Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 27528 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27528 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Her smile was soft and slightly hazy. “Exactly the same thing you’ve done to me, Mac.” She shook her head. “I’m terrified that you’re going to break my heart, but I can’t stay away.”
“Good, because I couldn’t let you go on threat of death.”
“So dramatic,” she sighed, rolling her eyes, but her smile remained. “You don’t have to let me go because I’m right where I want to be.” Her gaze was steady and sincere.
My body was on fire. I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers, intending for a chaste kiss that would end quickly. But Kayla sucked in a breath and flicked her tongue out just as her body pressed against mine, and I lost my mind for a moment.
The kiss was needy, but the fire grew slowly. Each swipe of her tongue increased my temperature, but when she gripped my hair a little harder and moaned into my mouth? I lost it. My hands slid down to her waist, pulling her closer against where I was hard and aching for her.
She moaned again and pushed her hips forward. Kayla drew back first, heat burning in her hazel eyes. “Want to get out of here?”
“Hell yes. I have another surprise for you anyway.” We were mostly quiet on the way back to Holiday Grove, but the tension in the air was thick. Our labored breaths fogged up the windows until we both burst out laughing.
“This is crazy, right?”
I nodded. “I feel like a teenage boy,” I admitted as we entered Holiday Grove. Soon enough, we were parked in my driveway. “We’re here.”
She laughed. “Is the surprise your dick?”
I laughed and pressed a quick kiss to her lips before stepping out and going around to her door, opening it with a flourish. “It’s yours whenever you need it. But first, dinner.”
“You know it’s impossible to resist a man who feeds you, right?”
“All part of my evil plan, Doc.” I led her inside, where candles lit the space and rose petals led the way to the formal dining room, where the table was set for two.
“Wow, Mac! This is… it’s beautiful.” Her voice cracked as she looked at me. “This is really sweet.”
“I wanted to take you out, but I also wanted you all to myself.” In that moment, I felt like a nervous boy trying to ask out the girl he liked.
“See? Smart and pretty. Thank you for this, Mac. It’s lovely.” Gratitude shone in her eyes. Gratitude, not expectation, and it only made me like her more.
“Since you loved the Irish food so much, I had my friend Luka come in and make us a sampling of dishes from Eastern Europe.”
“You did?” She squealed and pressed a kiss to my mouth. “That’s amazing! Let’s dig in. I’m starved, so you can tell me about your writing process while we eat.”
I was wrong; it wasn’t earlier than I fell for Kayla. It was this moment, right now. That question and the curiosity in her eyes as she asked me questions between bites did me in.
It was too soon to fall for her; I knew that.
Logically.
Intellectually.
Too bad my heart was neither of those things.
14 KAYLA
“Are you sure you don’t need me to stay?” I was dead on my feet after a ten-hour shift that had turned into an eighteen-hour shift due to a flu outbreak among the staff—and the town. “I can stay.”
Mark glared at me, folding his arms in a way that reminded me of how he probably presented himself to his own pre-teen kids. “I would love for you to stay, Kayla, but you’ve already been here longer than you should. I need you to come back refreshed. The day after tomorrow.”
“But Mark, we’re already severely understaffed. Can you afford to have me take a day off?”
“No,” he sighed. “But I also can’t afford to have an exhausted doctor making mistakes. Go home, sleep it off, eat an orange, chug a handful of blueberries—do whatever you have to do to make sure you don’t catch this flu.”
I stared at him, unsure of what to do. Mark was the head of the Emergency Department, which made him my boss, but it went against everything I believed to leave the ER without enough staff to handle the patients.
“Dr. Stevens, go. That’s an order.”
A yawn split my face as I nodded. “Yeah, okay. I’ll leave my phone on, so call if you need me. Seriously, I’m going to crash, so I’ll be rested enough in about three hours.”
“Five,” he shot back. “If I need you after five hours, I will call. Good night, Doctor.”
“Good night. Good luck.” The cool night air didn’t do much to wake me up, but I made the short drive home with all the windows down and the radio turned up higher than usual just to ensure I made it safely. “Home sweet home,” I said as I turned onto my block, but those words died a quick and traumatic death when I spotted a group of people loitering on my lawn. “What the hell?” I stepped from my car, and the group immediately flocked to me, asking questions that strangers had no business asking.