Then he was gone. She slumped back against the counter, her heart beating at an alarming pace, and brought a hand to her lips. He was leaning against the kitchen table, his chest heaving with his own loss of breath.
“This is wrong, Mickie,” he said. “I’m your boss. Even if temporary. You’ve got a kid and school and I can’t make any commitments. Especially if there’s a kid involved.”
“I’m not looking for a baby daddy, if that’s what you think.”
“Okay. But still. He doesn’t know it’s temporary.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him she just wanted some no-strings-attached, good old-fashioned sex, but there was no way she could say that out loud. She felt her cheeks burn. She’d thrown herself at him. Practically climbed him like a tree. She couldn’t even look at him. She turned her attention to the bucket and mop. Mop the floors. Go pick up Ian. Make dinner. Put him to bed. Study. Try to sleep.
Josh’s hands gently touched her shoulders. She stiffened. “I’m sorry,” he said.
She shook her head without turning around. “No. It was me. It won’t happen again.”
“Maybe it was both of us.”
“Okay,” she said, flustered, frustrated, near to done with this. She looked back at the mop in the bucket, leaning neatly in place where she’d left it, and waved a hand in that direction as if pointing out the obvious. “I have to mop this floor now.” She looked down at the bucket, wondered if she’d have to refill it with hot water. Had it gone cold?
Leave. Leave now. Because I’m going to cry or scream or both.
He stepped away. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“You still want me to work for you?”
He stopped, looked at her like he wasn’t understanding her words. He held his hands out, palms up, like “what, seriously?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “Mickie. It’s okay. So we have this—this...attraction. It doesn’t mean we have to act on it.”
She nodded. Brought the mop down on the floor with a wet splash. A pool of sudsy water ran out from underneath it. “Okay.” She began to move the mop in wide arcs across the floor, not looking up again until she heard the glass door slide shut. Pulling in a long, slow breath, she stared up at the ceiling. Well, that was a complete disaster. Because tomorrow isn’t going to be awkward. Not at all.
* * *
JESUS, JOSH. YOU almost lost control. He went back to his own kitchen. His heart was still slamming against his ribs and he could still feel the soft silk of her skin. For an instant, he’d lost control. He’d almost used her to stop the pain, to stop the confusion, to hush the constant storm that raged in his mind. That can never happen again.
Returning to the back room that served as his office, he powered up the laptop and focused on his to-do list. Paperwork. Emails. Reviewing applications. Eventually, though, there was nothing else to do and his thoughts turned back to Kimmie.
A few clicks and her picture appeared on screen. Light brown hair. Curly, like his. Blue eyes. Lighter than his. The light in her eyes matched the smile on her face. A pretty young woman in a quiet, unassuming way. He tried to think back as far as he could. The night in the closet was where his memory began. But there were flashes. Spoon-feeding her in a high chair. Her crying after falling and bumping her head. Brief, random, like looking at a faded photograph.
She’d had everything that he hadn’t. Parents. A home. Love. Stability. Education. He didn’t resent her for having those things. He was glad for it. But. But what about me?
He shut down the computer and stood. He wanted to meet her. He wanted to have a sister. A family. Even if he’d resigned himself to the fact that he’d never have a family of his own, he still wanted to belong to one. A real family. He loved Sadie like a sister but Kimmie was real. Kimmie was blood. He could be an uncle. That’d be cool.
That’d be...completely selfish. He left the room, grabbed his gym bag and motorcycle keys. He could feel the anger simmering in his gut. It wasn’t fair. Life isn’t fair, asshole. Best you can do is limit the damage and prevent further casualties.
Mickie and Ian were turning up the sidewalk as he puttered the bike down the driveway. She waved and he waved back. Like that. She was exactly what he needed to stay away from. For her own good. And the kid’s.
* * *
MICKIE FELT STUPID and awkward waving at Josh. Acting as if they hadn’t almost had sex on her kitchen floor an hour ago. But okay. If he could pretend it never happened, so could she. Fine. Perfect. She pushed the stroller up the sidewalk. As she approached the door, she noticed the doormat was flipped over.
“That’s weird.” She stood there a moment, frozen, trying to read the situation. She reached down, put a hand on a corner of it. For a second, just this little flicker of a second, a chill ran through her. She turned it back over, quickly, not getting it quite square with the door, not caring, and she glanced over her shoulder. Nothing, no one. Her hand trembling, she slipped the key into the lock, missing on the first stab before getting it into the keyhole. For one terrifying moment, she thought it wouldn’t work, that the lock had been changed or this was somehow the wrong key, or that a hand would drop on her shoulder—Stop it. She turned the key, everything worked as it should, and she pushed the stroller inside. A light tingle of fear traced along her skin as she locked the door as quickly as possible. She left the stroller and the grocery bags hanging from it and picked up Ian.
“Hungee,” he announced.
“Okay, baby,” she soothed in a low voice. “We’ll get dinner in a minute.”
After a quick search of the house, she felt silly. There’d been a note on the door last week that the duplex owners were going to have the buildings power-washed. The workers probably moved the doormat. You’ve got to stop with the paranoia.
She got Ian fed and bathed and down for the night and returned to the pharmacology notes. Her phone vibrated on the table. Tiana. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Nothing. Just wanted to let you know one of the girls in my class is losing her roommate. She has a two-year-old little boy and a three-bedroom apartment a bit closer to campus. Her old roommate had a kid and the kids shared a room, so there’s already all the furniture and stuff there.”
“Oooh. That sounds promising. How much would my share of the rent be?”
Yes. Rooming with another single mom. Living in the same house as a nursing student a year ahead who could help her. Ian having a playmate. No Josh next door tempting her.
“I don’t know,” Tiana said. “I’ll give her your number and have her call you.”
“No. No. Don’t do that. Give me her name and number and I’ll call her.”
There was a long pause on Tiana’s end. “Girl, you can’t keep living like that.”
“I know. It’s getting better. I just still need to do it this way.”
“All right. Got a pen?”
“Yes. And ten trillion index cards. Tell me pharmacology isn’t as bad as it looks.”
“My momma didn’t raise a liar,” Tiana said before giving Mickie the contact information.
“We still on for the zoo on Saturday?”
“Definitely. My mom is bringing my baby girl for a visit. So we’ll make a day of it.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“GIRAFFES! GIRAFFES! I wanna feed the giraffes, Mommy!”
Mickie grinned at Tiana’s little girl, Lillian. She was tugging at Tee’s hand, urging her to walk faster. “Lilly. The giraffe feeding doesn’t even start for another thirty minutes.”
“But I wanna be first!”
Both Mickie and Tiana’s mother, Viv, burst into laughter at the bulldog expression on Lilly’s face. Tee glared back at them with the same look. “You two got something to say?”
“Not a word, baby girl,” Viv replied.
Mickie continued to grin as she pushed Ian’s stroller along the shaded walk. It was early enough that the summer heat wasn’t too oppressive. If you didn’t think about it too much. They’d definitely have to grab some refreshments after a while, though, when the sun really started in on them. She watched Tee and Lilly. Their clasped hands swung back and forth between them. Like best friends. The smile faded away as a lump rose in her throat. A warm hand gently squeezed her wrist.
She needed this. Smiles. Family. Laughter. It had been a long, awkward week. With both she and Josh trying to pretend that smoking hot kiss hadn’t happened. She couldn’t even look him in the eyes without wanting to do it again. And not stop this time.
“You’ll be okay, little momma,” Viv said. “Just like my Tiana. You got what it takes. Grit, guts and brains.”
“I hope so.”
A happy shriek let them know they’d reached the giraffe enclosure. Mickie found a spot on a bench in the shade. She and Viv sat down as Tee took Lilly to get in line for the giraffe feeding.
“I’ll tell you this,” Viv said as Mickie freed Ian from the stroller. “There comes a time when it all looks too hard. Tiana almost quit college because the schools back home were so bad she didn’t know she was so far behind. That’s where the grit comes in. You just have to stay with it.”
“I’m working on it. Every time it gets hard, I just picture this guy.”
She scooped up Ian and hugged him, much to his squirmy disapproval. She put him down and gave him a sippy cup of water. “Want to see the giraffes, Ian?”
He pulled the cup from his mouth. “Graffs?”
Viv stood. “I’ll take him if you don’t mind. Been too long since I had such a little one. What you say, little man? Want to meet a giraffe?”
Mickie slumped back on the bench as she watched Viv settle Ian on an ample hip. As she walked away, a wave of homesickness washed over Mickie. She missed her mother. Ian should have his grandmother. None of this was fair. Or right. She pulled her phone out of her purse and looked at it. Why couldn’t she just call her mother? Was there really a danger? Or was it the fear he’d filled her with? What if he’d found some new victim and she never even crossed his mind? Was she ruining Ian’s life for nothing more than old ghosts?
“That is not a happy face.” Tee plopped down on the bench next to her.
“Where are the kids?”
“Mom’s got them. She’s happy as a hog in mud. Ran a day care out of the house most of her life. Still does. What’s got you all down?”
Mickie shook her head. “I want to jump Josh’s bones.”
“Hot-dude-next-door Josh?”
“Is that wrong?”
“What? Wanting to jump his bones? Or shall we say ‘bone’?” Tee made air quotes and Mickie frowned at her as she felt her face go hot. “Or just wanting to jump anyone’s bones?”
“I wouldn’t jump just anyone’s bones.”
Tee leaned back, stretching her arms out along the back of the bench. “It’s not wrong. I considered that chunk-of-man DeShawn for a minute or two.”
“But everyone keeps telling me no men while in school! You even said it.”
“A girl’s got needs, you know. It’s just a fact. You just got to not complicate things.”
“I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. I thought you would tell me no men.”
“Is that what you want? Me to tell you?”
“No. Yes. No. I don’t know. I’ve never wanted to just have sex for the sake of having sex before.”
“It’s not wrong. You think it is because that’s what we’ve been told all our lives. Good girls don’t. Well, let me tell you, good girls do indeed. Trick is finding a good guy who knows the rules.”
“The rules?”
Tee lifted fingers as she ticked them off. “Consent. Respect. Discretion. And to be good at it.”
Mickie laughed. Oh, Josh would probably meet that last one. But could she do it? Just have sex? Go separate ways? That was the real question. Would she fall into a relationship she didn’t want to be in? Give up on her goals and dreams? Because that was her track record.
“Look, Mickie,” Tee said gently. “I can’t imagine how scary it would be for you to let yourself trust a man to that degree. To be vulnerable. Don’t do it if you have any doubts.”
“It’s not that.”
“What is it?”
“Well, my man-choosing skills are pretty unreliable.”
Tee straightened from her slouch and turned to face Mickie. “Let me tell you something. The problem with us? Is the same reason we want to be nurses. We like to help people. To fix people. And that isn’t the job. That is us. And every one of us has had our own version of your story. Most way less traumatic, but we pick a guy who needs us, who needs help. And thing is, most guys like that are like that for a reason. There isn’t any fixing them. Because they don’t want to be fixed.”
“So how do I tell? How do I know?”
“I don’t know. Trust your gut.”
“Well, it ain’t my gut that has my attention right now.”
Tiana’s laugh turned several heads in their direction. “Does Josh know you’re thinking about his bones?”
“Well...”
“Well, by that lovely shade of pink popping up on those cheeks of yours...”
“We sorta kissed.”
“Sorta? Like your lips accidentally bumped into each other?”
“Yeah. I was showing him all the stuff you guys got for me and I was happy so I hugged him and it kinda turned into a kiss.”
“Chemistry?”
“And then some.”
“So one kiss. Is he interested?”
“Two. Twice. It happened twice.”
“Whoa, whoa. Slow down. When was this second kiss?”
“I was poking in his personal business. He told me to stop trying to turn him into one of my patients. It hurt my feelings.”
“So he just kissed you instead of saying ‘I’m sorry’?”
“The kiss was after the sorry.”
“Tongue?”
“Let’s just say, if he hadn’t stopped, the sex thing would have been a done deal.”
“He stopped?”
“Yeah. We’ve both got too much going on for a relationship. And he definitely does not want to be a baby daddy.”
Tiana let out a frustrated growl. “Why do they automatically assume that’s what we want? Like I don’t want to have a romantic relationship?”
Mickie shook her head. She put a hand on Tiana’s shoulder, tilted her head a bit, tried a smile. “No. I don’t think it was like that. It was more like he didn’t want Ian to get attached to him if he wasn’t going to be a part of Ian’s life.”
“Oh,” she said. She smiled back, nodded as if considering, weighing the possibility of it in her mind for a moment before responding. “Wow. Well. I don’t know what to say about that. Like he was thinking about what was best for Ian? Mickie, I think you found a real man! Like a grown-up adult man!”
Mickie laughed. “Yeah, well. Doesn’t help me with my problem.”
“You got two solutions—tell him you want to just do the deed, or buy a good vibrator and use your imagination.”
“Oh. My. God.” Mickie clapped her hands over her face. She could feel the rush of red run from the middle of her chest, to her neck, and up onto her cheeks. She put her hands on her thighs, smoothed herself out. A crooked little smile formed on her lips and she looked up at Tiana, almost shyly. “I cannot believe you just said that.”
“Welcome to being my friend. You’ll get used to it. Here comes Mom and the kiddos. Bet Lilly wants to go feed the birds now.”
* * *
MICKIE SEEMED FINE when she walked through the b
ack door. Maybe a little pink around the cheeks, but her “good morning” sounded perfectly normal. Good. Because he didn’t have time to clean up the mess he’d made with her last Monday. Not right now. He had another mess.
“Hey. We’re going to have to rearrange some things today. Drake was in a car wreck this morning...”
“Oh, no! Is he okay?”
“Yeah. He’s at the emergency department. Some asshole ran a stop sign and T-boned him. He’s fine, but has some cuts and bruises. I’m going to go check on him, get him home. After he’s settled, I’ll meet up with DeShawn to help him with his schedule today.”
“Okay. I’ll reschedule your interviews for today. When do you want me to make them for?” She flipped through the calendar on the table. “Tomorrow afternoon looks okay.”
“Perfect.” He scooped up his keys. “This isn’t a heavy day for DeShawn, so hopefully, I’ll be back early afternoon. If anything comes up, let me know.”
“Okay. Call me and let me know how Drake is.”
“Will do.”
Part of him was glad to get away. He’d lost control last week. He didn’t like to do that. At all. Ever. But Mickie made him do things. Want things. Feel things. He shook his head. Just focus on what is in front of you, Josh. Get Drake home. Get the work done. Focus.
Traffic was so bad that Drake and been seen and released by the time Josh hurried through the doors of the emergency department. “You okay? What’d the doctors say?”
Drake turned his head. There was a line of stitches across his left cheek. “This is the worst of it for now. Doc said to expect some bruising to show up tomorrow.”
“Great. I mean, not great, but great that you weren’t hurt worse. Come on, let’s get you home.”
“Thanks. On the good side, chicks dig scars, right?”
“That’s what I hear.”
Physical scars, maybe. They didn’t dig a heart and soul so scarred and damaged they didn’t even work right.
By the time he caught up with DeShawn, he was at his second house. He was happy to throw himself into work. Get Mickie off his mind. Not that he was happy Drake’s car was totaled, but it was obvious he couldn’t trust himself around her.
Boss on Notice Page 14