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‘You never even gave it a chance!’ Gemma exclaimed.
‘That’s because, right now, my idea of a bit of no-strings, no-hassle fun would be curling up in a big comfy chair with a hot chocolate and a good book.’
Before she could stop it, another image of Logan flitted into her head. What were the odds that she would ‘be feeling it’ if it was with him?
‘Geez, Kat, how old are you?’ berated Gemma good-naturedly. ‘Thirty-two or seventy-two?’
‘It isn’t good, is it?’ Kat admitted.
‘It’s a damned disgrace,’ her friend teased.
But anything more they might have said was cut short by the sound of the emergency doors swishing open and EMTs racing in a gurney, and Gemma dashed off quickly, leaving Kat to wait for her porter.
* * *
She spent the last couple of hours of her shift busying herself with ferrying patients, booking in new arrivals, taking bloodwork, putting in IV lines and fluids, and administering medications. She cleaned up a knife wound from a kitchen accident, ready for suturing, and prepped a woman with shortness of breath and respiratory distress for a chest X-ray. And she restocked her assigned rooms.
All of it doing frustratingly little to shake thoughts of Logan from her brain. She couldn’t erase that intensi
ty of his gaze from her mind. And when she thought of the way he’d conducted that frank assessment of her—even if it had only lasted for a moment—her body felt as though it couldn’t decide whether it was too hot or too cold.
He’d got to her in way no one else had in a long, long time.
Ever, a voice whispered, before she stamped it out quickly.
Which was why dating guys as decent as Chris from Orthopaedics ought to be the perfect antidote to the commitment of her past life, before she’d dropped her entire life to move to Seattle—a city where no one knew her. Or her story.
Casual dates and girls’ nights out. All the things she’d never done—or wanted to do—as a foster mom.
So why wasn’t it as easy and fun as it sounded like it should be?
Why was Logan Connors the first thing to make her feel something—anything—in almost a year?
It was nonsense.
Maybe she could go for a run when her shift ended here tonight? Clear her head and train for the charity Santa Run she’d entered last month—another activity she was pushing herself to do now that she was alone, with time on her hands.
Anything to stop her from going around in circles in her mind.
* * *
The little boy came out of nowhere near the end of Kat’s training run in the park, the glint of the winter sun off the distant Seattle Space Needle almost blinding her so that when he raced out of the bushes, only to stop dead as he saw her hurtling down the path, she almost didn’t spot him.
With a startled cry she leapt over him, like she’d somehow entered a steeplechase when she hadn’t been paying attention, twisting around to ensure he wasn’t hurt.
‘Are you okay, sweetheart?’
Glancing around for a parent or guardian, Kat crouched down beside him. He couldn’t have been much more than about four, with a shock of black, curly hair and rich, dark eyes that brimmed with tears as he cast his gaze around wildly.
‘Where’s your mommy?’
He shook his head, still searching past her.
‘You don’t know?’ Kat interpreted, tilting her head to the side to try to get his attention. He strained to keep looking past her, but she tilted her head again. Reluctantly, his eyes alighted on her.
‘Don’t have a mommy,’ he told her. ‘Want Nana.’
The words walloped into her chest, landing a direct hit and winding her. How was fate so cruel? Kids like this who didn’t have a mommy, and people like her who desperately wanted to be a mommy. For a long moment she couldn’t reply. Then he turned his frantic gaze on her.
