The Doctor's Devotion. Cheryl Wyatt

      “Help me hold them down?” Mitch entreated after another bowl bobbed up and flung an airborne glob of soap in his eye.

      “Think physics. You have to turn them sideways and fill them at an angle. See? The water and the air stop resisting one another and meet halfway.” As she showed him, their hands touched. Their motions startled then slowed at the pleasant but wholesome sensation. Not only that, her carefully exacted comment about meeting halfway held unmistakable emphasis.

      He met her gaze. “Meeting halfway sounds better than fighting constantly.”

      The depth of beauty and bravery in her smile plunged all rational thought into disarray. He had not expected it.

      Seemed to him they took their time near the end of the butter bowl baptizing marathon.

      Afterward Lauren washed the table. “Mitch, are you going to the trauma center today?”

      “No. I’m going tomorrow after I come here and clear out Lem’s gutters. I’ve already rounded at the center today.”

      “May I come with you tomorrow, to check on Mara?”

      “The texting teen?” He hadn’t meant it to come out so abrupt. But seriously, what was Lauren’s draw? The girl killed someone with whatever string of words she’d felt too important to pull over for. Talk about a death sentence.

      Mitch’s annoyance regained ground.

      “Yes.” A wary expression accompanied Lauren’s answer. Perhaps his ire was a little overdosed. Yet hadn’t his dad’s life been snuffed out by an equally distracted driver?

      Mitch scrubbed the opposite end of the table with fervor. “Suit yourself. But just to warn you, Mara’s still on a ventilator, unconscious. There’s also a possibility I’d get held up at the center because the other surgeon who’s been graciously covering for me is on call at Refuge Memorial, his primary hospital.”

      Mitch really did not want Lauren getting attached to Mara. Nothing good could come of that. Right?

      The stubborn set to her jaw resembled Lem’s when things—like tractors—didn’t go his way. “I’ll take my chances.”