Distraction by lust. It happened to the best of women, right?
Through the haze of pain and humiliation, she realized that Gray drove just like he did everything else. Quickly, quietly, and with no unnecessary movements.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, glancing over at her.
“I’m feeling really great, Gray. For the first time ever I was getting the impression that maybe you didn’t hate me, and then I go and ruin the night by nearly slicing off the fingers of my dominant hand. So yeah, I’m great. Maybe later we can go shoot puppies at close range.”
“I never hated you,” he said quietly.
And then he reached over and briefly set his hand on her knee before he jerked it back to the steering wheel.
Despite the fact that her hand was wrapped in a blood-soaked towel, and that she was about to spend her Friday night in a hospital waiting room, she couldn’t hide a giddy little smile.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Somehow Gray had never imagined that his personal version of hell would include an emergency room waiting area, the frantic parents of his secretary, and her scarily stressed-out sister, who also happened to be an ex-girlfriend. Will Thatcher had shown up as well, although he at least seemed calm.
Resisting the urge to press his fingers against his temples, he turned to Will, the only one of the group not either wringing their hands or scowling at him. “Would you please explain to me how it is that you all ended up here for a very minor finger injury?”
Will shrugged good-naturedly as he dug into his second bag of peanut M&M’s. “Soph’s dad used to run this emergency room. There’s no way you could have snuck beloved Dr. Dalton’s youngest daughter through here without the whole fam finding out. M&M?”
“No. Thanks.”
“Tell us again how this happened?” Sophie’s mom asked, shredding her thumbnail to pieces with her teeth.
“Calm down, Marnie. Dr. Hoyne said it was nothing a few stitches wouldn’t fix,” Sophie’s dad said while rubbing his wife’s back.
Marnie hissed. “Oh, and what does Richard Hoyne know!”
“True, med school teaches those docs nothing these days,” Will said.
“I heard that, William,” Marnie said.
“Dr. Hoyne is a fine ER doctor. I trained him myself,” Chris said soothingly.
“So she’s not going to lose her fingers?”
Oh Jesus. Gray pinched the bridge of his nose. Of all women, the one who had to go and slice her finger was an employee. And of all the employees, he had to end up with the one whose dad was a retired doctor and had apparently handpicked the entire emergency room staff.
“I just don’t understand how this happened,” Marnie asked.
“I didn’t realize I owed you a report,” Gray snapped, losing his temper.
“Don’t get snippy with Mama Dalton,” Will said. “You’re the one cavorting around with your secretary on a Friday night, chopping off her fingers.”
“Yeah, how is it that you ended up spending Friday night with my sister?” Brynn asked, stopping her pacing for the first time since arriving.
“Oh, here we go,” Will said, noisily crunching his M&M’s.
Gray avoided Brynn’s accusing look. He hadn’t expected to see his ex-girlfriend again, and definitely lacked the quick thinking to smooth over the situation.
What the hell am I doing here? Just when Gray was about to make a cowardly exit, the doctor finally came out. Frankly, Gray couldn’t understand why they’d all been banished to the waiting room in the first place. It wasn’t like privacy was needed to sew up a couple of fingers.
“Hi, everyone, thanks for waiting,” the doctor said somberly, as though he’d just finished rebuilding Sophie’s spleen from scratch.
Dr. Hoyne shook Sophie’s dad’s hand. “I have some good news. Sophie’s going to be just fine.”
“Oh good, we were so worried,” Will said, earning a punch from Brynn.
“Will she have any permanent nerve damage?” Marnie asked, her hand pressed against her lips.
Seeing the genuine maternal concern, Gray felt some of his irritation fade. Yes, in the grand scheme of medical emergencies, this was barely a blip on the radar. But to the Daltons, one of their own was wounded.
Hell, Gray felt like one of his own was wounded. Not that Sophie was his, even if it had felt that way for a few strange moments in his condo.
However, surrounded by her family and friends, who really knew her, he suddenly felt out of place. At the end of the day, he was just her boss. And no matter how blatantly the attention-starved little minx had flirted with him, he wouldn’t be the one she wanted to see right now.
“Which one of you is Mr. Wyatt?” the doctor asked Will and Gray.
Will pointed to Gray and grinned as if he were a sixth grader passing the blame for some pulling a girl’s hair.
“Great, come with me,” the doctor said. “Sophie’s asking to see you.”