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The thought made my heart skip a beat. I could practically see it now—working a shift at some hospital in Colorado, grabbing dinner with Tucker afterward, maybe even joining him and Colton on a case if I was lucky enough to be in the same city.
But then reality crept in. The logistics, the constant moving around, and how it all felt a little bit like chasing something that might never settle, like the wind… or a storm cloud. My handsstilled over the screen, the weight of the decision pressing down on me.
All you have to do is ask.
But… I hadn’t.
I stared at the job posting a second longer, biting my lip. He didn’t want to stay here. He was a self-proclaimed nomad. His home was in Colorado, and yet, his outlook on the very word was so different than mine that he didn’t even consider it to be his home. He’d called it where they were “based.”
That wasn’t the same thing.
I didn’t want to ask him to stay only for him to have the same one foot in and one foot out view of this place. Of me.
Thus, travel nursing. That way, neither of us would be compromising about our ideas of what settling down meant… and we could still have the fun that we’d been having for the last few weeks without the ticking time bomb hanging over our heads.
It wasn’t like I’d made any decisions yet, but the mere fact that I was looking felt like something had shifted inside me. I was trying to figure out a way to make something work that I knew, deep down, was going to be complicated no matter how I sliced it.
“Funny running into you here.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin, and my phone slipped from my hands. I barely managed to catch it before it hit the floor. Dr. Dummy—Dr. Clay, if I were being less petty—stood in the doorway of the break room, his arms crossed, a smug smile plastered across his face.
“Geez, do you have to sneak up on people like that?” I asked, tucking my phone away as quickly as possible, as if that would stop him from prying. “And it’s not that funny. We both work here.”
His eyes flicked to the screen before I hid it, but he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he leaned against the doorframe, the picture of casual arrogance, and raised an eyebrow. “Heard you’ve been keeping some interesting company lately. You and the private investigator, huh?”
I rolled my eyes. “What’s the matter, Clay? You keepin’ tabs on me now? Should I be worried about what your girlfriend thinks of that?”
He smirked, looking like he was enjoying himself far too much. “I don’t care what my girlfriend thinks.”
I feigned a shocked face. “Oh? Well, you never were very good at that, were you?”
His dumb smirk faltered ever-so-slightly, and I felt a little surge of satisfaction. Dr. Dummy had always been good at playing the part of the charming doctor, but I knew better. And I’d been on the receiving end of his charm long enough to know it wasn’t anything special.
“Be careful with that guy,” he said, totally unaware that he had no right to say such a thing. “He seems a little… rough around the edges. You should be with someone with a little more going for them, don’t you think?”
“Meh, I dated a doctor once. He was nothin’ to call home about. Anywho,” I said, standing up and grabbing my bag. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got actual work to do.”
I brushed past him without another word, leaving the break room behind and trying to shake off the strange interaction. What was it about men like that? He hadn’t said two words to me since we ended things that weren’t directly related to work—and he was as snarky as all get out. But then, as soon as there’s another man in the picture?Boom. Here he was, thinking I wanted him to give me the time of day. I had my own watch,thank you very much.
But before I could take more than a few steps into the ER, I stopped dead in my tracks.
There, standing in the middle of the pit, looking simultaneously like he didn’t quite belong but also like he owned the place, was Tucker.
My heart did a flip, my pulse racing as I took him in. He wasn’t dressed like a patient—he was in his usual jeans and that worn leather jacket I liked to sniff so much—but the fact that he was here, in the middle of my emergency room, instantly made me worry.
I quickened my pace, weaving through the controlled chaos of the ER until I was standing right in front of him. “Tucker?” I asked, my voice a little too loud, a little too anxious. “What are you doin’ here? Is everythin’ okay?”
Tucker’s eyes locked onto mine the second I got close, and the tension that had been humming through my body suddenly snapped. Relief flooded his face, but before I could even open my mouth to ask again what he was doing here, he closed the distance between us in one swift, smooth motion.
And then, without a word, he kissed me.
It wasn’t just any kiss, though. It was the kind of kiss that knocked the breath clean out of my lungs. His hands found my waist, pulling me to him with a sort of urgency that left no room for questions, no space for hesitation. My heart pounded in my chest, and before I even knew what was happening, Tucker’s arms hoisted me up off the floor, and I instinctively wrapped my legs around his waist.
I was vaguely aware of the sounds of the ER—monitors beeping, the distant murmur of nurses at the nurse’s station—but all of it faded into the background. All I could focus on was the warmth of his lips on mine, the feel of his strong hands holding me securely in place, the sheer intensity of the moment.
This wasn’t some fleeting, casual kiss. This was Tucker—gruff, guarded Tucker—kissing mein publiclike he’d been waiting all day to do it. And I was kissing him back with just as much fire.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against mine, and I was breathless, my chest rising and falling with quick, shallow breaths. He grinned that crooked grin of his, the one that made my insides melt, and his eyes sparkled with a mischievous glint.
