Page 2 of Silver Fox's Twin Surprise

"Thank you, Doctor…" She leaned in as if trying to read my name badge, but it was clipped under my lab coat on my scrubs pocket, hidden away.

I pulled my lab coat back so she could see and said, "Dr. Cole Hastings at your service."

She chuckled, and I joined her. The tinkling of her laughter was as pleasant as the tone of her voice, and the smile on her face. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said Rose was an angel sent right when I needed some sort of pick me up. It put me at ease in a way I hadn't felt in years.

"Well, Dr. Cole Hastings, I owe you big time. Maybe a coffee or something." Rose thrust out her hand and leaned on the side of her car next to the jumper cables that dangled out of her engine bay.

I shook her hand and nodded. "I like it black, and I work first shift, but I'm off for a few days." I narrowed my eyes at her andtried to place this face, but I couldn’t. I knew all the nurses from surgical, but there were plenty of other departments. Still, I’d never seen her around. "Are you new around here?" I asked, and she nodded.

"Yes, actually." She pulled her hand back after I let go and tucked it around her body again in an attempt to keep herself warm. "I just got an apartment here in the city. I started at Twin Peaks two weeks ago, so I'm sort of brand-new to the city and the hospital." She nodded as she spoke, and her hair swayed. I was mesmerized by it. Like ripples of water across a pond, it drew my attention downward toward her chest again, and I internally scolded myself for checking her out.

"Well, welcome to both. It's great to have you…" I felt a little awkward. If I were in the market to meet or date a woman, now would have been the perfect chance to see if this one in particular would go to dinner. But Kate was my one and only—high school sweetheart—and when she died in that accident, I told myself I'd never move on. Maybe I'd change my mind at some point, but in the middle of a brewing scandal with a potential malpractice suit looming, it wasn't the right time.

Rose sighed happily and looked down at the engine. "Is it okay to unplug it?" she asked naively, and I chortled.

"Sure, we can remove the clamps now."

I reached for the ones on her car at the same time she did, and we both leaned in without paying attention to the other. Our heads smacked, and we both jolted back in pain, holding our heads.

"Oh, my God, I’m so sorry." Her face was screwed up into a wince, but all I could do was linger close to her for a second andadmire how perfect her complexion was. She wore no makeup and had no jewelry, just a pure skin tone and warm brown eyes.

"I, uh… It's okay." I mumbled around for a second trying to think of words, which had somehow been knocked right out of my head by that blow, and then I nodded at her. "I can finish up…"

Rose retreated in obvious embarrassment to her car, and I thought of how strongly my body felt attracted to her. The pull of chemistry had me forgetting about Kate or the disciplinary board or even the football game. I unhooked the cables and put her hood down, then mine, and when I stopped by her open window, she winced again.

"I'm really sorry. Thank you so much for helping me. I appreciate that so much." Rose was apologetic and positively irresistible.

"It's okay," I told her. "Maybe we'll bump into each other again soon." I winked at her and she blushed, and as I strolled to the back of my SUV to put the cables away, she backed out and drove off.

I wasn't sure what just happened between us except that Rose had made me feel things no woman since Kate had. I sort of liked it. I sort of really did hope we'd bump into each other again. It was a nice feeling.

2

ROSE

Ibabied my little Toyota Corolla the whole way home thinking I might have problems with it again, but it really was just a dumb mistake. I'd left my charging wire plugged into the port after having given my cell a boost on the drive across town to work. I forgot to plug it in last night, so the fifteen-minute drive was all the charge I had and my forgetfulness cost me in the form of a dead battery.

Thankfully, Dr. Cole Hastings was there to save the day. And make me blush. I felt a little giddy for a few seconds after we bumped heads and he looked into my eyes like that. But it faded a little as I drove home and thought about how unlikely it was that he'd even take an interest in me. Smacking heads in a parking garage over a dead battery wasn't exactly a recipe for love at first sight.

I stopped by the market on my way home and got a few snacks knowing Alana would appreciate them. When I first moved into the city to accept the job at Twin Peaks Memorial, I didn't know where I'd live. But I met Alana on my first day after overhearing how her roommate skipped town and left her with the rent. Shewas a pharmaceutical rep, and since I was a nurse, we happened to be in the right place at the right time—the administrative offices of the hospital.

Now we were practically like sisters. It'd only been two weeks, but I felt like we knew each other our whole lives. We shared the car and all our living expenses, and it made accepting this job that much easier.

"I'm home," I called as I struggled through the door with the bags of groceries. I made sure to double-check that my charging wire in the car wasn't plugged in this time so I didn't head out tomorrow expecting to go to work and have a dead battery again.

"Oh, good! I'm so snacky… Did you get pretzels?" Alana bounced toward me with a grin on her face and took a few bags from my hands as I used my foot to kick the door shut. She was about as eager to eat as I was to tell her about my day. Nothing even remotely interesting had happened to me since I met her besides being vomited or peed on, and she wasn't interested in hearing those things.

"Yes, well, they came at a price." I chuckled, and she eyed me as she set the plastic sacks on the countertop. I kicked off my shoes and joined her at the kitchen counter. The simple open floorplan felt too hollow and empty at first, but I'd grown used to being able to see the living room, dining room, and kitchen the instant I walked through the front door.

"What do you mean?" Alana found the bag of pretzels and the package of peanut M&M's and claimed them as she leaned back on the counter and watched me set the other bags down.

"Oh, nothing… Just an interesting afternoon. That's all." I breathed in the scents of lilac and lavender and glanced at thecandle she had burning on the peninsula that separated the counter from the dining table. It smelled good. this place always smelled good. It was either her perfume or a scented candle.

"Dish," she said, tearing open the pretzels, and I grabbed the container of Rocky Road and a spoon and turned to face her expectant expression. Her eyebrows were so high she looked like a cartoon character.

I chuckled. "Well, so after work, I went to my car to leave like normal, and when I got in the car, the battery was so dead it wouldn’t even power the radio."

She deadpanned and lifted an eyebrow at me. "You got me all excited about a dead battery? Man, life in a small town must've sucked."

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