The Nightshift Before Christmas

Okay, it was a bit of a leap, but he was willing to take the risk. In for a penny and all that...

He pushed away from the wall and took a step behind her when she turned back to face the board, unsurprised to see her shoulders stiffen...then relax when he kept just enough space between them for her to know he wouldn’t do what he’d always done before their lives had been ripped in two.

He closed his eyes and pictured the scene. She’d be studying something—anything—an X-ray, a chart, the wall—it didn’t matter. He’d step right up behind her, arms slipping round her waist, hands clasped against her belly, his chin coming to a rest on her pillow of chestnut hair or slipping down alongside her cheek for a little illicit nuzzle or to drop a kiss on her neck...

He heard her sigh at the exact same time he was blowing out a long, slow breath between his lips. Oh, yeah. They were on the same page all right. It just hadn’t been turned for a while.

“Hey, you two—you’re in for the Secret Santa, right?”

Josh and Katie both whirled round to see a grinning Jorja holding out a Santa hat with folded pieces of paper being rapidly jiggled around.

“Count me in.” Josh reached into the hat and grabbed a bit of paper. If he was going to show Katie he knew how to settle down, enjoy small-town life... “Who doesn’t love a bit of Secret Santa action?” He turned to Katie. “That is if it’s all right with the boss lady?”

“Who am I to curtail your holiday cheer and our small-town ways?”

And they were back in the ring! Three years ago the idea of going back to his small-town roots would have made him run for the hills...or the bright lights of Manhattan, more like it. But after he’d quit Boston for Manhattan, Chicago, Miami, none of them had stuck. Not one had sung to him. Nothing worked without Katie.

“I’m just a small-town boy, and nothing says home like...” His eyes sought hers and in that instant he was sure each of them knew what he might say.

“Like what, Dr. West?” Jorja pressed.

Katie. It had always and only been Katie.

“Like having an opportunity to put down roots! In the form of a Secret Santa. I just love a good old-fashioned round of Secret Santa.”

Too emphatic?

He felt Katie giving him a curious glance. Good. He wanted her to see the changes. Maybe not all of them. The pins in his leg could wait. And the scars along his hip and spine. It wasn’t looking like she’d be ripping off his clothes for a moment of unchecked ardor anytime soon, so he was good with that. But he’d been careful that she didn’t see him walk too much. She’d know. She’d definitely know. And she’d never come back to him then.

“Dr. McGann? Are you taking part in the draw?”

Jorja waggled the hat in front of his wife’s face. She might be a good nurse, but that girl sure didn’t read body language all that well.

He watched Katie put on her bright face and return her focus to Jorja. “Of course. In for a penny...”

Josh felt Katie’s eyes land on him as the words came out of her mouth, her hand plunging into the hat blindly to grab a bit of crumpled paper.

She remembered. They’d both said it. A lot. Especially in the early days of their marriage, when they’d needed every penny to repay their medical-school bills, making their own way after just about the best elopement a couple could ever have had when Katie had decided her parents didn’t deserve to put on a society wedding. A church full of her parents’ business associates and bridge pals mixing with his ruckus of a family, who would show up to a black-tie event wearing their funeral clothes? No, thanks.

His lips twitched as her eyes stayed locked on his. They’d spent just a few hundred dollars on rings, the honeymoon, and a huge chocolate cream pie that they’d set between them at a roadside diner and eaten in one go... Then, not too long after, they had been putting down deposits on cribs and—

Josh raked a hand through his hair and looked away first. It was still hard to go there. Still impossible to believe they’d really lost their little girl. That sweet little baby who’d never even had one chance to look into her parents’ eyes...

“Right! You said you wanted me to get to work.” He craned his neck to look around at the waiting room and stuffed the bit of paper into his lab coat pocket. “Who’s next?”

* * *

Katie had to shake her head for a minute before she could think clearly. Having Josh here was like receiving a physical assault of emotions she hadn’t wanted to feel again.

Pain...

She unnecessarily scrubbed her hands through her super-short hair, having forgotten, just as her eyes connected with Josh’s, that she didn’t have a ponytail to curl her fingers through anymore. Yup. The pain she could certainly do without.

Fear.

That Josh would be safe. That he’d come home from his latest escapade unscathed. That he would come home at all. Bearing another loss in the wake of their stillborn baby girl...wondering if he’d well and truly be there for her if they decided to try and conceive again... No. She just hadn’t been able to do it.

Desire.

The desire felt good. Too good. And it was too much of a link to the pain and the fear. A trilogy of Josh, all wrapped up in a gorgeous sandy-haired, blue-eyed package she had never been able to resist. But she had to. For her sanity, first and foremost. For her heart.

“What do you think? You happy to let me go with the photocopy girl?”

“Beg your pardon?” Katie forced herself to focus on the words coming out of Josh’s mouth about a patient newly arrived from an office party gone wrong. Photocopies. Bottoms. Broken glass.

His front tooth was still crooked. She’d always liked that. The imperfection made him more...perfect. Hmm... Maybe she shouldn’t focus on his mouth. His eyes—definitely blue-gray in this light. Flinty? Steel-blue. Was there such a thing? And with little crinkles round the edges. Those were new. Sun, maybe? Or just the passage of the two years they’d put between them?

It might have felt like an eternity, but two years wasn’t really that long. Then again, they’d been through a lot. But Josh had always seemed impervious to it all. Definitely a glass half-full— That was it! Glasses. He probably just needed glasses. Typical Josh to put practical needs like getting his eyes checked on hold. She tilted her head to the side. They were kind of sexy. The crinkles...

Nope. Nope. Still not hearing words. Still not focusing. What about the little bridge between his eyes? That was just like anyone else’s. Just part of someone’s face. A plain old face just like any other doctor in any other hospital. With a nose and high cheekbones and two perfectly formed... Argh, no! And she was back to his lips.

“Apologies, Dr. West.” She put on her best interested face. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

A low laugh rumbled from his chest. Josh knew damn well she’d been ogling him and he was loving it. From the first day he’d draped a stethoscope round her neck, he’d known he had the power to cut straight through her prim-and-proper exterior and bring out the hidden tigress in her. The one she hadn’t known existed. Bookish only children who preferred the company of their elderly nannies weren’t obvious contenders for being horny minxes aching to see how it felt to be scooped up in a single swoop, her legs wrapped round his waist, his hands cupped on her—

“...derriere.”

“Beg pardon! What was that again?”

This time Josh didn’t even bother going for subtle.

“Katie, do you just wanna sneak off and make out for old times’ sake while the anesthetic gets to work?”

“What? No!” She shook her head, sending a horrified look over her shoulder to see if anyone had overheard him. “No!” she added, with a look. She didn’t make out with people. Let alone with the one man on the planet she needed statewide clearance from if her brain was ever going to work properly again.

She forced herself to play a quick game of catch-up.

“You say she broke her office’s copy machine by sitting on it? Why on earth was she doing that?”

“You never butt-copied—?” Josh stopped himself, his smile shifting from astounded to tender. “It’s something that happens when an office party gets out of hand. This gal clearly likes to get her cray-cray on.”

“I have no idea what crayfish have to do with it.”

“Crazy!” Josh laughed. “Cray-cray is crazy, if you’re down with the kids—know what I mean?” He struck a pose for added emphasis.

Katie sniffed. She could do zany. If she put her mind to it. But photocopying her butt? That was just ridiculous. The germs on one of those things should be off-putting enough!

“Well, you two sound perfect for each other.”