Sizzling

“The chili?” a woman in a white uniform asked.

“Has to go.” Lori pointed to the list she’d posted on the refrigerator. “This is a woman in her seventies. She’s had a heart attack and surgery on a broken hip. She’s on medication. I said tasty, but not spicy. We want to encourage her to eat, but she may still have stomach issues from all the medication. She doesn’t need to lose weight, so that’s not a problem. Healthy, tempting dishes. Not chili, not sushi, nothing fancy.”

She’d been so specific on the phone, too, she thought with minor exasperation.

Still, she would prevail and when the details were handled, she would stop at Dilettante Chocolates for a little something. Chocolate always brightened her day.

“You could beat them. That would get their attention.”

That voice. Lori didn’t have to turn around to know who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen. They’d only met once, at her interview. During the twenty-minute session, she discovered it was possible to be desperately attracted to someone she despised. Everything about him was burned into her brain, including the sound of his voice. For a moment, it made her consider a lobotomy.

She braced herself for the impact of the dark, knowing eyes, the handsome-but-just-shy-of-too-handsome face and the casual slouch that should have annoyed the heck out of her, but instead made her want to melt like a twelve-year-old at a Jesse McCartney concert.

Reid Buchanan was everything she disliked in a man. He’d always had it easy, so nothing had value. Women threw themselves at him. He’d had a brilliant career playing baseball, although she’d never followed sports and didn’t know any details. And he’d never once in his entire life bothered with a woman as ordinary as her.

“Don’t you have something better to do than just show up and annoy me?” she asked as she turned toward him.

Her reaction to his physical presence was immediate. She found it difficult to breathe, let alone think.

“Annoying you is an unexpected bonus,” he said, “but not the reason I’m here. My grandmother’s coming home today.”

“I know that. I arranged it.”

“I thought I’d stop by to visit her.”

“I’m sure knowing you stopped by four hours before she was due home will brighten her day so much that the healing process will be cut in half.”

She pushed past him, ignoring the quick brush of her arm against his and the humiliating burst of heat that ignited inside her. She was pathetic. No, she was worse than pathetic—one day she would grow enough to achieve pathetic and that would be a victory.

“She won’t be here until this afternoon?” he asked as he followed her back into the library.

“Unfortunately, no. But it was thrilling to see you. So sorry you can’t stay.”

He leaned against the door frame. He did that a lot. He must know how good he looked doing it, Lori thought grimly. No doubt he practiced at home.

She knew Reid was shallow and selfish and only interested in women as perfect as himself, so why was she attracted to him? She was intelligent. She should know better. And she did…in her head. It was the rest of her that was the problem.

She was a total and complete cliché—a smart, average-looking woman pining after the unobtainable. The bookstores probably contained an entire shelf of self-help books dedicated to her condition. If she believed in self-help books, she could go get herself healed.

As it was, she was stuck with enduring.

“Don’t you have to go away?” she asked.

“For now, but I’ll be back.”

“I’ll count the hours.”

“You do that.” He stayed where he was, apparently unmovable.

“What?” she asked. “Are we waiting for something?”

He smiled, a slow, sexy smile that caused her heart to actually skip a beat. It was a new low.

“You don’t read the paper, do you?” he asked.

“No. I go running in the morning and I listen to music.”

The smile brightened. “Good. I’ll see you later.”

“You could wait until the evening nurse shows up and visit then. Wouldn’t that be a great plan?”

“But then you’d miss me. Snarling at me is the best part of your day. ‘Bye, Lori.”

And then he was gone.

“YOU’RE GLORIA BUCHANAN’S home-care nurse?” the woman at the main nurses’ station asked. “Oh, honey, you have my sympathy.”

Lori was far more interested in getting her patient home and settled than chatting with the rehab facility staff, but she knew the importance of getting as much information as she could up front. The more she knew, the better plan she could develop.

“Cranky from the pain?” Lori asked as she glanced at the name tag on the other woman’s scrubs top. “That’s fairly typical. As she heals, her mood will improve.”

“I don’t think so. She’s more than cranky,” Vicki said. “Miserable. She complains constantly. She hates her room, the food, her treatments, the staff, the sheets, the temperature, the weather. Let me tell you, we’re all so grateful to get her out of here.” Vicki leaned close. “If you have another job offer, take it. Even if it pays less. Trust me, whatever you’re making, it’s not enough.”

Lori was used to patients who were frustrated by their condition. “I’ll be fine.”

“You’ve already met her?”

“Ah, no.”

It was Lori’s practice to visit her patients before bringing them home. Establishing a good working relationship ahead of time often smoothed the transition process. However both times she’d stopped by the rehab facility to meet Gloria, she’d been told that Mrs. Buchanan was refusing all visitors. Calling ahead to make an appointment hadn’t changed the fact.

Vicki shook her head. “It’s your funeral, hon. You haven’t met anyone like this woman before. But that’s for you to decide. I’ve made copies of her chart. She’s already signed out by the doctor. He was as happy to get rid of her as the rest of us. She had her lawyer call and threaten to pull his license—twice. I hope they’re paying you a lot.”

They were, which was why Lori had taken the job. She was saving up so that she could take a few months off next year. But even without the high pay, she would have kept the job—just to prove everyone wrong about Gloria Buchanan.

Lori took the thick folder. “She’s making progress with her physical therapy?”

“If the screaming is anything to go by.” Vicki sighed. “Yes, she’s healing. We took x-rays of the broken hip yesterday and she looks good. The heart attack was minor, the blockage is gone and with her new medication, she should live another twenty years…God help us.”

Lori knew very little about Gloria personally. Researching her, she’d discovered that the woman had been widowed at a young age. She’d taken a single restaurant and, during a time when women were more likely to either stay home or be school-teachers, created an empire. Gloria’s only son had died in his early thirties and his wife had been killed in a car accident a few years later.

Despite what must have been overwhelming grief, Gloria had taken in her four grandchildren and raised them herself, all the while managing four restaurants. Anyone who had suffered that much had earned the right to be a little difficult.

“I’ll go introduce myself, then,” Lori said. “The ambulance is already here to transport her home. I’ll pick up the paperwork on the way out.”

Vicki nodded. “Sure thing. I’ll be right here. Good luck.”

Lori waved and walked toward Gloria’s room.