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“Those are the good days when you know you’ve helped someone,” she said.
There were also days when you felt like the heavens had opened and were pulling everyone you tried to save away from Earth. Where no matter what you did, your patient died. Those days, she hated.
With a shiver, she tried to erase what had happened today from her mind. Time to think of something more pleasant. Something that told her more about Noah.
“Tell me your favorite Christmas memory,” she said, changing the subject to get their minds off of the elderly woman.
There was a moment of silence. “I was maybe seven and I’d asked Santa to bring me a bicycle. All the kids in the neighborhood had one but me. My mother told me that she treated too many children who had broken bones from bicycles. She was not going to buy me one, so I asked Santa.”
“What kind of doctor was your mother?”
“A pediatrician,” he said. “And so was my father, though he did more general medicine. He was more of a family doctor.”
Now she remembered that they had a medical practice together until the divorce. He’d mentioned that one time, but he never talked much about his family. Suddenly she recalled his mother had committed suicide and Noah had been so upset to think he hadn’t seen the signs of her distress.
But she wasn’t going to mention that now.
“So did Santa deliver?”
He laughed. “One day my father and I were talking and he wanted to know what I asked for from Santa. I remember that conversation like it was yesterday. I told him that all the other kids in the neighborhood had bikes and Mother told me I couldn’t have one. So I asked Santa to bring me one.”
She felt him tense against her. “Years later, he told me that was Christmas Eve. Somehow he slipped out and purchased a bike before the stores closed. After my mother went to bed, he stayed up late and put it together. The next morning, I was so excited. Santa had delivered a bike to me. Later that night, I heard my parents fighting, but I didn’t know about what. That’s what their fight was about. My father had gone against my mother’s wishes and purchased me a bike without her knowledge.”
While Hannah could understand his mother wanting to keep her child safe, all kids loved bikes. And yes, she’d treated her fair number of broken bones in the ER from kids who’d fallen off their bikes. But that was part of life. Kids took chances, and sometimes they paid the price.
“Did you ever get hurt riding your bike?”
“Yes, but I never told my mother. I fell off and skinned my knees up really bad. I told my father and he doctored me up. We kept it our secret. We often kept secrets from my mother. She loved me, but she knew too many dangers and tried to protect me.”
Noah had stopped shivering. She rolled over and gazed into those blue eyes that had her own heart skipping a beat.
“You and your father are close,” she said.
“Yes, and I’m happy that he’s found someone who makes him happy. Though he and my mother divorced, I always thought he still loved her, and I think he even tried to take care of her. Though life was better after he and mother split,” he said. “There wasn’t as much screaming and yelling in the house.”
She couldn’t imagine living with a parent who screamed and yelled. She’d never met his mother, but she’d never forget the night the woman killed herself. An overdose of pills. No one had found her until it was too late. But maybe now she was at peace.
His mouth descended on hers and he rolled over top of her. Their mouths came apart and he took her wrists into his hands and raised her arms above her head.
“Is there something you want, Dr. Noah?”
“You,” he said. “I want to be inside you.”
A smile came over her. “Then you’re going to have to work for it. Show me how much you want me.”
He chuckled. “My pleasure.”
CHAPTER10
She lifted her mouth to his and he met her halfway. It was a kiss of desperation and longing, and it took Noah completely by surprise. Her mouth covered his, moving over his lips, seeking comfort he was more than willing to give. While they dealt with death on an everyday basis, sometimes you were still shocked at how quickly it could come.
Noah was eager to soothe and remind her she was still alive. What they had done today was a good deed. Once again, they’d beaten death and that felt good.
Lying on top of her, he could feel the crush of Hannah’s breasts against him and the scent of honeysuckle enveloped him. Holding her hands in his, her arms raised above her head, his mouth ravished hers, demanding she surrender, wanting her to feel the passion flowing through him.
Releasing her hands, he pushed her sweater up, needing to feel her breasts in his hands.
She moaned, the sound encouraging him as her hands reached beneath his shirt and she let her fingernails gently rake his skin. Their lips broke apart and he rose enough to yank his sweater over his head. Hannah leaned up and he removed her sweater, leaving her bra.
