Page 44 of Diesel

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I took a deep breath. “You don’t have to sit here with me.” Please sit with me.

“Didn’t ask if I had to. Asked if you wanted me to.”

Behind me, the toddler coughed, the wet, rattling kind that would make any parent worry. My concern spread outward to include an infant I didn’t even know, adding to the pile of worry already sitting in my stomach.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Yes, please.”

“On my way.”

The call ended before I could tell him to take his time or that it wasn’t a big deal. He was coming because I needed him here before my worry extended to the entire hospital. I was an emotional mess. Sue me.

Returning to where Greta sat, I dropped into the chair next to her. The clipboard rested on her lap, half the forms filled out in handwriting that looked like it had been written during an earthquake.

“Diesel coming?” she asked without looking up from the paperwork.

“How did you—”

“You get this dopey look on your face when you talk to him.” She finished signing something and flipped to the next page. “Like someone hit you with a happy stick.”

“I do not.” Did I?

“You absolutely do. It’s cute. Nauseating, but cute.” Her pen scratched across the form, filling in medical history with brutal honesty. “He’s a good one, that Diesel. Doesn’t hurt that he looks like he could bench-press the world. Or maybe carry your worries on his broad shoulders.”

“Miss Greta.”

“What? I’m old, not dead.” She glanced at me, orange eyeshadow catching the fluorescent lights. “You better hold on to that one. Men who look like that and have functioning brain cells don’t grow on trees.”

The forms took another ten minutes to complete. Greta handed them back to Sandra, who scanned them before filing them away somewhere behind the desk.

“Someone will call you back soon,” Sandra repeated, already returning her attention to her computer.

Soon turned out to be a straight-up lie. We sat in those uncomfortable chairs while the minutes crawled by. The feverish toddler got called back first, his mother gathering their things and disappearing through the double doors marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” Then the man with the arm injury. Then the limping teenager.

More people filtered in to replace them. An elderly woman with breathing problems. A construction worker with what looked like a nail through his boot. A college student who’d apparently gotten into a fight and lost.

Twenty-eight minutes after Diesel said he’d be here, the automatic doors slid open and he walked in.

Heads turned. The elderly woman with breathing problems suddenly remembered how to gasp. Sandra looked up from her computer, fingers freezing over the keyboard. Even the construction worker with the nail in his boot stopped grimacing long enough to stare.

Diesel had that effect on people. Six-four of tattooed muscle in a leather vest, moving through the waiting room like a mountain. His blue eyes instantly locked onto me as if he could sense where I was sitting.

He’s a wolf. Probably smelled you from the parking lot.

“Hey.” He crossed the distance in a few long strides and lowered into the chair on my other side. “You doing okay?”

“Better now.” There was no point in pretending.

“Hello, Miss Greta.” Diesel turned his attention to the woman in orange, offering a wink. “Heard you wrestled a porch and won.”

Greta’s face lit up like Christmas morning. She took his hand, holding it longer than necessary while her gaze traveled down his arm, taking in the tattoos. “Oh my. I forgot how handsome you are.”

“Miss Greta,” I said, but there was no real heat behind it.

“I’m making conversation, Oliver.” She still hadn’t released Diesel’s hand. “You know how to brighten someone’s day, Diesel.”

“I try.” Diesel’s mouth curved into a smile that was all trouble. “But my guy might get jealous when people hold my hand too long, Miss Greta.”

“I’m not jealous,” I said jealously, playing along to make Greta smile.