LITMIR.BIZ

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      “One beer and you’re buying.”

      She nodded, triumph sparkling in her bright blue eyes. “Gladly, sir.” She pointed the way to the door with the balloon sword.

      “That stays here,” he said as he passed her on his way out.

      She stifled her giggle when he impaled her with his dead serious stare.

      One thing she’d already proved to him. This girl … er … woman named Polly was fearless. He liked that.

      John had to admit the tall glass of house draft tasted great and felt smooth going down. His newest nurse, in keeping with her promise, had fronted the money to buy it for him, which made it taste all the better. She really wanted him there. When was the last time he’d been wanted anywhere other than in the orthopedic operating room?

      The look of surprise on the faces of the group of nurses and techs when he’d walked into the bar had been worth the effort. Everyone had gone quiet for an instant before slowly winding back up to their usual pub noise. He could only imagine what they thought about him showing up, and wondered if anyone had taken bets. He and Polly had shared a quiet but victorious glance.

      Chatty Polly had burned his ears on the stroll over, too. She’d practically burst with excitement explaining how much coming to New York and landing a job at such a famous hospital as Angel’s had meant to her.

      Good for her. The world could use more idealistic nurses. Yet he craved the silence of his apartment, where he could sit in the dark and stare out over the neighborhood—remembering the vacancy where the twin towers used to be, nursing his Scotch, which could never fill the bottomless hole in his heart. Shifting his thoughts to the here and now, he took another drink of his beer and gazed at fresh-faced Polly to help banish the image.

      She sat beside him on a barstool, sipping pale ale that left a hint of orange on her breath as she continued to chew his ear. “I wasn’t always interested in orthopedics. I saw myself as an emergency nurse.” Her eyes went wide. Even in the darkened bar they sparkled. “That is, until I worked my first shift on a busy night with a full moon.” She covered her face with long fingers and clear-varnished nails, and shook her head, then quickly peeked up at him. “I thought I was going to die!”

      Was everyone this animated, or had he quit noticing? He’d be dead between the ears if he didn’t admit she was cute, and likeable. She shrugged out of her sweater and he realized she’d changed her nursing scrubs, which had baby koalas patterned over them, for a clingy pink top that dipped just enough to reveal a full-grown woman’s cleavage.

      How had he not noticed that all day?

      He took another drink and tried his damnedest not to stare. She removed her hairband and put it inside her combination backpack-purse, and those light waves curtained her face in an alluring way, coming to rest on her shoulders … which led his eyes back to her breasts.

      He certainly wasn’t dead. Just severely inactive.

      But this wasn’t right, staring down her shirt. He needed to change his focus. “Bartender, the next round for this group is on me.”

      Everyone clapped and cheered, even a few people he’d never seen before in his life, and he took another drink of beer, feeling almost human again.

      Polly wrapped her arm around his and squeezed. “Thank you!”

      “You’re welcome,” he said, tensing, staring straight ahead, knowing his answer had come out clipped. He hadn’t made contact with a woman like this in, well, longer than he cared to admit.

      She must have sensed his tension and unwrapped her arm but moved closer on her stool. “So, Dr. Griffin, I’ve told you all about me, but I don’t know where you come from.”

      The bartender delivered the drinks along the counter, and refilled the bowls with pretzels and mixed nuts.

      “I’m a New York native.”

      “So your whole family is here, too?”

      “My parents retired to Florida a few years back, and my sister lives in Rhode Island now.”

      “Are you married? Do you have any kids?”

      If Lisa hadn’t been killed he would have been a father of an eleven-year-old by now. But his world had officially ended the day he’d spent digging people out of debris as a first responder on 9/11. His always simmering emotions boiled and he snapped, “Look. I’m here for a drink, like you asked. My personal life is none of your business. You got that?”

      A flash of hurt and humiliation accompanied her crumbling smile. One instant she’d been bubbling with life, the next he’d crushed it right out of her. Good going, Johnny. He had no business being around people.

      She recovered just as quickly, though, straightening her shoulders and sticking out her chest, eyes narrowing, as if this routine was nothing new to her. “Sorry for crossing the line, Doctor.” She slipped off the bar stool and gathered her things and the glass. “Thanks for the beer.” Then she wandered over to a group of nurses a few stools away and joined in with their chatter.

      He chugged down the last of his beer, not touching the second glass. “How much do I owe you?” he asked the bartender.

      He knew he had no business pretending to be like everyone else. He should never have let the pretty little nurse talk him into it. He was only good for one thing, and that was fixing kids with broken bones.

      As for the rest of his life, well, that had officially ended the day his newly pregnant wife had gone to work and died on the twenty-second floor of the twin towers.

      CHAPTER TWO

      POLLY HAD SPENT the entire subway ride home seething over Dr. Griffin’s sour attitude. What had she done to turn him against her? After a little cajoling he’d smiled and agreed to go to the bar with his staff. They’d had a brisk and energizing walk to the pub, enjoying the late afternoon sun and moderate June weather. He’d allowed her to buy him a drink, and he’d even made a grand gesture of buying the next round for everyone else.

      All had seemed to go according to plan in the people-pleasing biz.

      Then she’d asked about his family and the vault door had clanged shut. It hadn’t been mere irritation she’d seen flash in his dark, brooding eyes, it had been fury. Plain and simple.

      As she prepared for bed in her tiny rented room on the Lower East Side, where the shared bathroom and kitchen were considered privileges in the five-story walk-up, she couldn’t stop thinking how she’d messed up that night. Clearly, she’d overstepped her bounds with Dr. Griffin. But how? Didn’t everyone love to talk about themselves and their families? That was, everyone except people like her who had miserable memories of feeling unwanted and unloved, like she’d had since her mother had died when Polly had been only six.

      She put her head on the thin pillow and adjusted to the lumpy mattress. Of course! How could she be so blind? The man was miserable with his staff. He didn’t like to socialize. She’d dragged him out of his comfort zone and asked him about something very personal—his family—then everything had backfired. Something horrible had happened to that man to make him the way he was. Surely, no one wanted to be that miserable without a good reason.

      She had to quit assuming that she was the only person in the world with family issues and that everyone else lived hunky-dory lives. Obviously, Dr. Griffin wasn’t happy about his family situation and she’d hit a nerve with her line of questioning. Maybe he’d gone through a messy divorce. Maybe his wife had cheated on him. Who knew? But he’d attacked with vengeance when she’d dared to get too personal.

      She’d let down her guard, let him skewer her with his angry retort, then, wounded and hurt, she’d brushed him off and moved on. In her world it was called survival, but he’d seen a flash of her true self the instant before she’d covered it up, just as she’d seen his. Well, touché, Dr. Griffin.

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