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Joni’s jaw dropped. “They told you all that?”
“What can I say? Apparently, they like me.”
Good thing she didn’t have enemies.
“They don’t know you like I do,” she quipped.
“True,” he admitted, taking the last of the cakes out of the box and arranging it just so on the table. “And you don’t know me anywhere near as well as you’re going to. Now, where do we start?”
Joni started to argue with him that she didn’t want to know him better, but what was the point? He would just flash that smile of his and keep right on going.
“Fine,” she acquiesced, just ready to get this enforced time with him done and over with. “Carry this box over to the middle of that section and we’ll lay out our cake-walk squares. I checked earlier and all twenty-four squares are there. We just have to get them laid out in an eye-pleasing way.”
“Eye-pleasing, eh?”
“Grant—”
“I know, I know, get to work. Such a control-freak slave-driver.” He picked up the box and began doing her bidding one cake-walk square at a time while she pretended not to notice how his jeans hugged his behind and thighs in a way that made her want to moan.
Great. Just shoot her now, because tonight was going to be a long, torturous night.
Punching the Play button on the old-fashioned boombox being used for the cake walk’s sound system, Grant grinned at his cute assistant who held the container full of numbered cards.
Apparently loving the festivities, Joni had been smiling all evening. Well, all except for when she looked directly at him.
Then she frowned. But only a few times since he’d first arrived and caught her off guard. Good, he liked catching her off guard because then she didn’t have time to slide that masked expression into place.
Not that she’d masked her expression much tonight.
Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she was having fun. A lot of fun. With him.
So was he. With her.
How long since he’d felt this attracted to a woman? This relaxed? Years, thanks to Ashley. Why had he let her take over his life so? Well, he knew why. Staying with her had been easier than dealing with the drama of breaking up.
But sometimes love wasn’t enough. In Ashley’s case that had held true. Or maybe he hadn’t been enough. Definitely not enough to keep her away from the demons that drove her.
Grant pulled his mind back to the present, determined not to let the past drag him down, not tonight. Not ever again. He’d moved to Bean’s Creek to make a new start. He’d needed to make a fresh start. He had, right down to meeting Joni and knowing he wanted more than just a co-worker relationship with her. Knowing he wanted more than just friendship with her but proceeding with caution because he didn’t want to end up right back in a similar relationship he’d been in with Ashley.
What he wanted was to peel off those snug jeans and kiss his way down the curve of Joni’s hips, the lushness of her thighs, the tonedness of her calves, right down to the arch of her foot. Was she ticklish? Would she squirm free from his embrace, giggling and retaliating with touches and kisses of her own? Or would she simply moan in pleasure?
He closed his eyes, swallowed. Hard. If he didn’t get his mind on the job at hand and off Joni, he was going to be hard. He was about halfway there already. More than halfway.
“Grant?”
His gaze went to Joni’s expectant one. She was so beautiful, so full of verve, so tempting. “Hmm?”
Brows drawn tight, she gave him a pointed look. “Don’t you think the music has gone long enough this round?”
Grant grimaced. He’d forgotten to stop the music. The cake walkers had been circling around the numbered squares for God only knew how long. He covered his slip with a grin. “I was building the suspense.”
“It’s built.” She sounded breathy, and his gaze dropped to where her sweater hugged her full chest. Never in his life had he been jealous of a shirt, but tonight he’d like to be wrapped around Joni. When he’d first arrived, the room had been cold and she’d been at high attention, had captured his notice and his imagination. Flashes of sliding his hands beneath her sweater, tweaking those taunt peaks, cupping those generous breasts, had been teasing him all evening.
“And,” she continued, oblivious to how he wanted to drag her beneath the table full of cakes and nibble his way around her body, “Mrs. Lehew is about to need to replace her portable oxygen tank if she has to make another lap.”
If he kept staring at Joni’s tight little sweater, he was going to need portable oxygen himself.
“You might be right.” He pressed the button to pause the music, pointed to the basket of numbered cards for Joni to draw out a winner. “Have at it.”
“Number eleven,” she called, casting him another odd look, before smiling sweetly at the seven—or eight-year-old snaggle-toothed boy who was jumping up and down on the number eleven block. Instantly, Grant had visions of Joni jumping up and down on the square, of her sweater outlining her breasts as they bounced and jiggled and beckoned to him. His jeans grew tighter. Too tight. Any moment he was going to lose all circulation in the lower half of his body.
Immediately after the young boy claimed his prize, Joni called for the crowd’s attention, again. “Since Dr. Bradley got a little carried away by the music …” she sent him a sugary smile “… stay on your squares, because we’re going to pick another winner.” She reached into the basket and pulled out another card. “Number fourteen.”
“Mrs. Lehew.” Despite his uncomfortable jeans, Grant laughed. “You sure you didn’t rig that win, Nurse Joni?”
At her impish grin, he realized she’d done exactly that.
“Call it preventative medicine because the poor woman really can’t manage any more trips around the cake walk. I didn’t know how she was going to manage to begin with, but then you made her go even longer despite the fact she was slowing down the entire procession.”
He really hadn’t picked a good time to zone out with thoughts about Joni and leave the cake walkers going round and round. But the smile on Mrs Lehew’s face said if she’d minded in the slightest, she no longer did.
“Maybe since she won a cake she’ll sit out the remaining walks because if not,” Joni mused, “we’re going to have to find a designated walker for her.”
“Or a wheelchair.”
The ecstatic obese woman with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease excitedly took Joni’s hand. “Oh, thank you. Thank you. I can’t believe this. I never win.”
“Well, you did tonight. Congratulations. Here’s your cake, Mrs. Lehew.” She handed the woman a chocolate-frosted cake from the long table still loaded with donated goodies.
“You know,” Grant mused, scratching his chin with a feigned thoughtful look, “it’s a good thing I’m her pulmonologist and not her endocrinologist or I’d have to protest that cake.”
“Good thing,” Joni agreed, responding to his teasing with a slight lifting of her mouth at the corners. “Then again, maybe she wanted to win the cake for her grandchildren or maybe she just wanted to do the cake walk to support a really good cause.”
“We can tell ourselves that.”
Joni’s lips twitched. “But you’re not buying it?”
“Not after her last hospital admission and seeing how well controlled her sugar was when she didn’t have easy access to snacks and junk food.”
Looking as if she might tackle the elderly woman and wrestle the cake from her, Joni glanced toward Mrs. Lehew.
Sorry he’d mentioned the woman’s uncontrolled diabetes, Grant touched Joni’s hand. “It’s okay. I learned a long time ago that you can’t control what others do to themselves. You can only encourage them to do the right thing and hope they are paying attention.” So maybe saying he’d learned that lesson a long time ago was stretching the truth, but he had learned. Eventually. “If she wants cake, she’s going to have cake regardless of whether or not she wins one here.” He squeezed Joni’s hand, wanting to see her face light up with a smile again, wanting the sense of camaraderie, albeit precarious, they’d shared while doling out cakes to continue. “Besides, that one is for her grandkids.”
Nodding resignedly, Joni gave him what appeared to be an appreciative smile. “Sure it is. If she ends up in the emergency room tonight with a five hundred blood sugar, I’m going to feel as if I put her there.”
“No need for that. Look.” Grant gestured in the direction the woman had headed and Joni’s gaze followed suit. Mrs. Lehew was sitting at a table with three small children clamoring to get a better look at her prize. They were calling her Granny and tugging on her sleeves.
“Oh, you’re good,” she praised with a hint of sarcasm.
“I know.” When Joni’s gaze met his, he winked. “Oh, you meant because of Mrs. Lehew? What? You mean you didn’t believe me?” He tsked. “Shame. Shame.”
But rather than correct him or slap him down, she just gave a resigned sigh and turned back to the cake walkers.
They collected the tickets from the next group in line, then Grant restarted the music and turned to her.
“You’ll find that I am many things, Joni, but you can take what I tell you to the bank.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that when I tell you how I’ve thought of little else except kissing you again, that I want to kiss you again, you can believe it’s the truth.”
“I don’t doubt that you want to kiss me again.”
She didn’t sound happy about the prospect, though. Not exactly the reaction he’d hoped for. He wanted her to quit fighting the attraction between them and admit she wanted him too. He wanted whatever had her running scared to fade into the background and for her to embrace the chemistry between them. Still, she wasn’t saying no.
“That confident that you were that good?” he teased.
“No, you are the one who just commented about how good you are, remember?” She shook the basket of numbered cards. “I’m just that confident that you see me as a challenge, and that’s why you’re so determined to pursue me,” she countered. “But I’m not a challenge, Grant. I’m a real person with real feelings. I don’t want to be hurt.”
Grant started to speak, but she leaned over and punched the Pause button, killing the music and effectively drawing all eyes to them. Without another glance his way, she pulled out a card. “Number nineteen.”
Why did Grant keep looking at her as if he wanted to peel off her clothes and take a bite? Joni bit the inside of her lip, wondering if she was going to gnaw a hole right through if she didn’t stay away from a certain doctor. She’d accused him of seeing her as a challenge because that was what her brain had decided was the logical conclusion. Was that why he kept coming back for more of her pushing him away?
No, truth was, she was beginning to think he really liked her. The more she thought about it, the more likable he was, too. For all his cockiness, he was just as likely to say something self-deprecating to make her smile. Why, oh, why, did he have to be so likeable on top of how completely hunky he was? After all, she was only a mortal woman. How was she supposed to resist his allure when everything about him appealed?
She did her best to ignore him for the rest of their cake-walk stint. Not an easy thing when they were working to keep the cake walk going, but she did manage to avoid any more private talk.
A few minutes prior to the end, Vann and Samantha got into the cakewalk line.
“If I don’t win, you are in so-o-o much trouble,” Samantha teased, handing Joni her ticket and casting a questioning gaze toward Grant. She gave Joni two thumbs-ups. Puh-leeze. Even her best friend was matchmaking. Spare her.
Besides, she was irked at Samantha for bailing twice. And for telling Grant no telling what.
Ignoring Samantha’s go-for-it sign, Joni shrugged. “Sorry, sugarplum.” She never used endearments so this got a giggle out of her friend. “But your odds are the same as everyone else’s. One out of twenty-four.”
“I’ll take those odds. Especially since Vann bought our tickets.” Samantha patted his arm, keeping her hand on his biceps. Her friend usually insisted on paying her equal share, so the fact she’d let Vann pay was significant. Vann didn’t look impressed. Actually, he looked irked, too.
Joni shot a curious gaze back and forth between the two, but Samantha just borrowed one from Joni’s book and shrugged.
“Hey, Vann, you expecting special favors, too?” Joni asked, giving her friendliest smile and hoping to ease whatever strain was in the air.
Stepping out of Samantha’s hold, he nodded. “Samantha wants cake, so let her eat cake. Lord forbid, she doesn’t get everything she wants right when she wants it. To hell with the rest of the world.”
Joni forced a laugh at his quip, hoping to ease the tension jetting back and forth between her two dear friends. Unfortunately, Samantha was now glaring at her boyfriend. Surely he hadn’t proposed again tonight? Vann proposals were always followed by a fight, which was usually followed by making up and then another few months of the status quo before they repeated the process all over again. Eventually, Vann was going to tire of Samantha’s refusals. But, for now, apparently he was hopeful enough that he’d change her mind to keep sticking it out. Either that or he liked their make-up ritual.
As far as Joni was concerned, Dr. Vann Winton was the sole good guy left in the world. Then again, he was a cardiologist so maybe he naturally had more heart.
Having finished collecting the rest of the tickets, Grant joined them.
“Vann.” Samantha stepped forward. “This is Dr. Bradley, the pulmonologist I was telling you about. He’s a miracle worker in the ICU. I’ve seen him yank patients back from the other side on more than one occasion. I swear he must have made a pact with God somewhere along the way.” Then she waggled her brows and said a bit too brightly, “Or with the someone who hails from down below. Pun intended.”
Joni couldn’t argue Samantha’s point. Hadn’t she often wondered if Grant was really the devil himself?
Vann eyed Grant warily, making Joni question just what her friend had said about Grant in private. Still, polite as always, he stuck out his hand. “Dr. Vann Winton. I practice in Winston-Salem. Nice to meet you.”
Grant whistled. “I’ve heard of you. I enjoyed that article you wrote about the promising beneficial effects of Tracynta on the treatment of pulmonary hypertension.”
Vann’s expression changed and if they’d had time, the two men would have launched into a conversation about whatever the article had said. Interesting. Vann usually took a while to warm up to strangers, but with one comment Grant had won him over to the dark side. Joni almost sighed. Maybe the man’s appeal wasn’t limited to little old ladies and nurses.
Samantha and Vann took their places on the numbered squares. Using the microphone, Grant briefly explained the rules to this round’s walkers. When Joni called out the winning number, Samantha didn’t win.
Vann did.
His lips curved in a smile. With wry amusement, he handed the cake over to an ecstatic Samantha, then he looked at Joni. “What did I tell you? If she wants cake, I give the woman cake.”
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