Keeping Gemma (Holiday Cove 2)

“This is a surprise,” Gemma said, dropping her voice so the nearby nurse couldn’t hear. She threw a look over her shoulder at the sound of footsteps and voices of a group of passing doctors. She turned back to me and smiled, but it was tight and edgy. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. I just got done meeting with the lawyer. I was driving through on my way back to town and wanted to see you.”

God, I sound pathetic.

This was the exact reason why I’d never let myself go beyond a few nights with a woman. When that line was crossed, and the relationship morphed into, well…a relationship. And with that label, a whole host of problems and complications tended to crop up.

I held up my hands. Surrendering. “You know what, I’ll see you later. You’re obviously busy.”

I started to turn away, but Gemma yanked on my jacket sleeve, stopping me. “Hold on. Aaron, wait!”

I stopped but flashed her a dark look.

She sucked in a breath and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting you to be here. You caught me off guard, that’s all. I thought maybe something had happened.”

“Like what?” I arched a brow at her. Something was wrong. Gemma nibbled her lower lip and cast another glance behind me as though expecting someone to pop up. “Gemma? What’s going on?”

“Nothing…it’s just…it’s not professional to be seen…you know—” she dropped her voice low, “—dating a patient.”

“Oh,” my lips formed a circle. “Right, of course.” I shrugged it off, dispelling the worry that had threatened to take hold.

Gemma started to say something, but her words got drowned out when a man in a doctor’s coat rounded the corner and beckoned for her. “Sorry, Aaron. I gotta go.”

“Right.” I watched as she crossed to follow after the other doctor and was hit by a blast of ice at the way the doctor looked at Gemma as she rushed to his side. Moments later, without a glance back my way, she disappeared around the corridor with the man.

I stalked out of the hospital, kicking myself for even stopping in the first place. It wasn’t like Gemma was a bored secretary. On the contrary, she had a very important, high risk, high pressure job and couldn’t afford to stand around and chit chat. I blasted my radio all the way back to Holiday Cove and went straight to Carly’s.

The staff meeting wasn’t set to begin for another hour, but I didn’t have anywhere to go. Besides, my lawyer had told me to stay away from places that O’Keefe was likely to come looking for me in search of his contract since he’d failed to set up a proper meeting to hash out the deal.

Carly was happy to see me—as always. Her bright smile melted away the darkness from my thoughts and within minutes, she’d set me up in the corner table, with an almond spice latte—my signature drink—in one hand, and her laptop in front of me so I could do a little web surfing while I waited for Lana and the rest of the crew to arrive.

“Anything else, handsome?” Carly asked, draping an arm around my shoulder. I grinned up at her. Even though we used flirty terms with one another, she was like my little sister, and we’d never crossed the line between friends and more. Not that I hadn’t tried when I first arrived in Holiday Cove. Like Holly, my best friend Jack’s girlfriend, always says, Carly can see through my bullshit games.

In the end, I was happy she hadn’t given in to my efforts. It would have caused me to miss out on a solid friendship—not to mention I’d be SOL in the caffeine department as her coffee shop was the only one in Holiday Cove other than a small convenience store on the other side of town where the coffee had the consistency of watered down pudding.

“Did Lana call you earlier?”

She nodded. “Yep. I have twenty whole wheat turkey avocado wraps on ice.”

“You’re the best.”

“I know.” She sauntered away, throwing a wink at me over her shoulder, and moments later, she was assisting a customer who’d just stepped into the cafe.

After a long, lingering sip of my drink, I turned my attention to the laptop in front of me and logged into the office inbox to go through the rest of the emails. It was more of the same. Delete, delete, delete.

When that was done, I flipped open a virtual version of the mechanical guide to the plane that had gone down in the crash. Ever since Gary had shown me the pictures from the crash site, I’d been holding onto a nagging thought in the back of my mind as to whether I should have known something was wrong with the plane before taking off that night.