Chapter 4

If it was any other woman drooling on the passenger window of his Jeep, Noah would swear to never take her out again.

He smiled softly as he sat in his parked vehicle outside Krista’s townhouse. Her face was pressed against the glass and she was fast asleep. Not exactly drooling, but when he recapped the evening to her tomorrow, he’d add that little detail in and enjoy watching her flush.

“Krista?” he said, nudging her shoulder.

She didn’t stir. She’d always been a lightweight. Good thing she was also light in weight because he was going to have to carry her inside. He reached over to her purse and fished out her keys, saying her name one last time to make sure she wasn’t going to wake. Nope, she was definitely lights-out. He moved around to the passenger side, slid his arms under her, and hoisted her up, cradling her head against his left shoulder. She smelled like lavender and he breathed her in for a moment. His fingers tightened around her as he carried her to her front door, unlocked it, and walked inside. Her bedroom was the last one on the right. He didn’t turn the lights on as he entered, instead finding his way by the moonlight streaming in from her window. He was careful to lay her down comfortably, with her head on the pillow. A few strands of her dark hair swept across her cheek. He pushed them back and stared at her for a long moment. “Krista?” he whispered again.

She stirred this time. Made a little moan.

“I took you home,” he told her. “Your brother should be here in an hour or two.” Suddenly he wondered if he should leave her alone. She’d had four beers, which was a lot for someone who got tipsy after one. It wasn’t like her. On top of that, he knew she was tired and emotionally drained. Work had been hard on her lately. “Do you need me to stay?” he asked quietly.

Her smile came before her eyes fluttered open to focus on him.

“Hey.” He sat on the edge of her bed and looked down at her and those sleepy bedroom eyes she blinked lazily at him. “You okay?”

“Um-hmmm.” Her eyes closed again, but her soft smile remained.

“You want some water? I can put a glass by your bed. Don’t want you to wake with a headache in the morning.”

“My protector. You take such good care of me.”

He ran a hand over her forearm. “I always will,” he promised, remembering how he’d sat by her hospital bed after her transplant. He’d silently promised that he’d never let anyone hurt her. Over the years, that promise had come to include himself.

Her eyes fluttered open again. “I love that little dimple in your cheek,” she whispered.

Noah stilled. Everything inside him tightened to the point that his heart squeezed and kicked. He searched his mind for something clever to say, to take the edge off the moment. Before he could say anything, though, Krista sat up and pressed her mouth to his. His hands immediately tightened around her, holding her there. Then, without thinking—maybe his mind just wasn’t working tonight—he parted his lips and took the kiss to the next level. He swept his tongue past her lips. Tasted her sweetness, and, good God, she tasted fantastic. Her hot mouth on his was divine. Blood surged to his lower half, and he pressed his body against hers. One hand traveled down her waist, cupping her bottom.

It all lasted barely a couple seconds. Like a spark that ignited into a flashfire.

“Mmmm. Noah,” she moaned, falling back against her pillow.

“Krista?” he said, breathing heavily. What the hell just happened?

But she was asleep. Her eyes were closed and her head had turned to the side. There was a soft smile playing at her slightly parted lips. Kissable lips.

Withdrawing his hands from her body, he stood and took a step backward, nearly stumbling over her shoes. They’d fallen off as he’d taken her to bed. Which didn’t sound right at all. He’d like to say nothing happened, but shit, he’d kissed her. Why had he kissed her?

At the front of the house, he heard the door open and slam shut. Joey was home. Thank you, God, Noah thought, because he needed to get out of Krista’s bedroom, her home, and as far away from her as he possibly could right now.

Joey stopped and arched a brow at the sight of Noah sprinting out of Krista’s darkened room.

Noah lifted his hands. “She drank too much. I put her in her bed. See for yourself. She’s slobbering on her pillow and still wearing the jeans and shirt she had on at Castaways.” He failed to mention, however, that he’d had his tongue in her mouth and his hand on her ass two seconds earlier.

Joey snickered. “I stopped caring who my sister brought to bed a long time ago, man. And I’d never worry about you two anyway.”

Both of those statements had Noah stopping in his tracks. “What do you mean the guys Krista brings to bed?” Because he hadn’t heard of any in a long time.

“Well, not lately. She’s too wrapped up in work. We’ll probably end up living together ’til we’re old or we kill each other. One of the two.” Joey headed toward the fridge and pulled out a carton of leftover Chinese food.

“Well, what do you mean that you would never worry about me and Krista?” Noah asked. Because he was worried at the moment. He was two seconds away from needing a paper bag to breathe into.

Joey looked up over a forkful of dangling lo mein. “She’s been telling me for years. You’re just friends and she’s not even attracted to you, bro.” He chomped down on the noodles.

“She’s not?”

Joey laughed as he chewed and swallowed. “Sorry to bruise your ego. She told me a couple years ago when I thought that maybe she was crushing on you. She’d rather date Milburn Sanders than you.”

Milburn was a good guy. He had a bowl haircut and thick-lensed glasses. He managed the movie theater in Blushing Bay and he freakishly knew every movie nearly by heart, even the chick flicks.

“She did?” Noah asked, feeling a little let down. Which was crazy. He didn’t want her to want him. He needed Krista to think of him as just her friend. Her best friend. Because otherwise they stood to lose everything. Noah had seen a lot of friends turn into enemies after crossing the line. Case in point: his oldest brother, Sam, and his estranged wife, Abby.

“Gotta go. See you at the dock tomorrow morning.” Noah took long strides toward the door, then turned back. “Would you mind putting a glass of water by her bed? Get her to drink it if you can. Otherwise she’ll have a headache in the morning. She’s a grouch when her head hurts.”

“Which one of us is the big brother?” Joey laughed as he shoveled more noodles into his mouth.

Noah took that as a yes. “Thanks.” He waved and closed the front door behind him. He couldn’t get in his Jeep fast enough. He took deep breaths as he drove back to his houseboat, trying and failing to expel the memory of Krista’s lips. Soft like satin. Moist. She’d breathed a little sigh as they’d kissed.

He slammed his front door and walked directly to his bed. He took a moment to shed his T-shirt, then laid flat on his back and stared up at the ceiling. His body was long past tired, but his mind was whirling like some nocturnal creature after dark. Krista had been drunk. It was drunken Krista who’d kissed him. The drunken Krista who’d once confessed about her fetish for midnight snacking. The entire family had been blaming Joey for all the food that was disappearing at night, but it’d been her all along. Noah smiled to himself at the memory. He’d just forget about tonight’s kiss, the same way he’d forgotten about her midnight snacking. Joey had taken the fall for that. For all Noah knew, Joey might’ve really thought he woke up every night to eat his parents out of house and home.

Noah forced his eyes shut. He rolled onto his stomach and buried his face into the pillow, hoping to bury the memory of Krista’s mouth on his, too. She’d been drunk, but he hadn’t been. In a moment of complete insanity, he’d kissed her back, crossed a line between them, and now he somehow needed to uncross it.

Krista groaned against her pillow. There was a throb in her head that matched the sound of her alarm beeping on her bedside table. She lifted an arm and swatted at the machine until it stopped, then cracked an eye to notice the glass of water, too. Noah must’ve put it there. She vaguely remembered him driving her home. All of that was fuzzy, though. She groaned again. The last time she’d had too much to drink with him, she’d told him things that he still held over her head to this day. Like how she liked to wake at midnight and raid the fridge. She was still ashamed of that little habit, which had been blamed on Joey.

Sitting up, she dangled her feet above the floor and reached for the water. She downed the whole glass hoping to offset the headache before standing. Then she dragged her feet down the hall and started the coffee. She and Grace had decided to skip going to the BB Café for breakfast this morning. If they hadn’t, Krista would be canceling anyway.

“Headache?” Joey asked, rounding a corner.

“Monster headache,” Krista said, only slightly exaggerating.

“When are you going to learn that you’re a lousy drinker?”

“Did you see Noah when he brought me home last night?”

Joey had an apple in his hand. He nodded and took a large bite, talking as he chewed. No matter how many times she tried, she’d never break her brother of the simultaneous talking and eating. “Yep. Going to see him again right now.”

Krista laughed, which was a mistake. She pressed a hand to her temple to temper the pain. “I can’t get used to you two working together…Did Noah say anything on the way out last night?”

Joey thought for a second. “No. Why? You afraid you spilled some deep dark secret in your lapse of sober judgment?”

Krista tapped her fingers impatiently along the countertop needing her coffee. “No,” she said. Even though that’s exactly what she was worried about.

“Gotta go. Hoping to catch the big one today.”

Krista watched him head to the door. A little jealousy kicked in. Her brother would be spending the day with her best friend out on the sunny waters. And she would be on her feet for an eight-plus hour shift trying her damnedest to prove to Karen that she was the perfect choice to replace her.

“Bye.” Krista grabbed a coffee mug and poured a healthy cup full. Then she proceeded to complete the morning rush.

A few hours later, she finally sat down with Adam’s discharge papers. His lungs were clear and all signs of infection were gone. His white blood cell count was up and he was able to go home and return to being a normal kid again—at least until his next infusion or virus, whichever came first. Krista reviewed the notes, signed her part, and went in search of Dr. Jacobs to sign his. After that, she knocked twice before entering Adam’s hospital room.

“Hey, buddy,” she said.

He was sitting up, clutching a chapter book in both hands. “This book is so awesome. I can’t leave until I finish,” he told her. He’d gotten the book from the library cart that made daily rounds on the floor.

Mandy smiled tiredly. “I will buy you that book, sweetheart.” She looked at Krista. “Because we are definitely leaving today, right?”

Krista smiled. “Definitely.” She turned to the boy. “But you can take that book home and finish. I’ll return it to the hospital library when you’re done.”

His shoulders relaxed a notch on his thin body. “Yayyyyy.” He closed the book. “Then I will concede to leaving this place.”

Krista’s eyes widened. “Big word for such a little guy.”

“Because I spend my time reading instead of doing videogames or playing outside.”

Krista pulled in a sharp breath, remembering now that Noah had agreed last night to take Adam out on his boat. How had she forgotten that? She looked at Mandy. “Do you know the Sawyer Seafood Company?”

Mandy furrowed her brow. “Of course. Doesn’t everyone in Blushing Bay?”

Krista laid Adam’s chart on the foot of his bed. “Well, Noah Sawyer is a friend of mine. I hope you don’t mind, but I asked him to take Adam fishing with us one day.”

Adam punched a tiny fist into the air. “Yes! That would be so awesome!”

Mandy shook her head. “Oh. I’m not sure. Adam’s never been on a boat and…”

“I would be there the entire time, of course. I’ve been on boats since I was probably a day old. We wouldn’t go too far out, and I’d make sure he was well taken care of. I promise.”

Mandy seemed to be absorbing the idea. She looked at her son and back to Krista. “That’s really nice. I trust you with him, so…” She nodded. “Okay. That sounds wonderful. Thank you so much.”

Adam cheered, resembling a seven-year-old boy for the first time in over a week.

“You’ve really been an amazing nurse to Adam,” Mandy said. “More than a nurse. I consider you one of our friends, and we don’t have a lot of those. I’m too busy with”—she looked at her son and back to Krista—“well, you know.”

A sudden surge of emotion flooded Krista’s veins. “I consider you two friends, too. And I will absolutely enjoy taking Adam fishing and also watching him for you so you can have much-needed time to yourself.” Krista pulled the clipboard back to her lap. “Now, about these discharge papers. Are you ready to go home?” she asked Adam.

He nodded enthusiastically. He looked ready, too. His skin had color again. The childlike spark was back in his eyes.

“Great. Then all I need is for you to sign on the dotted line.” She offered Mandy the clipboard with the discharge papers and a pen.

Mandy took them, signed on several lines, and then handed them back. “Done.”

Krista pointed at Adam. “Get dressed. You’re free!”

“Did you mean it when you said you’d come to my home and hang out with me, too?” he asked.

“Of course I did.”

“Because you’re the only thing I’m going to miss about being here.” He shot out of bed, no evidence of a sick child in sight.

Krista and Mandy laughed.

“I’ve got to go see a few other patients, but I’ll check back before you go.”

Mandy nodded and then she got up and wrapped her arms around Krista. “Thank you again.”

“You’re very welcome.” Krista waved and headed out the door, nearly running into Karen. “Oh.” Guilt stamped out the warm fuzzies she’d had a moment earlier. She prayed that Karen hadn’t overheard. Judging by the look in the head nurse’s eyes, she hadn’t. Krista’s crime of caring too much had gone unnoticed this time.

“Morning,” Karen said, peering over her glasses at Krista. “I hear our little friend is leaving today.”

Krista nodded. “All set.”

“Great. There’s a new patient coming up from the ER to take his bed when it’s available.”

“Oh?” Krista asked. “Do you know the diagnosis?”

Karen frowned. Krista knew the look and she didn’t like it. “MVA. Multiple fractures.”

Motor vehicle accident. Those were always a mixed bag. The fact that Karen only mentioned fractures, though, gave Krista hope. “Got it. I’ll let you know as soon as the room is ready.”

“Thanks.” Karen continued walking. Turning back, she looked at Krista. “You’re always my first choice for the more severe patients. You’re good with them.”

Krista swallowed. “Thank you.” And that was a brief glimmer of hope that maybe she was still in the running for the promotion.

Noah had always wanted to live on a boat. It’d been his dream for as long as he could remember. A house with a yard and a white picket fence had never appealed to him.

He sat on the metal lawn chair on the deck of his boat, appropriately named Solo, and stared up at the stars. The black oil sky was full of them tonight. They could be seen more clearly here, which was one benefit to having a house on the water. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out. It was Friday night. Usually he’d be out on a date or with Krista. Tonight he’d decided to stay in, though, mainly to avoid the latter, the same way he’d been doing since Wednesday night when he’d taken her home. He wasn’t quite sure what to say when he saw her. And he didn’t want to face the fact that things would be different between them now. Because they’d kissed.

Crap.

A shooting star lit across the sky. Noah’s heart jolted for a moment. He’d never tire of seeing one of those. And he’d never stop wishing on them, either. Tonight’s wish: that he could reverse time and leave Krista in her bed Wednesday night, turn around, and walk away before she said or did anything.

“Noah?”

Noah turned to the voice on the other side of the boat. Krista. He could hide, but his Jeep was parked outside and Beauty was now on alert and barking wildly at his side. He could jump in the shower and pretend like he hadn’t heard her.

“Noah?” she called again.

His mind raced as he contemplated how to avoid reality. He couldn’t, though. He needed to face it, face her, and see what happened. Maybe they could avoid talking about the kiss altogether. That was his vote.

“Yeah,” he said when she called his name a third time. “I’m on the deck.” His gaze fell on the other metal chair beside him. He pushed it a couple inches away to keep distance between them. A moment later, Krista stepped out on the deck. Beauty ran up to her and propped her feet on Krista’s thighs, giving a quick “hello” bark.

Krista patted Beauty’s head as she laughed. Then she returned her attention to Noah. “Hey. I called your cell and you didn’t answer.” She looked down at the cellphone on his lap.

He couldn’t say he’d somehow missed her calls. “I don’t feel like talking tonight,” he said honestly.

Her smile faded and she sat down and Beauty took the floor at her feet. “Joey said it was a decent day on the water. What’s wrong?”

“I’m just tired, I guess.” He looked at her, searching her face. Maybe she’d decided to ignore what had happened between them, too. Maybe…

“Oh.” She nodded. “Well, I came by because I want to talk to you. About the other night.”

Noah, I love that little dimple in your cheek.

And then she’d kissed him. And he’d kissed her back.

He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He desperately wanted to avoid the conversation they were about to have. But, other than taking a fall off the deck of his boat, there was no escape. They had to talk. He wasn’t afraid of a lot of things, but fear iced through him. He couldn’t lose Krista. He wouldn’t.