CHAPTER THREE
“Are you feeling like that will be an issue here tonight?” Dillon asked.
“Do you mean, am I feeling like jumping you right now or stripping down?” Kit asked, her own cockiness rising slightly. Finally.
He gave her a half smile. “Yeah.”
“No, not really.” Well, the jumping-him thing maybe a little. She was attracted to him. Always had been. And he’d been nice to her today. And he’d brought her out here. And had kicked a door down for her.
That should definitely not have made her hot. She was no damsel in distress. And she was a woman who appreciated men who used their brains, not their brawn.
Or so she told herself.
In any case, she’d definitely felt warmer when he’d kicked that door in. And when he’d thrown her over his shoulder? She’d lost her mind a little bit and thought about grabbing the fine ass that had been right there.
And then he’d kissed her. He’d just . . . kissed her. Grabbed her and kissed her.
She didn’t care why he’d done it, and she didn’t care that typically the whole grabbing-her thing would have totally pissed her off. Should have pissed her off.
The truth was, she responded to Dillon being physical.
If he went out and chopped wood right now, she would strip down, and to hell with the consequences.
“So, nothing to worry about,” he said. “We can spend the night here together, wait for the storm to pass, dig out tomorrow. And nothing will happen.”
Kit narrowed her eyes. Dillon knew her very well. And she knew him very well. She knew that tone in his voice. He was baiting her.
She crossed her arms. “You’re right. Nothing will happen. So there’s nothing to worry about.”
He nodded, but he pinned her with a look that said he wasn’t missing a single detail of her reactions and body language. “I’m sure you’re past all of that, right?” he asked.
Kit noticed he didn’t say “we” were past all of that. Dammit. The way he admitted to being attracted to her always got to her. Neither of them would go so far as to say that they were friends, but they respected each other, and they had some chemistry, and it was silly to deny either of those things, at least to each other. No one else needed to know. But when he was so matter-of-fact about wanting her, it made her want him more.
She blew out a breath. He was not the more mature of the two of them. He was not more in control of his emotions. And he wasn’t the best one at facing and discussing emotions. That was all her.
No matter how much she hated it right now.
“I wouldn’t say I’m really past all of that, no,” she admitted as the mature, professional, got-her-shit-together woman she was. Most of the time. “But I do know that I can control myself and learn from past mistakes.”
And then he was there, right in front of her, nearly on top of her. “The times we’ve been together were not mistakes, Kit,” he said, his voice low and firm. “They might have created some issues afterward, but every time we’ve been together has been incredible and exactly what we both needed at the time. I know you love to hassle me, but don’t piss me off by calling them mistakes.”
Heat snaked through her, followed quickly by a very strange emotion that seemed almost like wistfulness. He was right—each time had been exactly what she needed at that moment. The moments afterward were an issue, but the moments when they’d come together and all the frustration and hurt and confusion melted away because they could focus on the one thing that they both wanted equally were moments she wished she could relive. No one had ever made her feel like Dillon did, no one had ever made her so aware of herself—her thoughts, feelings, and reactions—the way Dillon did, and she was amazed by what that did for the sex.
She finally gave him a nod. “Okay. You’re right.”
He studied her face for a moment, then he also nodded and stepped back. “Okay.”
It also did something to her that he was almost protective of their past.
“I’m going to take a shower,” he told her. “You okay with that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay with that?”
“You won’t feel too tempted, knowing I’m just in the other room, completely naked?” he asked.
Like a light switch had been flipped, the air between them filled with a swirling combination of challenge and heat.
“Tempted?” she asked, pretending to not understand.
“Tempted to sneak a peek? Or join me?”
Dillon started to unbutton the flannel shirt, and Kit held her breath, letting it out only after she saw the black T-shirt underneath.
Tempted. Yeah. So much. But he was taunting her, and nothing made her more stubborn than Dillon Alexander issuing a challenge.
She was not going to be the first to make a move here. Not that anyone should be making any moves. But if someone did, it was going to be Dillon.
She gave him a shrug. “I’m fine. Shower. That’s fine. No big deal.”
He laughed at that—because he knew she was full of shit and knew that this had just become a competition. He turned toward the stairs that would lead to the upstairs bathroom. And the bedrooms.
“Well, you know where to find me if you need anything.”
She watched him head up the stairs and shook her head. Very few people saw this side of Dillon. He wasn’t the easygoing flirt. Not usually, anyway. Only with her. And even that was rare. He pulled that guy out only when he knew it would ruffle her. Like when they were trapped in a house fifteen miles from town together. Alone. Overnight.
Kit forced herself to stop all that. She was a grown woman who knew every trick the guy upstairs could pull. She could handle him. She could resist him. She would win this battle of the wills.
Her thoughts whirled. There were several methods she could employ to resist Dillon’s attack on her willpower. But playing defense was only half the game. She needed a strong offensive game as well.
Kit looked down. She was still in the hospital scrubs, which were wet from the knees down and cold. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d had scrubs on. Probably anatomy lab in medical school. They weren’t fashionable, of course, and all they did was remind her that she was better in a skirt and heels. She felt more in control when she had her power suits on.
At the moment, however, her feet protested the idea of heels, aching as they thawed inside her wet tennis shoes and socks. She also still wore her coat. She had to look half-bedraggled and ridiculous. Not that she cared what Dillon thought of how she looked, but . . . well, of course she did. It did no good to deny it. She was a single woman who was physically attracted to the man stuck in this house with her, and of course she cared about how she looked.
Then again, if she could keep him from looking at her in that way he had—where he was a starving man and she was a double-scoop hot-fudge sundae—she might be better off, actually. He didn’t shoot her that look often and almost never when other people were around, but she’d caught it a few times when he didn’t cover it fast enough. And then there were the occasions when he’d do it behind someone’s back to try to fluster her.
That was the biggest problem—she never knew when he was playing around and trying to get the upper hand and when he was showing how he truly felt.
Kit headed into her grandmother’s bedroom. Grace was five three to Kit’s five seven, and much smaller than Kit through the hips and breasts, but surely she had something Kit could put on while her clothes dried. A few minutes later, she’d resigned herself to a pair of pink leggings that were, no doubt, baggy on Grace but that hugged Kit’s thighs and hips like workout pants, and a T-shirt that was probably perfect on the tiny eighty-five-year-old but that showed a few inches of skin when Kit stretched her arms overhead. The shirt was also purple. And said OLD AGE IS NO PLACE FOR SISSIES. She pulled on some thick socks and sighed, looking at herself in the mirror. It would have to do. At least the clothes were dry and the house was warm. And it wasn’t like the scrubs had been a great look, either.
She padded back into the kitchen, her toes still cold, but the feeling was starting to return. She tried not to notice that the water was still running in the bathroom on the second floor, but she couldn’t help the memory of Dillon’s big, naked body from flashing through her mind. It had been a while, but a girl didn’t forget stuff like that.
Kit realized that her attempts to ignore Dillon and his crazy-long shower were not working. Her eyes landed on the big cooking pot that sat on the back burner on her grandmother’s stove, and she had an idea. She needed to distract herself from the water running upstairs—and the man it was running on—and she needed to show Dillon that she’d been otherwise occupied when he came back down.
Besides, she wanted to wow him. And she knew exactly how. There were some things about her that Dillon didn’t know, as a matter of fact.
By the time he finally came back down the steps—what had taken him so damned long up there anyway?—she was well into the chili preparations.
“What’s going on?” he asked from the bottom of the steps.
She glanced up. And dropped the knife she was using to cut the onion.
She lifted her hand and rubbed the center of her forehead, breathing in a healthy dose of onion fumes and feeling her eyes water as she did it. “Clothes, Dillon.”
He had simply wrapped a towel around his hips and come padding downstairs like it was nothing. He had his clothing in a wad under his arm. She felt her willpower crumbling already. Crap. “I really think both of us wearing clothes is a good rule to put in place.”
“Why?” he asked, coming farther into the kitchen. “It’s not like this is any big deal, right?”
But it was a very big deal. Not just the fact that he was half-naked, but he was a big half-naked. Dillon was tall and wide, with huge hands and feet and . . . yeah, other things. And he filled up space far beyond his body measurements. She’d never quite figured out how he did that, but Dillon was impossible to ignore. Impossible. She knew because she’d been trying for twenty-one years.
“You can’t walk around the house in just a towel.”
“I’m just going to run my clothes through the washer and dryer. You worried I’m going to get cold?”
“I’m not worried about anything.”
Worried wasn’t exactly the word to describe how she was feeling. She stomped around the counter and through the living room to the master bedroom. The only bedroom on the main floor. The one she was going to sleep in while Dillon was far away upstairs overnight. She yanked her grandmother’s bathrobe from the hook on the back of the bedroom door and then stomped back into the kitchen. She thrust the pale-blue terry cloth at Dillon. “Here.”
“Wonderful.” He moved in closer, taking the robe from her. “Wouldn’t want you . . . worried.”
Why did he have to emphasize that word, as if they were talking about another word altogether? Or was she making that up in her own imagination?
Kit huffed out a frustrated breath—something she did around Dillon a lot—and crossed the room to put the countertop firmly between them again. But she felt his eyes on her the entire time.
“I’ll admit, this idea about being dressed isn’t so bad,” he said. “That outfit is a vast improvement over the scrubs.”
She looked down and actually gave a soft laugh. “My grandma’s pants and shirt are an improvement? Wow, you really hate the look of scrubs.”
“Just on you. Scrubs don’t show off your ass like those do. Though I’m going to have trouble if I ever see your grandma wearing those in town.”
Kit would have laughed, maybe, but just then he shrugged into the robe. And should have looked ridiculous wearing a robe that hit above the knees with the arms coming barely past his elbows. But then he dropped the towel from underneath it, and ridiculous was not a word Kit would have possibly applied. She couldn’t see anything. Not really. But she didn’t have to see . . . it . . . to picture it.
She concentrated on the onions in front of her.
“So what are we doing here?” Dillon asked, completely unconcerned about wearing the bathrobe.
“I’m making dinner. Go put your clothes in the machine.” Kit gritted her teeth at how domestic and stupidly intimate that sounded. It was laundry. There was nothing sexy about laundry.
But Dillon didn’t move. He was frowning at the ingredients she had spread out on the countertop between them. “What are you making?”
“Chili.”
“You’re making chili?” he asked.
There was a note of disbelief in his voice, and she looked up. “Yes. I’m making chili.”
He’d pointed out earlier that she didn’t seem domestic. And he was mostly right. But, like anything, if she put her mind to it, she could do domestic. She’d grown up in this kitchen, and she’d managed to master three things—chili, snickerdoodles, and sweet-potato fries—somehow. She never made any of the above outside of this kitchen, though. She lived alone, and it just seemed that chili and cookies were something you made for other people. Kit frowned at that and wondered why she thought that.
Dillon interrupted her pondering, though, when he said, “I don’t eat anyone’s chili but my own. Mine’s the best. Ever.”
Kit narrowed her eyes. If he made chili, it probably was amazing.
But it wasn’t better than hers.
“You only think that because you’ve never tasted mine.”
He chuckled. “Uh, no. I think that because it’s true. And you don’t believe me only because you’ve never had mine.”
For a moment the horny, thrilled-to-be-cooped-up-in-a-blizzard-with-Dillon part of Kit’s brain thought about the things of his she’d definitely had in the past. And how great they’d been. But thankfully, that corner of her brain was small compared to the rational we-hate-him-and-his-effect-on-us part of her brain, and she shut it up quick. “I think it because it’s true.” He scoffed, and she put her hands on her hips. “I’ve won awards for my chili, Dillon. Several times.”
“In contests where I wasn’t entered. But it looks like you haven’t gotten too far here. I can still take over.”
Oh, hell no. “You come one step closer to my tomatoes and onions and I’m not responsible for where this chili powder ends up.” She purposefully looked him up and down. “There’s a lot of . . . places . . . showing there, Alexander.”
He grinned and took a step around the end of the counter in spite of her threat. “You really think you can get your chili powder anywhere I don’t want it to be?”
How the hell did he make chili powder sound sexual—and not at all like he was talking about actual chili powder?
“If you think you’re so hot in the chili department, get your own pot,” she said, falling back on the one thing she could always count on being consistent with Dillon: he could never resist a contest with her.
In the midst of an attempted seduction, or whatever the hell he’d been doing with that sort-of-predatory gleam in his eye, and only a thin layer of baby-blue terry cloth between her eyes and all his glory, Dillon’s mood abruptly shifted.
“You’re on,” he said almost gleefully. He seemed to be taking an inventory of ingredients again. “Where are the pots and utensils and stuff?” he asked, turning to survey the kitchen.
Challenge him to a cook-off whenever she needed to distract him. Noted. And good to know.
Kit shook her head. “No way. You’re on your own. You think you’re such a chili magician? You’re going to have to do it all without any help from me.”
He nodded. “Okay, fine. Be that way. But when my chili makes you moan, you owe me an apology.”
Like that would ever happen. “You bet. Absolutely,” she said drily, getting back to her chopping.
“And my corn bread will make you cry,” he promised.
She turned to retort, but he’d crouched in front of one of the low cupboards, and the robe had fallen open over his spread knees. He was facing away from her, so she didn’t actually see anything good, but again, the memory of the times she had seen it hit her. Not to mention when she’d touched it and . . .
He stretched to his feet again, and she quickly spun back to face the cutting board. Crap, crap, crap. “You don’t eat corn bread with chili,” she finally answered, her stupid voice sounding scratchy. “It’s cinnamon rolls.”
He quickly turned toward her. “Are you making me cinnamon rolls?” he asked.
Her grandmother made cinnamon rolls from scratch and froze them. Kit already had a dozen thawing on the counter. “I’m awesome at chili,” she said. “Not cinnamon rolls. But my grandmother is great at everything.” She pointed at the rolls.
Dillon’s eyes lit up. “Frosting?”
“That I’ll have to do. But I think I can swing it.”
“I’ll make you an orgasmic omelet in the morning if you make the frosting with cream cheese.”
The word orgasmic made her mouth go dry. And the reminder that they’d be here overnight. Together. And the idea of having breakfast with him. That was one thing they’d never done in the times they’d done . . . the other stuff. Kit cleared her throat. “Oh, really?”
He gave her a slow, lazy smile. “Well, if anyone knows what you consider orgasmic, I think it’s me.”
She stared at him. He’d really just said that.
Dillon Alexander was in many elite clubs—one of the most highly acclaimed doctors with Doctors Without Borders, one of the golden boys from Chance, one of the recipients of the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom . . . and the only man to give Kit Derby multiple orgasms. But he didn’t know that. She was pretty sure.
“You think you know better than I do?” she asked.
He studied her for a little too long and a little too seriously. “Actually, yeah, I think I do.”
Kit felt her mouth drop open. “You think you know more about how to get me going than I do?” she asked. “Seriously?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I think I’ve given it more thought than you have.”
Kit turned to fully face him. “You’ve given more thought to my sexuality and what I like and need to have an orgasm than I have?”
“Absolutely,” he said with a nod. “No question in my mind.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” she asked him.
“Kit,” he said, his tone placating—which only ticked her off more—“you are not the type of woman to spend a lot of time thinking about yourself. You’re all about making other people better and happier. Do I think you do fine with your vibrator or fingers when you need to? Sure. But knowing where to put it and what speed setting you like isn’t the same thing as knowing all of the ways to get you hot and wet and ready so that the orgasm is explosive and truly amazing.”
Kit stood staring at Dillon, a million things tumbling in her head. Had he just complimented her while also talking about her being hot and wet? Which had actually made her a little hot and . . . yeah, okay, wet.
Damn him.
She should just turn back to dinner prep. She should just focus on making her chili and let this go. He was just picking a fight. Or something. It didn’t feel like a fight, but it felt very intentional. And she hated reacting in any way to Dillon’s intentional efforts to make her react.
But she just couldn’t. There were several words in his declaration that got her attention—to say the least. But there was one that she simply couldn’t ignore.
“So you’re saying that you think you know all of the ways to do that to me?” she asked.
“I really do,” he said. He opened the freezer and pulled out a package of ground beef. As if chili was the more momentous thing going on in this kitchen.
“We’ve been together four times, Dillon. And once was in high school before you really knew what you were doing.”
He turned from starting the microwave to defrost the frozen pound of meat. “Before I really knew what I was doing?” he asked. “Well, damn, thanks, Kit.”
He didn’t look offended or insulted. “You got better,” she said, as if it were no big deal. The second time they’d been together? Oh yeah.
That got a grin from him, though. “Yeah, I did,” he agreed. “But you were plenty pleased with my first effort.”
She hadn’t let herself think back to that first time in a really long time. Because it was almost embarrassing. She’d been so into it that she wasn’t sure it was anything in particular Dillon did, actually. She’d been a very horny teenager who had discovered erotic romance novels about three months before that night, and she’d been having some pretty hot dreams. She’d also been mildly in lust with Dillon for about a year by then. She’d been so ready to lose her virginity and had built the whole thing up so big in her imagination that she was pretty sure any guy could have done what Dillon did that night. She’d told him exactly what she’d wanted him to do and when he’d put his fingers and other things where she told him to, it had worked beautifully.
And, like everything else, she just couldn’t let that go.
“I seem to remember kind of running the show that first time,” she said. She had been embarrassed about it at times when she thought back, but now she was a mature, sexually confident woman who’d had plenty of great sex since then, and she could own what had gone on that night.
Dillon grinned. “You were downright bossy and demanding,” he said. “I think that set me up for having a huge thing for women who know what they want and are very vocal about it ever since.”
Again he’d surprised her. Because that also sounded kind of like a compliment. He thought his first time with her had somehow influenced his preferences after that?
“Don’t look so shocked, Doc,” Dillon said. “You know that you’ve made a lasting impression on me.”
“Yeah, like permanent annoyance because you have to share your limelight with me.”
Suddenly he looked serious. Very serious. “No. Not annoyance. You . . . push me. For sure. You get under my skin. You’re always in the back of my mind. But I don’t think I’ve ever considered that a bad thing.”
She snorted. Because her other option was to again just stare at him with her mouth hanging open. “I’m like an itch you can’t scratch. Or a toothache you can’t get rid of, right?”
“Is that how you feel about me?”
Oh . . . crap. He really was a pain in her ass. Because he made her think about and face things she didn’t want to.
The honest-to-God, I’m-a-self-aware-professional-psychiatrist truth was that the only thing Dillon had ever really done to upset her was not love her the way she had him. In high school. A long time ago.
She took a deep breath. “I tell myself that’s how I feel about you,” she said, proud of her ability to be honest and insightful into her own psyche. “But no. You push me, too, and I’ve accomplished a lot because you were there making me try harder.”
He looked almost relieved at her words. The microwave beeped, and Dillon turned away to retrieve the defrosted meat without saying anything else.
“Then prepare to make the best chili of your life,” he said, carrying the beef to the skillet on the stove. “Because I’m right here. And I’m not going to let you get away with calling yours the best without some hardcore proof.”
Kit looked around the kitchen. Had she been drinking while cooking? Had she slipped and bumped her head? Was she asleep and dreaming? Were she and Dillon stuck together with no one else around, no hope of much distance between them, no ability to leave until morning, and actually getting along?
It seemed that way.
Even more so as the cooking went on. They chopped and browned and mixed side by side. The aroma of onions and meat filled the air, with the scent of cinnamon and sugar right on its heels. The familiar smells in the familiar kitchen slowly took some of the tightness out of Kit’s shoulders, but she couldn’t completely shake the feeling that she was waiting for something to happen. What, she had no idea. They’d gone from bickering to talking about sex—and the idea that Dillon knew her needs better than she did—and now they were making chili as if they’d done it a hundred times.
They moved around each other in the kitchen easily, as if they could anticipate each other’s movements. She was increasingly aware of his body as he stood next to her and reached past her, but the usual tension she felt when Dillon was right there and watching her do something had a softer edge. As if she was . . . comfortable. Kind of. The fact that he was wearing only a bathrobe, and one several sizes too small for him, didn’t allow her to completely relax. Nor did the kiss he’d given her earlier or, really, the fact that there was an underlying current of desire whenever they were together. But this was more comfortable than she’d been around him in a very long time. Maybe it was that they were in her grandmother’s kitchen, a place that Kit had always felt contented and happy. Or maybe it was that while they were competing to see whose chili was best, this wasn’t a go-hard-or-go-home contest between them. There were no high stakes here. So yeah, maybe it was that this was a low-key, who-really-cares challenge. Or maybe it was that he was being really nice today. For instance, he’d complimented her more in the past hour than he had in the past year.
But that wasn’t true, either. Dillon had always easily acknowledged her intelligence and talents. He didn’t like her stepping on his toes in his territory, but he’d never made her feel stupid.
As she simmered her chili, Kit forced herself to think about what she’d admitted to him. She’d told herself that he was like a pebble in her shoe—irritating, something she’d love to get rid of, something that affected how she walked her walk. But the only thing really true about that was that he affected her. How she did things, how she conducted herself, how she approached her work were affected by Dillon. Just like those things had been affected in high school and medical school.
But was it a bad thing?
He definitely got under her skin.
And he made her better.
Fuuuck.
She stirred the chili and tried not to let on that she’d just admitted that to herself.
So, Dillon was not only the best sex she’d ever had. He also made her better at everything else. That wasn’t a big deal.
“You okay?”
She whirled to find him right behind her. “Yes, why?”
“Because you’re beating that chili like it called your favorite pair of shoes ugly.”
Kit looked into the pot of very well-blended chili. Yeah, she was taking it out on the tomatoes and beans for sure. “Yeah, I was just . . . thinking.”
“About the time you threw raw eggs at me?”
Kit glanced at him. “Um . . . no.” But the memory came flooding back. They’d been taking the Food I class together, and he’d been in her group while his girlfriend, Abi, had been in another. The assignment had been to triple the recipe, and they’d both been doing the math, trying to get it done before the other. Somehow the entire session had turned into a race, and by the time they were done, not only had they beaten everyone else in the class, but theirs was the best fettuccine Alfredo their teacher had ever tasted.
“But you remember that?” he asked.
Kit nodded. “I do.”
“Cooking like this reminded me of that. We were a great team that day.”
She nodded again.
“We were a good team when we debated Saint Mary’s and won the state debate contest. We were a good team when we worked together on the mock trial our junior year. We were a great team when we ran that fund-raiser for the new playground at the park.”
Kit swallowed. “What’s your point?”
He shrugged. “I guess maybe that we should be making this chili together.”
She frowned. This wasn’t about chili. The chili was, though, a perfect metaphor. “You’re scared?” she asked.
“Scared?”
“That my chili really is going to be better than yours?”
He didn’t reply right away, but he finally gave her a smile. “Do you remember what I said right before you threw the eggs at me?”
She arched a brow. “The teacher said our Alfredo sauce was the best she’d ever tasted, and you leaned over and said, ‘You’re welcome.’”
His smile grew. “Yep. Because it was my idea to add extra butter.”
“But I added the extra cheese,” she reminded him. “That’s what made it better.”
“More butter makes everything better,” he returned. “And you wouldn’t have added the extra cheese if I hadn’t added the butter.”
“Without talking to me about it first,” she added.
“Because you would have said no. But since I just went ahead and did it, you had to come up with something to balance it. And it ended up being amazing.”
And then he’d slipped his arm around Abi, who had been watching them go back and forth with a frown, and pulled her up against his side. Where she fit like she was made to be there.
Kit propped a hand on her hip. “What’s your point?”
“That I push you,” Dillon said. “And that you match me every step of the way. And that everything turns out even better than it would have otherwise because of it.”
She didn’t reply immediately, which was unusual. Normally she was right on top of whatever he’d said, retorting almost before he was done, primed to argue, no matter what. But this time she thought about what he was saying. And more important, why he was saying it.
“So,” she said slowly, “I think I get where you’re going here.”
Dillon put his spoon down and turned to face her. Kit’s heart jumped at the serious look in his eyes. “Do you?”
Be cool. Be calm. You’ve got this. Kit swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
She trusted him. Dillon Alexander was a lot of things, but he was, without a doubt, someone she trusted implicitly. He was always totally honest with her.
And she knew that she did not want him to be totally honest about whatever was on his mind at the moment.
“You realize that every idea I’ve had about the free clinic is amazing, and you want to somehow combine efforts so that you can take partial credit.”
He blinked at her, and it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time for him to process what she’d said. Or maybe he was formulating his response to push what he’d really been talking about. Finally, he replied simply, “I wasn’t talking about the clinic.”
She knew that. But she was going to talk about the clinic because it was something they would argue about, and that would keep her from taking her clothes off.
“Well, maybe we should,” she said. “I mean, that would be a productive use of our time together. We have a meeting in a couple days, and then we have the big board presentation in four weeks. There are several things to iron out.”
Dillon nodded slowly. “That would definitely be one way to spend the time.”
She pretended not to hear the emphasis on one as she turned back to stir her chili. “So I think we need to go in there united about how important it is to have some after-hours services. A lot of the patients we want to serve are working shift jobs or more than one job.”
Again he nodded. She knew that she could keep his attention on the subject. This clinic meant as much to him as it did to her. It was just that they felt that different things needed the initial focus and were first priorities. Because of course they did. They were both experts in their fields, and their fields were complementary, but they both had good reasons for feeling that their specialty was the most important.
“Of course the problem is staffing it after normal clinic hours,” Dillon said.
It was. And that was exactly what they’d talked about the last time she’d brought it up. “I think we need to talk with the staff and remind them that what we do doesn’t really have ‘normal’ hours,” Kit told him.
“They know that,” Dillon said. “They work in a hospital, they do overnight shifts, they work on holidays.”
“But the concern is their adding more hours to what they already work,” Kit said. The hospital was understaffed, as most were, in many areas—but especially nursing—and the hospital board had been clear that all staffing hours would have to be pro bono work.
“Right. Especially in nursing. But lab and radiology will also have to volunteer.”
She nodded. “You and I both work well beyond forty hours a week, and we’ll be the primary medical personnel volunteering in the clinic.” The other doctors had agreed to help here and there, but the bulk of the hours were going to be coming from Kit and Dillon.
They wouldn’t have it any other way.
“And we’re paid for our work hours.”
Kit turned, putting her hip against the counter and regarding him for a moment with her full focus. “You don’t do it because you get paid well for it. And you’d be volunteering anyway.”
He met her eyes directly. “Same for you.”
“Exactly.”
“But not everyone in the world feels that way.”
In the moment that stretched between them, Kit felt the thing that tied them together, that common thread that had always tied them together, pulling tight and drawing them closer. They were both passionate about what they did, they wanted to fix the world, they wanted to make their hometown better, and they wanted to serve the people in that town. They both did the things they did because they loved it and knew it was important. They didn’t need much compensation beyond that.
“We need to help them feel that way,” she finally said.
He gave her a half smile. “You’re good,” he said. “But even you can’t make people feel a certain way, Doc.”
“But I can help them understand how they already feel. I think that our people truly want to do work that matters, that helps others, and that is important. I think we have plenty of people on staff who will want to help out at the clinic. We just have to help them realize that.”
“So we need to have counseling sessions with everyone who works at the hospital? Get them in touch with their inner humanitarian?” Dillon asked. “This will motivate them to volunteer their time in the clinic?”
Kit lifted her chin. “Essentially, yes. We hold team meetings. We bring in lunch and talk to them about why the clinic is important. We tell them all about the programs we want to offer, the reason we think the town needs this, why it’s important to us personally.” She looked him directly in the eye. “You and I are very successful in winning people over, motivating them, influencing them. Think of what we could do if we do it together.”
Dillon moved in closer. “Yeah, I’ll give you that. When we come together for something, amazing things really do happen.”
That was undeniable. In every way. She swallowed, stepped back, and returned to her pot. “Great. So I’ll handle the talk, and you’re in charge of the lunch. I like chicken salad.”