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“We could check…” He hesitated and she wondered if he regretted his words even before they’d completely left his lips.
“If it wouldn’t be a bother.”
He didn’t meet her eyes. “No bother.”
Chelsea followed him to his office, surprised he’d offered when he seemed so antagonistic toward her. Perhaps he was afraid she was going to throw herself at him like she’d done all those years ago. She wouldn’t, of course. Sure, being near him gave her those same throw-caution-to-the-wind urges, but she’d matured, gained some experience with the opposite sex. She wouldn’t make a fool of herself again.
Jared stood beside his desk and clicked his computer mouse, bringing up the home screen. Chelsea used the moment to glance around his office.
Plain, uncomplicated, and to the point. No personal items other than the award and acknowledgment certificates framed on the wall. Already her office had more of her than this room reflected of its owner.
Then again, maybe he liked keeping things simple and the minimalist look worked for him.
“I’ve got a couple of different programs, but if we can’t find what you need, the Internet is sure to have something.”
Chelsea’s gaze returned to him, going over the lean lines of his body. Time had been good to Jared. Too good. If possible, she thought he was even more handsome now than he’d been ten years ago, but there was something different, something missing from his eyes. The happy twinkle she’d grown to love that spring break. Instead, Jared’s eyes only shone with a deep inner sadness that she suspected many failed to see.
“I appreciate this,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat. She had to stop thinking of Jared as a martyr or as a pinup poster. Just because he looked like a brooding pinup model, it didn’t give her the right to keep mentally ogling him. Wasn’t that what women were known to complain about happening to them? Personally, Chelsea could go for a little visual ogling from time to time, just to boost her battered ego, but she digressed.
Jared was her colleague, her coworker, and her brother’s best friend. For her to embarrass them both by throwing herself at him again would just be wrong. Plus, her attraction to him would make their professional relationship strained. She’d worked too hard to get her degree, to have the career she dreamed of, to let misplaced hormones rob her future.
“Ah.?
? He glanced over his shoulder to indicate she should check out what he’d pulled up on his computer monitor. “This what you’re looking for?”
Chelsea skimmed the form. “Perfect.”
He clicked the mouse again, and the page shot out of his printer. “Here. If you run across something else you need and can’t find it, let me know. Patient education is important.”
“Yes.” She took the offered printout and glanced at it without really seeing the diagrams and words. “Thank you, Jared.”
“You’re welcome.” An awkward moment passed where they stared at each other, not speaking, just locking gazes. He looked away, swiped his palms over his pants, then closed the computer program. “Got to get back to my patients.”
“Right.”
They both stepped out into the hallway.
“Oh, there you are!” Leslie, a bubbly nurse practitioner who worked in the clinic, saw Chelsea and bounded up to give her a quick hug. “Sorry I missed you this morning.” Her gaze swerved for a second. “I got a late start, but no matter. I’ve been hoping to catch sight of you all morning.” She flashed a smile at Jared. “You, too, actually.”
Jared’s brow rose, but he didn’t comment.
“Will, Jennifer and I want the entire office to go out tonight for dinner to celebrate Chelsea’s first day.”
Chelsea opened her mouth to say she’d love to, but was frozen in place by Jared’s arctic attitude. She inwardly sighed.
“I’m busy,” he said.
Fighting frostbite, Chelsea tried not to let his words hurt her. It wasn’t as if she’d really expected him to want to have a relationship with her. Sure, she’d dreamed, but in reality even her dreams had only been private fantasies. Even to have a fling with Jared meant baring her soul, her back. Letting someone as beautiful as Jared see her marred flesh was not going to happen.
“Busy?” Leslie’s gaze narrowed as she eyed him curiously. “Jennifer is on call for the hospital, but amazingly the rest of us have the evening off. We won’t get a better opportunity than this evening for us all to get together, and you know it.”
Chelsea could almost see Jared’s brain whirling, trying to get out of the dinner. Did he plan to avoid her as much as possible?
He’d managed quite well over the past ten years and hadn’t been there on any of the occasions when she’d visited her brother. He’d even gone out of the country for six weeks during the time she had been officially hired.
“Come on, Jared,” Leslie coaxed. “No flavor of the month is more important than business.”
Flavor of the month? Heat rushed into Chelsea’s cheeks and her fingers gripped the printout she held so tightly the edges crinkled.
