Sizzling Nights with Dr. Off-Limits

“You want to help with our puzzle?”

Emily blinked. Darn. He’d caught her staring at him and no wonder with how long she’d stood watching him, reminiscing about the past. Oh, yeah, Lucas being at Children’s was affecting her professionalism, and she hated it.

“Sorry.” Sorry she’d gotten caught. Sorry her cheeks were on fire. Sorry her mind had wandered. Sorry she couldn’t be immune to him. Sorry her body flushed when he was looking at her as if he somehow knew what she’d been thinking. “I need to check on Cassie. She’s due a vitals check.”

The child looked at her suspiciously. “Are you going to take my blood?”

Focusing on her patient and doing her best to ignore the man watching her, Emily shook her head, hating that this was always the first question Cassie asked. Poor kid. “No. I’m going to take your temperature, your blood pressure, your heart rate, your oxygen saturation. Those kinds of things. But no needles.”

> Cassie digested her answer, then lifted her little chin bravely. “I don’t cry anymore when my blood is drawn.”

“That’s a very big girl,” Emily praised, wanting to wrap her arms around the child. “But it’s okay to cry sometimes.”

Cassie blinked. “Do you ever cry?”

She’d cried an ocean’s worth of tears over the man sitting across the table from Cassie. Until Saturday night after she’d returned home from the TBI fund-raiser, she’d not cried in a long time.

She’d watered up on the anniversary of the day she’d left, but even then she’d managed to choke back the tears and keep herself distracted from the grief she knew she’d carry to the grave.

Unfortunately, a few days later, she’d broken down and cried bucketfuls. That had been the last day she’d cried. Maybe she’d always cry on that particular date. Oh, how much she’d lost.

“I used to cry a lot,” she answered honestly. Lucas had hated her tears, had begged her not to cry, but usually that had left her only more tearful. “But I rarely cry these days.”

Just when her ex-husband showed up and rocked her world by saying he wanted to be her friend. Right.

Lucas’s gaze was intense, so much so it bore into her. She ignored him. Let him think what he wanted. She’d wondered if hormones had played into her constant tears, but perhaps Lucas had been the real cause.

“These days, what makes you cry, Emily?” Lucas asked, his fingers toying with the puzzle piece he held. Did he know she’d cried Saturday night? Did he want her to admit how much he’d affected her? Truly, he triggered strong emotions whether they were of happiness or sadness.

“Sad movies,” she answered flippantly. No way was she getting into a discussion about what brought on her tears.

“Me, too,” Cassie piped up and began to talk about a movie where a dog had died and she’d cried.

While Lucas watched, Emily removed the thermometer from the supply tray she carried. She took the girl’s temp across her forehead, took her blood pressure, clipped the pulse oximeter over the child’s finger and completed her vitals check.

Then she took her stethoscope and listened to the girl’s heart and lung sounds and jotted them down on a notepad she kept in her pocket. She’d record them into the computer electronic medical record when she returned to the nurses’ station.

“Is there anything you need, Cassie?” she asked.

Wincing a little, the little girl shook her head. “Just to finish this puzzle.”

Emily glanced down at the three-fourths completed puzzle. “Looks like you’re making good headway.”

“Dr. Cain is helping.”

“I’m not much help,” Lucas quickly inserted. “Cassie is the puzzle master. I’m just riding on her coattails.”

Emily’s throat tightened. She didn’t attempt to speak. Why bother? There was nothing to say even if he was kind to a child.

She fought to keep from frowning. Professionalism, she reminded herself. Professionalism.

Ugh. She had to get him out of her head.

Which had been a lot easier when he’d been out of her sight. Now that he was working at Children’s, she was going to have to learn a new strategy to keep Lucas from ruining her hard-earned peace.

Work. She’d focus on work.

She turned to Cassie’s mother, smiled. “Anything I can get for you, Mrs. Bellows?”