The ER's Newest Dad

“Too bad he only has eyes for you,” Cindy continued, unfazed by Brielle’s lack of response. “Because I wouldn’t mind feeling the heat.”

Brielle fought to keep from looking up from the computer monitor where she was entering a patient’s latest assessment data. She would not react to Cindy’s comment. She couldn’t. Her friend would have her shoved into a supply closet with Ross and bar the door. Cindy was constantly trying to get her to date, to splurge on life’s niceties, as she called the opposite sex. Brielle had other priorities.

“Take now, for instance,” Cindy said with a hint of amusement in her voice.

Brielle wasn’t going to look up. She wasn’t. Ross seemed to have eyes for her a lot these days, but she didn’t care. She didn’t.

“Here I am practically having hot flushes over those sultry blue eyes and that chiseled body, and does he even notice?” Her friend sighed dramatically. “No, he just keeps looking at you as if you’re a fascinating puzzle he has to solve, as if you’re a dessert he has to taste, as if—”

“You can have him,” Brielle interrupted before Cindy could elaborate further, before her face could grow any hotter.

“Because?”

They’d been friends too long for Brielle not to know exactly what her friend’s expression looked like without having to glance her way. Cindy’s brow was arched high in question and a smile toyed on her lips.

Wasn’t that the thing she’d loved most about Bean’s Creek? That no one knew Ross other than Samantha and Vann? That she’d been able to move home without anyone feeling sorry for her because the man who’d been her world had abandoned her when she’d needed him most? Granted, he hadn’t known the full story, but she had tried to tell him more than once and he’d refused to listen.

“He’s not my type.”

“Honey,” her friend scoffed with another wave of her hand, “that man is every straight woman’s type.”

Brielle hit the “enter” key, then leaned back in her chair. “Not mine.”

“Because?” Cindy persisted.

Been there, done that, have the scars and the kid to prove it.

“He just isn’t.”

A short silence followed and when Cindy spoke her tone was softer, more serious. “Because he reminds you of Justice’s dad?”

Hello. Had Cindy read her mind? Brielle’s gaze jerked up.

She shouldn’t have looked. Really, she shouldn’t have. Yet her gaze had instantly gone to Cindy. A very curious Cindy, who was watching her way too closely. No wonder. She probably looked like a deer caught in headlight beams. Maybe her friend really had read her mind. Or maybe she’d just thought she was talking in her head and really she’d mumbled her sarcastic remark out loud? No, she knew she hadn’t.

“Why would you ask that?” Had her voice squeaked? Had the racket her mouth had emitted even been actual words or pleas to not push?

“I am your best friend,” Cindy reminded her, sounding slightly offended. “Plus, I’m not blind. Dr. Lane’s eyes are a fantastic blue, just like Justice’s.”

“Lots of people have blue eyes.” She did her best to look bored with the conversation, to look as if she thought Cindy was crazy.

Cindy was crazy if she thought Brielle was going to have this conversation while entering patient data at the emergency room nurses’ station. Especially when Ross could step up at any time.

“True.” Cindy shrugged. “I just thought—”

“Quit thinking.”

Cindy’s brow rose, and she shook her head. “Oh, yeah, comments like that one from my way-too-serious, too logical, always-overthinks-things friend doesn’t raise questions in my mind. Not at all.”

Was that how her friend saw her? Fine. She’d earned the right to be logical and serious. Brielle winced. She had to get her act together. To quit being so jumpy where Ross was concerned. Three months. Less than three months now. She could keep her cool for that long. Then he’d be gone and hopefully never come near her again.

That gave her pause.

Never see Ross again?

Not that she’d thought she ever would. Not after he’d told her he didn’t want anything to do with her ever again, that she was holding him back, and he planned to get on with his life. Without her.

And he had. All too quickly he’d moved on.

Yet, here he was, back in her life, creating emotional havoc.

Just as Cindy was, waiting for an explanation. Any moment her friend would start with the hands-on-hips foot-tapping.

“Look,” Brielle said slowly, hoping to put off the interrogation, “the man annoys me and isn’t someone I’d be interested in. Let’s just leave it at that. Please.”

Cindy considered her a moment, then shrugged. “Okay, for now, but only because your annoyance factor is about to skyrocket anyway.”

Brielle took a deep breath, turned slightly to see Ross headed their way. Great. Her annoyance factor shot into orbit.

“Hey, Brielle, can I talk to you a moment?”

One one thousand. Two one thousand. Three one thousand. If she counted to infinity it wouldn’t calm her Ross-ified nerves.

She could do this. She could be calm, professional. He meant nothing to her. Nothing but a pesky fly she’d like to swat away.

Swat.

“Obviously, you can.”

Perhaps she shouldn’t be so snappy with a physician who was her superior, but she couldn’t help herself. Not so close on the heels of Cindy’s question about Justice.

Her son’s eyes were the exact shade of blue of Ross’s. He had the same strong chin and facial structure. Made expressions that were so similar to Ross’s that at times Brielle’s breath caught and memories pierced her heart.

Justice looked a great deal as Ross must have looked at a similar age. Except that her son had arrived into the world two months early and was small for his age. She couldn’t imagine six-foot-two-inch Ross ever having been anything but big.

“I’m going to go clean Bay One,” Cindy told no one in particular as she fanned her hand over her chest one last time and grinned at Brielle while mouthing, “Hot.”

When they were alone at the nurses’ station, Ross sighed. “Is this how it’s going to be the entire time I’m here?”

“This?” She pretended to have no clue what he referred to.

“You hating me.”

“I don’t hate you.” She didn’t, did she? She just wanted him to go away without disrupting her life further, without disrupting Justice’s life. No way would she let Ross hurt their son the way he’d hurt her.

“Good to know.”

“Don’t let the knowledge go to your head,” she advised, not wanting to encourage him in any way as keeping an emotional distance was difficult enough already. “I may not hate you, but I don’t like you.”