“Oh,nowyou want to know?” I shot back, my voice laced with a healthy dose of exasperation.
He just growled again. And I had to admit, even in my current state of professional jeopardy, it was... oddly compelling.My brain did a little dizzying pirouette, trying to suppress any girlish fluttering.
When he stepped closer, my eyes widened involuntarily.
Damn. I’d never noticed the flecks of gold in his impossibly blue eyes. They were practically molten.
“Cate?” he growled, the single word jolting me back to reality. My inner fan club abruptly shut down.
“Right,” I sputtered, my voice cracking slightly. “So, Megan wanted to learn to surf. And naturally, since she didn’t have a surfboard handy, I thought, ‘What’s the closest thing to a surfboard?’ Naturally, a skateboard. They’re basically the same, right? Just... one has wheels.” I paused, taking a shaky breath. “She was doing great, really.”
“Apparently not,” he stated flatly, his eyes still fixed on me with the intensity of a hawk spotting a particularly foolish mouse. “’Cause she broke her arm.”
“Yeah,” I conceded, my gaze drifting to Megan, who was now happily decorating her cast with a sparkly marker. “That was... a bit of a snag in the plan.”
“A skateboard?” Dr. Lyon’s voice was a low growl, a sound that promised imminent dismemberment. He loomed close to me, his perfectly sculpted eyebrows drawn into a thunderous arch that could rival any storm cloud. The gold flecks in his blue eyes, which moments ago had held a spark of something almost human, were now shards of arctic ice.
And dear gawd almighty, he smelled delicious.
Is that chocolate and cinnamon?
“You thought a skateboard was the closest thing to a surfboard?”
Lightly shaking my head, I groaned internally. In my defense, the surfboard rental shop was closed, and Megan had begged for something “cool” to ride. Improvisation felt like my only option; I’d just wanted to make her happy, not send her tothe ER. As I watched Megan hum, blissfully unaware, my mind raced through possible excuses. None of which seemed remotely convincing under Dr. Lyon’s icy glare.
Oh, right, the possibility of my professional demise was looking more like an inevitability.
I swallowed; the dry air of the emergency room suddenly felt thick enough to choke on. “They’re both boards,” I squeaked, my voice barely a whisper. “And they both... glide?”
The logic, even to my own ears, was as flimsy as a well-worn tissue. But I was desperate, clinging to the flotsam of a terrible decision like a shipwrecked sailor to a piece of driftwood.
Megan, meanwhile, oblivious to the impending doom I was facing, continued to enthusiastically decorate her pink cast, humming a cheerful, off-key tune. The jarring contrast between her happiness and the volcanic eruption building in her father’s gaze only made me feel more exposed.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, a gesture that spoke volumes of his exhaustion and profound disappointment.
“Cate,” he sighed, the sound heavy with the weight of his profession and the sheer absurdity of my explanation. “We need to have a conversation about risk assessment. And possibly about the fundamental principles of physics.” He pulled out his phone, his thumb hovering over the screen. “When we get home, you and I are going to have a very long, very uncomfortable talk about your suitability as a nanny.”
My stomach plummeted.
This was it.
Fired. And probably blacklisted from childcare for the rest of eternity.
