“A victimless lie to serve a higher good. Everyone deserves a happy holiday. If we do this, we all win. You avoid a bunch of unwanted matchmaking efforts. I avoid the same. Your parents get to fixate on Sinclair’s love life instead of yours, and my parents get some long-overdue peace of mind.”
“One question.”
He fought back a grin of triumph. The question was aformality. He had her. “Shoot.”
“Shouldthey be worried you’re so trapped in the pain of the past, you’re closed off to the future?”
A knee-jerk denial leaped to his lips, but her unwavering, don’t-bullshit-me stare had him biting it back. He’d celebrated victory too soon. Knowing this, he answered carefully. “I’ve come to terms with the past. Maybe not willingly, or gracefully, but ultimately I didn’t have much choice. As for the future, I take it as it comes, because, again, I don’t have much choice. I prefer to concentrate on the present.”
Those blue eyes softened with sympathy, but her mouth turned down in a slight frown. “That doesn’t really answer my question.”
Did she expect him to say he had the capacity to put his heart and soul on the line again, risk standing by helplessly while whatever power controlled such things ripped everything he loved away from him? He did not. He’d lived through it once, and just in case time tried to heal the wound, his job presented him with regular reminders of how fragile all those hopes and dreams were when pitted against the whims of fate. Did that qualify him as closed off, or sane? Probably both. Either way, he knew his limits.
“I’m fine. Nobody needs to worry about me.”
She continued to nibble her lower lip as she considered him, and he momentarily lost himself in a fantasy of sinking his teeth into the soft swell.
“Hey, Montgomery. West told me you decided to spend Thanksgiving with me.”
He looked over to see a young, spike-haired orderly at the door with a wheelchair.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Isaiah. My plans didn’t include you.”
The kid grinned, showing off a gold-crowned front tooth, and pushed the chair into the room. “Planned or not, I’m here towheel your sorry ass to radiology.”
Savannah took a couple steps toward the door. “I’ll just…ah…go out to the waiting room.”
Shit. Would she tell their families the truth? He tried to read her intentions as Isaiah cornered him with the chair, but he didn’t know her well enough to guess what the little crinkle between her eyebrows meant. Assuming he enjoyed any advantage whatsoever, now seemed like the time to press it.
“Don’t leave me at this guy’s mercy.” He took a seat in the wheelchair and hit her with the best pleading look he could manage. “He’s lost more patients in these hallways than I can count.”
Isaiah rolled his eyes. “Two lousy patients in four years, and they were both deliberate runners. Neither was my fault.”
“One ended up in the morgue.”
“Don’t make it sound like that. Dude got lost, not dead—”
“God knows where I’ll end up.” Beau angled his chin down and looked up at her from under his eyelashes. “Chaperone me. There’s a waiting area in radiology.”
“I don’t want to break any rules…” Her uncertain gaze shifted to Isaiah.
The orderly shrugged. “No rule against accompanying this wussy-assed whiner to X-ray. Personally, I think this has nothing to do with me, or my supposedlylostpatients. More like big bad Beau Montgomery freaks out at the thought of sticking his noggin in a tube. But if it calms his nerves to have a pretty lady holding his sweaty hand while he waits, that’s okay with me.”
Beau bit his tongue. He had no qualms about the CT, but if compassion kept her at his side, he’d play along. “I’d appreciate the company, if you don’t mind.”
Her off-center smile tugged on his balls. “Of course I don’t mind.” To Isaiah, she added, “Lead the way.”
The heels of her silver…stilettos? pumps?—he didn’t know what to call them—tapped along the marbleized linoleum as she walked beside him. Her fuck-me shoes from her date last night, he decided, and experienced a strange surge of satisfaction knowing One-for-Three had fucked nothing but himself.
They turned right at an intersection of corridors, and followed the signs to the radiology department. Isaiah wheeled him into the waiting area, paused at the reception desk to drop his version of a charming smile on the admin minding the desk, and then sent him a salute along with a pithy, “So long, sucka,” on his way out.
Savannah took an empty seat beside his chair. “I’m sorry I conked you in the head.”
He waved off the apology. “It’s not like you saw me coming and took aim. I frightened you. You obeyed a standard reflex to defend yourself.”
The crinkle reappeared between her eyes. “You know, I still have no idea what brought you to my apartment in the first place.”
Admitting he’d come over with a noise complaint seemed counterproductive. “Maybe I wanted to borrow a cup of sugar?”