The Bodyguard's Christmas Proposal

by Charlotte Hawkes

  She hadn’t imagined bauble shopping, Christmas tree judging, and ice skating in the park.

  She certainly hadn’t imaged riding Logan’s hand, as she had done last night, until she’d splintered apart in a way she hadn’t even realised was possible before. Or how, unless she was kept busy and distracted, she’d spent every moment of her shift today watching him move around the ward, fantasising about him playing with her like that again.

  As though she was his to pick up and put down at will.

  Then again, when he was the only man who had touched her like that—with such skill—was it any wonder?

  The memory of it wrapped itself around her, dragging her back to the edge of madness. And she still couldn’t bring herself to regret it. Or even to regret meeting him.

  Logan—and Jamie—had bounced into her life when she’d needed them most. They lifted her, and made her feel part of something again. There was only one problem with that. What was she supposed to do when they were no longer there?

  She didn’t want to think about it.

  ‘Kat!’

  Spinning around, Kat laughed as Jamie darted up to her. She scooped him into her arms and hugged him tightly.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart, did you have a good day at the crèche?’

  ‘It was great,’ Jamie told her enthusiastically. ‘I made a new friend. Tommy.’

  ‘Super-cool.’

  ‘We played dinosaurs.’

  ‘Of course you did.’ She grinned, lowering him down and straightening up again to look at Logan, almost shyly. ‘Hi.’

  He looked unreasonably fit and handsome as usual.

  ‘Hi.’ His blue eyes glittered and made everything inside her turn liquid. ‘Are you ready for this?’

  ‘If you mean can I ice skate? Then, yes, I can. At least, well enough.’

  ‘Shame.’ Those blue depths darkened. She would have said in anticipation. ‘I had visions of having to hold you upright.’

  She didn’t want to shiver. She told herself not to. But the hint of promise in his words sneaked under her skin. Straightening her shoulders, Kat tried to act as though she couldn’t think of anything duller.

  ‘Well, it’s a good job you don’t, then, isn’t it?’

  He smirked as though he could read her thoughts and she felt a rattle of warning deep inside her. Something had changed with Logan, and she couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

  ‘This isn’t a date, Logan.’ She kept her voice low so that Jamie, who was mercifully absorbed with watching the skaters, didn’t hear. ‘You said it yourself the other day.’

  ‘That was before I touched you. Tasted you,’ he murmured, leaning in so close that she could feel his breath tickling her skin. Making her tremble.

  ‘Logan...’

  ‘I want you, Kat. And I want to get to know you.’

  ‘I’m not... I can’t... This isn’t—’

  ‘You want me to,’ he cut in simply. ‘You know my recently troubled past, and even thought I don’t know what happened in your life to make you travel halfway across the country to take up a job here in Seattle, I know it must have been significant. Right now, we seem to be what each other needs. Why not just go with it?’

  He made it sound so simple. So easy. When surely it should be anything but?

  ‘Logan,’ she whispered. ‘You said it yourself, you like to compartmentalise your life. Just going with it isn’t what you do.’

  ‘And look how well that’s worked out for me so far.’ He pulled a self-deprecating face.

  ‘So what is this? Us?’

  Did that sound too presumptuous?

  ‘We’ve both come to Seattle for a new start. I’ve returned home because I want to hit the reset button with Jamie, and you’ve left your old home because you want something different.’

  ‘Last night I told you things I’ve never told anyone else—I’ve never wanted to.’

  She told herself that his words didn’t make her feel raw. Precious.

  ‘I like the way you can relate to Jamie and understand what he’s going through, and I like your company, Kat. I more than like it.’

  ‘I more than like your company, too.’ The words were out before she could bite them back.

  His expression darkened.

  ‘So why deny the sexual chemistry between us?’ he demanded, making her mouth go dry. ‘You once told me you wanted “no-commitment fun”. So if neither of us want a relationship, why can’t we just enjoy time together for as long as it lasts, whether that’s a week, a month? Two months?’

  A no-strings fling? She wanted to agree, and yet something held her back. She didn’t care to analyse it further.

  ‘And Jamie?’ she asked instead.

  ‘You’re helping me relate to him better, and I’m grateful for that. He’s starting to spend time at the crèche now, making new friends, and soon he’ll be starting school with plenty of female teachers to help be positive maternal-type figures in his life, additional to his Nana.’

  It made sense. No need to balk at the idea of being so disposable.

  ‘What about...if there’s a repeat of what happened last night?’ she hazarded.

  Logan stepped closer but stopped just short of contact. The heat rolled off him, and she could feel the toes of his boots just pressing against hers, a kind of electricity crackling from him... Yet he didn’t actually touch her. Like a kind of tantric foreplay. She could hear her breathing grow slightly ragged but was helpless to do anything about it.

  ‘There will be no if, Kat,’ he rasped. ‘There will be a repeat of last night. It’s inevitable.’

  His words shook through her and all at once breathing became a complicated task. Last night had been a mere taster of what Logan could do to her, how he could turn her body inside out, and it had been incredible...right up until it hadn’t been.

  Right up until he’d thrown her out in all but words.

  She didn’t think her already broken sense of self-worth could take another battering like that.

  ‘Inevitable, Kat,’ he drawled, as though reading her mind. ‘That chemistry has been there since the first day we met and, like all decadent things, denying it has only made it all the more of a temptation. So why deny it? It’s just sex and we’re both adults.’

  There was a note in Logan’s tone that licked its way deep within her. Just sex, he’d said. She doubted anything with this man would be just anything. Not if last night was anything to go by.

  ‘Our only parameters will be that anything intimate happens when Jamie is at his grandparents’. Never when he is home.’

  She needed to tell him that he was wrong. Nothing was ever going to happen between them again.

  ‘Right.’ She swallowed, nodding before she could stop herself. Unable to—or not wanting to—do anything else.

  Kat felt herself swaying slightly towards him as he leaded in a fraction closer. It shouldn’t have been possible to do so without touching her, and he didn’t. He was so damned close she could smell him, woodsy, and lemony, and utterly male. It was driving her crazy.

  ‘But for now we’re skating.’ He took a step back, as if realising they were in the danger zone. As if needing a buffer. ‘All right, champ, shall we go and hire some skates?’

  As the pair headed off hand in hand, she stood there for a moment, still trying to catch her breath and regulate her slamming heart.

  * * *

  ‘That was more fun than I remembered,’ Kat told him a couple of hours later as they sat together on a bench, watching Jamie clamber up the baby climbing wall and onto the slide in the playground.

  He had enjoyed the skating, taking it in turns to be guided around the rink by Logan, and then her, and then Logan again. But, inevitably, he’d grown tired and bored, so they’d taken him for hot chocolate and a play in the park.

  It real
ly was so easy between them. Both reading Jamie’s mood, and adapting quickly without even a word. Logan was a better father than he realised. He just needed to stop trying to bear the load of his ex-wife abandoning them. He couldn’t be both father and mother to the little boy, and he was doing a good job as he was.

  Running her finger around the rim of her cup, Kat kept her eyes fixed on the kids, the unexpected urge to talk bubbling higher and higher inside her.

  ‘Do you remember the little girl I mentioned I used to look after?’

  She felt, rather than saw, Logan swivel his head to look at her.

  ‘Carrie,’ he replied instantly, and she was touched he recalled.

  ‘She wasn’t just anyone, but I figure you’ve already worked that out for yourself.’ The words tumbled out one after the other. ‘Carrie was actually my foster child. I had her from around ten months, after legalities had been dealt with, and when she was three I began the process of adopting her.’

  Kat glanced at him briefly, unable to hold eye contact for long. It hurt too much to see the empathy in his gaze. Somehow it was easier to stare out into nothing.

  ‘It was due to complete at the beginning of this year, just before her fourth birthday.’

  ‘This would have been your first real Christmas together,’ he noted softly, understanding immediately.

  Her throat felt thick and clogged with emotion.

  ‘It would have been,’ she affirmed. ‘Had her biological parents not cleaned themselves up and taken her back. That’s why I came to Seattle.’

  ‘You needed a fresh start in a new place where there were no memories of Carrie.’

  ‘Right.’ She lifted her shoulder, then let it drop. ‘A move across the country seemed like a good start.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how much you must miss her.’

  ‘Like you said, we’re both here to press the reset button. And although I didn’t plan on meeting you, you were right, we’re both adults, and it’s just sex.’

  ‘Just sex,’ he echoed. ‘I did say that.’

  ‘You did.’ She couldn’t name the odd lilt to his tone, but she couldn’t afford to dwell on it. ‘Transitory, no strings, no-commitment fun. Neither of us can offer the other any more than that. But, right now, that’s all we need. Right?’

  This was exactly what she’d told Gemma that she wanted, and this was what Logan was offering.

  ‘That’s what I’m saying,’ he agreed, and again she couldn’t shake the idea that there was an edge to his tone.

  But then he straightened up and flashed her a megawatt smile that said he was wrapping up the conversation.

  ‘I would kiss you,’ he teased, ‘but my son is over there and that would be breaking the rules.’

  Kat laughed, in spite of everything. This was a framework she could understand. She could live with.

  ‘Well,’ she declared, standing up with a broad grin and lining up the perfect shot of her coffee cup into the bin. ‘We wouldn’t want to break the rules, would we?’

  Before he could answer, she took the shot, turned around and jogged into the park to find Jamie.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘THIS IS LEO. He’s seventeen, he was climbing trees when he slipped and fell, and he got crushed between a wall and a fence. His GCS was fifteen on arrival and he was complaining of reduced capability in his left arm and left leg. Tender at C2 and C3 with persisting sensory reduction in his left hand. We’ve seen no volume issues and he has been stable during transport.’

  ‘Okay, thanks.’ Logan stepped forward to take over from the EMTs. ‘Hey, Leo, I’m Logan. I’m the ER doctor. My colleague here is going to draw some blood and I just want to listen to your chest.’

  As Logan signalled to her, Kat stepped forward to greet the patient and get the syringe organised.

  She felt strange. Not quite in her body, as if she was floating above the ER, watching everything unfold below her. Last night had been fun and revealing, in equal parts. She’d opened up to Logan in a way she’d never anticipated doing with anyone out here, even Gemma. Not that she’d told him everything, of course. Like they’d agreed, they weren’t a couple, they were just two adults enjoying a mutual attraction for a while.

  Questions slid into her head, but she shut them down quickly. They had their rules, and she’d thought she understood where she was with Logan.

  This morning, however, he’d barely said two words to her, unless it had been about patients. And maybe that was a good thing—they could concentrate on their work, and the patients gave them something safe to discuss. But she couldn’t help feeling that he was regretting last night after all. Sex was one thing, but maybe opening up to each other was now against the rules.

  It only made it all the more critical that she keep her eyes on her patient and her mind focussed on the task in hand. Working steadily, methodically. Letting the buzz around her wash over her. She was aware of Logan concentrating on the lad’s leg and asking him to squeeze his hand harder.

  None of the signs looked good, and Kat’s heart sank on the kid’s behalf.

  It was a short while later when Logan called her out of the room, along with the rest of the team, whilst he carried out a preliminary bedside scan.

  ‘Okay, I’ve called Neurology,’ he advised them. ‘Given that Leo can’t feel anything when I palpate below a certain point, I want them to ensure he’s stabilised before we risk moving him for a full CT.’

  ‘Right,’ one of the other nurses concurred. ‘So we wait?’

  ‘What other patients do you have?’

  ‘I’ve got a possible mumps, a patient who has a cyst on her knee and needs it to be aspirated, and a probable asthma attack...’ Kat’s colleague listed them off.

  Then Logan turned to her. ‘Kat?’

  ‘I have a dislocated finger, a young boy with lacerations that need suturing and a probable tetanus boost, and a patient with leg pain, possible DVT. I just need an ultrasound to check for a clot.’

  ‘Fine, Kat, can you stay with Leo and let me know as soon as Neurology arrives?’

  ‘Of course.’ She slapped on a light, professional smile as if that could somehow convince Logan that she wasn’t thinking about anything she shouldn’t be.

  As if she didn’t scorch from the inside out every time he looked at her.

  It was driving her insane. Making her feel consumed. Leaving her itching too far beneath the surface to ever scratch.

  And so she moved around her patient, carrying out a fresh set of obs and sitting down at the computer just outside the room to chart.

  She was such an idiot. How had she let Logan—and Jamie—get so close to her? Lamenting something being over with Logan when common sense pointed out that nothing had ever really begun. Certainly a fumble on his couch couldn’t be construed as anything of significance.

  But it had been to her.

  She’d already come to enjoy the time she spent with them. Both of them. So much for no-strings, no-hassle fun.

  She was just finishing up her notes when she saw—or, more accurately, sensed—Logan coming back into the department and moving around the workstations towards her.

  Kat began to swing round, jumping as she felt his hands, so electric, on her shoulders as he twisted her chair back, leaning over her as though he was reading something on her screen.

  Only his breath was tickling her skin, and the blood was roaring in her ears, so it took her a couple of long, long moments to focus. And when she did, it wasn’t at all the words she’d expected to hear.

  ‘Don’t turn around. Lots of flapping ears.’

  Yes, there always were when the department was slightly quiet, as it was today.

  ‘I thought I’d join you on your Santa run,’ he told her unexpectedly.

  ‘You want to do the charity run with me?’

  It wasn’t a big d
eal, so why did it feel like it was?

  ‘I figured that if we started training together then it might give us a bit more of a legitimate reason to be seen around each other outside work.’

  ‘You’re worried what people will think?’ she teased, more as a way of buying time to process how she felt about it than anything else.

  ‘I figured we could do without having our relationship under scrutiny from the entire hospital.’

  Taking a few surreptitious breaths, she fought to slow her racing heart.

  He didn’t mean relationship, she berated herself. And the training idea was a simple, effective solution to a legitimate concern. Nothing more. It definitely wasn’t because Logan wanted an excuse to spend more time with her.

  But she didn’t care.

  ‘We still haven’t even kissed,’ she pointed out as coolly as she could. ‘Not since that night anyway.’

  As though she didn’t replay it, in startling clarity, every night in her head.

  ‘Then maybe we can remedy that, too.’ The corner of his mouth curved up until she could imagine that she could actually feel it against her skin.

  ‘I think we should. You did promise me that at the start. Just sex, remember?’

  ‘Oh, I remember,’ Logan growled, and it sent a low rumble right through her.

  ‘So, when do you want to start, coach?’ She gave a bright laugh, proud that it didn’t betray the gamut of emotions swirling within her. ‘If I’ve got a former soldier training me, I should smash this thing.’

  ‘Today,’ he bit out. ‘After our shift.’

  She found she could hardly wait.

  * * *

  He’d never felt so damned horny out on a run before. Then again, he’d never run behind Kat before.

  No matter how many times he dragged his eyes from that peachy backside of hers, they kept finding their way back. And the fact that she was wearing the tightest, sexiest one-piece running suit he’d ever seen certainly wasn’t helping.

  Part of it was the fact that they’d spent the past ten hours working together, and not being able to touch each other. The electricity between them had been building all day, like the most thrilling form of foreplay.