I recomposed myself and caught up to him, wondering where on earth he was taking me as we reached the end of the hall and rounded the corner.
“Woah!”
Dr. Sholly came to an abrupt halt, startled by a couple of technicians hurriedly rounding the corner as well, wheeling an empty hospital bed and nearly crashing into us. Instinctually, Dr. Sholly held his hand out, catching me right at the waist and preventing me from slamming into the hospital bed right at the last second.
“Sorry, doc,” one of the technicians said.
“Slow down. The air isn’t in a hurry,” Dr. Sholly said. Realizing his hand was still on my waist, he removed it, although I felt the ghost of his touch long afterwards. A shiver went down my spine.
“You all right?” he said, running his hand through his luscious dark hair, looking somewhat awkward.
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, displeased to hear that my voice sounded too high. “Uhm…where are we going?”
“Right here,” he said. We came to a stop at the on-call room, which was empty at the moment. He held the door open for me and I entered, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the way I walked because I felt like my hips were swaying with minds of their own no matter how much I tried to stop them.
My heart stuttered again, this time right along with the click of the door as Dr. Sholly closed it. He shook his head. “Sorry—this day shift. I just can’t seem to think straight. I guess you could have brought your lunch here if you wanted.”
“It’s fine. I was done.” With the worse timing ever, my stomach gave an embarrassingly loud growl. I crossed my arms over my torso, as if that would help muffle the sound. It felt like someone had lit a match over my face.
Dr. Sholly cleared his throat, laughing a little at my rumbling stomach. When I could get the nerve to look up at him, I could see a smirk lingering beneath his expression and knew he was trying hard not to laugh at me further. It almost made me want to turn right on the spot and leave the room.
Why did this man make me feel so unsure of myself?
“I called Child Protective Services,” I said, feeling desperate to fill the empty room with sensible discussion. I couldn’t take too much more of the silence in his presence. Besides, I needed an excuse for staring at him, his smoldering dark eyes seemed to be holding my gaze captive.
He nodded his head, briefly looking down to the floor. The amusement I’d thought I’d seen on his face had vanished entirely, replaced with barely concealed sadness. “Yeah. Thanks for that.” He looked up at me. “That’s what I really wanted to say to you. Thank you for helping out with Sarah. I’m not so good with kids. I’m glad they sent up someone who is.”
I nodded. “You’re welcome.”
“Do you have kids? I mean…you don’t look like you do…” His eyes not-so-subtly roamed over my body before he caught himself and glanced away. “But uhm…you were just so good with Sarah earlier, I wondered…”
I stood there, stunned to see that for the first time, Dr. Sholly actually looked flustered. It was my turn to chuckle. “No, I don’t have any kids, Dr. Sholly.”
“You can call me Evan.”
I nodded. Evan. His name even sounded sexy. Shit, this was going to be a problem. A long stretch of silence passed between us. Feeling unnerved by it again, I cleared my throat. “So…is that all?”
Evan ran his hand through his hair again, and I stood there, wishing I could run my own fingers through it. Wondering if it felt just as silky as it looked…
“Tessa, the real reason I brought you here is because I want to apologize for yesterday.”
I blinked. I certainly hadn’t seen that coming. I opened and closed my mouth a few times, not sure what to say. When I finally could manage to speak, all I said was, “Oh.”
Evan lowered his head and shook it, as if in shame. “I had no right to speak to you that way. I’m not sure what came over me. I’m not usually like that, I swear.”
“Well, Molly told me that. She said that you weren’t yourself yesterday.”
“And what else did Molly tell you?”
“That you were ex-military.”
“NAVY doc actually.” He smiled. I noticed for the first time he had dimples. Then again, it was probably the first time I had seen such a genuine smile from him to begin with. I couldn’t help the way my own lips curled into a smile at the sight of it.
I gave a start at his sudden nearness. Disoriented, I couldn’t figure out if I had involuntarily moved closer to him, or if he had moved closer to me. The fresh scent of his skin drifted to my nose.
God, did he smell good…
“You’re a very impressive nurse, Tessa,” he said. “You’re impressive in a lot of ways, actually.”