He didn’t. Though she urged him on mentally, he faltered for the first time she could ever remember and threw paper to her scissors. And now his eyebrows were scrunched together in a confused glower. He chuffed in frustration, so damn cute she wanted to kiss him.
She tried not to giggle. “I’m still pretty loopy, so I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll extend the same courtesy you did a few weeks back. How about one more throw, and winner takes all?”
He blew out another exasperated breath.
“Ready? Get your fist up.” The seriousness of this game she was playing hit her full force, and she tried not to think that the limb she’d just shinnied out on would break. She could have won an Oscar for the act she put on, masking her nervousness with fake gleefulness. “Ready? One, two, three!”
They both hesitated for one agonizing heartbeat … then he threw down a rock. Without blinking, she let her fingers fly and form scissors.
A smug smile spread over his handsome face. “I win.”
“You know I cheated, right?” He answered by broadening his smirk. “Are you going to let me get away with it?”
“Oh, you bet your sweet ass I am!” He reached for her, careful not to bump her arm, and she stretched across the console to get to him. Then he kissed her so stupid she forgot the last twenty-four hours of terror, her aching body, and her name—both of them.
“Game over,” he whispered in her ear before pulling back and grinning at her. “And just so we’re clear, the victory I’m talking about has absolutelynothing to do with rock, paper, scissors.” He tapped the end of her nose. “You’re mine, Doctor Embry.”
She drank in the hope and the want and the need in his eyes, powerful emotions she hadn’t believed existed inside him one short month ago, much less that would be directed her way in this lifetime. Her dreams and longing for some thirty years culminated in one burst that made her soar inside. This was heady stuff, and she wanted to savor the moment.
She also struggled to turn the jumble of words inside her head into a coherent sentence. “I think you’re a little confused there, Mr. Hunnicutt.”
His smile faded. “How so?”
“The name is DoctorHunnicutt.”
His smile returned, and it dazzled in its brilliance. “So it is. Let’s go home, Doc Hunnicutt.”
Chapter 36
The Calling
Reece sat on Neve’scouch, admiring the tree he had put up and decorated this morning. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and he’d gotten it finished in the nick of time. His human audience had oohed and aahed and told him how much she appreciated his surprise, and that had made the effort more than worth it. Bonus: She’d promised to show him just how grateful she was later.
“We’ll have to maneuver around this cast,” she’d sighed
“No problem,” he had assured her. “I’ll just tie it to the bed with my best figure-eight knot so it stays out of the way.”
She had looked scandalized for an instant. Then mischief had sparked in her eyes, and she’d tried a one-armed tackle that he’d let her win so she could kisshim silly.
Looking around the comfortable space that had become his home this past month, Reece indulged himself in a self-satisfied sigh. Mr. Whiskers was a warm weight on his thighs, purring when Reece idly stroked his fur. Outside the window, pine trees swayed gracefully in the wind, shaking snow from their limbs.
Thiswas home.Thiswas where his real family lived and struggled and cared for one another. They needed him; he needed them. Why the hell had he ever thought he could leave it behind for a state he didn’t know, people he’d never met, and a climate so different from the one he’d grown up in and loved?
Every time he thought about pulling out of Stowe, though, his stomach twisted with guilt. He’d made commitments. People had jumped through one hoop after another for him, including sending other qualified candidates packing. They had been counting on him, and he had let them down, gone back on his word. He wasn’t the type of guy to break his promises, yet he had.
“Reece Hunnicutt, are you brooding over there? Don’t tell me you’re beating yourself up again.” Neve stood in the doorway to the kitchen, her good fist parked on her curvy hip. With her arm in the cast, she’d taken to wearing flowing clothes that draped her body like a Greek statue. Offsetting the whole goddess look, though, was the red Santa hat on top of her head. He loved the combination.
“Come here, my spicy margarita.”
As she came toward him, he repositioned Mr. W on a comfy quilt so he could catch her at the waist and hoist her onto his lap. Something about her made it impossible to keep his hands off this woman.
He slid his fingers under the hem of her top and caressed the skin above her waistband with his thumb while she draped her good arm across his shoulders and kissed his cheek. Her fingers dove into his hair and played. “You know moving there would have been a colossal mistake. I bet you a foot massage no more than three months would have gone by before you’d have been back in Fall River, if not three weeks. Better to cut your losses—and theirs—now.”
Turning her so she straddled him, he splayed his hands against the small of her back and pulled her closer. “Not sure how we can bet a foot massage when we’ll never know the answer. And speaking of foot massages, who gets one after our bet?”
She shrugged. “No one. The game was postponed.” She leaned in, her fresh floral scent swirling around him, and licked his earlobe as she whispered, “Maybe we can arrange a trade on Christmas Day. Our gifts to each other.”
“I like that idea.”
