CupidsChoice Read online

  Petra took Bree’s tea kettle off the stove and went to fill it at the sink. “I was thinking it was time for you to give him a break. Talk to him at least.”

  Bree crossed her arms tighter. “Why would I want to do something like that?”

  Petra glanced at her. “Have you seen the way he looks at you?”

  “What? Like he’s tracking my every move so he can make up new and exciting ways to humiliate me in front of my coworkers?”

  “I mean the look he gets when he’s devouring you with his eyes. The man has it bad for you, my dear.”

  “Or he’s committing everything I do to memory so he can go back to the hospital board and tell them how wrong they were about not firing me.”

  “He’s not out to get you fired and you know it,” Petra said with an eye roll.

  “Do I?” Bree snorted. “I think your arrow is way off the mark this time, Cupid.”

  “And I think you’re letting pride get in the way of what might be a very good thing.” She put the full kettle on the stove and lit the burner. She turned and mimicked the look Bree was giving her, although Petra’s was admittedly much more haughty.

  “Are you still angry with him for getting that Carrie person fired?” Rachel asked, using a spatula to put cinnamon rolls almost as big as Bree’s head on the plates she’d gotten from the cupboard.

  Rachel had been working as a massage therapist for a London-based cruise-ship company when the whole thing with Cooper and Carrie happened. She’d never met Carrie and only knew parts of the story from emails Bree had sent her at the time.

  “Yes, Bree. How is good old Carrie?” Petra asked pointedly, giving Bree a look over her shoulder as she got mugs for the tea. “Heard from her lately?”

  “Oh, bite me.” Bree turned and yanked open the silverware drawer.

  Petra knew damn well Bree hadn’t heard from Carrie in months. She’d disappeared from Bree’s life a few weeks after she’d been fired—after Bree told her no, she couldn’t live with her rent free until she found a new job. Dillon had been home for an extended stay at the time and there simply hadn’t been enough room. Carrie had taken the no personally and hadn’t spoken to her since.

  “I thought you were seeing Alex,” Rachel said, changing the subject on purpose

  Alex and Petra were both nurses on the pediatric floor of the hospital where Bree worked. He was as close to Petra as Petra was to her and Rachel. Bree had been set up with Alex at the same party Petra had thrown to reunite Ben and Rachel.

  “Alex? Oh no.” She picked out three place settings and closed the drawer. “I mean, I went back for a couple of encore performances.” She rubbed her free hand under her nose and muttered, “And a curtain call or two.” Because seriously, the man was close to six and half feet tall and built, agile as a cat and so much fun. “But it wasn’t serious for either of us. You know Alex. He’s for fun, not for keeps.”

  Rachel nodded and put one half of the roll she’d cut on a plate. “True.”

  “That’s not true,” Petra said, opening and closing the cupboard doors with a sharp snap as she hunted for something. “Alex is going to be a great husband someday.”

  “You know,” Rachel said, pointedly changing the subject once more. “I asked Ben if he knew Dr. Bennett.” She took the plates to the small table under the window in Bree’s kitchen. “Ben was at the end of his residency when Cooper started working at the hospital. He had nothing but good things to say about the guy.”

  “Of course he did,” Bree scoffed. “That’s the difference between the way doctors view each other and the way they view nurses.”

  “Not on my floor it isn’t,” Petra countered.

  It wasn’t really that way on her floor either but she was in a contrary mood. For the most part the respect between doctors and nurses was mutual. There were exceptions, and Cooper wasn’t a jerk to the entire nursing staff, but it did seem as if he were harder on her than some of the other nurses some nights.

  “Ben was surprised to hear you’d invited him to the party,” Rachel said to Petra. “He was under the impression Dr. Bennett was married.”

  “He was when he first started at the hospital.” Petra opened a different cupboard and eyed Bree’s tea selection. “How about orange to go with the cinnamon rolls?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Rachel answered.

  “Me too.” Bree took forks, knives and napkins to the table and set them next to the plates. “So he’s divorced, huh?”

  She looked up just in time to see her friends exchange a look—Petra with an I-knew-it smirk and Rachel grinning that she’d been right.

  “Oh, don’t get all full of yourselves.” Bree shook her head and hated herself for blushing so easily. “I was only asking.”

  “You’re going to have to ask him those questions.” Petra took the kettle off the stove just as it sounded its first low whistle. “It’s time for you to talk.” Without looking up she added water to the tea in the mugs. “What happened last night?”

  Another rush. Another vivid memory of how he’d felt and smelled and sounded.

  Bree gripped the back of a chair and closed her eyes at the memory of that kiss.

  “Nothing,” she answered, collecting herself. “Nothing happened. He got stuck here overnight because of the storm. We waited down in the basement until the storm cleared and then he slept on the couch.”

  She opened her eyes and found Rachel watching her, her expression making it clear she knew there was much more to the story.

  “And you didn’t talk? About anything?” Rachel asked, giving her the chance to redeem herself for that bald-faced lie she’d just told.

  Her chair scraped across the floor as she pulled it out.

  “I might have told him about my mom.”

  “Well, that’s definitely not nothing,” Petra quipped, setting steaming mugs in front of Bree and Rachel’s places at the table.

  “And?” Rachel prompted.

  “And he told me a story about getting caught in a storm while he was out fishing with his grandfather when he was a kid.” Bree cut into the roll—glossy with thick, sweet icing—and shoved the bite in her mouth before she added that she’d been curled up in his lap with her face buried in his incredible-smelling neck while he’d talked.

  “Right, right. The usual getting to know you stuff.” Rachel made a rolling motion with her hand. “What else?”

  “There’s nothing else,” Bree told her, mouth full, face several shades redder.

  “You’re the worst liar in the world,” Petra said.

  Bree lifted her mug, blew on the steam and took a sip that scorched her mouth.

  Petra sat, her own tea in hand. “You’re not going to get out of telling us what else happened by burning yourself. I’ll make you talk until your tongue swells up so thick you can no longer speak before I help you and you know it.”

  Bree put her cup down and slid Petra—whose sense of humor always veered toward twisted—a narrow-eyed look.

  “Fine.” She cut off another bite of heavenly, gooey roll. “He might have kissed me before he left this morning.”

  “I knew it,” Petra whispered triumphantly.

  Rachel clapped. “So what was it like?”

  It took every bit of control she had to not squirm in her seat as the way it had felt rushed her, tingling in her sex and causing her nipples to tighten.

  She shrugged and stuffed the bite in her mouth. “It was all right.”

  * * * * *

  It was kind of cute, the way she was trying so hard to avoid him the next time they worked together, three nights after the storm. When they did have to discuss a patient, she wouldn’t look directly at him. She was angry and Cooper couldn’t say he blamed her. He knew what he’d said as he’d left her house Sunday morning had been confusing and kind of playing dirty.

  A little after midnight, he overheard her telling Langley, the head nurse on duty, that she was going to the vending machines in the cafeteria for something to
drink. Since they weren’t particularly busy at the time, he decided to follow her to find out if he could get her to speak to him.

  He let her get a little bit of a head start, waiting until they were in a mostly unused part of the corridor before he cleared his throat to let her know he was following her. She glanced over her shoulder, faced forward as though she meant to continue ignoring him, them doubled back so fast her shoes squeaked on the floor.

  “What did you mean you might have gone through with it?” she demanded. “Who the hell goes to a sex party without the intention of going through with it?”

  “I already told you I didn’t know it was that kind of party. Showing up there, expecting to sleep with you when I know damn well you can’t stand me would have made me the worst kind of dirtbag, Bree.”

  She licked her lips nervously, causing his pulse to speed up a notch, but didn’t respond. He hadn’t been able to think about much more than kissing that mouth again since he’d left her house Sunday morning. No, that wasn’t entirely true. Thinking about kissing her always led to a whole lot more in his imagination.

  “And let’s take a step back to the way you reacted when you opened your front door and found me standing on the other side.” He crossed his arms and gave her a look. “Would your reaction have been any different if we’d ended up at the party?”

  She put her hands in the pockets of her purple scrub top and stuck out her chin defiantly. “I probably would have left.”

  “I figured as much.” He took a step closer to her. “Petra and I both know you don’t like me, and why,” he added, then stopped.

  They fell silent as a man carrying a fussy toddler came around the corner. Cooper recognized him as the husband of a woman who’d come in earlier with a dangerously high fever. The wife’s temperature was coming down slowly but surely, but she needed to be admitted and it was taking forever.

  Cooper felt for the guy, whose son was exhausted but refusing to sleep, but he admired his determination to stay by his wife’s side. Too many didn’t.

  “Can we finish this talk in my office?” he asked when the man was out of earshot.

  She glanced at her watch. He could see her hand was shaking.

  “Cooper, I told Langley I wouldn’t be gone very long.”

  “If she knows you’re with me she’ll be fine,” he countered. “Please. Just a few more minutes of your time.”

  After a moment of staring him down, she headed toward his office.

  The lights automatically came on when he opened the door and motioned for her to go first. They both stopped short, partially wedged in the doorway together, at the sight of a large bouquet of flowers and balloons sitting next to a brightly wrapped present on his desk.

  She looked up at him. “Is it your birthday?”

  It took a moment for her question to register through his surprise.

  “Yes,” he glanced at his watch, “for about half an hour now.”

  There was only one person in the building who knew, and he wasn’t especially thrilled that she’d gone through the trouble. Cooper peeked around the back of the door to make sure she wasn’t waiting behind it to surprise him. Thankfully she wasn’t.

  “Langley always brings in a cake when someone has a birthday, Cooper. Why is there no cake for you tonight?” The question was accusatory, the little frown creasing her forehead sexy. Man he liked it when she got sassy with him. Maybe that was why he found himself pushing her buttons as often as he did.

  He glanced sideways at the monstrosity on his desk. “Well, for one thing, if no one knows, things like that don’t appear on my desk. In the middle of the night.”

  He made his way toward his desk cautiously. A quick glance at the card tucked among the mostly red arrangement confirmed who’d sent them. Lara Young, a perfectly sweet, attractive woman who worked in radiology, was someone he considered nothing more than a friend, and only a work friend. Unfortunately she’d made it clear on several occasions that she was interested in being much more than that.

  “Why not? Don’t you like presents?”

  “No, I don’t like birthdays.”

  She gave him an amused smirk. “Everyone gets older, Cooper. It’s part of life.”

  “It’s not the getting older I have a problem with. It’s the being the center of attention I can live without.”

  She coughed up a derisive little laugh. “You could have fooled me.”

  He faced her. “What does that mean?”

  “Are you kidding me? The way you bark orders around here?” She rolled her eyes and muttered, “Don’t like to be the center of attention. Please.”

  “That’s called doing my job. This,” he waved his hand and the balloons swayed on their long ribbons, “is something else entirely.”

  She narrowed her eyes and said nothing else for a moment. “You really don’t like your birthday?”

  “As hard as it may be for you to believe, I can take it or leave it.”

  Her big eyes narrowed farther and she folded her arms under those incredible breasts of hers. “Why?”

  Who asked those kinds of questions? And how did they get so far off course from what they’d come to his office to talk about?

  “Bree, not everyone needs a ticker-tape parade every year because they were born.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “Your parents never threw you a party, did they?”

  He had no idea. “I’m sure they did. When I was little.”

  He hated the way her face went all soft and sympathetic.

  “Listen, it’s not an issue. I have not been traumatized by some kind of pitiful, neglected childhood, so don’t go getting any sad-sack ideas in that pretty head of yours.” He pointed a finger close to her nose. “And do not tell Langley about this.”

  The humor came back into her big, dark eyes. Her work phone went off, then his.

  “Your secret’s safe with me,” she told him, turning to leave.

  “Thank you,” he said, then fell into a jog beside her when they were in the hall.

  The hospital stayed steady the rest of the night so he never got the chance to finish the conversation he’d wanted to have with her. He did catch her looking at him a little differently than usual throughout the night, but she never said another word to him that didn’t have to do with a patient.

  Close to the end of the shift there was an influx from two different car accicents and Cooper ended up staying over by almost two hours to help out. Exhausted and ready to go home, shower and drop into bed for a few hours, he was pleasantly surprised to find an equally tired looking Bree leaning against his car in the parking lot.

  “So there’s really no party?” she asked as he approached.

  “My parents take me to the Signature Room for dinner every year.”

  She nodded and looked impressed. “And presents?”

  He sighed. She was definitely persistent. “They donate to a local battered women’s shelter in my name. I do the same for them on their birthdays.”

  She looked away for a moment, obviously struggling with something.

  “Do you like chocolate?” she asked.

  Yeah, he kind of liked where she was going with this. “I do.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face. “Would you like to come over for dessert after you have dinner with your parents tonight?”

  A strange kind of thrill started low in his gut. An invitation back to her house was far better than he’d dared to hope for. “I can be there by nine thirty.”

  Chapter Four

  The only explanation for inviting him over on the night of his birthday was that she’d lost her ever loving mind. That must have really been magic rainwater he’d been soaked in during that storm. It was unnerving that he hadn’t gone back to looking unremarkable in the three days since she’d seen him last, stalking out of her house in her brother’s sweats and climbing into that sexy old Jaguar he drove.

  How many times had she seen him in his navy scrubs and d
ark-framed glasses and not thought anything of it? There had been hundreds over the two years they’d worked together. Not once had she ever thought “Wow!” when she saw him. Okay, maybe there had been a couple of times when he’d first come to work at the hospital, but his ego and that sour disposition he usually had quickly diminished his looks in her eyes.

  After the night he screamed at Carrie for mixing up two patients’ meds—a mistake that had seemed innocent at the time—she’d stopped looking at him altogether. Now she couldn’t stop looking, couldn’t stop noticing little things she’d never noticed before.

  Like the way his clever hazel eyes didn’t seem to miss a thing, or that a dimple appeared near the corner of his mouth when he smiled—something he didn’t seem to do unless he genuinely meant it. She’d never noticed the agile way those gorgeous hands of his moved, or the way the muscles in his arms rippled and strained against his skin when he was working.

  And his mouth.

  Ugh. She could not stop sneaking glances at his mouth, which was pure torture because every time she did her body lit up like Christmas with the memory of how that kiss he’d laid on her had burned through every single cell in her body.

  As much as she hated to admit it, things between her and Cooper Bennett had been changed by Petra’s odd choice and the way it had piqued Bree’s curiosity. She couldn’t deny that the way he’d treated her during the tornado warning had a big part of swaying her opinion about him as well. Any number of men she’d known in the past, including The Jailer, would have taken full advantage of the situation.

  And when she really thought about it, she knew damn well if he’d stopped talking and turned his head and kissed her while they were huddled in her brother’s makeshift bedroom, she would have let him do anything he wanted to her.

  Her stomach fluttered when there was a knock on the door. She checked her hair one more time, smoothed her hand over the front of her dress and gave herself a nervous look before she switched off the bedroom light and headed for her living room.

  “Wow,” he said when she opened the door.

  Those hazel eyes looked her over slowly, top to toe, and she knew she’d made the right choice. The dress she’d chosen was a new favorite of hers in a dark-emerald green that clung in good places and draped in others.