Page 6 of Stolen Kisses
“You didn’t have to. I know what makes you tick.”
Five minutes later, he parked and they strolled along the Main Street sidewalk toward the vendor. The air was chilly, summer long gone by now. Noah doubted there was much demand for ice cream these days. The old man who’d run the shop for as long as Noah could remember waved as they stepped inside.
“There’re my two troublemakers,” he said, looking at them over his thick-lensed glasses.
“How’s the kidney?” he asked Krista, as if it hadn’t been nearly two decades since her transplant.
Krista swept an unruly lock of dark hair from her cheek and patted her side. “No problems. Just like new.”
The question made Noah’s gaze fall on the charm she’d been wearing around her neck for just as long. It was a fishing hook twisted up to make a heart that he’d given her just before her surgery. He’d looped it on a piece of fishing line to make a necklace for her. He hadn’t known what else to do and he’d wanted to give her something. He’d have given her his own kidney if he could have. In fact, he’d petitioned his dad to let him do so. “This is to hook your new kidney and keep it on the line.” It was silly, but Krista had loved it so much that she’d had the fishing hook plated in gold. It now hung around her neck on a thin gold chain and she never took it off.
“What’ll you have?” the old man asked Krista first.
Before she even answered, Noah knew exactly what she’d choose. She’d pour over every choice before deciding on cookies and cream. Always.
She stepped along the cartons, looking at every choice.
Noah tapped his foot, but held his tongue. He’d developed patience over the years.
“Cookies and cream,” she finally said, smiling up at Mr. Plumly.
“I’ll have coffee ice cream,” Noah added.
“Not that you need any more caffeine. I don’t know how you sleep at night,” she said, laughing.
And that was true. The only thing they didn’t know about each other was how the one slept. And that’s the way it would stay.
Ice cream cones in hand, they walked toward the pier that stretched out over the roaring ocean. The wind whipped by, repeatedly tossing Krista’s hair into her cone.
“I’m going to have to shower off the stickiness when I get home, thanks to you.” She glanced over. “But thank you. I needed this.”
“Does this get me out of the doghouse?”
She laughed, the sound light and bubbly as it reached his ears. “Yes.”
They made it to the end of the pier and leaned against it, staring out from where they used to fish as children, before the days of commercial fishing boats and a quota of fish that had to be brought in daily for the Sawyer Seafood Company’s needs.
Noah cut his gaze to the side just in time to see Krista swirl her tongue over the peak of the ice cream mound on her cone. He resisted the surge of attraction that hit him like one of those wind-tossed waves on the pilings below.
Noah swallowed and frowned at his own cone. He was suddenly turned on. He usually ignored the attraction he had toward Krista. Ignored it like his life depended on it, because in a way, it did. As his best friend, she made his life better. He never wanted to lose her. “Dammit,” he whispered under his breath, pulling his cone away from his mouth.
Krista looked over. “What’s wrong? You don’t like it?”
“Not too much,” he muttered.
—
Friday the thirteenth wasn’t exactly a holiday, but when you worked on the pediatric floor of a hospital, any opportunity to make things fun was welcome.
Krista poked her head into Adam Reese’s doorway. “Boo,” she said, entering into the dimly lit room. Adam remained asleep. His mother, Mandy, smiled tiredly at his side.
“It was a rough night,” she said. “He didn’t get to sleep until after midnight.”
Krista’s heart sunk like a lead balloon. “I’m sorry. You look tired, too. You should go home. Get some sleep. I’m on shift for the next eight hours and I’ll make sure Adam is well taken care of. I promise.”
Mandy shook her head, but then submitted to a yawn.
“You can’t take the best care of him if you’re a zombie. He’ll probably be asleep for another four hours anyway. Then I plan on making spiders out of surgical gloves to scare Dr. Jacobs later. Adam will love it.”
