Dreams & Desires. Kat Cantrell

was losing its luster. What he was looking for now was an equal. Someone to challenge him. He glanced over at Clare again. Someone capable of stimulating his intelligence as well as his libido.

      Luc followed Parker’s line of sight and rolled his eyes. “Dude, let it go already. How many times have you asked her out?”

      Parker shrugged. He’d honestly lost track. A couple dozen at least. At first her rejection was firm, but polite—for the most part. Not so much anymore. Lately he could feel the tension when they were forced to work together. Which was often. But that was okay. It would just be that much more satisfying when she gave into him. And she would. They always did.

      “What do you think it is about me that she finds so offensive?” he asked Luc.

      “Could it be your inability to accept no as an answer?”

      Parker shot him a look. “She wants me. I guarantee it.”

      He glanced over at her again. Her eyes were lowered, but she knew he was looking. He wasn’t sure how he knew, he just did. He could feel her from across the cafeteria. In her early thirties, she was nearly a decade older than the women he typically dated, but he liked that.

      “You really can’t stand it can you?” Luc said and Parker turned to him.

      “Can’t stand what?”

      “That she won’t bend to your will.”

      It would irritate him a lot more if he didn’t know that it was temporary. But yes, he was used to women falling at his feet. And honestly, it wasn’t as great as it sounded. “Clare will change her mind. I just have to catch her at the right time.”

      “When the chloroform kicks in?”

      Parker laughed in spite of himself and said, “Let me tell you a story. When I was a kid, there was a girl at my school named Ruth Flanigan. And for reasons unknown to me, Ruth relentlessly picked on me.”

      “You were bullied by a girl?” Luc laughed. “Is that some sort of ass-backward karma?”

      “It’s funny now, but at the time it was traumatic. She would shove me in the lunch line or kick my shins on the playground. She pulled my hair and knocked me off the swings. For years I was afraid of girls.”

      “Clearly you got over that.”

      Had he? Sometimes he wondered. When it came to relationships, he was always the one calling the shots, the one in control. He only dated women who were substantially younger and intellectually inferior. That had to mean something.

      “So, what happened?” Luc asked him.

      “At some point in the second grade she either moved or switched to a different school. I don’t remember exactly. I just remember coming back to school in the fall, and being relieved that she was no longer there. I didn’t have any contact with her again until college. I was home for the holidays and I ran into her at the party of a mutual friend.”

      “Did she kick your shins?”

      “No. She confessed that she’d had a huge crush on me, and torturing me was just her way of showing it.”

      “Don’t tell me you’re going to kick Clare in the shins and pull her hair.”

      “Of course not.” Though he was sure the hair-pulling part would come later, if she was into that sort of thing. “My point is, just because someone acts as if they don’t like you, it doesn’t mean it’s true.”

      “Are you seriously suggesting that Clare is only pretending not to like you?”

      Parker shrugged. “It’s not impossible.”

      “You clearly have your pick of female companions. Why this infatuation with Clare?”

      Because she fascinated him, and not just because she was the only woman he’d ever met who was seemingly immune to his charms. Weird as it sounded, he just felt drawn to her. He wanted to crack her open, peek inside and see what made her tick. Metaphorically speaking of course.

      Clare had been on the hospital staff for almost a decade, but Parker had yet to find a single person who knew her on a deeply personal level. Which he thought was weird. He spent far more time with his coworkers than anyone. He liked to think of them as extended family. But then, he had always been a very social person. Clare was not. She always sat alone in the cafeteria, and kept to herself on the ward. He’d heard that she had never been married or had kids, and had lived with her old-maid aunt since college. But like the librarian who wore sexy lingerie under a conservative and drab suit, Clare had layers, and boy would he love to be the one to peel them back. He was sure he would find sexy underthings in there somewhere. He was betting that if she wanted to, Clare could teach him a thing or two about having fun.

      “I’d just like to get to know her.”

      “I’ve never known you to fixate on a woman this way,” Luc said. “I have to say it’s a little disconcerting. It’s like you’re obsessed.”

      He had no explanation for why he felt such a deep connection to Clare. In the past he’d avoided deep connections like the plague. Why this time did it feel so...natural?

      He knew her work routine like the back of his hand. Knew exactly when she started her rounds, when she ate her lunch, when she worked on charts. He knew her smile, and the melody of her voice, though when she used it to address him it was always filled with irritation. But he was getting close, he could feel it.

      Okay, maybe he was a little obsessed.

      “Even if you’re right,” Luc said, “and she doesn’t hate you as much as she lets on, everyone knows that Clare doesn’t date coworkers.”

      “There’s a first time for everything,” Parker told him. “And I never say never.”

      “I think that’s your biggest problem.”

      Luc could poke fun all he wanted—Parker was confident he would wear her down. “I give it a month, probably less.”

      With a sly grin that said he was up to something, Luc asked, “Are you willing to bet on that?”

      “You’ll lose,” Parker told him.

      “If you’re so sure, put your money where your mouth is.”

      It wouldn’t be the first time they had entered into a friendly wager. “The usual amount?”

      “You’ve got a deal,” Luc said and they fist-bumped on it.

      Parker’s phone rumbled and he pulled it from the pocket of his lab coat. It was Vanessa, a nursing assistant from the NICU.

      “I’m sorry to bother you, Doctor, but we need you up here. Janey’s vitals are erratic again.”

      He cursed under his breath. Born premature and abandoned on the floor of a truck stop, Baby Janey Doe had been brought into Emergency last month and had instantly captured the heart of everyone on the ward. And though she was getting the best medical care available, her little body just wasn’t ready to heal.

      “Be right there,” he told her, then rose, telling Luc, “Gotta go.”

      “Janey?” Luc asked, and when Parker nodded Luc shook his head grimly. “No improvement?”

      “It doesn’t make sense,” he said, gathering up what was left of his lunch. “I’ve run every test I could think of, scoured the internet and medical journals for similar cases, but nothing fits. I’m at a loss. In the meantime her little body is shutting down. I’m worried we might lose her.”

      “It sucks, but you can’t save them all.”

      He knew that, and he’d lost patients before. “Maybe I can’t save them all,” he told Luc, “but I’ll never stop trying.”

      * * *

      Clare Connelly sat in the hospital cafeteria, headphones in,