Rapture (Fallen Angels #4)(43)
Author: J.R. Ward

“Matthias?”

At the female voice, he pivoted around. It was the nurse from the hospital, the one who’d given him a helping hand, so to speak. Outside of work, she was fresh as a daisy, with her dark hair loose around her shoulders and a pale dress hanging below her knees.

She kind of looked like a bride.

“What are you doing here?” she said as she came over. “I thought you’d be home recovering.”

As people walked by her, they all stared, men with hot speculation in their eyes, women with varying degrees of envy and dislike. Then again, she was stupidly beautiful.

“I’m okay.” He tried not to stare at her. It was like looking into the sun, painful on the eyes. “How about yourself?”

“My mom’s come into town. Or rather, she was supposed to be here by now. Her flight was due in a half hour ago, but it got delayed in Cincinnati because of storms. I’ve been debating whether to wait or go home—we were going to have breakfast. Is that where you’re headed now?”

“Ah, yeah.”

“Well, then, how about we go dutch. I’m starved.”

Her black eyes positively sparkled, to the point where they made him think about the night sky. But it wasn’t enough to make him want to cop a squat in the—

“Okay,” he heard himself say, like some third party had taken over his mouth.

Together, they walked over to the maître d’s stand.

“Two,” Matthias said as the man did a double take at the nurse, and then froze like a deer in the headlights, apparently struck stupid by all the lovely.

“I’d like a window seat,” she said, smiling slowly at the guy. “Perhaps over…”

Not the window he jumped out of, Matthias thought.

“…there.”

Bing-fucking-o.

“Oh, yes, sorry, right away.” The maître d’ got with the program, snagging a couple of leather-bound books and leading the way. “But there are some better views across the room, overlooking the gardens?”

“We don’t want the sun to be too bright.” She put her hand on Matthias’s arm and gave him a little squeeze, as if she wanted him to know she was watching out for his bad eyesight.

Man, he really didn’t like her touching him.

As they walked across the room, the nurse created a total stir, men peering over the tops of their Wall Street Journals and their coffee cups and sometimes their wives’ heads. She took it all in stride, like it was just the normal course of things.

After they sat down in front of the window he’d violated with Jim, coffee materialized, and they mulled over the menus. The civilized bullshitting that came with picking and choosing among the fifty different plates of good-morning got on his nerves. And he didn’t want to eat with her, although to be fair, he didn’t want to eat with anybody.

The stuff with Mels was the problem. Yeah, he’d called her with that info search, but the bigger truth was, he’d just wanted to hear her voice.

He’d missed her through the night—

“Penny for your thoughts?” the nurse said softly.

Matthias looked out the window at the building across the alley. “I just realized—I don’t know your name.”

“Oh, sorry. I thought it was on the whiteboard in your room.”

“Probably was, but it could have been in neon lights and I don’t know if I’d have noticed.”

This was a lie, of course. In fact, there hadn’t been a nurse listed, just a doctor, and there hadn’t been a name tag on her scrubs.

Which seemed a little strange, come to think about it….

She took an elegant hand and laid it on her breastbone—which seemed like an invitation to check out her cle**age. “You can call me Dee.”

He stuck with her eyes. “As in Deidre?”

“As in Devina.” She glanced away, as if she didn’t want to go into it. “My mother has always been a godly woman.”

“Which explains your dress.”

Dee shook her head ruefully and smoothed the skirt. “How did you know this getup isn’t me?”

“Well, for one thing, it looks like it belongs on a forty-year-old. The jeans and parka are more your age.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“Twenty-five-ish.” And maybe that was why he didn’t like her touching him. She was so young, too young for someone like him.

“Twenty-four, as a matter of fact. It’s why my mom’s in town, actually.” She touched her sternum again. “Birthday girl.”

“Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

“Your father coming in, too?”

“Oh…yeah. No.” Now, she closed up completely. “No, he’s not coming.”

Damn it, the last thing he needed was to get all into her personal shit. “Why not.”

She fiddled with her coffee cup in its saucer, turning it back and forth. “You are so odd.”

“Why.”

“I don’t like to talk about myself, but here I am babbling away.”

“You haven’t told me much, if that makes you feel better.”

“But…I want to.” For a split second her eyes dipped to his lips, like she was wondering things about him she really, really didn’t need to. “I want to.”

Nope. Not going there, he thought.

Especially not after Mels.

Dee leaned in, those br**sts threatening to break out of that dress. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

Great. Wonderful. Fucking perfect.

In the tense quiet, Matthias briefly eyed the big window next to them. He’d already been out the thing once.

If things got awkward, he could do it again.

Mels hung up her office phone and leaned back in her chair. As the squeak sounded, she made a new tune out of it, rocking back and forth.

For some reason, her eyes locked on that coffee mug that had been left behind by the other reporter.

When her cell phone went off, she jumped and fumbled with the thing. Quick check of the screen and she wanted to curse—not because of who it was, but because of who it wasn’t.

Maybe Matthias was in the shower.

People took showers in the mornings.

Yeah, for, like, a half hour, though? She’d been calling every five minutes.

“Hello?” she demanded.

“Hey, Carmichael.” It was Monty the Mouth; she could tell by the cracking of his gum. “It’s me.”

Well, at least she did want to hear from the guy. “Good morning.”