Page 6 of At Last

And I know they’ve reached their limit on patience with her when they don’t invite her to ride to the hospital along with ’em, stating not enough room in the back. She looks panicked.

“Come on.” I grab her hand, and we move back out to my truck, following closely behind the ambulance.

The shitstorm gets worse when they wheel the little girl into emergency. On duty doctors take custody of the child and start to assess. Then tell Dr. Brennen they’re taking her back for some scans.

I thought parents were allowed back to those things with little kids, but they won’t allow Dr. Brennen back, and let me just say, that woman has a mean streak and a vocabulary to make the saltiest sailors blush.

When the door swings shut behind the doctors and her little girl, that’s when I watch Dr. Brennen’s shoulders fall and she burst into tears. Shit, I hate when women cry. So I really hate seeingthiswoman cry.

“Come on, now. None ’a that.” It’s the only way I know to console her. That, and wrapping my arms around her. And I’m not sure if she forgot who’s holding her, but once in my arms, she buries her face in my shirt, continuing to shed those tears. And fuck if she don’t wrap her arms around me, too. Holding me, letting me hold her.

She’s tall for a woman, but I still stand a head and neck over her. Which puts the top of her head at the perfect height to drop comforting kisses on if I get bold enough. Her scent, she smells like vanilla. Like a bakery, and it drives me nuts. I have to fight to keep from getting hard, since this ain’t the place or time for it. Like ain’t it enough she’s a classy broad, class and those luscious curves in all the right places, but she has to smell like a fucking bakery? I’m a saint for corralling my dick the way I have.

When her crying slows and she pushes back from my chest, I don’t let her go. Despite her initial protest, she stays in my arms for the entire twenty minutes it takes for the on-duty doctor to return with scan results. And I still don’t let her go then, twisting her around, but with my arm slung around her waist so we stay connected.

“Sprained, not broken.” He assures her. “We’re moving her to a room now. Follow me.”

Since it ain’t my place no matter how good she feels in my arms, I finally get my head outta my ass and loosen my hold so she can follow, only to have her grab a hold of my T-shirt to drag me along behind her. I’m shocked. But I guess even doctors need moral support sometimes.

They’re fitting the kid with a neck and upper chest brace when we walk into the room. The girl is out, which no one seems worried about, so I assume it’s medically induced.

“She needed sedation to be scanned. Just as a precaution to keep her immobile, but she’ll have to stay overnight for observation because of the concussion.”

When the on-duty doc notices Brennen still crying he tries to comfort her, shifting the chart in his hands so he can rest one on her shoulder. “Come on, we got lucky,” he says. It’s probably an innocent gesture. Part ’a good bedside manner or some shit. Hell, she ain’t even mine, yet I don’t like this guy touching her because he’s more the type a class act like Dr. Brennan should be with. “You know as well as I do how much worse it could have been.”

Then he pats the arm he had his hand resting on, and turns to walk out.

I stay standing like an idiot because I ain’t sure what else to do here. Finally I decide to give the woman privacy and turn to give her just that when she stops me, this time, with her words. “You can call me Caitlin, you know.”

“Pardon?” I ask, rubbing the back of my neck.

“My name. You always call me Doc or Dr. Brennan. But you can call me by my first name, Caitlin.”

“Okay, Caitlin. How you holding up?”

“I know you don’t like me, so it was good of you to help the way you did.Thank you.”

Well shit. She thinks I don’t like her.

“You gonna be okay?” I point to the door so she knows my intention to leave. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to ask as she breaks out in a fresh round of tears. Looks like I ain’t leaving anytime soon.

Instead, I pick up the hospital version of a club chair, this one a pastel pink vinyl, to move it closer to the bed. Then I sit and grab a still tearing Caitlin by the waist to pull her down onto my lap.

“She’ll be fine,” she whispers, then hiccups. And I think she’s trying to convince herself more so than me.

What am I doing?I ain’t had a woman on my lap who I wasn’t fucking or getting ready to fuck since Dawna left this world. But every breath she breathes against my neck, where she’s tucked her forehead, makes me forget a little more why I don’t do this shit. You fuck, you don’t get hurt. Period.

Son of a bitch, if I don’t fall asleep in that chair with Dr.—erCaitlin—on my lap. We sleep the whole night. I know because when I wake up, the room is flooded with natural light, I got a kink in my neck and my dick is harder than granite because of her ass rubbing on it while she was passed out, but damn if she ain’t pretty when she wakes up. Fucking gorgeous. Pale, peaches and cream skin, only less peaches and a hell of a lot more cream to her complexion than even most redheads.

She stretches and turns her head to look at my face, then startles as if she forgot whose lap she cuddled against last night.Fuck, I just used the word cuddled. This woman’s gonna fucking turn me into Boss if I ain’t careful. My VP is more whipped by his woman’s pussy than just about any brother I’ve met. Elise is sweet, smart and feisty when she needs to be, not to mention fucking hot.Still...I shake my head to erase the image of Boss’s old lady, because I got old lady material on my lap.

The funny part, Caitlin don’t move. Her cheeks stained a gorgeous pink. She lowers her eyes and smiles coyly. “You stayed,” she says softly, almost surprised.

“I could hardly leave with you sitting on my lap.” The morning makes my voice sound grittier than usual. Most women would flinch from the tone. Not Doc. No, notCaitlin.

“Thank you.” Before I know what’s happening, her face descends and her plump, heart-shaped lips press a gentle kiss to the corner of mine.

Her touch, her kiss should freak me the hell out. I ain’t kissed another woman since Dawna. I fuck, I eat my fill. What I don’t do, what I never fucking do, is kiss. It hurts too much when it ends. When you want more, but can’t have more. My skin starts to feel tight. Not because of the kiss, but because of how badly I want more.

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