A Nurse to Tame the ER Doc

Maybe that’s why Neil had married her.

Because she’d refused to sleep with him, saying she was saving herself for marriage. His ego had liked it that he’d been the only man she’d been with. Or maybe it was the challenge of possessing what he’d been denied.

“What’s his name?”

“Who?” she asked, glancing toward Jack.

“The man you keep thinking about.”

She winced. Obviously, she sucked at hiding her emotions. “I’m sorry.”

“Your thoughts aren’t good ones.”

She glanced down at their hands. “Was I squeezing your fingers again? Sorry.” She lifted her gaze to his. “I’d never intentionally hurt you.”

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Despite the fact we just met, I know that about you.”

“How?” she asked, her voice catching in her throat and coming out hoarse.

“The same way you know I’d never intentionally hurt you.”

She nodded. Which was crazy. She didn’t know him, and you’d think she knew better than to ever trust a man again.

Perhaps it was because he was Amy’s friend, but she believed the cause ran deeper.

Restlessness overtook her and she needed to move.

“Can we walk for a bit?” She stood, brushed off her shorts. “I need to move.”

As the band was still playing, surprise darkened the blue of his eyes. “Then we’ll move.”

He shook out their blanket, put it in his backpack, and took her hand back into his. They walked in silence, making their way through the crowd. When they reached the fence along one edge of the festival grounds they turned and made their way back toward the stages. The show they’d been watching had finished and the crowd was thinning to head to one of the smaller stages.

“Sorry I made you miss the last of the show.”

“Not a problem. I’d rather have been with you.”

“Yeah, right,” she snorted.

“Really.”

She glanced toward him, saw genuine concern on his face. “Thank you.”

“For?”

“Being so nice.”

One corner of his mouth tugged upward, digging a dimple into his cheek. “Well, I did promise Amy to take care of you and make sure you had a good time.”

Taylor stopped walking. “Is that what this is?”

“This?” He looked confused.

She lifted their raised hands.

An odd noise, almost a snort, came from deep in his throat. “Amy is a good friend, but I wouldn’t become romantically involved with someone for her sake.”

He shook his head as if to clear the very idea from his mind.