Christmas Kisses Collection. Louise Allen

the time he’d first met her a couple years ago when she’d moved back to Coopersville after finishing her medical training, he’d been fascinated by McKenzie. But other than that he’d catch her watching him with a curious look in her eyes, she hadn’t seemed interested in anything more than friendship and was obviously not in a life phase where she wanted a serious relationship.

      Not that he wanted that either, but he also didn’t want to become last month’s flavor within a few weeks. She didn’t seem interested in dating anyone longer than a month. It was almost as if she marked a calendar and when thirty days hit, she moved on to the next page of her dating life.

      Although he had no plans of marriage ever, he did prefer committed relationships. Just not those where his partner expected him to march her down the aisle.

      He owed Shelby that much. More. So much more. But anything beyond keeping his vow to her was beyond his reach.

      Since his last breakup he definitely hadn’t been interested in dating anyone except McKenzie. If he was being completely honest, he hadn’t been interested in dating anyone else for quite some time.

      Oddly enough, since she dated regularly and routinely, she’d repeatedly turned him down. Which, since she was obviously as attracted to him as he was her, made no sense. Unless she truly was more a stickler for not dating coworkers than he believed.

      “Have you ever dated a coworker in the past?”

      At his question, she turned to him. “What do you mean?”

      “I was just curious as to why going on a date with me was such a big deal.”

      “I didn’t say going on a date with you was a big deal,” she immediately countered.

      “My references say that going on a date with me is a very big deal.”

      “Yeah, well, you might need to update that reference because I’m telling you Mommy Dearest doesn’t count.”

      He grinned at her quick comeback. He liked that about her, that she had an intelligence and wit that stimulated him. “Did you think about our kiss?”

      “What?”

      He grinned. He knew that one would throw her off balance. “I was just curious. Did you think about our kiss on your porch this weekend?”

      “I’m not answering that.” She turned and stared out the window.

      Lance laughed. “You don’t have to. I already know.”

      “I don’t like how you think you know everything about me.”

      “I wouldn’t presume to say I know everything about you by a long shot, but your face and eyes are very expressive so there’s some things you don’t hide well.”

      “Such as?”

      “Your feelings about me.”

      “Sorry. Loathing tends to do that to a girl.”

      There went that quick wit again. He grinned. “Keep telling yourself that and you might convince yourself, but you’re not going to convince me. I’ve kissed you, remember?”

      “How could I forget when you keep reminding me?”

      He laughed again. “I plan to keep reminding you.”

      “I have a good memory. No reminders needed.”

      “I’m sure you do, but I enjoy reminding you.”

      “Because?”

      “You normally don’t fluster easily, yet I manage to fluster you.”

      “You say that as if it’s a good thing,” she accused from the passenger seat.

      Seeing the heightened color in her cheeks, hearing the pitch-change to her voice, watching the way her eyes sparked to life, he smiled. “Yes, I guess I do. You need to be flustered, and flustered good.”

      “Why am I blushing?”

      “Because you have a dirty mind?” he suggested, shooting her a teasing look. “And you liked that I kissed you today in your office and Friday night on your porch.”

      “Let’s change the subject. Let’s talk about Edith and her bowel movements.”

      He burst out laughing. “You have a way with words, McKenzie.”

      “Let’s hope they include no, no and no again.”

      “Then I just have to be sure to ask the right questions, such as, do you want me to stop kissing you, McKenzie?”

      She just rolled her eyes and didn’t bother giving a verbal answer.

      There really wasn’t any need.

      They both already knew that she liked him kissing her.

       CHAPTER SIX

      EDITH DIDN’T LOOK much the worse for wear when McKenzie entered her hospital room. The elderly woman lay in her bed in the standard drab hospital gown beneath a white blanket and sheet that were pulled up to beneath her armpits. Her skin was still a pasty pale color that blended too well with her bed covering and had poor turgor, despite the intravenous fluids. Oxygen was being delivered via a nasal cannula. Edith’s short salt-and-pepper hair was sticking up every which way about her head as if she’d been restless. Or maybe she’d just run her fingers through her hair a lot.

      “Hello, Edith, how are you feeling since I last saw you at the office earlier today?”

      Pushing her glasses back on her nose, the woman shrugged her frail shoulders. “About the same.”

      Which was a better answer than feeling worse.

      “Any more blood?”

      Edith shifted, rearranging pillows. “Not that I’ve seen.”

      “Are you spitting up anything?”

      She shook her head in a slow motion, as if to continue to answer required too much effort. “I was coughing up some yellowish stuff, but haven’t since I got to the hospital.”

      “Hmm, I’m going to take a look and listen to you again, and then one of my colleagues whom you’ve met before will also be checking you. Dr. Spencer.”

      “I know him. Handsome fellow. Great smile. Happy eyes.”

      Lance did have happy eyes. He had a great smile, too. But she didn’t want thoughts of that happy-eyed handsome man with his great smile interfering with her work, so she just gave Edith a tight smile. “That would be him.”

      “He your fellow?”

      McKenzie’s heart just about stopped.

      Grateful she’d just put her stethoscope diaphragm to the woman’s chest, McKenzie hesitated in answering. Was Lance her fellow? Was that what she’d agreed to earlier?

      Essentially she had agreed to date him, but calling him her fellow seemed a far stretch from their earlier conversation.

      She made note of the slight arrhythmia present in the woman’s cardiac sounds, nothing new, just a chronic issue that sometimes flared up. Edith had a cardiologist she saw regularly. Perhaps McKenzie would consult him also. First, she’d get an EKG and cardiac enzymes, just to be on the safe side.

      “Take a deep breath for me,” she encouraged. Edith’s lung sounds were not very strong, but really weren’t any different from her usual shallow and crackly breaths. “I’m going to have to see why your chest X-ray isn’t available. They did do it?”

      The woman nodded. “They brought the machine here and did the X-ray with me in bed.”

      Interesting, as Edith could get up with assistance and had walked out of the clinic of