by Janice Lynn
“You’ve no idea,” she said, thinking of Joss. Which gave her a huge twinge of guilt. Alexis was telling her what a great man Joss’s father was. How could she justify not telling him about their son?
Because memories of her own father snatching her away from her mother caused her insides to clam up with fear?
Trace wasn’t her father. She knew that. But...
“You’re right,” the woman admitted. “I don’t have any idea. Trace and I went out a few times, but I was more interested than he was. Like I said, you’re a lucky girl.”
Alexis confirmed what Trace had said. He hadn’t slept with the beauty-queen doctor. She hadn’t doubted him, but hearing the confirmation made her like Alexis all the more. Made her that much more giddy about Trace’s interest.
“So tell me about you until the next patient comes in for me to see. Or we can send them Trace’s way and continue with our girl talk,” Alexis suggested with a wide smile that flashed her toothpaste-ad teeth again.
Pushing aside the nagging guilt her heart felt over not telling Trace about Joss, and giving in to her brain’s reminder that just that morning she’d heard him say he didn’t want children, Chrissie smiled and began telling Alexis about Chattanooga, her much-loved job at the hospital, her mother, and her friend Savannah.
She was surprised by how much she liked Alexis and that she could easily see herself becoming good friends with the forthright woman had they lived closer.
* * *
What in the world were Chrissie and Alexis laughing so hard at? Trace wondered as he made a quick note on the patient he’d just finished examining. The event wasn’t keeping extensive medical records, but they were documenting each encounter and what was done.
Actually, to see the two women having a friendly conversation at all surprised Trace. So much for Chrissie’s jealousy from yesterday.
Not that she’d had any reason to be jealous. He liked Alexis well enough. She was an intelligent, beautiful woman, but there just hadn’t been any chemistry.
Chemistry wasn’t a problem with Chrissie.
They had so much chemistry they could add new elements to the periodic table.
Another outburst of laughter had him sliding the paper he’d scribbled a few notes on into a manila file that would later be scanned into and stored on a computer.
Leaving his work area, he headed over to Triage. “You two are having way too much fun.”
“Jealous?” Alexis asked, but not in a way he took as flirtatious, more as if she was teasing him because she’d figured out Chrissie majorly got to him.
“Absolutely. What does a man have to do to join in?”
“Just pull up a chair,” Chrissie assured him, gesturing to an empty chair at a nearby table.
Trace didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the chair and moved it to where the two women sat. “Now, tell me what’s so funny, because I need something to make me laugh after that last blistered foot I treated.”
Chrissie grimaced. “She looked like she was miserable when she hobbled in here. Is she going to be all right?”
“Yeah, but she’s not going to be on her feet much for a few days. She’s going to hang out on the sidelines in a chair and encourage the other participants.”
“That’s good,” Chrissie said, her gaze locked with his and dancing with delight.
He smiled. He couldn’t not smile. Which felt so damned good. Not so long ago he couldn’t have brought a smile to his face had someone offered him the world.
Not since the hospital explosion in Yemen when friends had died because he’d not been able to save them.
Not since holding children ravished with starvation and disease while they died and promising himself he’d do all he could to save the next child, to bring medical care, food, supplies, into places where no sane person would venture.
Had he really deep down laughed since Kerry died?
Maybe he’d forgotten how to laugh.
Odd that a look from Chrissie could achieve that, could reach deep inside and bring forth a balm of peace and happiness.
“Well, as much as I enjoy watching the show, I’m going to leave you two alone for a bit and go grab a bottled water while we’re in a lull. You want anything?” Alexis asked, cutting into his thoughts as she stood.
His gaze shifted. “I’m good. I’ve still got half a bottle from the last time one of the volunteers came by with drinks.”
“Tsk. Tsk,” Alexis scolded. “Make sure you hydrate well. Can’t have you getting heatstroke on us.” She turned her attention to Chrissie. “Lovely talking with you. Have fun and we’ll catch up later.”
“Thanks. I will.” Chrissie smiled at the retreating woman. “I like her.”
“I noticed. What did she mean by have fun?”
Chrissie shrugged. “You’d have to ask her.”
“Despite the fact I’m convinced you know exactly what she meant?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“But close?”
“Possibly.”
Trace laughed. “Well, whatever she meant, I appreciate her giving us privacy. How’s your day so far?”
“Not as busy as I recall us being four years ago,” she admitted. “But steady for the most part.”
“Not being as busy is a good thing. Hopefully it means people are taking precautions to prevent heat issues and injuries.”
“I’m not complaining that we’re not swamped,” Chrissie assured him. “I want things to go well for the participants and volunteers. But I’m used to being busy. The gaps between patients can get tedious.”
“Bite your tongue before you jinx us,” he scolded.
“What? Afraid we’ll have more late-night interruptions?”
“Alexis is ‘manning the tent tonight,’” he reminded her. “George, one of the paramedics, volunteered to stay with her.”
“I bet he did. She’s a beautiful woman.”
“So are you.”
Her lashes lowered. “I wasn’t fishing for a compliment.”
“I didn’t think you were, but you are a beautiful woman.”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
“My eyes behold your beauty quite proficiently. As a matter of fact, I’d say they were experts at beholding your beauty.”
She snorted. “I’d rather be appreciated for my brains.”
“Seriously?”
She nodded.
“What is it about your brain you would like me to appreciate most? Your medulla oblongata? Your cerebellum? Your sulcus? A little gray matter, maybe?” he teased, loving the light shining over the darkness that seemed perpetually to permeate his inner being.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “I was thinking more along the lines of my brilliant conversation skills, my amazingly humorous wit, my—”
“Propensity for the truth?”
She laughed. “Exactly.”
“You have all that and more. Brains and beauty.”
“And you, Dr. Stevens, have the gift of the gab.”
“Not really.”
“No?” She arched a brow at him. “Because so far you’ve done a good job of talking me up.”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“Aren’t you?”
He grinned. “I’m glad you changed your mind, Chrissie.”
Red stained her cheeks and she glanced around the tent to make sure no one else could hear.
“Shh, I’d rather not advertise.”
“No one knows what we’re talking about, and if they did, so what? We’re two consenting adults.”
“True, but I’d just as soon not broadcast our personal business to the entire medical crew.”
“I’ll forewarn you that Bud and Agnes will take one look at
us and know.”
“You think?”
He nodded. “They knew we were involved four years ago. It won’t be difficult to figure out that we’ve rekindled the fire.”
She studied him. “Does that bother you?”
“I wasn’t the one worried about someone overhearing our conversation,” he reminded her, reaching out to brush his finger across her cheek as if he were wiping away a speck. He hadn’t been. He’d just wanted to touch her, to feel her soft skin beneath his fingertip, to reassure himself that she was real.
“True, but...”
“It doesn’t bother me if they know, Chrissie. They figured out long ago that I’m no saint.”
After all, Kerry had died on his watch.
“I’m not so sure about that. So far, every time I’ve seen Agnes, she’s sung your praises.”
Taking a deep breath, he shrugged. “I pay her to do that.”
“Sure you do.”
A hobbling group of women made their way into the tent and Trace stood from the chair and went to meet them.
“Right this way, ladies. We’ll get you triaged and taken care of.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
UNFORTUNATELY ONE OF the male volunteers had spotted a wasp nest and taken it upon himself to knock it down.
Instead, the wasps had knocked him down and attempted to take several others along the way. In the end, three different people had gotten stung. Ethan Meadows, the man who’d stirred up the wasps to begin with, had sustained a significant number of stings and had several areas of fairly extensive swelling.
Chrissie had ice packs on the sting patients and Trace was keeping a close check on Ethan due to the number of sting sites he had.
The rest of the afternoon passed quickly and they had a rush of sore feet and minor musculoskeletal issues right before time for the children’s Olympic-style games started up.
Chrissie had learned that this was the first year they’d added the children’s events. Bud and Agnes had made a decision to make the event more family friendly as CCPO was for children and they were hoping this would be a success.
Both of the event founders had been in and out of the tent, checking on the volunteers, and specifically, she got the impression they were checking on Trace.
As if they were worried about him.
A few hours later, the crew took turns sneaking off to the food tent to grab something to eat.
When Chrissie got ready to go, she did a quick visual search for Trace.
“One step ahead of you,” he said from close behind her. “Let’s grab something and get a quick nap afterward.”
“A nap?” She eyed him suspiciously. “It would be suffocating in my tent right now. Plus, I have a roomie.”
He waggled his brows. “Then you should go to my tent.”
“Do you have a tent?”
He looked upward. “Do I have a tent? Now, what kind of a question is that to ask a man?”
“A realistic one.”
He laughed. “Yes, I have a tent, Chrissie. It’s near some trees so it does have a little shade, but still, it’s probably near as hot as yours. Is that a problem?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not a problem.”
“Good answer.”
Chrissie wouldn’t let herself question whether or not it was. She’d made her mind up that she was going to enjoy this weekend with Trace all she could. For this one weekend she’d be a normal, healthy, twenty-eight-year-old female with a sex drive, not responsible single-mom Chattanooga Chrissie.
Although thoughts of Joss, of telling Trace about Joss, kept sneaking in and Chrissie would guiltily shove them aside. She couldn’t tell Trace about Joss. He didn’t want to know. He was a good man, would feel responsible. He didn’t want children or to be tied down.
What if he did and Joss had to go through the hell Chrissie had? What if Trace took him overseas to some God-forsaken place and she never saw her son again?
Shaking her irrational fears from her mind, Chrissie went to get into the line to collect food.
“We’re not eating here,” Trace informed her.
Biting her lip, she stared at him. “We’re not?”
“Nope. Wait here.”
He walked to where a woman greeted him with a huge smile, nodded, then reached behind the counter where she was working.
She brought up a backpack and handed it to Trace. She said something to him, but Chrissie couldn’t make out her words. He laughed, nodded, then thanked the woman.
Trace grabbed a couple of bottled waters from a volunteer manning a large iced container of drinks, then took Chrissie’s hand and led her down a path away from the food station.
“You up for an adventure?”
“In your hot tent?” she guessed, by far not opposed to the idea. She was quite in favor of getting hot and sweaty with Trace. But she was pretty sure they were headed in the opposite direction from Trace’s tent. From everyone’s tents.
“Nah.” He shook his head. “I’m saving my tent for later.”
His answer piqued her curiosity. He wasn’t going to haul her to his tent first chance he got? Go figure. She’d admitted she wanted him and he was going to drag out the moment in torturous ways. If she didn’t know better she might think it was because he didn’t want her as much as she wanted him. She did know better. His desire was in his eyes every time their gazes locked.
Still, she was curious as to what he had up his sleeve. “Okay, take me on an adventure.”
Truth was, every second with Trace was an adventure. Had been every second she’d ever been in his presence.
When he led her to a gas-powered, four-wheel-drive all-terrain vehicle, reached into his cargo-shorts pocket and pulled out a key, Chrissie couldn’t hide her surprise.
“What are you doing?”
He grinned. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Where are we going?”
“I told you. On an adventure.” He opened the backpack the food-station woman had given him and dropped the bottled waters into it. “You mind wearing that? I would, but I’d rather have you pressed against me without a bag with our lunch in between us. Plus, I don’t think you’d be nearly as comfortable.”
“Not a problem.” She slid the straps over her shoulders, letting the bag hang against her back. It wasn’t super heavy, despite being stuffed full.
He handed her a helmet that had been hanging from one of the handle bars. “I know it’s hot, but I want to make sure I keep you safe while we’re on our adventure. Helmet on. Can’t have us being the ones needing use of the medical station.”
Staring at the machine nervously, she took the helmet. “I’ve never ridden on one of these. I’m not sure I’m going to like it.”
If her nerves at the mere thought of just climbing onto the four-wheeled machine were any indication, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t.
“Sure you will. You’re an adventurous kind of girl.”
Ha, that was a joke and a half. Unless working and spending every other spare moment with her son qualified as adventurous. Although she loved the unknowns of her nursing job and Joss was full of life and kept her hopping, she didn’t think many would qualify work and motherhood as making her an “adventurous’ kind of girl.
“Not that adventurous.”
In reality, she supposed many would consider her boring, but she didn’t feel that way with Trace, nor was he looking at her as if he found her boring.
“Except with you,” she added. “You bring out my adventurous spirit.”
Putting on his helmet, he grinned. “Works for me.”
“What?” she asked, sliding the helmet on and fiddling with the strap until she had it snapped into place and snug beneath her chin.
T
oo bad they didn’t make full-body helmets. She’d feel safer.
“You only being adventurous with me.” He checked her helmet, then climbed onto the ATV and patted the seat behind him. “Hop aboard my chariot.”
She snickered, not budging from where she stood, staring at the machine. “Some chariot.”
“Don’t judge a chariot by its ugly green color. It’ll get us where we’re going.”
“Which is?”
He just grinned and patted the seat again. “I’m more of a show kind of guy than a tell kind of guy.”
“Yeah, I remember that about you, but it’s a vague memory. I may need a reminder soon.”
He laughed, but didn’t even try to steal a kiss, which he easily could have. Although there were vehicles and several motor homes around the area, she didn’t see a single person. Maybe she should steal a kiss. Maybe that would distract him from wanting to go anywhere on the four-wheeler.
But part of her wanted to know what he had planned.
A strong enough part that she took a deep breath and steeled herself for whatever the “adventure” brought her way.
Hoping she didn’t make a fool of herself by being terrified of riding on the four-wheeler, because, seriously, she wasn’t feeling brave at all, Chrissie climbed on behind him.
“Wrap your arms around me and hang on,” he advised when she settled onto the vehicle.
Advice Chrissie had no problem taking. She slid her arms around his waist and locked her fingers together. Her body was pressed snugly against his as he turned a switch and the vehicle roared to life between her legs. Oh, my.
“Hang on,” he told her again, and then they were off.
Chrissie closed her eyes and said a little prayer that she didn’t cut off Trace’s air supply by clinging onto him too tightly.
“You okay?” he called over the engine noise.
“Fine,” she said, loosening her grip a fraction and forcing her eyelids apart to stare through the helmet’s clear visor.
Okay, this wasn’t so bad. Actually, the wind whipping at her body felt good. Not as good as the man she pressed up against, but not bad.