Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Her calm expression took the edge off of his panic, but it was still there. “If he’s so fine, why is he at the hospital? You said he was dirty and his arm was dangling. Was he in an accident? A fight? He used to jog. Was it a heart attack? What?”
“Yeah, you barely know him and don’t think about him at all, isn’t that what you told me? It’s a sin to lie to family, Hugo Wayne.”
“This is serious, Bronte,” he warned. “Tell me what happened.”
She nodded. “Right forearm fracture, a few minor contusions on his hip and thigh, but no head trauma or any other injuries. He said he fell in the shower, but his lack of eye contact tells me there’s probably a more entertaining version of the story and he’s embarrassed to share it because I’m your sister.”
“You talked to him?”
Bronte’s look told him not to ask stupid questions.
Falling in the shower? Younger? An insidious voice in his head couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been with someone when it happened. Hugo had done a few rotations in the emergency room, so he’d seen sex-related injuries before, and Bronte did say he seemed embarrassed. “Who brought him in?”
Her expressive eyes flashed with sudden fire. “Do not get me started on that subject or I’ll never stop. And back me up if he reports me for trying to punch him.”
“Punch who? For what?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll tell you for what. When I got down there, he was one thick-accented darlin’ away from getting Monica into the back office for a quickie. Monica, the woman who resisted Doctor Sex-on-a-Stick’s daily advances for seven months. And here comes your guy’s twenty-something cousin, as if it’s a single’s bar instead of a hospital. When I told him to tone it down, he winked and said he’d just been biding his time until I arrived. Then he tried to kiss me.” She shook her head, clearly flustered. “What woman in her right mind wouldn’t be tempted to punch that?”
Hugo was trying to keep up with her, but anxiety and exhaustion were muddling his thoughts. “He’s not my guy, and his cousins are Seamus, Stephen and Owen. All of them happily married.”
“Well, he said they were cousins and he definitely sounded Irish.” She bent down to pick up his bag. “But there are so many blue-eyed pretty boys in that family, it’s hard to keep track of them all.”
Pretty boy.
He sounded Irish.
Right. Not a lover then. “That has to be William or Matthew. Thor told us about the cousins from Ireland, remember? Three of them followed Seamus back to the states and live in his old house now.”
Bronte raised one eyebrow as she handed him his things. “We have a few full houses of our own, so I don’t have time for brand new branches on another tree. You and Thoreau are the ones with the Finn fixation, not me.”
“Quit picking,” he said absently, slipping an arm over her shoulder as he walked her out of the room and toward the elevators. “I’m too tired to tease back.”
“You need a cup of coffee?”
“What I really need is to get home and get some sleep.”
“You’re leaving?”
Hugo shrugged, feigning indifference. “He’s fine, right? And he already has family here so he’s not alone.” It might be better for both of them if he stayed away.
“Really, Hugo? That’s what you’re telling yourself?”
“Yeah?” He tried to smile, but winced at her knowing expression. “He’s here because he’s injured, Bronte. Not to see me. I’m sure I’m the last person he wants showing up right now when he’s already in pain.”
And I don’t know if I’m strong enough yet to see him hurting and walk away.
She looked up at him, placing her hand on his chest. “He asked if I was on duty, Hugo. And then he asked about you.”
“Why?”
She made a small sound of frustration. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. You’ve never told me what happened between you two. Not really. I’ve gotten a kiss, a mistake, a miscommunication. That’s it. Meanwhile you’ve only gone out on three dates in the last two years, you volunteer for more shifts than a handsome, single black man should, and the old chief of police is asking about your birthday plans and relationship status with the kind of expression I’ve only seen our nephews make when they don’t get dessert.”
He tried to speak but she wasn’t done. “And I don’t blame you for preferring nursing to police work, but it was a swift change and he’s connected to that too. So what am I supposed to think? What conclusions would you draw with that damning mountain of evidence?”
She would have made a great detective. “What did you tell him?”
Her sigh was a paragraph long. “I told him that you were happily married to a Brazilian soccer player with thighs like a pair of Sequoias and a fetish for balls.”