Free Nickolas-1 by Kathi S. Barton

like he was a slab of meat on a hook. She looked at him like that too.
    She was pretty enough, he supposed, with her bottle dark hair and full lips, but she wasn’t...he didn’t want to think about what she wasn’t. But she wasn’t, not at all. He’d been thinking about redheads a lot lately. Not that Morgan had anything to do with it. He’d always liked red heads, with their creamy skin, and her freckles across...their freckles, not hers. Freckles across the nose were a natural on redheads, not just on Morgan. Damned woman, it was all her fault he couldn’t get laid.
    “I’m fine.” He realized he’d barked at her when she looked at him with raised eyebrows. Byron was giving him the same look. He turned to find Damon.
    People were reading too much into everything he’d done lately.
    “Damon, you about ready to go?” He started to rub his chest again and stopped short. He’d been told if he didn’t have any more flare ups, he could have a regular dinner tomorrow. He was not ruining that now.
    “Dr. Grant there’s a woman on the...oh, hello, Dr. Grant. Happy Thanksgiving! Hummm... there’s a woman on the phone, says she has a piece of glass in her foot and can’t get it out. Want me to transfer it in here?” Tansy Bell was the oldest woman working for Damon, and the most dedicated too.
    “A piece of glass? Tell her how to get it out and then to glue it shut if it’s bigger than half an inch long,” Damon told Tansy without bothering to look up from what he was doing.
    Nick sat across from his brother’s desk when Tansy shut the office door.
    Damon was still filling out charts and said he’d only be a few more minutes.
    “Glue it shut? That’s a new one. Just use regular old Elmer’s?” Nicky leaned up and took a cigar out of the box on his desk as he spoke. He didn’t light it up, really didn’t like to smoke them, but the smell ... ahhhh, that was ambrosia to him.
    “No, super glue. It works pretty well on smaller cuts. It cleans the wound, too, with the eucalyptus in it. They’ve been using it at the hospital for years. Get your feet off my desk, you heathen.” They both turned to the door when Tansy popped back in.
    “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s Ms. Becky. She said that she doesn’t have any tweezers and she doesn’t think that will work anyway. She has the glue, but she just can’t get it out. Want me to go up and help her? She’s such a nice little thing.” She already had her coat on and they could hear the others leaving as well. Nick looked at Damon and sighed.
    “I’ll go up and take care of her. You go on home, Tansy, and you”—he pointed at Damon—“had better be ready when I get back.” Nick took the stairs two at a time and was looking forward to blasting the perfect Ms. Becky. How she could not get a sliver of glass out of her foot was beyond him. He stopped suddenly, unless she was trying to make her move toward Damon. Nah, Damon wasn’t her type. She’d be more...well, his type if he was looking for a woman, which he wasn’t.
    By the time he got to her door, he had worked himself up into quite a snit.
    He had her moving in with Damon and having Devin’s love child and raising Meggie, Spencer’s little girl, all at the same time. When he found the door partly open, he threw it back against the wall with enough force to knock a picture off the opposite wall. He knew the moment the sound reverberated in the room that he shouldn’t have done it. Everything about her screamed for him to protect her, but all he could seem to do was push her away.
    “Morgan Becky, where the hell are you, and why is your door open for just any one to walk in?” When she came through the door from the kitchen, he nearly swallowed his tongue. Christ, where the hell did she think she was going dressed like that?
    “Where’s your brother, the doctor? The real doctor. I want him to come up and fix this.” He stalked toward her and noticed that she’d been crying.
    “He’s busy,