Once across the street, Annie asked, “Over by the pond?”

“Sounds great,” Hollis said.

Annie found a patch of grass in the sun on the far side of the pond. They weren’t alone, but they might as well have been for all anyone else mattered. All she could see was Hollis, sprawling in the grass, passing food to Callie and murmuring instructions. She was so good with Callie. She was so good with everyone. And she was so damn good to look at, even with the creases of fatigue around her eyes and the shadows that flickered in their depths.

“Why don’t you relax—let me take care of the food,” Annie said, grasping Hollis’s wrist.

Hollis glanced up, her blue eyes sparkling, and a lock turned deep inside the fortress Annie had built to protect herself. Doors swung wide and Annie sensed her secrets slipping away.

“Something wrong?” Hollis asked softly.

Annie shook her head, afraid of what would come out if she spoke. “No.”

“For a minute there, you looked frightened.”

“No, not that.” Annie smiled at Callie, kneeling by Hollis’s hip. “Happy.”

“Yeah.” Hollis settled next to Annie, stretched her legs out on the grass, and handed Annie a burrito. “Happy can feel that way sometimes.” She opened her burrito and took a bite.

Annie ate in silence, occasionally wiping Callie’s chin with a paper napkin, feeling sublimely content. “I think I’m in heaven.”

“Me too,” Hollis said. “How did you know to do this?”

“I took a chance. When you didn’t come to clinic—”

“Oh cra—” Hollis glanced at Callie and bit off the curse. “I’m sorry. I got held up and I never thought—”

Annie slid her fingers down over the short sleeve of Hollis’s scrub shirt to her bare arm. Hollis’s skin was hot, the muscles underneath her fingertips solid. “It’s okay. I heard you were held up—Ned told me.”

Hollis frowned. “Ned? You went to clinic?”

“Yes. I spent the afternoon seeing patients with him. He’s very nice.”

“He is, sure.” Hollis frowned.

“What?”

“Sometimes he—”

“Mommy,” Callie said, “is it okay if I feed the ducks?”

“Remember the rules. Just a little bit.” Annie opened her bag handed Callie a small plastic bag filled with bird food. “Don’t throw it all in at once and don’t go anywhere except right in front of us.”

“I won’t.” Callie raced down the slope and squatted at the edge of the water, carefully opening the plastic bag and meticulously throwing one morsel of food at a time into the water.

“Sometimes he what?” Annie asked when Callie was out of hearing.

“Did he hit on you?”

Annie stared. Hollis looked angry. Jealous? A little frisson of pleasure shot through her. “No, of course not.”

“Why of course not? You’re beautiful, and Ned always notices beautiful women.”

“Well, he was perfectly professional.” Annie fussed with the remainders of the food, hoping to hide her confusion. She didn’t have any reason to want Hollis to be jealous, but she liked the possessive tone in her voice. She’d never felt anything like that in her life.

“So what did Ned say?” Hollis asked.

“I heard him talk to you on the phone just as I was leaving, and he said you’d been tied up all day. That’s all. Rough case?”

Hollis leaned back on her elbows and sighed. “Yeah. A routine—well, as routine as any section for me ever gets—went bad. A placenta previa.”

“Term?”

“Almost. Just diagnosed, so I scheduled her for an elective section this morning. Just got the baby out and all hell broke loose.” Hollis shook her head. “Blood everywhere. I couldn’t get the damn artery clamped and—” She grimaced. “Annie, I’m really sorry. I didn’t think. Talk about insensitive—”

“You’re anything but that.” Annie leaned onto her side, keeping one eye on Callie, and took Hollis’s hand. “Hollis, this is the business we’re in. You don’t have to apologize. I’m fine. Tell me.”

Hollis let out a breath. “Right. Anyhow, it didn’t go the way I wanted it to.”

“Are they all right?”

“I think so. The baby’s good. I spent the afternoon in the intensive care unit with the mother after surgery. She was unstable for a while and we had to transfuse her. She looked a lot better when I left an hour ago.”

“Did she—did you have to—”

“I got the bleeding stopped. I’m not sure it will ever be smart for her to get pregnant again, but that’s down the road.” Hollis squinted out across the water, her expression bleak. “I came within a hair of doing the hysterectomy, but when I called out to talk to her partner, she asked me to wait as long as I could.”

Annie caught her breath. Wait as long as she could. She tried to imagine the position Hollis must have been in—the patient bleeding, possibly in danger of dying, and a loved one asking her to wait as long as she could. How long was long enough? What was fair to everyone, and how did Hollis carry that burden?

“So you waited and it worked,” Annie said.

Hollis looked at her, her eyes worried. “It did, this time.”

“You must be happy, then.”

“Mostly I’m tired.” Hollis hesitated. “Look, Annie, there’s something you need to know about Ned.”

Annie frowned. “What?”

“Right after you and I first met, when you were so angry about the surgery I performed, I asked Ned to review your case. I didn’t think the two of you would likely cross paths—hell, I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“What? I didn’t mean to breach your privacy—”

“No, not that.” Annie waved a hand impatiently. “I’m not embarrassed that he knows, although he never let on that he recognized me. Why did you ask him to look at my case?”

Hollis sighed. “I thought if you had an independent opinion you might feel better about the outcome. He said—”

“I don’t care what he said,” Annie said, the realization lifting a weight from her spirit. “You did what you thought you had to do.”

“I want you to know he agreed. Maybe it doesn’t make any difference now—”

“Thank you.” Annie brushed her fingers through Hollis’s hair. “Thank you for caring enough to do that. It means a lot to me.”

“You mean a lot to me, Annie.” Hollis caught Annie’s hand and kissed her palm.

Hollis’s lips were warm and incredibly soft. Annie cupped Hollis’s neck, felt the blood rush under her fingertips, felt soft skin, the faint sheen of perspiration. Hollis looked at her, waiting, giving her the choice. It was so simple to make. So terrifyingly simple. Annie leaned closer and kissed her.

Chapter Twenty-two

Hollis didn’t believe Annie was really going to kiss her, but at the last second, she did. Hollis’s mind went completely blank. She’d been raised to think on her feet—indoctrinated by a family of alpha males and one iron-willed matriarch to bounce back no matter what came her way, to keep a clear head, to fear nothing. She’d chosen a career that tested her a hundred times a day. She didn’t falter when faced with unexpected situations, never panicked at critical junctures where her wrong decision could mean the difference between success and unimaginable disaster. And now she couldn’t think. Couldn’t move—all because the warmest, softest, sweetest lips she’d ever known whispered over hers.

The kiss seemed to go on forever, at least it felt as if her heart stopped for that long, but when Annie drew back it had probably only been a second or two. Hollis blinked and the sun was still in the same position hanging low over the horizon. Her hearing returned and she was surrounded by the sounds of children laughing, dogs barking, the murmur of conversation floating across the pond. Callie still crouched at the water’s edge, carefully tossing food to the ducks. Everything was exactly as it had been, only everything had changed.

Annie’s face was inches away, so close the amber flecks in her deep green irises glowed with reflected sunlight. Her lips were still parted, moist and full. Hollis held her breath, absorbing the roaring in her head into every cell. Imprinting the memory.

“Well,” Annie said with merest hint of breathlessness, “I didn’t see that coming.”

“Neither did I,” Hollis said, and her voice sounded rusty and unused. She glanced down and saw Annie’s fingers curled around her wrist. She didn’t remember Annie’s hand moving from her neck. The press of Annie’s fingertips to her nape still radiated in warm currents down her spine. She quivered inside and her hips tensed in anticipation. She turned her hand over and laced her fingers through Annie’s. The kiss had ended, but something else had begun—something she was afraid to examine and terrified of losing. “I don’t even have a next move.”

“Well,” Annie said again, color rising into her face. Her neck flushed a delicate rose as far down as the pale skin in the open collar of her white shirt. “Should I apologize?”

“I can’t imagine what for.” Hollis pictured the silky skin of Annie’s throat under her lips, imagined kissing her way down to that soft, pink expanse framed by the snow-white triangle of Annie’s shirt. Her fingers trembled to caress flesh. Her thighs tensed with sudden pressure. Her nipples peaked, hard and aching. Such a delicate kiss and she was burning.

“I didn’t think if you wanted—”

“I wanted,” Hollis said quickly. “Oh yeah, I most definitely wanted.”

“That’s good, then.” Annie smiled crookedly.

“Yeah. Good. Excellent.” Hollis ached to kiss her back. She didn’t. She’d never be able to kiss her for just a brief second, and they were outside surrounded by kids and dogs and ducks and Callie was fifteen feet away. She wanted Annie naked, she wanted her undone. No, she definitely couldn’t kiss her out here. Maybe not anywhere until she found her sanity. “Why?”

“Why what?”

Annie still hadn’t moved away and her body swayed toward Hollis. If Hollis leaned just a little, Annie’s breasts would…