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Neither did she have sex with friends.
Or even almost have sex with her friends.
Really, she’d just like to know how it was possible for a man to look at her with fire in his eyes and ice on his tongue? Because his words had bit into her bitterly coldly. Frigidly. Friends.
Fine, if that’s what he wanted, she’d be his friend.
She told herself all these things and more right up until that night, when she was scheduled to work with him.
Then she admitted the truth.
She couldn’t be Dirk’s friend. Not when she felt the way she did about him. If she didn’t protect her heart, she’d end up wearing battle scars from their friendship. Scars that ran so deep she wouldn’t ever recover.
No, she couldn’t be his friend, but somehow she had to be his colleague, his nurse. She had to work with him and be the professional she was. Somehow.
Almost, she called in sick, but her illness had passed, had just been from a morning spent longing for what might have been. So she’d go to work and come face-to-face with a man who seemed determined to be friendly.
Seriously, it was enough to send her stomach into Churnville all over again.
CHAPTER SIX
DIRK hadn’t slept much between ending his emergency call the morning following the Christmas party and reporting back in for a half-shift that evening. How could he when he couldn’t stop thinking about Abby?
She’d agreed to his friend proposal, but he’d seen the hurt in her eyes. The confusion. She didn’t understand.
Why had he let things get so out of control the evening before? Not that Abby had given him much choice. He’d looked into her eyes, heard the truth in her voice when she’d told him she wanted to make love, and he’d ignored all the reasons why they shouldn’t.
Just as he’d ignored the reasons why he shouldn’t have asked her to the Christmas party to begin with. Not that he’d meant to. The invitation had just slipped out of his mouth and she’d looked so happy when she’d said yes, he hadn’t taken the words back.
Just as he hadn’t taken them back when he’d agreed to be her Santa.
Seeing Abby happy did something to him, made him do things he ordinarily wouldn’t do. Made him want things he shouldn’t want.
When he had slept, he’d been haunted by treacherous nightmares. Had they been triggered by attending the Christmas party? Or just by the season he could never escape? Or from walking away from Abby when she was the best thing to enter his life in years?
Regardless, he’d welcomed the evening and the start of his abbreviated—due to the holiday party—shift. Right or wrong, he’d also welcomed seeing Abby again, welcomed everything about her, including the tray of goodies she’d left on the break-room table.
Mostly he just wanted to make sure she was okay. During the night, as they’d worked on patients, he’d felt her gaze on him, felt her studying him, trying to see beneath his surface. If she only knew what darkness lay beneath, in the depths of his soul, she’d have turned away, never wanting to look again.
If he wasn’t careful, he was going to hurt Abby.
That and that alone should accomplish what he hadn’t previously had the willpower to do.
He would ignore the attraction between them before he hurt her. Otherwise he’d end up taking every drop of sweetness from her and leaving her with nothing more than a barren tree with a few empty hangers where shiny ornaments had once glistened.
Abby deserved fullness of life, color and brightness, glittery packages, and tinsel, and twinkling lights. All the things he wasn’t.
Having finished with the patient he had been tending, he stepped into the next bay, pausing in mid-step. Abby was cleaning the room, preparing for the next patient. She had to know he stood there, but she didn’t look up to acknowledge him.
He turned to go, but the fact she ignored him irked.
She’d been polite all evening, courteous when discussing a patient. But other than regarding a patient, she hadn’t spoken a word to him.
He didn’t like it. They were friends, right?
“I saw you’d brought more goodies.” He’d snagged a couple from the rapidly disappearing tray. “Those haystack things were great.”
She nodded, not looking up from where she spread out a clean sheet. “I always bring lots of goodies this time of year. It’s tradition.”
