“Saint?”

I called her name softly and moved a little closer. When she turned around I could see the frozen tracks of tears on her cheeks and could practically feel the coiled tension coming off her body. I was surprised the snow that was landing on her face and clinging to her eyelashes didn’t melt right off with all the heat and energy she was throwing off.

“Are you all right?”

She blinked at me like she didn’t recognize me, and I thought maybe it was the hat covering my head. She opened her mouth and then let it snap close again like words just wouldn’t come out. Her arms fell to her sides and she just stared at me, not saying anything or moving for a long moment. I was about to apologize for bothering her, yet again, when she suddenly moved toward me … she lurched like she had come untethered from the earth. I had no idea what she was doing, but the expression on her face was intent and focused, so I braced for her to smack me across the face or put a knee in my balls. With this girl I just never knew which way the tide was going to turn.

I wasn’t prepared for her to throw herself against my chest. I was so startled I actually had to take a step back as I wrapped my arms around her waist. She put her hands up around my shoulders and curled her freezing-cold fingers under the collar of my hoodie and dug her fingers into the back of my neck. Her br**sts smashed into my chest and her long hair coiled around my fingers where I was holding on to her lower back. It was silky and cool, like touching frost on a pane of glass. I was dumbfounded, trying to figure out what she was doing, when she slammed her mouth across mine. Good thing she was tall and didn’t have to reach very far because if I had been holding her up, there was a good chance I might have dropped her right back to the ground in surprise.

Her mouth was hot, frantic, wild, and desperate. She tasted like winter and some kind of tangy citrus. I knew this because she didn’t hesitate to roll her tongue into my startled mouth. I had been kissed by a lot of girls, probably too many over the years, and not one of them sent me from comfortable to feeling like my boxers were ten sizes too small in a fraction of a second the way Saint did. It wasn’t even that it was a great kiss. There was something behind it, something with more edge, more meaning than any other kiss I could remember. The way her soft lips felt pressed tightly against mine, the way she used her teeth with just enough bite, the way her short nails dug into the tendons on either side of my neck turned me inside out.

If we hadn’t been standing outside getting snowed on, hadn’t been standing in the middle of a sidewalk, I would have pushed her against a wall … hell, I would’ve found a soft spot on the ground and let her work out whatever was hounding her in the sexiest, nastiest way possible. If she needed a physical release to get her emotions out, I would be only too happy to volunteer my time and my body. I had a sinking suspicion if I was ever lucky enough to get her naked, I would never let her put on clothes around me again.

She slid her hands around to the front of my face and grabbed both of my cheeks. She started to shiver, and when she pulled back I was stuck in the rolling thunderstorm that was her gaze. I moved one hand up and wiped away a single, crystal tear that was stuck on her eyelash with my knuckle. She let out a shuddering sigh and closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to attack you with my mouth.” She sounded embarrassed and sad at the same time.

I burst out laughing and took a step back as she let her hands fall. Some of her awareness must have come back because she started to shake. I sighed and pulled the zipper on my hoodie down so that I could hand it over to her. She looked at me silently for a second and then took it.

“Saint, you can attack me with any part of you at any given moment of any day. I will not complain … ever.”

She laughed a little shakily.

“Thanks.”

“Do you wanna talk about what has you out in the snow pacing back and forth?”

It was a long shot. She never seemed to really want to talk to me, but she still looked so haunted, I had to ask.

She shook her head and shoved her hands through her hair. Some of the red strands floated up like a halo around her head.

“It’s been busy all week. The weather makes things insane and it’s flu season. I can typically handle everything that comes through the door. Sometimes it can get overwhelming and breaks my heart, but I do my job and can typically wait until I get home to process it all or fall apart.”

I couldn’t even imagine what she had to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Rule’s twin brother, Remy, had been brought to this very ER when he had crashed his car on the interstate in a horrific accident. He hadn’t made it and it occurred to me that was something she had to see all the time.

“Today a teenage girl was rushed in. Her parents found her overdosed in the bathroom. She was just a baby really, had her entire life in front of her, but she swallowed an entire bottle of pills because kids at her school were picking on her, bullying her. They were being mean to her, calling her awful names on the Internet, and she just couldn’t take it anymore.”

I saw her bottom lip quiver before she trapped it between her teeth. Her eyes lifted back up to mine and the gray had turned slate. I wondered if she was seeing her teenage self in that patient, and felt a twinge of remorse that I hadn’t paid more attention to her back then.

“I see death and tragedy all the time and nothing makes it worse than when it’s totally senseless. All she needed was some niceness, some basic human kindness, and she wouldn’t be on her way to the morgue and her parents wouldn’t be devastated. It’s heartbreaking and so senseless.”

She pulled her hands into the sleeves of my hoodie and looked up at me. “And I have to go talk to my mom tomorrow, which is the equivalent of getting a hundred root canals at one time. This day was vicious and I think I went a little off the rails for a second.”

It was my turn to shiver.

“I’m sorry, Saint. That sounds awful.”

She narrowed her eyes at me and tilted her head toward the front of building.

“How do you know? Have you ever had anyone make fun of you, been called awful names, had anyone make you feel like you didn’t deserve to live just because you weren’t the same as everyone else?”

I winced at her harsh tone and tried to put together how she could go from sweet to hostile toward me so quickly. Her train of thought moved like a scared jackrabbit.

I reached out and grabbed her elbow and spun her around so that she was facing me.

“Look, I don’t know what I did or said that makes you think I’m some kind of monster. I do know exactly what that’s like, though, Saint. I lived with Phil for most of my childhood because my own mom didn’t like me, didn’t think I was good enough to keep around. I wasn’t like her or her husband, so she didn’t want me. She married a guy that loathed me before I was even old enough to question why. I heard it on repeat every day of my childhood, the names, the taunts, the derisions for simply being alive. So that’s how I know. Granted, mine didn’t come from my peers, but does that make a difference? Hateful actions suck no matter who is delivering them.”

Something crossed her pretty face and I noticed that in true redhead fashion she had a few tiny little freckles that dotted the bridge of her nose. She wrinkled the speckled feature and walked with me to the elevator. I could practically see her trying to pick apart my words as we moved together.

“Visiting hours are over but I’ll sneak you in considering I waylaid you outside.”

“Thanks, so what’s up with your mom? Why is going to visit her on par with the dentist?”

She made a noise in her throat and leaned against the other side of the elevator. I wanted to hit the panic button and trap us in here together for an hour or two so I could see if I could get her to put her mouth on mine again.

“She’s always kind of been a difficult woman, even in the best of times, but now that she and my dad are getting a divorce, she’s turned into something else and I long for the days of difficult.”

This was the most she’d ever told me about herself.

“How long were they married for?”

“Long enough to decide that they didn’t like each other very much anymore.”

“That sucks, but isn’t that how all marriages end?”

She lifted an eyebrow at me.

“Your mom is still married, and what about Rule? Didn’t he propose to his girlfriend right here in the hospital? And Jet Keller got married, didn’t he?”

“My mom is obsessed with Grant. She would fall apart if that relationship didn’t work out, and that’s not a marriage to me. Rule and Shaw are meant to be, and Jet totally married the right girl. I see those unions lasting the test of time, but who knows? People change, and stuff you thought you liked about a person can suddenly bug the crap out of you twenty years in.”

It was probably the most honest I had ever been with any girl I was attracted to when it came to my thoughts on relationships and forever. I typically spent time with girls that didn’t want to talk about long term or knew that if they did I was out the door.

“So you don’t think you’ll ever get married or have kids?” She sounded curious but also something more.

I shrugged and reached up to pull my hat off of my head and shove it into my back pocket.

“I doubt it.”

She muttered something I didn’t catch under her breath and walked with me to the desk. She talked to the night nurse, signed something, and came back over to where I was hovering off to the side.

“You’re all set. You can only go in for a half hour, but that’s better than nothing.”

“I appreciate it.”

She cocked her head to the side and blinked those cloudy eyes at me like she was trying to find something to say. I thought she was extra cute when she was all unsure like that.

She gave me a really sad smile and slipped my hoodie off to hand it back to me. I wanted to put it to my face and see if it smelled like oranges now instead of cigarette smoke.

“It’s devastating when someone you think you can love ends up disappointing you in the end, so I understand where you are coming from. Thanks, for, well, everything tonight, I guess. I’m actually glad I ran into you.”

She was walking away from me. I could never seem to get a handle on this girl or really understand why I wanted to handle her in the first place. Maybe it was because we were talking about weddings, or maybe it was because I wanted to kiss her and a whole lot more, but I couldn’t stop myself from blurting out, “Come to Rule’s wedding with me.”

She stopped and went absolutely still. She glanced at me over her shoulder and I could see her trying to say no without using the actual word. I lifted an eyebrow at her and gave her a grin.

“It’s on Christmas Eve in a week. Don’t say no, just think about it.” I hooked a thumb at the closed door where Phil was at. “Come find me if you decide you want to give it a shot. It’ll be fun … well, as fun as a wedding can be when the bride hasn’t told her parents she’s getting married and the groom is as unpredictable as Rule. Just think about it.”

Before she could outright reject the notion, I slipped into Phil’s dark room and closed the door behind me. I was surprised he was still awake, but those eyes that were so like mine were wide open and watching me with unmistakable humor.

“The redheaded nurse?”

I grunted and took a seat next to the bed.

“Yeah.”

“She’s very pretty and a total doll. She stopped by to check on me a few days ago, and when I told her I was bored out of my mind, she showed up with those. I coulda kissed her.” He indicated a thick stack of magazines off to the side that had pictures of motorcycles and scantily clad women gracing the covers. Man, she really was sweet. She didn’t have to do that for him.