Dueling Drs: A Small Town Hospital Romance

“I do. You wanted us to get along and now we are.”

“How is she? I heard about the MVA.” Hand clutched to her chest and dropped her head forward, pressing a kiss to Gigi’s sleeping forehead.

I sighed and raked a free hand through my hair. “She’s still torn up about losing that kid. She was devastated when it happened.” Even now, more than a week later, I couldn’t shake the image of Zola curled in my lap, so small and so sweet. So innocent in her devastation that my heart ached for her.

“Interesting.” The weight of Suzie’s gaze sat on my shoulders while I steadfastly ignored her, and focused instead on Berna’s curious stare.

“Shouldn’t Gavin be home by now?”

“Any day now,” she answered with a nod and a smile. “It’ll be nice to have a partner for a while, someone to take those middle of the night feedings once in a while.”

I frowned at her words and laughed. “I hate to break it to you, Suzie, but you’re the one carrying the food.”

“Uncle Drew is a silly boy,” she said to Gigi who’s eyes were open again, baby babble going strong. “That’s what the fancy breast pump is for, to make bottles when Mommy needs a break.”

“Smart.” It was amazing how many new gadgets existed just to help ease the burden of motherhood.

“I know, right?”

Our conversation was interrupted when the door opened and Zola made an appearance. She’d been keeping her distance lately. If we weren’t tangled in the sheets at my place, I didn’t get to see much of her. “Hey,” she said without looking up. “I just need a few tomatoes and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“You bought them,” Suzie assured her. “What are you making?”

Zola sighed. “Tomato sauce. I have a lot of reading to do and hours of simmering is the best way to focus.” She grabbed a few tomatoes, flashed an uneasy smile and left as quickly as she’d come.

Dammit, it wasn’t enough. I wanted to see more of her. No, that wasn’t true. I needed to see her.

“Go,” Suzie urged, a knowing smile on her face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I assured her easily.

“No? In that case, I’d welcome some help bathing the girls. They think they’re fish.”

I froze like a deer in headlights. To go, to run after Zola like a little puppy dog missing its owner. Or stay and help my sister like the good brother I was and strived to be. “Actually there is something I would like to talk to Zola about.”

“I just bet,” Suzie added under her breath. “Go. Have fun.” She winked and I shook my head.

“You have an overactive imagination.”

She laughed. “I just went through this, Drew, a few months ago. Fighting my feelings for Gavin until they were so all-consuming that I had to give in to them if I wanted to get past them.”

“Did you? Get past them?”

She nodded. “I thought I did. But then he went and sent me his album and found a wedding photo of my birth parents. How could I deny my feelings for a man who do all that just to make me see that I mattered to him?”

“It all worked out for you and I’m glad, Suzie. That’s just not what I’m looking for. Not now.” Probably not ever.

“Then, what’s the rush?”

“No rush,” I told her casually as I stood, placed Berna in her playpen and made my way out the back door.

To Zola.

I knocked on the door and waited, breath held just in case she was in feisty mood and told me to get lost. Eventually the door opened and Zola appeared. She stuck her head out, looked left and then right, before she grabbed a fistful of my shirt and yanked me inside the guesthouse. “Hey,” she said with a breathless smile and then, she kissed me.

It wasn’t just a kiss though, it was almost like a claiming and once again I was shocked at the chemistry, the explosiveness between us. The way it went from zero to one thousand between us in a heartbeat, it was terrifying. It was unsettling. But it also kind of felt like home.

Which meant I was kind of screwed because I couldn’t pull back, couldn’t deny her, couldn’t deny myself another taste of her. No, instead I flipped our positions and pressed my body against hers, kissing her deeply until her legs wobbled. Until her knees went weak.

Until she was in my arms. Again.

Zola

A day of shopping was just what I needed to help me clear my mind. I had to stop torturing myself with the little boy I couldn’t save from the car accident. I had to stop obsessing about Drew, about what was happening between us because it was most definitely more than sex. It’s not what I wanted or what I was looking for, and it was the absolute last thing Drew wanted. Feelings. Complications.