Page 64 of Guarding Over You
“I can. I might. You could do the same too. She really likes you.”
“I like her too,” he said. “Maybe a walk one night while she rides her bike? No worries about me working late since I’m off.”
“I’d like that. And you need to get back to work before you get backed up. Now we know why people say the ER is slow.”
“It’s not for this reason,” he said, his hand just itching to reach for hers, but he knew better. Not here. Not yet, at least.
“I know, just picking on you. If you had your way, you’d get them in and out as quickly as possible.”
“Always. Have a good rest of the day if I don’t talk to you again.”
They probably wouldn’t, no matter how much he wanted to reach out.
He hadn’t yesterday but sent her a text when he had a minute on Saturday to check on her. To see if she was hanging in there.
The last thing he wanted was her to regret opening up to him, letting him see her insecurities and vulnerabilities.
Or maybe it had more to do with him not wanting to regret opening up just as much and wanted to get an idea of what she’d thought of it.
She’d replied to him hours later, she’d been running around with Gracie outside playing, then sent him a picture. Just Arden and Gracie close up sticking out their tongues. He’d bet that wasn’t like her, but enough that it gave him a hint that she was doing better.
Or was just great at hiding it.
Saturday at least, he’d heard them outside playing and running around when he was sitting on his patio before he’d gone to dinner with the rest of his family and the wedding party. He caught sight of Gracie once going past the fences, but she hadn’t seen him. He’d waved though, trying to get her attention.
Kind of smacked of desperate to him after, sitting there pining for Arden and her daughter’s attention.
For a guy that’d never been clingy a day in his life, he might be bordering on it.
But he kept telling himself it was more than that. He wasn’t so sure how he felt about this woman who’d sent the gift to Gracie without Billy even knowing. He wanted Tina’s last name, but even Arden hadn’t known it and she said she wouldn’t ask or bring it up again until she saw Julie for the visitation on Saturday.
He watched her walk out the doors, and he went back to his patients.
An hour later, he was at the nurse’s station. Maddy, Erika, and Steven were at their stations and typing notes also. It wasn’t so busy he couldn’t stop, especially with Maddy waving him over.
“Yes, Maddy,” he said.
“I haven’t chatted with you lately. And then you won’t be back until Saturday by the looks of it.”
“Not unless someone else isn’t around or needs to change,” he said.
Maddy still had a massive grin on her face. “Not even hoping to see Arden again?”
He laughed. “I don’t take shifts for the off chance of that.”
“What’s going on with you two?” Erika asked.
“Not much,” he said.
“Doesn’t seem it to us,” Maddy said. “Not just the three of us, but others have said it too. That you two are talking a lot and not just seen at lunch together a few times.”
“Twice,” he said. “I’m hardly in there and only once did we sit together. I hadn’t realized so many people were watching me.”
“A hot young man like you,” Steven said. “Everyone is watching.”
“Don’t get your boyfriend jealous,” he said to Steven. “He’s bigger than me.”
Steven wiggled his shoulders. “I like them big.”
