Connor nods. “That’s why I bought a new house with the boys even though we were staying in town. To have a something that was just ours—a fresh start.”
“Exactly. So, we sold the house, paid off the mortgage, and had enough left over for each of us to make tiny dents in our student loans, and to find someplace new.”
Connor’s eyes drift over my face.
“And you found Lakeside?”
“I did. New Jersey was close but far, different but still kind of the same. There was a full-time ED position at the hospital and when I saw the town, I guess you could say it was . . . love at first sight.”
“Lucky us.” He reaches across the table and covers my hand with his own. He really does have magnificent hands—large and chiseled, but always warm, always careful and capable. Connor gives my hand a gentle squeeze.
“Lucky me.”
* * *
It’s the perfect Jersey June night for a walk—warm but not humid, breezy but not windy, and a sky that’s a cloudless black backdrop for a zillion shimmering stars. Connor and I decide to skip dessert and walk down to the Soda Fountain—an old-timey ice cream parlor several blocks away.
Main Street is a quaint area, lined with Singin’ in the Rain–style lampposts and awning-covered mom-and-pop stores.
“Hey, Vi, look—bubble tea—your favorite.” Connor points at the pastel-colored stand that seems to be a hit with both the senior citizens and the high school crowd.
“Bubble tea is an abomination.”
“Yeah,” he laughs. “I know you hate it.”
I stop walking and face him, crossing my arms.
“How do you know that?”
Connor inhales slowly, like he’s about to unveil some deep secret. Then he puts his hands on my hips possessively and tugs me closer.
“I’m an observant guy, I notice things. I noticed you . . . for a while.”
“Really, Dr. Daniels?” I ask him playfully—covering for my heart fluttering against my ribs like a caged bird.
“I tried not to, but it didn’t really work. You’ve always been there, Violet.”
There was a movie a few years ago, I don’t remember the name—but the main character gained super powers without realizing it. One day she was walking along and realized she was levitating two feet off the ground.
And that’s how I feel right now. Like I’m floating on air.
At the Soda Fountain, Connor gets a scoop of chocolate fudge ice cream on a sugar cone . . . and watching him lick it is literally the stuff of my dreams. I get butter pecan with rainbow sprinkles in a cup—and I don’t care that it’s a grandma flavor, it’s my favorite. We sit at the round wooden tables beside the building, talking as we eat.
“Did you always want to be a doctor?” I ask him.
“Since high school, yeah.”
“How come?”
“I was good at math, good at bio and chem. The money’s great . . . and I like making an actual difference in someone’s life, every day. There aren’t a lot of careers that let you do that.”
I stir my ice cream, considering him.
“Why emergency medicine? Why not ophthalmology or dermatology—the hours are a lot better.”
“That’s true. But the ED is never boring. And I like being challenged—I never know what’s going to come through the doors so I better be ready for anything. I like being in charge too.”
When we’re finished, we walk back to Connor’s truck leisurely, holding hands and falling naturally into a sort of relationship lightning round.
“Did you go out with Hanson from Radiology last year?” Connor asks me.
“No.”
“I heard that you did.”
I shake my head. “Just a rumor. I’ve never dated anyone from the hospital. Have you?”
“No.” He swings our joined hands. “Present company excluded.”
“Why do some of the nurses call you cowboy? Is it an inside joke? Is it a sex thing?”
Connor tilts his face to the sky and laughs.
“No, Violet, I’m not into cow kink or spur fetishes. Sorry to disappoint.”
I tug on his hand. “I didn’t think that.”
“It’s a nickname,” he explains, “for doctors who break the rules once in a while, ride by the seat of their pants—that kind of thing.”
“Is it true you once threatened to beat up a respiratory therapist in front of his kids?”
It was a rumor I’d heard when I’d first started working at Lakeside—and it gave Connor a bad-boy doctor edge that, surprise-surprise, I found super attractive.
“No. That’s completely not true,” he scoffs.
That’s rumors for you—they always get it wrong.
“It was a pulmonologist. And I told him if he didn’t get his ass out of bed, I was coming to his house to beat the shit out of him in front of his wife.”
I snort out a laugh, covering my mouth.
“That’s really not better.”
Connor shrugs. “He was on call and we had an ARDS patient on the way and he was giving me a hard time about coming in because it was two in the morning.”