Hardball (6 page)

As he got off at the fifth floor, one of the nurses he’d kibitzed with yesterday—the older one—peered over the counter of her station. She recognized him right away. “I presume you’re looking for Dr. Bell.” Her voice and expression suggested that she’d just been sucking on a lemon. “She’s been down here this morning asking if you’d arrived.”

He dredged up a polite smile even though her tone grated on his nerves. “That’s because Dr. Bell kindly agreed to take a picture of Morgan McDaniel and me. Could you let her know I’m here now, please?”

The nurse glowered at him and picked up her phone.

What the hell was up with her? Nate had assumed that her catty remark yesterday about ballplayers being full of crap had been in jest, but it appeared he’d misread her. Or maybe it was just him she didn’t like. Either way, her obvious hostility had him drumming his fingers impatiently on the counter.

Where were the cute nurses when you needed them
?

Then again, maybe that was precisely the attitude that was running him into trouble right now. As his mom liked to point out, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“I’d appreciate that.” He continued to smile, getting yet another stony look for his effort. He was tempted to start flirting with her, just for the sheer fun of annoying her even more. No doubt she’d clock him in the head with that heavy binder on her desk.

Two or three uncomfortable minutes later, Dr. Bell emerged from the stairwell at the end of the hall. As she walked toward him, Nate’s eyes locked on her elegant, slim legs. They ate up the distance between them in a graceful stride, and he had a sudden mental image of those long legs wrapped tightly around his waist.

Down, boy. You’re in a hospital, not a nightclub.

He quickly jerked his gaze up, but that didn’t really help either. Her lab coat hung open, and now he had to work hard to keep from zeroing his focus onto her high, full breasts.

Underneath the coat she wore a tight fitting, yellow shirt with a narrow black skirt that fell just above her knees. Her glasses hung down against her chest, and auburn hair tumbled down in waves over her shoulders. She looked both professional and gorgeous in a classy, quiet sort of way, although she might have applied a touch more makeup this morning than she had on yesterday.

That made him smile. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t the only one anticipating their meeting.

The doctor held her hand out to him and he took it in a firm but gentle clasp. His palm was rough, while hers felt cool and smooth.

“Great to see you again, Dr. Bell. Thanks for taking the time to do this. You must be incredibly busy.”

“Not a problem,” she said with a surprisingly shy smile. She blushed too, staining her cheeks a faint, pretty pink. He liked that.

“And please call me Holly,” she added as she carefully extracted her hand from his grip. He had the crazy urge to grab it back and pull her flush against him.

She turned and started to walk down the hall. “Though Dr. Bell is more appropriate when we’re with Morgan, of course.”

“Uh, right. Of course,” he said, a little disconcerted by the strength of his reaction to her. As he caught up and matched her stride, she shot him a wary look from under thick lashes.

“And may I call you Nate?” she asked politely.

He almost groaned.
Smooth, Nate. Real smooth.

“Absolutely,” he said, and then couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Come on, Carter. Get your brain in gear or she’ll think you’re a bumbling idiot.

“Say, what’s up with the Nurse Sunshine back there? She looked like she wanted to quarantine me or something.”

Okay, it wasn’t much but at least it was a start. Fortunately, Holly gave a lady-like little snort, glancing over her shoulder toward the nursing station.

“I understand what you mean. I don’t know much about her yet, but I certainly get the impression she doesn’t much like celebrities. Or maybe it’s just athletes.”

Ah. He’d run into that type of person more than once. “We’re not all spoiled brats,” he said in a low voice.

She shot him a startled look. “Of course not. Anyway, I hope they’ve got Morgan back in her room by now. She was taken downstairs for some tests earlier this morning, but they should be finished by now.”

Holly moved around to the far side of the bed, almost as if she wanted to put distance between them. He definitely didn’t like that, but his first and most important order of business was Morgan. He’d deal with the good doctor’s nerves later.

“I promised, didn’t I? And this time I brought my camera.” He pushed the strap off his shoulder and handed the Nikon to Holly. “Oh, and I think I have something else in here, too.”

He set his sports bag on the chair beside the bed and rummaged around in it, pulling out tissue paper and other stuffing. “Gosh, where is that thing? I can’t seem to find it. Just a minute. Let me keep looking. I could have sworn there was something in here.”

By now Morgan was practically jumping out of the bed.

With a flourish, he reached in again and pulled out the American Girl doll he’d picked up yesterday after he left the hospital. It was the
Felicity
model, decked out in an old-time, lilac and white striped dress. A white bonnet covered most of the doll’s hair, but a half-inch strip of auburn peeked out between the bonnet and her forehead. As he handed the doll to Morgan, the little girl’s mouth dropped open and her big, dark eyes started to glisten. She clutched the doll tightly to her chest.

“She’s so pretty,” she whispered. Morgan sniffled a bit, like she was holding back tears. He felt the sharp, bittersweet ache that was always so close to the surface when he interacted with children as sick as her.

He glanced over at Holly. Her nerves seemed to have subsided, and a warm, luminous smile curved her beautiful mouth. God, he couldn’t wait to taste all that warmth for himself.

Jerking his thoughts back from a lascivious downward spiral, he turned to Morgan. “Okay, then. Let’s get this party on. How about I sit on the bed here, and you squeeze right up against me?”

Nate sat beside Morgan, who scrunched up against him, her frail arms wrapped tight around the doll. He reached his arm around her and hunkered down so his face was closer to her level.

“I think we’re ready any time you are, Dr. Bell.”

Holly focused the camera, taking a step backward. “Sorry, I have to move back a bit to get your whole head in the picture, Mr. Carter.”

“Hey, Morgan, I think she’s calling me a fathead,” he said, pretending outrage.

Morgan giggled and started poking him in the side. “Nate’s a fathead, Nate’s a fathead!” she sang.

“Oh, for goodness sake. Calm down, you two,” Holly scolded, her sweet Southern drawl growing more pronounced with her mock exasperation. “How am I supposed to take your picture when you’re bumping up and down like that? Sit still and say cheese.”

“Cheese!” Morgan and Nate cried out simultaneously as the flash went off.

Holly peered at the image on the camera’s LCD. “Oh, this is definitely good,” she said, glancing up at Nate. “Mr. Carter, you’ll give me a print, won’t you?”

Nate smiled and gave her a kiss on top of her head. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything. But I really should be going soon, honey, and I’d like a few minutes to talk to Dr. Bell before I have to leave. Do you have a minute for me, Doctor?”

Nate followed the doctor out. A few feet down the hallway, she stopped and turned toward him, waiting for him to speak. Her gaze darted past him to the elevators.

Yeah, definitely nervous.
“Is the coffee in the cafeteria drinkable?” he asked.

Her face went momentarily blank. “I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you first hand. I’m a tea drinker myself. But I haven’t heard of anyone dying from the stuff.”

“Well, then, if you have a few minutes, Doctor, could I buy you a cup of tea? I’ll understand if you’re too busy, though.”

She gave him a cautious smile. “Actually, I’d love a tea right about now. But it’ll have to be a quick one. I have a meeting with my residents in twenty minutes.”

“We’ll drink fast,” Nate said, lightly grasping her arm above the elbow.

He steered her into a crowded elevator and ended up standing right behind her, the front of his body pressing against her back. She startled at the contact and wriggled her hips, trying unsuccessfully to put distance between them. That little wriggle felt damn good, but he excused himself and jostled the man behind him, maneuvering more space both for himself and for her.

It was all he could do not to bury his face in her fragrant hair and crush his groin against her curvy bottom. As it was, he had to content himself with a gentle hand lightly resting on her back as he stood behind her protectively.

But there was something arcing between them—something as hot and unstable and dangerous as lightning. He could read it in the heightened awareness of her carefully upright posture, and in the short, sharp breaths that raised her shoulders and rippled along her spine. By the time they got off and headed toward the cafeteria, Nate was convinced there was some serious dynamite hidden away inside Dr. Holly Bell. Luckily, he’d always been good with matches, and he couldn’t wait to find her fuse.

“What is it with this green tea thing, anyway?” Nate asked. He briefly glanced up as a group of chattering residents squeezed by their tiny round table in a corner of the busy hospital cafeteria. Then that dark, faintly mocking gaze returned to Holly’s face.

“You’ve got green tea lattes, chai green tea, green tea mints, and God only knows what else,” he said. “What the heck is wrong with regular old tea?”

He cut Holly a lazy grin as he wrapped a big hand around a paper cup of steaming black coffee. She did her best to ignore the nervous fluttering in her stomach, carefully pulling the tea bag out of her cup after the requisite four minutes of steeping. Maybe it would be best to ignore his teasing, too, since she wasn’t very adept at casual banter. Then again, maybe he
was
genuinely curious. It could be a mistake to assume he wasn’t.

Damn.
She could hold a child’s beating heart in her hand and never flinch, but this guy was turning her into a nervous mess.

To buy time, she blew softly on the hot tea before replying. When his gaze moved to her mouth and lingered there, the butterflies in her stomach started flapping like a flight of scared geese.

“It’s because green tea is full of antioxidants,” she said, pleased that at least her voice wasn’t fluttering. “For the last few years, everybody’s gone bonkers over anything with antioxidant properties. Green team, blueberries, cranberries, goji and acai berries, pomegranates. There are new claims for so-called superfoods and superfruits coming out all the time. But I’ve always loved green tea just for the way it tastes.” She ventured a small sip of the steaming liquid. “And it’s also very alkaline, so it helps give you a better acid to alkaline balance.”

Nate raised his eyebrows.

Oh, God
. She was doing it already. Boring the hell out of him.

Then he gave her what seemed to be a genuine and charming grin. “Sounds almost as complicated as the so-called performance-enhancing drugs,” he drawled.