The Nightshift Before Christmas

* * *

“How long do you intend to continue this White Knight thing?”

Josh’s instinct was to smile and tell her he would wield his lance and shield as long as it took for her to see sense and come back to him. Longer. Until the day he died, he would protect Katie. He’d taken a vow and had meant it. He had broken part of it, and he was going to spend the rest of his life making good on it. Even if that meant walking away, no matter how hard it hurt.

But this was work. Personal would have to wait.

“Where I come from, people stick around to help one another when the going gets tough.” He laid the Tennessee drawl on as thick as molasses. It always got to her and this time was no different.

He watched as her hands flew to her hips in indignation, then shifted fluidly into a protective, faux-nonchalant crossing of the arms. Her eyes widened, the lids quickly dropping into a recovery position. One of her eyebrows arched just a fraction before her face became neutral again. But she couldn’t keep the flush of emotions from pinking up her cheeks.

He shifted his stance, ratcheted his satisfaction down a couple of notches. He wasn’t playing fair. He knew more than anyone that teamwork in an emergency department was something Katie valued above all else. Unless, it seemed, it came from him.

He stood solidly as she gave him the Katie once-over. He wouldn’t have minded taking his own slow-motion scan over the woman he’d dreamed about holding each and every night since she’d told him in no uncertain terms she’d had enough of his daredevil ways. He’d have to play it careful. Divorce rules shifted from state to state, and he hadn’t checked out Idaho. If she’d moved to Texas he would have shown up a lot earlier. No need to wait for a signature there. As it was, he thought two years had given them each more than enough time to know they were meant for each other. Given him enough lessons to know she’d been right. He’d suffered enough loss to know it was time to change. Move forward—whatever shape that took.

“Where are you staying?”

Unexpected.

“Here.” He pointed at the hospital floor.

There went that eyebrow again.

“Locum tenens wages aren’t enough to get you a condo?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t know how long I’d be staying.”

She refused to take the bait.

“Usually housing comes with the contract.”

What was she? The contract police? Or... A lightbulb went off... Was she trying to figure out where he’d be laying his sleepy head? Was she missing being held in his arms as much as he had longed to hold her? Truth was, he never bothered with separate housing on these gigs. Hospital bunks suited him fine... Friends’ sofas sufficed when he was back in Boston. Home was Katie, and it had been two long years...

He heard the impatient tap of her foot. Fine...he’d play along.

“Not this time of year. And it was too short a contract for me to put up a fight.”

Katie’s jaw tightened before she shifted her chin upward in acknowledgment of the obvious. She knew what he meant. The locals had dibs on all the affordable properties. Everything went to the top one hundred highest-paid, most famous, with the biggest bank account, et cetera, et cetera. Life in Copper Canyon was a heady mix of the haves and those who worked for the haves.

Mountain views, private access to the slopes, sunset, sunrise, heated pools, wet bars, ten thousand square feet minimum of whatever a person could desire—you name it, they had it. Copper Canyon saw most of America’s glitterati at some point, on the slopes or at one of the resorts...if, that was, they didn’t have a private pad.

“You staying at your parents’? I remember them having a pretty plush pad out here and not using it all that much.”

Risky question, but he couldn’t imagine why else she would have moved here. She walked over to the board and began erasing patient names and rearranging a few others.

“They’re usually at the Boston brownstone or in the Cayman Islands, right?”

“Jorja? Could you make sure the tablets are all updated to reflect what’s on the board? We’ve got quite a few changes to note,” Katie called over her shoulder to the main desk.

“Sure thing, Dr. McGann. On it!”

Josh leaned against the wall, one foot crossed over the other, hands stuffed in his pockets, happy to just watch her play out her ignoring game. He threw in an off-key “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” whistle for good measure.

“And let’s pop something different on the music front, Jorja. Some nice carols.”

Josh grinned at Jorja, dropped her a wink and dropped his whistle simultaneously.

“They just don’t stop, do they? Your parents?”

Only the squeak of the whiteboard pen could be heard over the usual hospital murmur.

Wow. Having a conversation with a brick wall would have yielded more return.

“The indefatigable McGanns! That’s how I always thought of them.”

Katie’s lips tightened. She didn’t do chitchat. Especially when it came to her parents. They were the source of any well-packed baggage Katie had hauled around through the years. Parents who’d discovered they hadn’t really been up to parenting so had handed it over to nannies and boarding schools to do the work for them. They were harmless enough folk at a cocktail party, but he knew their lack of interest as parents hurt Katie deeply.

“I’m not staying there this week.”

Interesting.

“I always stay at the hospital over Christmas,” she volunteered hastily, with a quick pursing of her lips. “My parents have come in to ski for the week—”

Josh snorted and was relieved to see Katie join in with an involuntary snigger.

“Well...at least they’ll look fabulous in their ski gear before they hit the cocktail circuit.”

Her eyes flicked away with a shake of her head. She must have remembered she’d told herself not to enjoy being with him.

“It’s easier not to get stuck in a storm if I’m here.”

Wow! Two whole sentences! They were on a roll. He kept his ground. Nodded. Tried not to look too interested. He’d learned long ago that it took a lot to get Katie talking, but once you opened the floodgates...

“So...where are you really staying?”

Bang goes that theory.

“Honestly, Kit-Kat. My plan was to just stay here.”

Her brown eyes were briefly cloaked by a studied blink. Then another. Her lips twitched forward for a microsecond in a moue. Was that a response to his being there? Had an image of the two of them wrapped together as they’d always been in bed flashed across her mind’s eye as it had his?

He cleared his throat and shifted his stance. “Casual” was getting tough to pull off. What he wouldn’t give to take the two steps separating them and start to kiss those ruby lips of hers as if each of their lives depended on it. It felt as though his did, and standing still was beginning to test his fortitude.

“I see.” She abruptly turned to face the main desk, where Jorja was checking in a new patient. “We’d best get you to work, then.”

Fair enough. She wasn’t saying no.

And... A smile began to tug at the corners of his mouth. Depending on how you looked at it, Katie was saying yes. Yes to his staying. Yes to his being in the hospital. Yes to their being together.