It still amazed her that she had gotten through those first few days at work after the scene in Houston’s office without bursting into tears. But she had, and her residency at Acadia Inlet had come to an abrupt and quiet ending. She’d started at St. John’s and had found almost immediately that she really enjoyed pediatric orthopedics, a lot of which dealt with correcting musculoskeletal birth defects and problems arising from cerebral palsy. She was enthusiastic that she had found her orthopedic niche.
She was also hopeful that in a year or so she could transfer to the children’s hospital in Daytona to finish the remainder of her residency. Which meant she could leave the final remnants of her life in Acadia Inlet and forget that she’d ever met Houston Hayes, let alone fallen in love with him.
And that should happen in about eighty years. She couldn’t forget him. She thought about him every day and wondered if she had made a mistake walking away from him. Or if she had somehow imagined that he’d ever had feelings for her at all. Now with hindsight it almost seemed that way.
He had been attracted to her, no doubt, but maybe she had been nothing more than a challenge to him. A conquest. An attraction to explore, knowing he would tire of her. He’d said as much to her the day he had propositioned her by the X-ray box. Maybe if he hadn’t gotten attacked by that shark, they never would have gone beyond the first night, their agreed-upon one-night stand.
But they had, and she had the scars on her heart to prove it.
She scrubbed her already dry and chaffed hands while the water ran. The splashing masked the sound, but she thought for a second that her doorbell was ringing. Maybe it was her mother appearing out of nowhere due to maternal ESP, bearing soup and the expensive tissues that had aloe in them. The kind that Josie was going to invest in from now on since her nose had suffered severe epidermal damage.
Which basically meant it was beet red and missing the top layer of skin from blowing so damn much.
Or it could be the woman next door coming to complain about Josie’s 3 A.M. coughing fits.
“Coming,” she said, shaking water off her hands before wiping them dry on her sky blue pajama bottoms.
Grabbing a tissue out of a fresh box on the way past and tucking it into the waistband of her pants, she opened the door.
And wanted to close it again.
Houston was standing there wearing jeans and a black shirt. His hands were tucked into his front pockets and he was studying her intently, a little smile at the corner of his lips. As usual, he had cornered the market on gorgeous.
“Hi, Josie.”
“Hi,” she croaked, then capped it off with a sniffle.
Her mind, dulled by decongestant, couldn’t wrap around why Houston was standing on her doorstep, but she was painfully aware that she wasn’t exactly looking her best.
Apparently he noticed, too. “Are you sick?”
“Yes, I have a cold.”
Thanks for noticing.
Josie turned around and shuffled in her slippers over to her glass of water on the coffee table so she wouldn’t hack on him. She took a sip and swallowed, her ears popping.
“Have you taken anything? Are you pushing fluids? You’re not going to work, are you?”
Josie flopped onto the couch with a big sigh, exhausted. She couldn’t deal with him right now, not when she’d spent all this time convincing herself she’d be okay, that eventually she’d get over him. And now, when she was sick and vulnerable, he was waltzing into her apartment and acting like he actually gave a damn about her.
“Houston, is there a reason you’re here? Can I do something for you?”
He stopped in the middle of crossing the room and looked taken aback. “I came to see how you are.”
His guilt must have caught up with me. But honestly, she was too tired and heartbroken to make this easy for him. If he had something to say, she wasn’t coaxing it out of him.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Houston watched Josie shoot him a glance of disbelief and wondered how he was supposed to proceed from here. It had seemed so simple. Go to Josie, apologize, confess his feelings, coax her out of her clothes and back into his life.
He hadn’t counted on her looking at him like he was an alien.
“You’ve seen me,” she said. “I’m not so good.”
That was obvious. What he was supposed to do about it wasn’t. “Can I get you anything? Do you have any Gatorade? You need to replenish your electrolytes.”
Josie just looked at him. Then carefully, she pulled a tissue out of her pants and wiped her red and raw nose.