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Realizing her mistake, Addy faked a yawn and skipped ahead to Blair’s mid-size four-door sedan. When Blair punched the remote entry, unlocking the door, Addy climbed in and began buckling herself into a child safety seat.
“Blair, about earlier,” he began, speaking quietly in deference to the little girl who’d taken her video game out of her bag and chatted to her virtual pet.
Blair stepped back, not looking at him. “It was no big deal. Forget it happened.”
Despite having just told himself the same thing, he didn’t like Blair’s quick denial. She was treating him as if he were a lecherous creep and her disdain annoyed him.
“Wasn’t it?” he challenged.
Her teeth sank into her lower lip. “We both know you’re an incurable flirt. What happened didn’t mean a thing. Like I said, no big deal.” She glanced toward where Addy played her game. “I need to go.”
An incurable flirt? Blair’s words stung. She made it sound as if he were diseased and condemned. Maybe he was. After all, wasn’t that exactly how his mother had thought of his father? Like father, like son. Wasn’t that what she always said?
“Fine,” he bit out, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Not if I see you first,” she muttered under her breath.
She moved to Addy and checked to make sure the seat’s safety catches were properly latched.
“Bye, Dr Oz.” Addy waved, fighting back a yawn.
Oz’s diseased and condemned heart squeezed. “Bye, Pipsqueak.”
Blair closed the door, climbed into her car and drove away.
He raked his fingers through his hair, watching the taillights disappear into the night.
If he lived to a hundred, he wouldn’t forget the feel of Blair’s warm skin beneath his fingers, wouldn’t forget the softness, the fullness, the way she’d stared into his eyes while he’d cupped her face.
Deep down he’d always wondered what touching Blair would feel like.
Now he knew and wished like hell he didn’t.
CHAPTER THREE
“TELL me again that I’m imagining something between you and Dr Manning,” Kanesha insisted the next morning. “Because I was at lunch yesterday and saw how you two looked at each other. The way you two always look at each other.”
“You’re imagining that there’s something between Dr Manning and me.” Blair didn’t glance up at the cardiac unit’s nursing director. Why should she when Kanesha might see guilt in her eyes?
“Yes, I am.” Kanesha fanned her face. “And my thoughts are hot, hot, hot. You go, girl.”
“There’s nothing between us except a mutual love for Dr Talbot.” Her friend was going to think what she wanted, regardless of anything Blair said. There wasn’t anything between her and Oz. An almost kiss from the night before most certainly didn’t count.
Kenesha glanced down the hallway. “Speaking of hot.”
Don’t look up. Don’t look up.
Blair looked up.
And clashed gazes with Oz.
Her heart pounded against her rib cage. Why was he looking at her like that? That almost kiss hadn’t meant anything.
“Uh-huh. It’s all in my imagination,” Kanesha snorted. “Nothing at all going on between the two of you. That’s why he’s looking at you like you’re the sweetest lollipop he’s ever seen and he wants to see how many licks it takes to get to the center of Blair Pendergrass.”
“Shh.” Cheeks blazing at the images Kanesha’s words elicited, Blair frowned at the nursing director. It wasn’t as if she needed her friend putting ideas in her head. Hadn’t her own dreams betrayed her the night before? Filling her sleep with images of Oz? Of his magical fingers? Of that almost kiss? Thank God Stephanie had interrupted. Too bad her alarm clock hadn’t followed suit. “He’ll hear you.”
“Hear what?” Oz asked, stepping up to the nurses’ station, his gaze still locked onto Blair.
