Page 1
1
HOLLY
There are three things I need this morning. A hot shower, a warm bed, and twelve hours of solid sleep. But the universe, which takes frequent delight in thwarting me, isn’t playing ball.
It delivers on the hot shower, but I’m now freezing my ass off in my apartment because the heating refuses to bend to my will. That’s going to make the sleeping bit impossible. The blinding fuzz of white outside my window confirms there’s still a blizzard going on out there.
I’ll be a freaking popsicle after a few hours.
I bang the clunky old radiator with a wrench a few more times, hoping for some kind of miracle. That’s how tired I am.
‘I should have gotten a job in California,’ I tell the freezing metal. ‘There aren’t any blizzards in California. There’s sun and sand. And drinks with little umbrellas. But no… I chose the Rocky Mountains.’ I smash the wrench against the radiator again. ‘For the skiing. Which I never get time to do anyway.’
God. I’m so tired. I’ve been working all night and I just want to crawl into my bed, burrow under the covers, and not reappear until the blizzard blows itself out. Or I’m back on shift again in three days.
Whatever comes first.
But now I’m going to have to go downstairs and throw myself at the mercy of my building super. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have a problem with taking my lack of heating to Bob. He’s been manager of the apartment block for a decade. I’ve only been here for two of those but he’s a nice old guy in his late sixties who can fix anything, and nothing’s ever too much trouble.
But Bob’s off on his annual trek to Reno for two months where he meets up with some old military buddies. They play the tables in between visiting the all-you-can-eat buffet. I don’t think he’s ever had much of a win because, let’s face it, while this building is serviceable, it ain’t exactly the Ritz.
And if he’d won big, surely he’d retire somewhere nice where he didn’t have to be on call to eighty apartments every minute of the day, especially during a blizzard.
That job currently, however, belongs to Bob’s only living relative. The son of a distant cousin long deceased who has just moved back to the area. Apart from their supernatural ability to fix things, there’s absolutely no family resemblance between Bob and Danny Colton.
Where Bob is paunchy and moon-faced, Danny is ripped, with a face that’s as chiselled as the rest of him. Even his name conjures up dusty cowboys and pistols at dawn. If cowboys had tattoos. Because he has plenty of them decorating his chest and arms and neck.
He’s also irritatingly cocky.
The guy only has to look at me and I feel like a stammering teenager again. The kind with braces and no breasts. And he knows it. He has that smug smile that tells me he’s used to women’s brains melting as he walks by. Which is especially irritating for someone like me, who prides herself on her brains and her cool.
I’m an ER doctor, for crying out loud. I don’t like to brag, but I’m not exactly dumb. And you wouldn’t believe some of the shit that goes down at work that never ruffles a feather. But one slight uptilt of Danny the drummer’s mouth, and bang!
I drop a hundred IQ points.
Yeah. He’s a drummer. Of course. Plays in a rock band by night, hibernates during the day, in between callouts for leaky taps, broken appliances, and collecting the rent – or whatever an apartment super does. Except for when he’s practising. Which always seems to be the days I’m trying to sleep after a night shift.
Always.
I’ve had to pound on his door to tell him to shut up several times this past couple of weeks. He always does, but not before he’s answered the door looking like God’s gift to vaginas in jeans and nothing else but that stupid, sexy smile. It keeps me awake for freaking hours afterwards.
I’ve lost a lot of sleep since Danny Colton came to stay. And lack of sleep makes me cranky. I’ve been cranky for the past few weeks.
I’m really freaking cranky now.
Throwing the wrench on the ground, I dash to my bedroom, resigned to my fate. But I have to bundle up first. We’ll no doubt end up in the basement, and it’ll be subzero down there. My long johns might be just right for bed, but I’m going to need more layers.
I climb into sweatpants and thick socks, shoving my feet in my Uggs as I pull a long-sleeved Henley over my head and follow it with a turtleneck sweater, then my puffy navy-blue jacket. Reaching for my pink knit beanie with the pompom on top, I pull it down to my ears, haphazardly shoving strands of my hair underneath.
It’s not very fashionable but it’s warm and my grandmother knitted it for me the winter before she died in a car crash, whichdevastated the entire family. It makes me feel close to her and reminds me why I’m busting my ass working and studying all hours of the day and night.
Finally, I yank the duvet off the bed and throw it around my shoulders like some kind of kick-ass cape. It’s down so it’ll keep me warm in the basement. Plus it totally hides my body, which is a win-win as far as I’m concerned. I need some kind of shield against the way Danny looks at me.
Like he wants to play doctor. The kind of doctor that specialises in sexual healing.
Shutting my eyes against the temptation of that image, I stalk out of the bedroom. As I sweep past the coffee table, the bulk of the duvet brushes against the stack of study papers I have waiting for me, and they fall to the floor.
‘Fabulous,’ I mutter, but keep walking. If the room was warmer I’d probably give a shit. I will later tonight when I have to get them all back into order again. But they are so not my priority at the moment.
