Free Critical Care by Candace Calvert Page B

knew,
probably didn't even actually like, and then start imagining what
it would be like to ...
    "I wasn't trying to kiss you," he said, breaking the silence.
    Oh, Lord, help me. "What? Oh ... I wasn't thinking that." Claire
forced herself to look at him, to stop panicking. He was a doctor,
not a mind reader.
    "You were ... You sat on a chicken."
    "I ... well . . ." Claire sputtered helplessly for a moment and
then struggled futilely against a surge of laughter.
    "Frankly," Logan said, watching her laugh, "I'm insulted by
that. Traumatized maybe. Yes." His voice faltered, slowly dissolving
into deep laughter that blended with hers. "I might ... need ...
counseling."
    She threw the sushi. He ducked.
    They laughed together for a few more moments. When the silence came back, it was still awkward to Claire but different somehow. She stood and hugged her poncho around herself as the afternoon breeze rustled the pines around them. Somewhere in the
distance, there was the tinkling laughter of children. A dog barked.

    "Not that I didn't want to kiss you," Logan said barely above
a whisper. His eyes were serious, but he made no attempt to move
toward her. "Just wanted that on the record." He glanced down
at his watch. "And now it looks like I should get you back to the
fairgrounds."
    Thank heaven.
    He sighed like he was about to ask something to which he
already knew the answer. "And maybe convince you to stick
around for the band. A little country two-stepping? I'm not very
good, but ..."
    "No, I'd better not," Claire said in a rush. "I've got some things
to do before work tomorrow."
    "I thought so," he said, finally crossing the short distance to
stand in front of her. "You'll be in the education department, and
I'll be way over in the ER."
    "Right," she said, telling herself it was so much better that way.
That it was the only way it could be. "But I want to thank you for
my daffodils. Seeing them today meant more than you can know."
Ever, ever know. A lump rose in her throat without warning, and this
time Claire was helpless to resist hugging him.
    Logan's arms closed around her tentatively as if he knew there
was a line he couldn't cross. His chest was warm and solid against
her cheek, and Claire could hear the muffled thudding of his heart.
For one crazy moment the world felt right again. "No problem,"
he whispered, his chin brushing the top of her head. "And I want
to thank you for ... the afternoon."

    Claire closed her eyes, feeling the comfort of his warmth against
her. Then she moved away.

    Smokey dragged a piece of reheated chicken enchilada from his
bowl and ate it under the kitchen table, growling low in his throat.
He watched Claire warily.
    "Great manners," she told him. "See if I bring you any leftover
sushi next time." She sighed. Except there wasn't going to be a next
time. Couldn't be.
    She'd wrestled with the idea all the way home tonight after
Logan drove her back to the fairgrounds and dropped her off in the
parking lot. She'd driven Kevin's SUV to Kevin's house and then
took a long run before the sun set on her brother's beloved foothills. She let the endorphins replace whatever she'd felt in Logan's
arms.
    Ever since she'd been called back to the ER, her plan for a
peaceful new life had begun to erode into confusion and chaos.
There were flashbacks the first time she walked into the Sierra
Mercy trauma room, followed by that awful sense of suffocation
at the CISM debriefing. She'd battled sleeplessness and nightmares
almost nightly since.
    Now there was Logan Caldwell, the source of the worst confusion of all. When Claire was around him, her usually wellcontrolled emotions got the best of her. There was that strange,
prickly anger that seemed to go deeper than mere advocacy for the
nursing staff, a raw new awareness of her loneliness, and-worst of
all-an unbearably painful need for ... hope. Hope that it might
be possible to feel good again. That happiness could