sound worried.”
How much should she admit to? It was unlikely this would snowball into Spencer coming out of the woodwork again to warn Alberts this time. She wasn’t even social media friends with him, or anyone else from her epic three-day job, but putting herself out there at all felt like running into a bear’s den.
“No, lass,” he said, probably because she took so long to answer, slipping into an even more familiar way to address her, a way he usually reserved for patients. Until a rascally light sparked in his eyes, and he followed up with, “I don’t feel slightly guilty for this evening. If you feel guilty, I’m going to have to assume you’ve been having untoward thoughts about me and all the things you’d like to do to me in the back of this cab.”
As he spoke—the velvety rumble of his voice, the way he leaned ever so slightly closer—her cheeks flamed brighter and brighter, and there went her ability to think again.
A taxi pulled up to the curb beside her, but still not a single danged word popped into her head. At least, nothing above a second-grade denial. Nuh-uh!
He took her scarlet silence with a grin, opened the door and gestured for her. “I’ll let you do the delivering to the hospital without me. I don’t think my manly virtue could be sustained if I climbed into this darkened leather interior with you now, Dr. Angel.”
He was teasing. She knew he was teasing. Sort of. Probably. She still couldn’t think of anything to say back to him, just climbed into the seat and held out her hands for the drinks.
When he’d placed the warm cardboard carrier in her hands, she found her tongue, or at least some semblance of the grace she wished she could display under pressure, and said, “Thank you for accompanying me this evening, Wolfe.” Oops. Said his name, and it took a couple of stumbling stutters to finish. “I... I... I’m sure the stream was more interesting to Jenna—and everyone else—because you were narrating it. It no doubt brightened her evening far more than it would’ve had she not sort of tricked you into coming with me.”
He kept hold of the door with one hand and leaned down to speak through it. “I could’ve found a way out of it, you know. I did give myself an out—early bedtime—should I be having no fun at all. But I was. You’re a much better cameraman than you give yourself credit for, Angel.”
Before she could say anything else, he ducked in, kissed her cheek in a vigorously platonic but sweet way, which still made her body turn into a human sparkler, and closed the door.
“Which hospital, Dr. Angel?” the driver asked from the front, having heard every word along with her complete inability to keep up with the dashing Scotsman.
“Sutcliffe,” she answered, then settled back, balancing the drink caddy between her knees and pulling the phone out again to check the views.
Could people keep watching the video now that it wasn’t live anymore?
When she opened the case, all the color she’d built up from Wolfe’s teasing drained right away. Closing it hadn’t shut it off. It always shut it off. Always. Always, always, always. But not today.
Jenna was still listening, and she’d filled up the comments with several lines of kiss marks and hearts.
If she’d just fallen off the Empire State Building, it still wouldn’t have been further or faster than the plummeting in her middle. Thank goodness she’d not had time to eat before the outing, nothing to throw up.
She didn’t look at the video, or the state of it, just manually turned the blasted thing off and closed the case again. Just pretend those hearts were Jenna’s way of showing appreciation for an entertaining evening. That’s all. She was blowing kisses of gratitude and affection.
Not Jenna’s way of commenting that she, and countless others, had heard Wolfe’s suggestion Angel was about to maul him in the back seat of a taxi.
* * *
By the time she arrived at the hospital, Angel had miraculously accepted Wolfe’s teasing, but although she wanted to think of it as flirting, the more likely reason was that he was bored, and he’d noticed she was tongue-tied around him.
And the unconcealable starry eyes she tended to have. Her ability to crush in a secretive manner had never really progressed beyond the age where you automatically hated the person you liked the most. So, around ten. She was a ten-year-old trapped in the body of a grown woman, and how ridiculous was that?
The sooner she got to Atlanta, the better. This place was hell on her self-esteem and her nerves. That was the problem. She worried about fitting in, then worried about being found lacking, then about the looming threat of public humiliation she’d spent a lifetime trying to outrun. It would come if she stayed. Just a matter of time. Catastrophe. Could still happen in Atlanta, at least if she got dumb again and overshared with someone, but that was something she could control. Here? Nope.
She stepped off the elevator on Jenna’s floor and made a beeline to her room. It was late enough that the kid should be sleeping, not waiting up for treats, but at least she could find out whether dinner had happened, and that would ease one worry standing between her and sleeping tonight.
She knocked on the right door and a moment later, before she could even reach for the knob, it swung open and Mrs. Lindsey, eyes glittering and smile too broad to be anything but alarming, invited her in.
“Dr. Conley! We were hoping you’d arrive soon.” She relieved Angel of the cup caddy, making her immediately glad she’d bought four cups instead of one. Mr. Lindsey was also there, as well as little Mattie.
“Did you all just get here from the lighting?” Angel eased the bag of cookies from her pocket. Should’ve bought more than the two cookies she’d argued for—there was a four-year-old boy there too.
“Did you get the cinnamon sticks?” Jenna asked, holding out her hands eagerly enough that her mother stopped everything to set her up with the drink, then did the same with her littlest playing on the floor in the corner.
“We came as soon as they lit the tree, so we could start decorating,” Mrs. Lindsey explained. “If Jenna has to be here for any length of time, we’re going to make it nicer.”
Angel looked around and noticed a few little touches of Christmas that now graced the simple buttery yellow walls. A tangle of twinkle lights and faux pine boughs wrapped around the television. There was also an old-fashioned Santa embroidered on a small blanket draped over the recliner placed in every room for the loved ones who stayed with the littles. Small touches, but heartfelt. Meaningful.
Suddenly, her nerve-inducing, awkward contribution felt completely worth it. Felt like a gift for her as well.
“That’s a lovely idea.” Angel watched Mr. Lindsey get a sprig of plastic mistletoe to suspend from an empty little hook on the railing upon which the privacy curtain hung. Then promptly snagged his wife by the hand and kissed her cheek.
“If you hang it there, you get to move it around and then it can be anywhere around the bed for everyone to get kisses.” There was a wistful quality to Jenna’s smile that suggested a boy on her mind, but it passed quickly. “Snickerdoodles?”
Angel didn’t comment on the mistletoe or the kisses—that might remind everyone of Wolfe’s teasing and she appreciated the small amount of sanity she’d managed to hold on to this evening. Instead, she jiggled the bag and handed the oversized cookies to Mrs. Lindsey to make necessary decisions about distribution.
“When Jenna told us you and Dr. McKeag were going to film the lighting for her, we had no idea how remarkably silly he was. I’m kind of glad I didn’t know that before the surgery, I might’ve thought him unfit for treating my daughter, but he’s both a skilled surgeon and an absolute, charming delight.”
And another woman in the world fell victim to the charm of Wolfe McKeag.
Which really should comfort her. If anything, he was used to women being dazzled by his eyes, his mouth,