Jack didn’t like talking about the accident, but he had given her the details of what happened over and over again in the days they sat beside Dallon’s hospital bed, waiting for him to wake up.
“I miss him,” Jack finally said, his voice gruff. “Remember the way he’d go into detail about every putrid wound he’d come across?”
Holly groaned. Of all the memories. “Always during dinner.”
“And especially if whatever we were eating looked anything like what he’d seen in the clinic.” Jack shook his head. “He knew he’d won when we pushed our plates away.”
“When I pushed my plate away,” Holly pointed out. “You never did.”
“Too much pride.” He let out a low chuckle, causing a close table of doctors to look over in surprise. Dr. Jack Shay did not chuckle. He brooded and stalked and glared, but he was the best radiologist Bridger University Hospital had seen in years, so they dealt with it.
Holly leaned close. “Careful. Your reputation is in jeopardy.”
Jack arranged his features back into a severe scowl, but he couldn’t hide the amused twinkle in his eye that only she seemed to see. “Is this better?”
She let out a fake sigh of relief. “I think I felt the world right itself again on its axis.”
Jack lowered his voice. “You know they all think we’re dating.”
She did know. She was exhausted from refuting the rumors and shrugged her shoulders now when people hinted at wanting to know more. At least it kept well-intentioned, but misguided coworkers from trying to set her up. She’d already had her one great love, and her only interest going forward was to learn about others’ love stories.
She glanced over Jack’s shoulder, back at the adorable couple in the corner. The man now gripped the edge of the table while watching the woman walk their trays to the trash, appearing as though he’d lost his breath at the sight of her.
There was definitely something intriguing about them. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“You’re not going to be able to think about anything until you interrogate them about their love story,” Jack said, bringing her attention back to him, pushing the just-out-of-reach thought completely from her mind.
She laughed. “I do not interrogate people.”
“Whatever you want to call it.”
“Interviewing.” She took a bite of her sticky bun. Inspired by her parents’ great love story—and strengthened by her dad’s numerous painful failures at finding love following her mom’s death—Holly had started a MyHeartChannel show in the long, dark months following Dallon’s funeral.
Jack had worried it was a bad idea, interviewing people about their “meet-cutes” and love stories when she’d lost her own, but it had healed her, and reaffirmed her beliefs about true love. When she’d met Dallon in med school, her heart had skipped a beat, and she often thought that was where her fascination with the heart began. Her followers had grown steadily over the last couple of years, and she hoped a collaboration she’d set up with another famous MyHeartChannel owner would give her even more exposure.
She looked at the couple thoughtfully. “I still need someone for my Christmas show.”
“I thought you usually had these things in the bag months in advance.”
She did, but every time she thought of opening an email labeled “holiday romance” (the subject line she’d asked people who submitted to put if they wanted to be considered for her holiday show), her stomach tightened and she skimmed past it. It turned out her aversion to the holidays was stronger than her love of romance this year.
“It’s probably for the best. Holiday romances are even more doomed than regular ones.”
She folded her arms, ready to spar. This wasn’t the first time she’d come head to head with Jack’s pessimism when it came to love. “Really? And where did you get your data from?”
“Real life,” he said, holding his cup out as if to give her a toast.
She rifled through her memories, recalling that he and his ex-wife had gotten married around Christmastime. She slid her hand across the table and wrapped it around his, her skin warming at the touch of his fingers in hers, like holding a mug of rich, comforting hot chocolate.
Jack tensed at the touch. It took everything in her to resist the urge to offer him any sort of sympathy or comfort, knowing from past experience it would be rejected pretty soundly.
“You’re such a cynic,” she complained affectionately instead.
His hand relaxed under hers. “Do you blame me?”
It was hard not to. His divorce had been one of the ugliest she’d ever seen: a long, drawn-out court case, constant visitation battles for his daughter, and an almost complete do-over when it came to his finances. Smiles, which had been rare before the divorce, became pretty much extinct. Holly knew it had only been Dallon’s loyalty and big heart that compelled him to continue his friendship with Jack after he became pretty much unbearable to be around.
“I honestly think there is one great love for everyone.”
“And I don’t know if I believe in love at all.”
She’d heard him say it before, but still she frowned. If anyone needed to find love, it was Jack Shay.
Jack closed his eyes and shook his head, the smallest of smiles on his face.
“What?” she asked.
“Whenever I say something like that, I see a million thoughts running through your head.” He moved his fingers back and forth between his eyes.
“I’m trying to figure out how to change your mind!”
“It’s not worth trying. Even if love does exist, it’s not in the cards for someone like me.”
“What does that mean, ‘someone like me’?” she said, defensive on his behalf.
“Gaston doesn’t get the girl.” He leaned back, their hands falling apart as he flexed his respectable bicep. “But he does get to keep his good looks.”
At some point, Jack had taken to his nickname. Sometimes Holly worried he wasn’t completely joking when he made comparisons. “You’re not Gaston,” she insisted.
He responded by giving her a smolder that made her want to punch him in the face. Her anger must have shown, because he laughed, dropping the act, and once again was just … Jack. “Holly, other than you and Dallon, I haven’t seen many couples last. Look at your dad, even.”
He hadn’t meant the words unkindly, but she still cringed. Her dad was currently preparing for his sixth wedding—a wedding she’d opted not to attend but had sent a gift for.
He continued, “It makes me think that for most people, maybe romantic love is more about attraction and having a good time together than deeper feelings.”
Her heart rate sped up in tandem with her sparked animation and passion toward the topic. “I think it’s both. It’s attraction and good times and also something unexplainable, but where you want that person’s happiness more than anything else.”
He paused, considering, before giving her a nod of assent. “Okay, I can buy that. But it seems like the odds of two people feeling that way about each other at the same time are pretty slim.”
“When you put it that way, maybe love is kind of miraculous, but that’s why I think my show is so important. To prove it’s real and possible,” she said fervently.
When she finished speaking, Jack’s lips had turned up. On anyone else it would barely pass for a smile, but on Jack, it was nearly a full-on grin.
“What?” she asked.
“I love when you get fired up about love.”
“Jack! Are you baiting me?”
He shrugged in a way that let her know he’d been drawing her into a debate. And somehow, always, she fell for it. Even when the three of them had been at med school together, baiting her had been one of Jack’s favorite past times. “Did you get Danforth’s email?”
Holly blinked at the quick turn in the conversation. “No.” She pulled out her phone. “I haven’t had a second at my computer today.”
�
�He wants to meet with us sometime today.”
“About what?”
“Bridger Cares.”
Dallon had started the Bridger Cares Foundation to help underprivileged and disabled patients get the medical care they’d needed. It had been his baby—and he’d spent countless hours filling out grant forms, organizing fundraisers, advocating the hospital for space, and begging doctors to donate free clinic hours several times a month. When he’d died, Holly worried the foundation would die with him, but she and Jack had worked furiously to make sure that didn’t happen.
“Is something wrong?”
Jack must have sensed the alarm in her tone, because his voice immediately softened. “No, everything is good. I’m sure he wants to give us more work.”
She let out a sigh of relief. More work was good. Welcome, even. “I’m free after my shift.”
“I’ll email him and let him know.” Jack stood with his tray. “Finished?”
“Yeah.”
He stacked her tray on his. “Seriously, go talk to the couple.”
Her gaze slid over to them again, and this time, warning bells rang in full force as she observed the man. She pushed her chair back and dashed toward the couple. “Sir, are you breathing okay?”
The man looked up at her, dazed, his hand over his heart. All the signs she’d seen earlier rushed together to make a full picture: the sheen of sweat on his forehead she’d mistaken for glow, the shortness of breath while watching the woman walk away, and the intense grip of his hand on the table.
She yelled to Jack, “Call code!”
The man’s face turned white and he slumped off the side of his chair. Holly caught him before he could land on the floor.
The man’s wife cried out. “Francis!” the woman repeated over and over in a panic while grabbing his hand.
Holly felt for a pulse at the carotid artery on the neck. When she didn’t feel one, she began chest compressions. After a moment, Jack slid in beside her and took over doing compressions while Holly checked the man’s vitals, in sync as always. A group formed around them, and overhead a code was called. A stretcher was rushed into the room, along with a crash cart. Jack stopped compressions while Holly took the defibrillator and placed it to the man’s chest.
Nurses buzzed around them, putting monitors on his fingers, and readying him for the stretcher, when Holly heard a heartbeat start up again. She let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Is he going to be okay?” the older woman cried as they lifted the man onto the stretcher and rushed him from the cafeteria. Holly was at his side, directing every move.
Jack’s voice was faint as the distance increased between them, but Holly’s heart swelled with pride when she heard Jack’s response. “Well, if you’re unfortunate enough to have a heart attack, you can’t make your odds any better than doing it in front of Dr. Whitacre.”
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Her Billionaire Heartthrob: Billionaire Bachelor Mountain Cove Page 13