Page 80 of Doctorshipped
Big sniffle. “I know.” Another big snort. “But you didn’t answer your phone.”
“I forgot to charge it, and then I lost track of time looking over cases. Usually, my afternoon alarm clock consists of you running through that door. I know it’s four o’clock when I hear you with Miss Jayme.”
At the sound of my name, I feel like an intruder. Grant doesn’t know I’m here. I should sneak out. I start to back up slowly, but my foot snags on the entry rug. I try to catch myself on something, but I go tumbling down with a thud.
“Who’s there?” Grant’s bellowing voice carries out from the office.
“It’s just me. I was checking on …”
Grant exits his office and towers over me, his hands on his hips.
“I was checking on Fiona after dropping her off,” I say as I look up at him.
“And you ended up on the floor?”
“I tripped.”
Grant’s face doesn’t reveal a thing. I don’t know if he’s irritated or concerned. He extends his hand, and I take it, which is mistake number one. I can’t innocently touch him anymore. My fingers start sending little messages to my brain like,Oh, hello. That’s Grant. Remember him? Remember the way it feels to be held in his arms? Wouldn’t you like to kiss him?
My fingers are chatty, and apparently big fans of Grant. They also lack sense because I can’t imagine a circumstance where me going from lying in the foyer with Fiona in the house actually ends with me kissing Grant in real life.
Grant gives my arm a swift tug at the same time as I am pushing myself from my position on the floor, and I fly up. Mistake number two. We collide and he has to stabilize me. My palms hit his chest. Oh that chest. It’s toned, and warm, and I want to run my hands across the muscles and up over his shoulders, and down his arms, and up into his hair. Gah! No roaming.We are in a no-roam situation,I command my eager hands.
Grant’s hands brace my arms. He holds onto me with a steadiness and care I feel despite his neutral expression. Our eyes lock and we stare into one another. I send up a silent promise to always floss my teeth and to stop staying up reading past my bedtime from here on out if some divine power can prevent my heart from racing from this overdose of everything that is Grant Peppers.
“Okay. Welp. Thanks!” I say quickly, and then I execute mistake number three. It’s not my brightest moment, I know.
Without another word, I turn and run out of the house to my car.
26
GRANT
Jayme came to tutor Fiona as scheduled today, but she’s been neatly avoiding me ever since her fall in my foyer. Well, ever since the wedding, really. I know things got awkward yesterday after she had to pick Fiona up from school.
Seeing my daughter so distraught, and then having Fiona tell me she feared she’d lose me like she lost her mother set me on edge. I didn’t even know Jayme was in the house until I heard the thud in the hallway.
Speaking of thuds, my front door slams shut, and Fiona’s face peeks through the crack between my office doors.
“Miss Jayme just left.”
“She left?”
“Yeah. She said she biked here, so she needed extra time to ride back to Miss Lexi and Mister Trevor’s.”
Jayme didn’t even pop in to give me the usual dose of trouble she enjoys dishing out at my expense, or to report on how Fiona did during tutoring today. She’s implementing stage-five avoidance at its finest. Do I blame her? Not at all. I’m a confusing, indirect, unpredictable sort of man. She ought to steer clear for her own sanity and well-being.
My head says all that.
My heart screams out an entirely different plea—one I’m disregarding. Hearts tend to be fickle, lusty drivers, eager for speed and thrills. The heart can be a lot like a sixteen-year-old boy the day he finally gets his license. Reckless and overconfident, bound to make a myriad of mistakes, and possibly end up in a wreck. It’s not best practice to allow the heart to determine the course of one's life.
The next day I make sure to see all my patients in the morning, effectively clearing the house of people just after lunch. My office doors are wide open at three o’clock even though Fiona won’t arrive home for another half-hour. In the past, Jayme had a habit of occasionally popping in before Fiona got home, being here to welcome her and hang out before they started to work on assignments together.
Today, I texted Jayme—against my better judgment, maybe—asking her to come in early so that we could discuss Fiona. I’m not acting on my incessant attraction to her. I’m trying to smooth the waters and restore equilibrium. I want to put an end to any thoughts she has of avoiding me. A practical meeting about a neutral subject we agree on should do the trick.
At three ten, Jayme arrives and walks into my home without knocking. Today’s shirt saysCurvy, Single, and Ready for a Pringle. I study it and from the look she’s giving me, my face must appear severe. Is she using this shirt to ask men to date her? I thought she wanted to avoid men. Is she trying to drive me mad by reminding me of her curves and how good they felt pressed against me as we danced, or of the alluring sway of her hips whenever she leaves my office? Or is she saying she’d rather eat junk food than date men?
“What does that shirt mean?” I blurt out in my frustration.
