Free NYC Angels: Flirting with Danger by Tina Beckett Page A

wouldn’t show if he told her?
    Cade said his goodbyes, saying he needed to go scrub for the upcoming surgery.
    Brad glanced down at her with a raised brow. “WhenI couldn’t find you, I thought something might have happened.” Before she could ask what he meant, he continued, “Something like Travis showing up.”
    Ah, that explained it. Even so, she couldn’t stop the little jump in her stomach that he’d cared enough to keep track of where she was—had been afraid she might need to be rescued.
    She did. But only from herself, evidently.
    “Are you really going to let me observe?”
    “If you want to.” He nodded in the direction Cade had gone. “I had to give him a reason for calling you out of the blue.”
    The jump in her stomach turned into a pogo stick, bouncing between happiness with Brad and irritation with herself.
    “I’d love to watch.”
    “Okay. I’d planned on observing as well, so I’ll take you up. We can grab some coffee on the way.” He started toward the elevators. “I hope I didn’t disturb anything by calling you.”
    “Nope. Just sitting across the street on a bench.”
    He nodded. “I’ve been known to do that myself from time to time.”
    He had? Something in her wondered if he might have sat on the same bench she had. The thought caused that crazy pogo stick to land squarely on the happiness side of the equation.
    “I’ve already had coffee,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t have another cup.”
    “We’ll go straight up, then.”
    The ride in the elevator seemed to take for ever this time. Chloe strained to find something to talk about. “How’s the mother handling the news?”
    He scrubbed a hand along his jaw. “She’d alreadyarmed herself with information, so she knew this was a possibility.”
    “No, I mean how’s she
handling
it?”
    His hand fell to his side and he smiled. “You always were a softie.”
    “Yeah? Well, someone has to be.”
    “Mom is hanging in there. I think her husband is more scared than she is.” He tweaked her hair. “And I always knew your soft outer layer hid a will of iron.”
    If only he knew. That iron core she’d once possessed was now pitted with rust and corrosion. One more hard kick and it would fall apart completely. Which was why she had to be careful with Brad. That kiss had taken its toll on her.
    Was still taking its toll.
    Brad would never knowingly hurt her, though. Not if he could help it.
    But what if he couldn’t? What if she, despite all her best efforts, turned out to be her own worst enemy?

CHAPTER TEN
    A MOVIE THEATER without the popcorn.
    The thought went through Chloe’s mind as Brad guided her to the first row of seats in the observation room. Angel’s was a teaching hospital so it stood to reason that there would be a room like this one, but she was surprised by how big it was, the transparent glass in front of them stretching from side to side like a giant screen.
    No one else was in there but them at the moment, and Chloe found herself torn between wishing others would join them and hoping they wouldn’t.
    “Can they hear us?”
    “Only if I turn on the system. It would be distracting to the surgeon if he could hear everything that went on in this room.”
    The words bought things to mind that made a wave of heat wash up Chloe’s neck and collect behind her cheeks. Surely he’d never—
    “The glass is two-way, though. We can see out and they can see in.”
    Was he setting her mind at ease or giving her a subtle warning not to get any ideas about practicing her flirting?
    No fear of that. Her soul still showed the scorchmarks from the last episode. Brad was way out of her league. While he could brush off that kiss and never think about it again, she was having some serious problems putting that chapter behind her.
    What had she been thinking to suggest it in the first place? All Brad had to do was look at her sideways, and her heart started thumping like a jackrabbit’s back leg when danger