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Emily nodded.
“She’s going to feel like a new person when I’m finished.”
“No doubt.” She met his gaze. “Did you need for one of us to do something for you, Dr. Cain? Because Amy needs to finish giving me report so I can go check on my patients this morning.”
* * *
It didn’t surprise Emily when Lucas showed up again later that day. She was in Cassie’s room and had just finished helping her mother sponge bathe the little girl. They’d just settled her back into her clean hospital bed.
“Hi, Dr. Cain,” Cassie said, smiling at him despite the bandages around her head. “Are you...going...to take my blood?”
He shook his head. “You’re safe from me sticking you.”
“Good, because...I feel...a lot better.” She truly was doing better, but one only had to listen to her speech, watch her hand and arm movements, to know that there were still serious health issues.
“I see that.” He smiled back at the child. “Your color is a lot better than when I was here this morning.”
“Momma says...I can...go to the playroom...soon...if I keep...getting stronger.”
“Hopefully, you’ll be strong enough very soon.”
He ran through a check on Cassie’s cranial nerves, making her smile as he asked her to make the different facial expressions at him. He puffed his cheeks out, waggled his eyebrows, smiled, frowned, furrowed his brow and gritted his teeth back at her with each check, eliciting a giggle from his patient and a smile from Cassie’s mom.
He really was great with Cassie. Amy had been right. Lucas would be a great father. If only... No. Emily absolutely positively was not going to let her mind go there.
Even if her mind had been going there on and off since he’d first shown up at Children’s. How could it not have?
Still, some memories were best never resurrected.
Some parts of the past she just couldn’t deal with.
Not ever again.
Having lived through them the first time had almost killed her.
* * *
“Will you please go to dinner with me tonight?”
Emily bit the inside of her lip. She didn’t want to date Lucas. She wanted... She wasn’t sure what she wanted. Just that she was scared of going to dinner with him. She’d had fun with him at the club, dancing, but overall that experience had just left her feeling raw. Everything about being near him left her feeling vulnerable.
“I promise I won’t bite.”
Her gaze cut to his. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
His lips twitched. “Promises not to bite when I’m in bed don’t count.”
“Says who?”
“Me?”
Despite her misgivings, she laughed. “You’re the final authority on biting?”
“I probably don’t have near enough experience to be the final authority, but if you want to volunteer for me to practice nibbling on, I’m all for upping my game.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“But I’d like to take you to dinner first.”
