Perfect Stranger (Serendipity's Finest 2.50)

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Sawyer laughed hard at that. “I take it you would know.”

“Not goin’ there,” Luke repeated.

“Yeah, protective and silent. She got to you. So what are you going to do about it?”

Luke tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “If I were smart? Nothing.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I live in Texas, man. She’s from here. I ought to leave it as a one-night stand.” The thought made him want to puke. That right there was a sign.

“But you won’t.”

Luke shook his head. “No, I won’t.”

“Got a plan?”

Only what had been kicking around in his head since Sawyer told him Alexa was known as an all work, no play kind of woman. Luke shrugged and replied, “I’m gonna teach her how to have fun.”

* * *

After the night she spent with Luke, Alexa bounced through her rounds of patients in the morning and her meetings after, and she was still bouncing on a high when her father caught up with her right before lunch. Her body still tingled in all the best places. Long-neglected places. Places that were now happy and thanking a certain football player for making them come alive.

“Alexa, what’s this I hear about you treating children at the youth center downtown?” Alan Collins was a good-looking man, with dark brown hair that had only a hint of silver, and distinguished features. Unfortunately his perpetual scowl and all-business attitude turned many people off and prevented them from seeing some of his finer qualities.

He’d raised her alone and though he’d directed her life, she’d never doubted that he loved her. She’d certainly seen those qualities when she was a child; she just hadn’t been the recipient of them recently. Her father had lost his ability to enjoy life, something else he was trying hard to pass onto his daughter.

“Well?” he asked, when she didn’t answer right away.

She placed the stack of folders down on the top of the counter at the nurses’ station.

She should have known he’d get word of her activities last weekend. “Strep was going around, some of the kids weren’t feeling well, and I offered to take a look.”

“Did you use hospital supplies to do it?” he asked.

She straightened her shoulders. “No, I did not. I paid for those supplies with my own money, and how dare you suggest otherwise.”

“Did it not occur to you that you could treat paying patients with your time?”

A steady pain began to throb in her temple. “Then sick children would go untreated.”

“Their parents could take them to their pediatrician and pay there.”

Those same parents sent their kids to the youth center so they could work, even on the weekends, not that her father would understand. “I don’t have to account to you for my time off.” She turned to the nurse behind her, who was blatantly eavesdropping. “Can you please make sure you mark down all the medication changes I made so my patients get their correct doses?” She patted the charts she’d finished with.

“Yes, Dr. Collins.” The other woman picked up the folders and walked away.

Alexa turned back to her father. “Now, as I was saying—”

“If you have enough time to treat gratis, perhaps I should give you more hours in the ER.”

She clenched her jaw and breathed in deep, deciding to ignore his bluster and call him on his complete lack of emotion when it came to the important things in Alexa’s life. “Did you happen to hear who I spent the night before last treating?”

Her father blinked. “I haven’t checked the roster of patients.”

“What about town news? Did you hear that Cara was attacked?”