LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Three

      Julia hadn’t minded when Freckles had hired a personal shopper who emailed links containing possible dresses for Julia to wear to the hospital’s fund-raising gala in December. After all, shopping was an easy enough task to delegate since Julia didn’t exactly care what she wore to the event, which was still four weeks away. The thing she wasn’t looking forward to, though, was finding a suitable date to accompany her, which Aunt Freckles insisted was just as necessary as a new pair of strappy heels.

      Julia sat at her desk, looking at the dark screen of her cell phone, and groaned when she was unable to open the message her aunt had sent when she’d been downstairs working out. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and sent out a prayer that Kane Chatterson hadn’t seen the embarrassing text when he’d helped her reprogram her phone twenty minutes ago.

      Heat stole up her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut and gave her ponytail a firm shake. Julia refused to think about how her contractor had stared at her when she ran into him outside the gym. Especially since she had many more pressing matters to worry about—like how to make Aunt Freckles proud of her without allowing the woman full access to her sparse wardrobe and even sparser dating options.

      Setting boundaries was usually easy for Julia because she didn’t tend to socialize much anyway. But this was uncharted territory for her. How did Julia politely tell her well-meaning relative that she absolutely did not need a makeover or a professional relationship coach—as the last text suggested?

      Surely it couldn’t be that difficult to find her own date. All she needed to do was figure out what kind of man she wanted and then go out and find one. She shoved a few chocolate-covered raisins in her mouth as she wrote “Qualities I Want in a Man” at the top of a notepad.

      But the only image that came to her mind was Kane Chatterson standing there, all perceptive and broad-shouldered and rugged. Sure, Julia had come into contact with plenty of men since joining the Navy, but dress whites and blue utilities were utterly dull compared to the faded jeans and soft flannel uniform her hired contractor filled out. The man was broad, but lean and muscular in that athletic way of someone who was always on the move. He was also more intense than a college freshman studying for his first midterm, looking around as if he was taking in every detail of his surroundings and then memorizing it for future use.

      Besides the condescending smirk, she’d only seen Kane wearing a constant frown, barely addressing her unless it was to ask about paint colors or refinished hardwood floors. So she’d been shocked an hour ago when she’d heard the man call her darlin’ in that slow, sexy drawl of his. Shocked and then flushed with embarrassment when she realized he’d been staring at her body as though he’d spilled some of his iced coffee drink on her and wanted to lick it off.

      Then she’d said something about therapy and the guy’s whole demeanor had changed. Julia had tried to come up with something else to talk about, but she’d just ended up blabbering about bedrooms and moving in and eyeliners, then tried to walk away with her head held as high as the uncomfortable, tingling tightness in her neck had allowed.

      Stop. Stop thinking about what happened in the hospital corridor earlier. No wonder her aunt didn’t believe she was capable of finding a suitable date on her own.

      This was ridiculous. She could do this. Julia had never failed at a task, and she wasn’t about to get distracted and fail now.

      She looked down at the empty page and began to write.

      Must look good in flannel.

      Must speak in a slow, sexy drawl.

      Must look at me like I’m the whipped cream on his Frappuccino.

      No, this was ridiculous. She tore the yellow sheet off and tossed it in the small trash can by her desk.

      She rotated the pencil between her fingers, twirling it like a miniature baton. After a disastrous relationship with one of her professors a few years ago, Julia didn’t want a man at all, let alone another person to help her find one. She knew that her solitary upbringing and current avoidance of social activities was anything but ordinary. She’d never let it bother her before now. But her fitting in seemed important to Aunt Freckles. And if she wanted to be normal, or at least create the appearance of being normal on the night of the hospital gala, then she would need to put forth more effort. She looked down at a fresh piece of paper and started her list all over again, this time leaving off any references to Kane Chatterson.

      She had just finished and put her pencil down when a knock sounded at her office door. Chief Wilcox, Julia’s surgical assistant, entered. “Do you have those post-op reports done? The physical therapist is already asking for them.”

      “Yes, they should be in the patient’s online file,” Julia told the corpsman, who had a pink backpack slung over her shoulder and was apparently leaving for the day.

      “I looked there and didn’t see them.”

      “I finished them after my workout,” Julia said, pulling up the screen on her iPad. “Oh. I must not have clicked on Submit. Okay, they should be in there now. I’ll call the physical therapist and let him know.” She looked her assistant over. “You look like you’re off for the weekend.”

      Even to Julia, the observation came out sounding a little too obvious. She didn’t want the woman to think she was crossing the line from professional to overly social, but how else was she supposed to get to know her staff? She told herself this was good practice.

      “Oh, yeah. A few of us are doing a camping trip up near the Sugar River trailhead. I still need to pack my gear, and Chief Filbert put me in charge of KP duty, so I need to get all the food ready, too.”

      Julia had no idea who Filbert was, but she was more than familiar with the hollowness circling her chest. Not that she was much of a camper, but it was her weekend off, as well, and nobody had thought to ask if she’d like to go on the trip. Same thing with happy hours or lunches in the break room. It was easier to act indifferent than to make other people see that she, too, wanted to be included in the ordinary adventures of life.

      At a loss, Julia simply said, “I hope you all enjoy your trip, then. I’ll see you back here on Monday at 0600.”

      “Aye, aye, Cap’,” Wilcox said before closing the door. Julia fell back against her chair and squeezed her eyes shut at how ridiculously pathetic she must’ve sounded. She remembered her first day of high school and how the students patted her on her twelve-year-old head when she’d foolishly asked several of the cheerleaders if she could sit with them at their table. Nobody had been rude to her outright, but the novelty of having a child genius as some sort of odd little mascot soon wore off when Julia easily outscored several of the seniors on their honors English midterms.

      College hadn’t been any better, especially since she was studying adolescent brain development while her own brain hadn’t finished the process. Guidance counselors who didn’t know what to do with such a young scholar told her things would get better for her socially once she got older. But by the time she started med school, she no longer cared about what others thought of her and found it easier to simply hang back and observe. She had her cello, she had swimming, she had her books and her studies. She didn’t have time for homecoming games and celebratory drinks after final exams—even if she had been old enough to be admitted into the bars with the rest of her classmates.

      A career in research had been on the horizon until she’d seen a documentary about women in the military.

      She’d attended Officer Development School soon after her parents died, the order and regulation of the Navy reminding her of her regimented childhood and serving as the perfect antidote to Julia’s hesitancy to fraternize. She easily told herself that she wasn’t jealous of her staff’s camaraderie or the fact that she looked for reasons to sit here in her office and work instead of going back to the lonely officers’ quarters and microwaving a frozen Lean Cuisine

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