Page 78 of Careless Whisper

She turned to check on the coffee, and since the carafe was still filling up, faced me again, her features stern. “If you love her, why did she leave you?”

“I…fucked up.”

“She called you apendejothe last time I tried to talk about you,” Juanita was happy to inform me.

I took a deep breath and exhaled. “I kind of am.”

“But you’re here now, having left your fancy job behind,” Juanita stated as the coffee machine beeped. She poured a cup and handed it to me, and got one for herself.

We sat down at the round table and winced when we heard Reggie yell, “You’re all nuts in this family. This is my clinic; you can’t just hire some rando and expect me to put up with it.” Pause. Then we heard rapid fire Spanish swearing.

“You love her?” Juanitachuckled.

“Si.”

Juanita drank some coffee. “Okay. I will help you because I like Reggie.”

“How will you help me?” I asked.

“Watch and see,” she said sneakily just as we heard Reggie’s footsteps coming toward the kitchen.

“Fine,” she snapped, looking at me, her hands little fists on her hips. “You’re technically on the payroll…so, I guess, you can stay. But don’t think for a second that this means we’re okay.”

“Ay, Reggie, stop being like that.” Juanita put her hand on mine. “He’s a big-time doctor, and you know we need one here.” She said this as she jutted her breasts out.

Reggie glared at our hands and then at me. I tried to yank my hand away but Juanita held tight.

Jesus! This is not helping, Juanita!

Reggie didn’t answer. Just turned and walked out of the room with the kind of posture that said I was lucky she hadn’t punched me.

“What the fuck?” I demanded as soon as Reggie was gone.

Juanita grinned smugly. “You know if a woman doesn’t care about a man, she doesn’t give two shits who he touches or who touches him. She was ready to pull my hair out for putting my hand on yours.”

I thought about it and nodded appreciatively. Juanita had a point.

“This is going to be so much fun,” Juanita declared.

She was rightandwrong.

The clinic was small, busy, and stretched thin in every direction—under-resourced, overworked, and full of heart. In other words, it was like every other medical facility in the world.

Reggie moved like she’d been managing clinics all her life. The staff adored her, and the patients trusted her. Watching her was equal parts awe-inspiring and gut-wrenching—she was damn good at whatever she did, and I’d fucking lost her.

The first week, she only spoke to me if it was related to work. Every time I tried to have a social conversation, she shut me down. Since we were working side-by-side coordinating treatments and shoulder-to-shoulder at triage, her rejection didn’t sting as much.

By the end of the week, to Reggie’s obvious chagrin, I was getting along well with the staff, and after I assisted on a small trauma case after a motor accident, even the skeptical intern who’d been giving me side-eye was laughing at my passable Spanish and handing me sutures like we’d trained together.

Reggie freaking hated it—and didn’t bother to hide it.

“So, you’re the man that broke her heart,” one of the other nurses said, tutting. “But you’re here now, and that girl needs to be loved.”

The whole staff was Team Elias. Everyonethought it was a grand gesture that I was here, leaving mybig-timegig in Seattle—but I didn’t feel that way at all. I was here because she was, and it wasn’t a grand anything—it was a matter of survival. I didn’t want to be apart from Reggie any longer, not after I’d wasted so much time with my head up my ass. I’d rather have an angry Reggie in my life than not have her at all.

If Reggie was miffed that her team liked me, she was fucking pissed when Juanita—young, stunning, and full of mischief—winked at me over the medicine cart and said that I looked “muy bienin scrubs.”

Reggie’s eyes narrowed. It was like watching a sudden vasospasm—seconds away from full-blown myocardial infarction.

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