Page 14 of Need Me
Chapter 4
Rolling over in bed,Robert picked up his cellphone. Squinting to get his eyes to focus properly, he saw that it said 2:14 a.m. He’d come home after dropping Brooke off and done some chores until around eleven, his normal bedtime. He’d been lying wide awake ever since, replaying his date with Brooke over in his mind and wondering how the accident victimswere.
Corky, who’d been sleeping on the other side of the bed, groaned when Robert sat up and stretched. He put his glasses on and then patted Corky’sback.
“Sorry, buddy. Go back tosleep.”
As soon as he got up, Robert heard frantic scratching coming from the bathroom down the hall. Sketch liked to sleep in the bathtub at night. The nosy critter usually woke up out of a sound sleep if he heard Robert movingaround.
Thinking that a walk might help tire him out, Robert donned a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved gray T-shirt. Sketch came waddling into the bedroom, grunting ingreeting.
“I’m not doing anything interesting,” he told theskunk.
Sketch nibbled on Robert’s big toe a moment and then waddled back to the bathroom. Robert smiled as he followed him down the hallway. He passed Sketch and headed for the mud room off the kitchen. The place was jam-packed with animal crates and other petequipment.
His orange and white bobtailed cat, Hugo, glared at him from atop a stack ofcrates.
“Oh, it’s okay for you to keep me up, though,” Robert said at the cat’s cranky expression. “How’s itfeel?”
Hugo squeezed his green eyes shut and turned his head, giving Robert the coldshoulder.
Robert shoved his feet in his beat-up sneakers and snagged his key ring from the hook by the door. As he left the house and locked up, an idea came to Robert and he changed his mind about a walk. Instead, he got in his SUV and headed fortown.
* * *
“Maybe this was a stupid idea,”Robert muttered to himself as he took the five-dozen donuts and big box of coffee he’d bought at Donut Joe’s, the local donut place in Cooper’sCreek.
Would Brooke think that he was pressuring her or something? He sighed as he walked up to the sliding doors of the ER entrance and waited for them to open. Passing through them, he smiled at the ERclerk.
“Hi. I have a delivery for you guys,” Robert said to the woman whose badge read Kimmi. “Well, I mean, no one ordered it. I heard about the pile-up and thought you guys could use a little pick-me-up.”Oh, my God. How idiotic does thatsound?
Kimmi smiled. “You’re the rock climber,right?”
Robert blinked. “Uh,yeah.”
She smiled, her blue eyes twinkling as she rose from her desk. “Come through the triage room here to the left. I’ll let you in from myside.”
Robert went to the door she’d indicated and nudged it open with his foot since his hands were full. He wondered how Kimmi knew who hewas.
She opened the door on the other side of the triage room and he walked into the ER. His stomach clenched when he saw Brooke coming out of a patientroom.
“Look who’s here,” Kimmi called to Brooke in a sing-songvoice.
Brooke’s eyes went wide and she gasped. “Coffee! Sugar!” Rushing over to him, Brooke relieved Robert of the box of coffee. “You are a godsend, Robert Chambers. And you must have ESP. Come withme.”
Robert grinned as he followed her down the hallway, relieved that she was happy to see him—even if it was only because he came bearinggifts.
Brooke led him to a breakroom and had him put the donuts on a table. She sat the box of coffee down and opened one of the donut boxes. Picking up a chocolate frosted one, she took a healthy bite out of it and close her eyes inbliss.
A crumb of icing rested on her bottom lip and Robert wanted to kiss itaway.
“I’m starving. This is just what Ineeded.”
Robert resisted the urge to shuffle his feet. “So, you don’t mind that I showedup?”
She looked at him like he was crazy. “Mind? Why would I mind a sexy man showing up with caffeine and sugar just when I need it themost?”
He laughed and turned a little pink at being called sexy. “Good. I’mglad.”
