk about.”
“Maybe I needed to know you’re okay too.”
“I’m fine.”
He smiled at his own usual mantra and his gaze settled on the bruise along her jawline. Very gently, he ran a finger along it. “I’m sorry about what happened that night, Jane.”
She swallowed hard, then shook her head. “None of it was your fault. And I’m sorry, but I’ve really got to get back to work. So unless you’ve got another of your fascinating facts for me, I’ll see you around—”
“If you burned all the new data from just one day onto DVDs, you could stack them on top of each other and reach the moon—twice.”
She blinked, then looked impressed. “Okay, that’s a good one.”
“Also, I brought you something.” He reached into his pocket.
“At least you didn’t ask me to get it out for you this time.”
He grinned, and that felt good. Too good. He held his hand out to her, palm still closed, and her eyes narrowed. “What is it?”
“Suspicious much?” Reaching for her hand, he dropped her necklace into her palm. “One of the search-and-rescue guys found this that night, but they missed you at the hospital. I promised to get it back to you.”
She stilled and stared down at the necklace, her eyes going shiny before she closed her fingers around the locket and brought it up to her chest. “Thank you,” she whispered, voice thick. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”
Looking at her stare at the necklace again, he thought maybe he did. “I’m just glad you have it back. Jane . . .”
She lifted her face.
“Do you want to talk about it? About what we went through?”
“No. We’re both okay, there’s no need.” She took a step back. “But I owe you one.”
“Actually, you saving my life trumps me getting the necklace back to you. Can I buy you lunch on your break?”
“I’m not hungry.” Then her stomach growled and she grimaced, looking embarrassed. “Okay, fine. I’m starving. After I finish with my patient, I get a break. Meet me at the hospital cafeteria. It’s in the next building over, ground floor.”
He smiled. “It’s a date.”
“It’s not a date. I don’t date.”
“Never?” he asked.
“Well, maybe once in a blue moon.”
His eyes twinkled with mischief. “Then here’s hoping for a blue moon. See you in the cafeteria, Jane.”
She nodded, then watched him walk out of the urgent care—which he knew because he looked back and caught her at it.
With another grimace, she vanished into the back, and he smiled all the way to the hospital cafeteria.