Page 4 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

“Yeah. I’ll take flower duty.” Bailey popped forward and latched her hands around the cart full of vases and potted plants.

Before Tess could call after her and argue that they should do their tasks together—since she tended to lose all her courage without her trusty BFF at her side—Bailey took off down the hall in the opposite direction of Jonah Abbott’s room.

Great. What the heck was she supposed to do now? Biting her lip, Tess glanced helplessly at the nurse.

The nurse patted her arm with a commiserating sigh. Offering no words of advice, she said, “Good luck. You’ll need it.” Then she too fled.

Tess balled her hands into fists as she gaped after the escaping orderly and finally lost a tendril of her good mood. “Thanks a lot,” she muttered. “Just leave me standing here with no clue what I’m doing.”

Oh, well. She’d just wing it, then.

With a huffed breath, she shoved her sleeves up to her elbows and got to work. The first order of business was getting Jonah another tray of food. But hunting up someone to help with that proved impossible. As soon as she mentioned his name or the dreaded number 312, everyone suddenly became too busy to assist her.

The jerks.

Were they so heartless they didn’t care that he was going through hell right now?

Fed up with everyone and their best friends, she took matters into her own hands. A quick visit to the Tex-Mex fast food restaurant across the street later, she was marching back into the hospital with a contraband bag of take-out hidden in the depths of her enormous purse.

“This’ll taste better than boring old hospital food anyway,” she assured herself, ignoring the growl in her stomach as the tantalizing aroma of beef, refried beans, cheese, and signature sauces teased her nose. Her mouth watered, reminding her she’d yet to eat supper, but she refused to steal even one taco from poor Jonah. He needed all the nourishment he could get.

She was going to take care of him so well. Her thoughtfulness would no doubt induce him to eat every last bite. It’d cheer him up in no time and—

She slowed to a stop to watch a guy with a balloon and bundle of flowers ease into another room down the hall. Her insides balling with sympathy, she realized no one had brought Jonah flowers. No one had cared enough to buy him a balloon, or get well card, or anything. No one cared at all.

God, who was she kidding? He wasn’t going to eat the food she’d brought him. He thought he’d been abandoned. Unless…

The idea that hit her was so brilliant she clasped it whole-heartedly without another thought. She would make him feel cared for and loved. And since he couldn’t remember anything anyway, he wouldn’t know the difference. Tess just couldn’t handle knowing someone was miserable.

Glancing around to make sure no one was paying her any attention, she slipped her candy striper apron over her head and wadded it into a ball before stuffing it behind a nearby trash can. Then she smoothed down her blouse, finger combed her hair, and snatched up her purse before strolling into room 312 as if she actually had the nerve.

Only to jerk to an immediate halt.

Holy crap. She’d expected to find a thin, frail, dork of a guy, with glasses maybe, and a big nose stretched across a face full of acne. Yeah, with a high forehead, greasy hair, and a long, gangly neck. A loner college geek no one wanted to visit, working toward a degree in rocket science, or whatever degree college geeks worked toward when they wanted to become rocket scientists.

Okay, actually, she hadn’t really been expecting that either. She had no idea what she’d been expecting. But

the muscled-up beefcake with long, thick eyelashes, a rugged five-o’clock shadow, midnight black hair, and a wounded soul peering out from gorgeous brown eyes was definitely not on her list of top one hundred expectations. Even with his skin blanched with sickness, bandages on his head and around his chest, and a cast on one arm, he looked too yummy to be real.

Dear God, this was not good. Hot guys made her nervous. And when she managed to actually form words to talk in the presence of one, she usually blurted out the worst things to say, ever. Without Bailey here to ground her, this was going to bad. So horrifyingly, disastrously bad.

Jonah Abbott took her in from head to toe, his intense gaze making her uncomfortably warm and fluttering the muscles in her belly, uncaging the butterflies. Then he wrinkled his brow with confusion.

“Who the hell are you?”

When hope filled his sleep-bruised eyes, she bit the inside of her lip to keep from crying. He needed someone who cared—who really cared—to be with him so much right now.

“I—” Tess licked her lips and told herself to explain that she was a concerned classmate who’d come to see how he was doing because they’d become good friends over the last semester. But for the life of her, she couldn’t spit out a course to name. Why couldn’t she come up with one class? Damn it, she was going to kill Bailey for abandoning her.

Her brain was frozen, she couldn’t think, couldn’t concoct a good lie. She could only blurt forth the worst thing to say, ever.

“I’m your girlfriend.”

Chapter Two

JONAH WINCED AS HE SHIFTED his torso on the cramped, crinkly hospital mattress, trying to find a comfortable spot. A dull throb arced from the gash on the side of his head and down his body to all three of his bullet wounds.

He could do with another dose of morphine. But when he eyed the button lying by his hip to pump himself full, he didn’t push it.

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