She nodded, feeling as breathless as she’d ever been around a man.
He stepped closer to her, tipped her chin up and laid a soft, sweet kiss on her lips that surprised the hell out of her.
“Pick you up at seven tomorrow?”
“Seven thirty is better. I have a client until seven.”
“Seven thirty it is. See you then.”
“Okay.”
“Sleep tight.”
“You, too.”
As she used her key in the door that led to her apartment upstairs, Sierra wondered if she’d sleep at all as she picked over the last twenty minutes and reviewed each of the amazing things he’d said to her. She was still dazzled when she crawled into bed and snuggled under the down comforter she needed this time of year.
She’d felt a spark of… something… in past encounters with him, brief as they’d been with her stopping by the gym to bring him something or to ask how he was doing before jumping on the elliptical for an hour. If she’d started to look forward to seeing him, well, that was her problem, or so she’d told herself.
Sierra had also wondered if he was just being nice to her the way he was to everyone who’d come by to support him through a tragic time.
But as of an hour ago, she could now say he wasn’t just being nice. He was interested in her and realizing that changed everything. She hadn’t dated anyone in more than two years. Or was it three? Jeez, it was more than three years since she and Kyle, the ferry boat mate, had broken up after dating for six months.
Sierra still saw him around once in a while, but that’d been going nowhere fast from the start. She’d stayed with him thinking it was better to be with him than to be alone, but she’d learned that being lonely in the wrong relationship hurt worse than the loneliness that came from being single.
After they’d finally called it quits, she’d been relieved and had never once missed having him around. Duke had told her then that everything was a learning experience, but she was tired of worthless experiences that hadn’t taught her anything other than she was better off alone than with someone who wasn’t good enough for her.
Morgan was different. He was an actual grown-up who’d been through a lot in his life but still seemed to have his shit together. And he’d said things to her that no man had ever dreamed of saying, which made him the first one with the power to truly hurt her if she wasn’t careful not to get too caught up in whatever game he might be playing.
She’d start being careful tomorrow. For now, she wanted to fall asleep thinking about how he’d looked at her when he said she stood out in the crowd and perhaps the inaction of other men would turn into his good fortune.
* * *
Dan Torrington was learning that labor wasn’t for the faint of heart as Kara’s stretched into the eighteenth hour, and the medical team seemed to become less animated with every half hour that went by.
Kara was exhausted and as pale as Dan had ever seen her, which had his nerves stretched to their absolute limit.
He’d given in and called his mother an hour ago, and she’d assured him that a long labor was perfectly normal, especially with a first child. He’d been relieved to hear that his sister Barbara had been in labor for thirty hours with her first baby, not that he’d wish that on anyone. But it had been good to hear from his mom, on top of the assurances from Victoria and David that everything was progressing according to plan.
He rubbed the back of his neck, which had gone tight with tension hours ago, trying to get some relief.
Kara awakened out of a doze when another contraction started.
Dan held her hand and talked her through it, encouraging her to breathe and all the other useless things he could think of to say.
“I think I want the epidural,” she said when it was finally over.
When they’d come in earlier to do the procedure, she’d panicked and decided to keep trying to go without it.
“Are you sure, hon?”
“Yeah, I can’t do this anymore. The pain is too much.”
“I’ll tell Victoria.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll be right back.”
“We’ll be here.”
Dan left the room to find Victoria and David in a break room at the end of the hallway, standing as they had something to eat. “Sorry to bother you guys, but Kara is interested in the epidural. This time, she means it.”
