“What happened here?” A nurse’s aide—CNA, according to her name tag—bent over Lily, sprawled in the first chair he could drop her in. If he didn’t find a chair himself, it would be him someone would be carrying. He took a wheezing breath, sneezed twice, and rubbed his eyes, looking down the corridor for signs that would point him to a restroom so he could wash his hands.

The aide was watching him, so he took a knee, pretending to show concern for Lily. Not that he wasn’t concerned. He was worried sick, but he was also about to lose his breakfast—and he hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet.

“Are you okay?” The aide eyed him.

“I’m fine,” Lily said.

“You’re not fine.” The woman pointed at her, frowning, then turned to Gage. “But I was talking to your friend here.”

For the first time since they’d gotten in the car, Lily met his eyes—and gave a little gasp. “Gage! You’re white as a sheet cake!”

That made him and the aide both laugh. “She’s a baker,” he told the aide, as if that explained everything. He eased—more like collapsed—into the waiting room chair connected to Lily’s seat.

She gripped his arm, a panicked look in her eyes. “Did you turn my oven off?”

“Everything is fine.” He turned to the aide. “What do we do now? She needs stitches.” He leaned behind Lily so she couldn’t read his lips. “The cut is deep,” he mouthed to the nurse, motioning to his own forehead and spreading his fingers three inches apart to show her how huge the gaping wound was.

“So what happened?”

“She slipped on the sidewalk.”

The aide seemed to notice Lily’s bare feet for the first time. “Let’s get you some slippers.” She motioned to a receptionist behind the desk, and within seconds, the two of them were putting oversized green fuzzy socks on Lily’s feet. Between fuzzy socks and all the blood, she looked like she was headed for a Halloween party as a zombie.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” The aide held up three, and Lily answered correctly.

“What day of the week is it?”

“Saturday?”

“Are you guessing?”

“No. It’s Saturday.” Lily bobbed her chin decisively. “Ow! My head is killing me.”

“I bet it is.” The aide made her answer some other questions obviously designed to see if she was coherent. Then she handed her a clipboard with forms to fill out. “Do you have your insurance information with you?”

Lily searched on either side of her, looking confused. “Where’s my purse? Oh… No, I…I didn’t even think to bring it.”

“Excuse me.” The authority in his own voice surprised Gage. “She needs to be looked at right now.” He couldn’t believe they were worrying about insurance when Lily was sitting here obviously bleeding to death.

The CNA seemed a bit taken aback by his outburst, but she gently removed the paper towel from Lily’s wound. The aide’s expression didn’t change, but she calmly said, “Ah, yes, we are definitely going to need stitches.”

We? Who was this “we” the woman spoke of? He sure didn’t want anything to do with stitches. Gage sucked in a breath and glanced around the waiting room, scouting out a place he could stretch out. He seriously needed to lie down—before he fell down. But he wasn’t about to let Lily see that. Not when she was the one sitting here with the lifeblood draining out of her.

“Lily O’Neal?” A nurse appeared in the doorway that led, he assumed, to the treatment rooms. “You can come on back.”

The aide helped Lily to her feet. She looked over her shoulder at him like she half expected him to come back with her.

“I’ll just…wait here.” He hoped Lily didn’t expect him to come back.

“Don’t worry, we’ll keep you posted.” The aide gave a little wave.

Relief flooded through him. He waited until the door closed behind them, then he stretched out across four chairs. His eyes itched like crazy but he was too tired to rub them. Which was a good thing, since he never had found a chance to wash his hands. His throat felt scratchy and he swallowed hard, trying to ease the itch.

That was the last thing he remembered until he came to with Lily shaking his arm.

* * *

“Gage? We can go now.” Lily touched his arm, harder this time. He looked so adorable sleeping all stretched out over the chairs that she kind of hated to wake him up. But she had cupcakes to make and frost, and who knew what kind of a mess to clean up at home.

And for all she knew, Gage still had other deliveries to make this morning. Although she hadn’t seen any packages in his car. Of course, she’d only had one eye and was a little preoccupied on the ride to the ER.

She shook him again, and a wave of guilt rushed over her. Her little scheme, ordering supplies one at a time, was ultimately what had lured him here with her. She felt terrible about that. And she needed to come clean.

“What?” Squinting, he sat halfway up and looked around the waiting room as if he couldn’t remember where he was.

“Gage? It’s…Lily. We can go home now.”

“Oh. Sorry. I…must have fallen asleep.” His eyes looked back at her, but they were barely slits…bloodshot and swollen. He seemed to register what he was seeing, then reared back. “Wow! Are you okay?”

She reached up to touch the baseball size bandage plastered to her forehead. Worse, the ER doctor had secured the pad in place by wrapping a band of gauze around her entire head. If she thought she’d looked pathetic before, she must be outdoing herself now. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Well, it looks pretty bad.”

“Only eight stitches. But the doc says I might get a black eye out of the deal.” She studied him. “Speaking of black eyes, your eyes are all swoll—”

“I’m fine.” He rose and rubbed his eyes, then scratched at his throat.

“Well, I hope you at least got a good nap out of the deal.” She frowned. “You look like you’re still half asleep. Are you okay?”

“To tell you the truth, I think maybe…I fainted.” He looked sheepish.

“Seriously?” Her stomach churned. This was all her fault. She could never live with herself if she didn’t confess.

“No biggie. I’m not trying to steal your thunder. You’re the one who’s been through—”

“Gage… I need to tell you something.”

He sat down.

“No. Not in here.” She glanced around the waiting room. “Would you mind taking me home now?”

“Oh… Sure.” ” He hopped back to his feet, then pointed down a hallway. “I need to use the restroom before we go.”

“Of course.”

When he came back a few minutes later, his hair was damp, making it curl around his forehead, but his eyes weren’t quite as red and his color had returned.

“I’m sorry,” she told him, once they got to his car. “I shouldn’t have made you stay here.”

“You didn’t make me.”

“I know but—”

“And how would you have gotten home if I didn’t stay?”

“I could have called Uber.”

“They have Uber in Langhorne?” He looked skeptical.

“Well, not here. But they do in Cape Girardeau.”

“And that would have cost you forty dollars.”

“Well, it probably cost you at least that in lost work hours.”

He looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

“What’s wrong?”

“I um… I need to explain about that. But… You first. You said you needed to talk to me about something?”

“It can wait. You first. What were you going to say?”

He stared out the windshield for two blocks. She was starting to think he was just going to change the subject. But finally, he sighed and looked briefly in her direction. “If I hadn’t delivered that package this morning, none of this would have happened. Fudge wouldn’t have gotten out, and you never would have slipped on the ice, and you wouldn’t be spending Easter weekend with that ridiculous bandage on your head.”

“You were just doing your job.”

“No… You don’t have all the details.”

She scowled at him. “What do you mean? Are seriously going to take the blame for this?” She pointed at her forehead. Even though it was tempting to let him take the blame so she wouldn’t have to make her confession.

“I didn’t have to deliver it. The vanilla. The package was on the truck for Monday delivery. I used it…as an excuse to come and see you.”

“What?”

He cocked his head. “You’re seriously going to make me say all that again? It was hard enough the first time.”

She swallowed a giggle.

“What?” His forehead furrowed in confusion.

“If I hadn’t ordered that Madagascar vanilla overnight, you wouldn’t have had to make the delivery and then I wouldn’t have cut my head and bled all over your car and wasted two hours of your morning.”

“You were just doing your job. You needed vanilla, right?”

“You don’t have all the details.”

“What?” The furrows deepened.

She gave a little growl. “Now don’t make me explain that all again.”

“Okay, somebody needs to start talking some sense here. What is going on?”

She sighed. “Gage, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m ordering my supplies, like, every other day. Sometimes once a day.”

“You order stuff every day?”

She blushed. “Just about.”

“Doesn’t that get expensive?”

“It’s not like I’m ordering stuff I don’t need. I’m just…spreading out the deliveries.”

“Have you always done that?”

“Um… Not always.”

“Wouldn’t it be cheaper to order everything in one shipment?”

“I get free shipping. But”—she waved him off—“you’re missing my point.”

“Oh…” She couldn’t tell by his expression if he got what she was trying to confess to.

“What I’m saying… I started ordering stuff one at a time to…to get you to come to my house.” She bit the corner of her lip. “And while I’m at it, I may as well confess that you’re going to have two deliveries to my house next week. At least two.” She cast him a sidelong glance before hurrying on. “But you can just leave them by the door. I didn’t require a signature or anything. I’m not that desperate.”

Gage stared at her. “Let me see if I have this right: You’re ordering supplies separately, every day, just so you can see me more often?” He pointed at himself.

“Well… I do like to be sure my ingredients are fresh but… Basically, yes.”

“Basically.”

“But wait a minute.” She swiveled in her seat to face him. “What was that about you not really needing to deliver that package today? Because I wasn’t expecting anything today.” If her suspicions were right, this was all turning out better than she could have hoped, and despite the throbbing in her head, happiness welled up inside her.

He cocked his head. “Let’s go back to what you were confess— Er, explaining. So, basically, this is all your fault.”

“Basically.” She grinned at him, recognizing the familiar smile that was trying to escape his own clamped lips. “And also your fault.”

He nodded an admission. “So, what do you propose we do about this?”

“Are you supposed to be somewhere else right now? I mean, did you have other deliveries today?”

“Nope. All my other clients order their products weekly or even monthly. Like normal people.” He pulled his phone from his back pocket and checked the clock. “And the class I was headed to after your delivery got out about twenty minutes ago.”

“Oh, Gage.” She put a hand over her mouth. “I am so sorry.”

He waved her off. “Don’t be. It’s a boring class. Anatomy and physiology.”

“So, what… Are you in med school or something?”

“Please.” He groaned. “It’s about killed me getting through four years. I honestly don’t know how anybody can stand to stay in school long enough to become a doctor.”

“Senior-itis, huh?”

“Something like that. Sadly, I’m not exactly a senior. I still have a semester to go.”

She nodded. “I remember you told me.”

He looked surprised. Like he didn’t remember.

“I’m sure it doesn’t help matters when you have women stalking you and making you deliver their sugar one granule at a time.” Did she really say that out loud?

His laugh came out in a snort. “You did that? The sugar? I thought some of those packages were awfully light.”

She had the decency to blush. “I would if I could.”

“So what are we going to do about this?” he said again.

“About what?”

He pointed between them. “There seems to be a mutual admiration society developing here.”

She grinned. “Oh, I think it’s fully developed.”

His eyebrows lifted. “You wanna go out with me?”

“Like…on a date?”

“Duh.”

Laughter bubbled up and spilled over. “Yes, I do. But not in the too-near future.” She tipped down the visor and slid open the mirror, examining the ridiculous bandage wrapped around her head.

“You look cute.”

She cast a sidewise glance at him. “You do know it’s a sin to lie?”

“You look cute to me. Are you doing anything for Easter?”

“Well, I was going to church”—she touched the bandage—“but I don’t think this is going to cut it for an Easter bonnet.”

“How about we have our own sunrise service?”

If she didn’t know better, she’d think she already loved this guy enough to accept his marriage proposal. But she did know better…thanks to Dustin. She did not believe in love at first sight. And she would not let Gage’s good looks sway her.” Too late, sister.

“I like that idea. What time is sunrise?”

“Not sure. I’ll look it up and text you.”

“How about if I bring breakfast? A picnic.” She curbed a grin. “Are you going to give the sermon?”

He cringed and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “I’m not very good with public speaking.”

“Were you planning on inviting a crowd?”

“No. Just you.”

“That’s not exactly public then, is it?”

“How about I bring my guitar, and maybe you can do the sermon?”

He played the guitar? She couldn’t help herself…she clutched at her heart, then quickly pulled her hand away. She took a deep, calming breath. “How about I’ll read the Easter story from the Bible and you can do the music. We don’t really need a full sermon, do we?”

He bobbed his chin. “Deal.”

They rode in silence the rest of the way to her house. But it was a comfortable silence. She didn’t argue when he offered to walk her to the door. The sun had come out and burned off the dew, and it was turning out to be a pretty lovely day.

“You sure you don’t need help finishing up your baking?”

“Do you really not have anywhere to be today?”

“Well, I should be studying. I’d hate to flunk out because of you.”

“I really do apologize for that.”

“Stop. I’m just giving you a hard time.”

“Well, it’s working.”

“Okay, last offer. If you’re sure you don’t need help, I’m going to head out. I need to go string my guitar.” He jogged down the steps and back to his car, stopping just long enough to play a quick air guitar in her direction before he slid behind the wheel.