Dying For You Read Online Free PDF Page A

bound to do the math one of these days—”
    “Minor details. So here I am, with three days off at your disposal. Paid!”
    “God help me. I mean, thank you.” Cathy pulled the bag toward her and opened it. Ah. Cream puffs, éclairs, smiley-face sugar cookies. Bakeries were divine. The one down the street, Rosie’s, in particular. “I guess this works out nicely. I had some vacation time I needed to burn or I’d lose it, so I’ve got the rest of the week off, too.”
    “To play nursemaid?” Nikki asked, reaching for an éclair and decimating it in two bites.
    “I…guess so.”
    “Mm innfff afff oo, y’mmmmf.”
    “I know, but what could I do? Abandon him at the hospital? He almost
died,
Nik. He did die, actually, for a few minutes.”
    “Zzz mmm nnnt.”
    “I know, I know, but I think the punishment was quite a bit worse than the crime, don’t you? And I’m
not
being taken advantage of,” she added sharply as Nikki opened her mouth to drool custard and make another point. “He might have put my name on the forms, but it was still my choice to have the ambulance drop him off here. In fact, don’t you think that’s sad? That out of all the people in the world, he listed a neighbor?Not even an old neighbor. A new one. I just—I just hope everybody’s okay with it.”
    Jack hadn’t made a sound since the accident. No helpful plates of cookies, no materializing car keys, no knocks. Nothing. Zip. It was funny how something initially scary had gotten comforting. His silence was making her distinctly nervous.
    “Well, shoot, Cathy, I didn’t think my opinion mattered so much,” Nikki joked. “Hey, the only one who has to be okay with this is you. Me, I think you’re nuts. But I’ve thought that since the seventh grade.”
    “Continuity,” she mused. “How comforting.”
    “Amen,” Nikki said, and selected a cream puff. “So, is he asleep or what?”
    “I don’t know,” she confessed. “He was sleeping when the ambulance dropped him off. I’ve…I haven’t gotten around to checking on him yet. The doctor said he needed lots of rest.”
    “Is he burned?”
    “Not too badly. The shock was pretty quick. He’s got some second-degree burns on the tips of his fingers and his feet and that’s about it.”
    “He’s likely to be a sucky patient. You know how men are. Okay,
you
don’t, but take my word for it, they’re total babies when they need to be taken care of.”
    “That’s a cliché.”
    “For a reason, honeybun. Trust me, this guy’s gonna be a pill.”
    “I suppose,” she sighed.
    “Well.” Nikki popped the top off her cream puff, liketaking the cap off a mushroom, and carefully licked out the whipped cream. “Go check. Get it over with.”
    Cathy drummed her fingers on the table and glanced at the stairs. “I suppose. The alternative is watching you eat.”
    “Hey, I got a bag full of cream puffs, honey. I could do this all morning.”
    Cathy got up to check on her new patient.

Chapter 9
    She rapped softly on the guest room door, heard nothing, and carefully eased the door open. Shirtless Ken was sitting up in bed, smiling at her. The fact that it was a genuine smile and not a leer was startling in itself, but there was something different about him. Not just the smile. Some fundamental change in his appearance, something she couldn’t quite put her finger—
    “Nice shirt,” Nikki observed from behind her.
    Ah-ha!
    “Good morning, Nikki.” Ken’s smile widened, showcasing laugh lines around his gorgeous dark eyes. “Good morning, Cathy. I’m sorry to be so much trouble.” His voice was deep and soft, and gone was Shirtless—er, Ken’s—usual sneery whine.
    “No problem,” Nikki said, staring.
    “I’m just so sorry you got hurt,” Cathy added. Ken was wearing a scrub top, doubtless loaned to him from someone at the hospital. His dark hair was mussed, and stubble bloomed along his jawline. “I feel…I feel…I feel…”
    “Terrible,” Nikki supplied