Page 29 of Crossing the Line
The frustration in Harper's voice was justified, Carmen realized. She'd been the one to create these impossible boundaries, demanding professional distance while working in forced proximity. She'd been the one to retreat every time their natural compatibility threatened to become something more.
"Harper, the complications?—"
"Are only complicated because we're making them complicated." Harper's hand reached out, her fingers barely brushing Carmen's wrist. The contact was light, easily dismissed as accidental, but it sent electricity through Carmen's entire body. "What if we stopped fighting what's happening between us?"
Carmen looked down at Harper's hand, then up at her face. In the fluorescent hospital lighting, Harper looked younger than her twenty-six years, but her eyes held fierce determination. This wasn't the impulsive woman who'd lied about her identity. This was someone who'd thought carefully about what she wanted and decided it was worth the risk.
"Your mother?—"
"Will have to understand that I'm an adult capable of making my own choices." Harper's voice was steady. "And you're not just her colleague. You're the woman I can't stop thinking about, despite every reason I should."
The room felt smaller, and Carmen was hyperaware of every sound: distant monitors, the hum of hospital equipment, her own heartbeat that had become audible in her ears. Harper wasclose enough to kiss, close enough that Carmen could see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes.
"This is dangerous," Carmen whispered, but she didn't step back.
"Good things usually are." Harper's hand moved from Carmen's wrist to her cheek, the touch warm and deliberate. "Carmen, I want to try. I want to see what this could be if we stopped running from it."
Carmen felt her last defenses crumbling under the weight of Harper's caress and the sincerity in her voice. This wasn't a mistake or a moment of weakness. This was a choice.
When Harper leaned in, Carmen didn't resist. The kiss was soft and tentative, nothing like the passionate encounter that had ignited everything between them. This was careful, respectful while acknowledging the impossibility of continuing to deny what existed between them.
Carmen's hand found Harper's waist, pulling her closer despite every instinct screaming warnings. For a moment, nothing existed except the warmth of Harper's soft lips, the rightness of being close to her, and the recognition that this was something much deeper than attraction. Something worth fighting for.
The sound of footsteps in the hallway outside the on-call room shattered the moment. Carmen pulled back, panic flooding her system as reality crashed over her.
"We can't," Carmen said, stepping back and rebuilding her walls with visible effort. "This can't happen. Not here, not like this."
Harper's expression showed disappointment but not surprise. "Then how? Because pretending this doesn't exist isn't working for either of us."
Carmen looked at Harper and felt the familiar war between desire and self-preservation. But this time, desire was winning.
"I don't know," Carmen admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. "But you're right. We need to figure this out."
Harper's smile was small but genuine. "That's all I'm asking for. A chance to figure it out together."
As more footsteps echoed in the hallway, Harper stepped back to a more professional distance, her expression shifting to the careful neutrality they both wore like armor. But something had changed between them, a line crossed that couldn't be uncrossed.
Carmen knew she should regret the kiss, the admission, and the growing certainty that Harper was becoming more important than her career. Instead, she felt something that might have been relief.
The pretending was over. Whatever came next, they'd face it honestly. Together.
8
HARPER
Harper's apartment had transformed in the week since she'd arrived in Phoenix Ridge. The boxes were mostly unpacked now, their contents finding homes among the mismatched furniture that was starting to feel less temporary and more like the foundation of something real. Medical textbooks stood in neat rows beside novels she'd never had time to read during residency. Photos from medical school occupied the bookshelf, but they no longer felt like evidence of someone else's expectations and instead looked like her own achievements.
She dropped her medical bag beside the door and stood in the center of the space, still wearing scrubs that carried the antiseptic scent of the hospital mixed with something that made her pulse quicken: the memory of working beside Carmen during the trauma response.
The afternoon replayed in her mind with crystal clarity. The way they'd moved together around Captain Walsh's stretcher, anticipating each other's needs without speaking. Carmen's hands, steady and precise, while Harper managed cardiac monitoring with a confidence that had surprised them both. Themoment when Carmen had said "excellent work" and meant it—not as Dr. Langston's daughter, not as a promising intern, but as Harper herself.
Then the on-call room. Carmen's admission that they needed to figure this out. The kiss that had lasted maybe three seconds but felt like crossing a border into territory neither of them had mapped.
Harper touched her lips, remembering the careful way Carmen had pulled back—not with revulsion or regret, but with the kind of restraint that suggested she was fighting herself rather than fighting Harper. For the first time since Monday's disaster, Harper felt something that might have been hope.
Her phone buzzed against the kitchen counter. A text from Alice Knight: “Study group at your place still happening? Piper's bringing pizza and war stories from Dr. Parker's torture chamber.”
Harper had forgotten. Tuesday evening study sessions had seemed like a good idea when they'd planned them during orientation—a way to build connections and process the overwhelming first week of surgical training. Now the thought of normal intern bonding felt impossible when her world had shifted so fundamentally.
