LITMIR.BIZ

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waiting for her outside the locker room and she looked shapeless and rumpled? Another glance in the mirror revealed her tousled bangs; her ponytail definitely needed to be brushed, too.

      Well, she wasn’t going to do it. She wasn’t going to primp, because Trey undoubtedly wouldn’t be out there waiting for her. He’d already done the unthinkable today by rushing in here after her. Cool, stringently self-disciplined Trey Weldon would never do the unthinkable twice!

      What if he did? Callie’s heart jumped.

      Her dark eyes appeared feverishly bright to her in the mirror. Her cheeks looked as flushed and hot as they felt. Her lips were pale and bare, her lipstick long gone after the grueling hours in surgery.

      There were two tubes of lipstick in her purse, but Callie wouldn’t allow herself to retrieve either. She was not going to apply any makeup in the off chance that Trey Weldon might see her.

      She grabbed her purse and headed for the door. “Bye, Jennifer.” She hoped she’d achieved a credibly cheery tone.

      â€œBy the way, I’m not going to ask Trey Weldon to the Springtime Ball,” Jennifer announced. “I am not the type who goes after another woman’s man.”

      Jennifer thought Trey Weldon was her man. “As if,” Callie murmured under her breath.

      She tried to ignore the lonely little voice deep in her secret heart that cried, “If only.” It was juvenile and silly and—

      â€œSheely.”

      The sound of her name stopped her cold. Callie whirled to see Trey standing beside the wall, just a few feet away from the locker room door. He still had his scrub shirt on inside out. Not that she paid attention to how anyone wore their scrubs.

      Instantly a picture of Trey in his low-slung scrub pants, shirtless, flashed before her mind’s eyes, clear as a photograph.

      Too jittery to keep still, Callie started walking.

      Trey fell into step alongside her. “I guess your friend is already cooking up some gossip that will speed through the hospital faster than a rumor on the Internet.”

      â€œYou think?” Her lips twitched into a smile she couldn’t suppress.

      There was a civil war going on inside her, between euphoria—he had waited for her!—and her common sense trying to dispel it. For a few moments euphoria won, and she savored the sensation of walking beside him, their shoulders lightly brushing.

      Until Trey moved a few steps away, making any accidental physical contact between them impossible. That successfully dissolved Callie’s silly burst of joy.

      â€œI apologize for putting you in a position that might possibly be misinterpreted, Callie,” Trey said stiffly.

      He’d called her Callie. For the first time.

      She wondered if he was even aware of it.

      Callie stole a furtive glance at him. She was always “Sheely” to Trey. During the entire year they had been working together, he’d called her nothing else.

      Her surname was also used by most hospital personnel and had been since her nursing school days. It seemed that certain people were inevitably known by their last names while others were forever called by their first; Callie wasn’t sure why, but that’s the way it was.

      She was pondering this, along with how odd yet wonderful “Callie” sounded coming from Trey, when he spoke again.

      â€œI created—an embarrassing situation, Sheely. I don’t blame you for being angry.” Whether intentional or not, his voice held a cajoling note.

      Callie realized that he had misinterpreted her silence.

      â€œI’m not mad at you,” she blurted. “Actually, when you stop and think about it, the whole thing is pretty funny.”

      â€œHilarious,” Trey muttered. “Can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. That woman’s screams were a virtual comedic highlight. And my ears are still ringing.”

      â€œThat woman?” Callie repeated drolly.

      â€œI think I met her before, but I don’t remember,” grumbled Trey. “Should I?”

      â€œHer name is Jennifer Olsen, and she was about to ask you to the Springtime Ball when you came charging through the door like a…rhino in scrubs.”

      The taunting sound of her voice was as disconcerting to Callie as the words themselves. They had tumbled out before she’d had a chance to censor them.

      â€œAsk me to a ball?” Trey looked aghast. “Give me a break, Sheely.”

      â€œYou don’t like to dance?” Callie dared to bait him. “Or you don’t know how?”

      Insight struck. So this was why she’d mentioned the ball and Jennifer’s near invitation…in the hope that Trey would react exactly this way, appalled at the prospect. He didn’t want to go with lovely, tall, blond Jennifer. Callie tried hard not to look pleased.

      â€œI can dance.” Trey was grim. “It took four miserable years of Miss Martha’s Ballroom and Etiquette Classes, but I mastered it.”

      â€œMiss Martha’s Ballroom Classes, plus etiquette, too,” repeated Callie dryly. “I learned to dance watching the older kids at teen night at the VFW hall. It was pretty easy, but then, we didn’t have to master the intricacies of ballroom etiquette.”

      â€œNot just ballroom etiquette. We also had to learn these arcane rituals that might have been relevant a century ago but—” He sighed. “I understand the necessity of instructing youngsters in the basics, and knowing how to dance is useful I suppose, but I swore that as an adult I would never subject myself to further torture along those lines.”

      â€œMiss Martha must have run those dance classes like a gulag commandant. Dancing is supposed to be fun, not torture.”

      â€œIs it?” he challenged. “Do you think dancing is fun, Sheely?”

      â€œI guess it all depends on who you’re dancing with,” Callie heard herself reply.

      And was promptly horrified with herself. She couldn’t have said something as blatant as that! Why, she sounded like her ditsy sister, Bonnie, a compulsive flirt since the age of ten—and probably the least-subtle flirt in the universe, too.

      Having watched and winced over Bonnie for years, Callie had made a studied effort to be her opposite. To hear herself throw out such an obvious come-on line made her cringe.

      Worse, she could feel Trey studying her, his expression unreadable.

      She was certain he was patronizing her when he replied in cool, measured tones, “And who do you like to dance with, Sheely? Scott Fritche?”

      â€œI’ve assisted Scott Fritche in the OR from time to time. I don’t dance with him.”

      â€œBut you’d like to?”

      â€œOh, please, give me credit for having a little taste. Scott Fritche dates teenage student nurses. Any woman over twenty-one is too mature for him. He’s a perpetual adolescent.”

      â€œWell, Fritche is sounding less and less like neurosurgery material.” Trey frowned, his mind back on the surgical track. He seldom left it for long.

      Callie was inordinately relieved. She’d come close to making a fool of herself with Trey, not that he seemed aware of it. One of the advantages of his never taking any personal notice of her, she decided wryly.

      They

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