Out of Alignment (Hearts & Horsepower #5) Page 9

  Okay, that meant he hadn’t called.

  “That’s good.”

  “I still have to get through emails, but I’ll do that throughout the morning,” she shared.

  I nodded and replied, “Sounds good. Okay, I’m going to go do the same right now before my first patient arrives.”

  I always arrived at the office a little bit before my patients started showing up. I liked to have that time to gather my bearings and get myself in work mode. At my declaration, Trisha smiled at me, and I walked away toward my private office.

  Then I did what I could to put thoughts of my horrific weekend aside and got to work. Hours later, I realized that when I was in bed earlier in the morning thinking I’d felt my absolute worst, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Because as the day wore on, I grew more and more exhausted. I’d been on edge all day, and every moment that wasn’t spent with a patient was spent with me thinking about Nash showing up and wondering how he was going to react to seeing me again.

  Most of his other visits had happened earlier in the mornings. It would be just my luck that this week would be the week that he decided to switch to the early evening appointment times. In fact, he’d scheduled for the very last opening of the day.

  I understood it. I realized he was back at work and needed to come in afterward, but at that moment, I didn’t care. I would have much rather had him schedule a time early in the morning before his workday even started. Hell, I would have even agreed to come in early just to accommodate that.

  Because I had nothing left in me now. The very little energy I’d had was gone after a full day of work and worrying. I honestly didn’t know how I would get through an appointment with him.

  Finally, as she always did when a patient was ready, Trisha had let me know that Nash had arrived and what exam room he was in. Instead of hopping right up to go in to see him, I gave myself a few minutes to collect my thoughts. It wasn’t like me to keep a patient waiting; I liked staying on schedule. In fact, getting off schedule typically made me a little crazy.

  But in this case, I wasn’t the least bit bothered because I knew what was waiting for me behind the door of exam room four.

  It must have been at least three minutes after Trisha alerted me to his arrival that I finally decided it was time to face the music. I took one last deep breath, stood from my chair, and approached the room.

  I gave a light tap on the door.

  “Yeah?” I heard him reply.

  It was now or never.

  Not really.

  Never wasn’t exactly an option.

  It was simply now.

  I put my hand to the doorknob and walked inside. Part of me had expected and hoped that I’d walk in and see him already facedown on the table, hoping to avoid any additional awkwardness, but that wasn’t the case. In fact, he wasn’t even sitting on the table.

  Nope.

  Nash had settled himself in the chair in the corner of the room.

  Fuck.

  This was going to be even worse than I thought. Maybe he was going to lecture me about how unprofessional I’d been and how I crossed a line I shouldn’t have. Maybe he was going to report me.

  The minute my eyes connected with his, I immediately felt ashamed and embarrassed. I was convinced I’d turned the brightest shade of crimson known to man. And because I couldn’t bear to have any more questions filtering through my mind about what he’d say or how he felt, I lost my cool and blurted, “I’m so sorry for my behavior on Saturday night. I’m mortified.”

  Nash didn’t respond. He sat there, staring at me, and I felt even worse.

  Oh, God.

  This was awful.

  I wasn’t cut out for dealing with the unknown. I just couldn’t stand it.

  So, I panicked and continued, “I realize I’ve created an awkward and uncomfortable situation here. I’m terribly sorry about it. There’s absolutely no excuse for what I did. That said, I’m more than willing to give you a referral to a different doctor who can continue your treatments for you.”

  “I’m happy with the care I’m receiving here,” he assured me, uttering his first words to me since he’d turned me down on Saturday. “I’m not looking for another doctor.”

  Okay. Well, that was good news. I felt just a smidgen of relief at those words. At the same time, I realized it fell on me to make sure he understood how things would be moving forward.

  Nervously shifting back and forth on my feet, I rasped, “I’m happy to hear that. Thank you for entrusting me with your care. That said, I want you to know that I promise I won’t ever do what I did that night again. I’m grateful that you can accept my apology and move on, and I’ll do whatever I can to make sure this doesn’t get awkward. I really am sorry.”

  Apologize.

  That’s all I could think to do.

  Apologize and reassure him.

  He was clearly gracious by not taking this to the next level and reporting me. The least I could do was prove to him how awful I felt about it. The humiliation of being turned down by him paled in comparison to the horror I would feel if I’d had a mark on my medical record for behaving inappropriately.

  The silence stretched between us, and I was just about to encourage him to move to the table so we could start his treatment when I was rendered speechless because he stood from the chair on his own accord.

  Then, instead of moving to the table, he walked toward me. With each step in my direction, I felt the pace of my breathing quicken as my belly tightened.

  Fear like I’ve never felt before washed over me as I took in the determined look in his eyes.

  What was he going to do?

  When he came to a stop mere inches in front of me, my body was trembling. Nash noticed, grew concerned, and asked, “Are you afraid of me?”

  I swallowed hard as my lips parted.

  Then I flinched as he lifted his hand and curled his fingers around the side of my throat. I couldn’t miss the brief look of alarm in his eyes, which was instantly replaced by something else.

  Desire?

  No.

  It couldn’t be that.

  I thought I knew what desire looked like. I had mistakenly assumed that was what I saw in his eyes on Saturday night. There was no way that desire was what I saw now.

  Unable to move or speak, I waited. And while I waited, I couldn’t miss the gentle stroke of his thumb along my jaw. My entire body had gone from feeling exhausted and drained to very awake and very alert.

  A moment later, he spoke in a low, husky voice. “I don’t know what the rules are, but what I do know is that I want nothing more than for you to bring up what happened on Saturday night.”

  My brows shot up in surprise. “What?” I rasped.

  Not missing a beat, Nash shared, “I’ve spent the last two nights and two days unable to think about little else besides what you said to me that night.”

  This was mortifying.

  “I’m… I’m really sorry, Nash,” I stammered.

  “I’m not,” he returned.

  That made sense. He had no reason to be sorry. He wasn’t the one who’d crossed a line that shouldn’t have ever been crossed.

  “That’s a lie,” he suddenly declared. “I am sorry.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For letting you walk away,” he answered.

  The heaviness I felt in my chest was making it more and more difficult to breathe. “I… I… what?”

  Nash’s eyes moved to his thumb that was still stroking gently over my jaw. He watched it for several beats before his eyes searched my face. Then he asked, “Did you mean what you said?”

  I was so confused by his words and so distracted by his hand on me that I didn’t exactly know with absolute certainty what he was asking.

  “What?” I wondered, the tightness in my throat still as evident as ever.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” he insisted. “What you said on Saturday. Is that what you want?”

>   Oh, God. He was going to make me admit this now? He didn’t think I had been humiliated enough already?

  Maybe he wasn’t as nice of a guy as he tried to make himself out to be.

  “I… I just…” I stammered again. His fingers tightened on my neck. I couldn’t think straight, but I knew the sooner I said what I had to say, the sooner this would end. I took in a clearing breath and explained, “My sister came to visit me for the weekend, and I ended up drinking too much. I’m not normally a big drinker. Anyway, I saw you watching me while I was dancing and thought I saw something in your eyes that indicated you liked what you saw. So, the mix of alcohol and diminished inhibitions meant that I acted on an incorrect assumption.”

  “You weren’t wrong,” he declared.

  Blinking in surprise, my body went even more rigid than it already was. “What?” I rasped.

  “I didn’t turn you down on Saturday because I didn’t like what I saw or that I didn’t want what you were offering,” he started. “I turned you down because I knew that you had too much to drink. The last thing I wanted was to take you up on that and have you regret it the next morning.”

  Oh, God.

  Oh, God.

  He was a nice guy. He hadn’t turned me down because he wasn’t interested. He’d turned me down because he was a decent human being.

  “Breathe, Parker,” he whispered.

  At the sound of my name from his tender voice, a rush of air escaped. I’d gotten a few breaths in before he said, “Now that you know how I feel, I’m going to ask you again. Did you mean what you said?”

  Could I trust that I could be honest with him, and he wouldn’t make me feel worse than I already did?

  I thought about the answer to that for a moment and could not say either way conclusively. I would just have to take a gamble.

  “Yes,” I said quietly.

  I barely got the word out when Nash captured my mouth with his. For a moment, I was completely stunned and shocked by his very forward approach to the situation. But that lasted mere seconds.

  The next thing I knew, eight years of loneliness followed by the two weeks of sexual tension took over, and his kiss completely consumed me. His lips were soft yet claiming, and when his tongue touched my lips, demanding access to my mouth, I gave it to him. My lips parted. Nash’s tongue swept into my mouth.

  It was wonderful.

  It was incredible.

  It was everything.

  And because I’d been craving this without even realizing it, I gripped his shirt in my hands and moaned.

  That’s when Nash pulled back. His hand that had been at my throat slid back into my hair and gripped it firmly at the back of my head. Then he said, “My back is out of alignment. I need you to adjust it. Then I’d like you to treat that psoas muscle again. Afterward, we’re going to talk about what the rest of your week looks like so I can make sure I give you what we both want.”

  Because I was too overwhelmed by what just happened, I had no rebuttal. I merely squeaked, “Okay.”

  Nash grinned at me.

  Then he let go of my hair and moved to the table. I stood motionless for a long time after he no longer had his hands on me. And when he was finally facedown on the table, and I still hadn’t moved, he shared, “I’m in pain, Doc.”

  That snapped me out of it.

  So, I moved toward him and got to work.

  Suffice it to say that when I finally got to working on his psoas, making eye contact with him went a whole lot better than I thought it would.

  “I can’t believe he kissed you.”

  That came from my sister, who either didn’t fully grasp all the details I’d just shared with her to understand why Nash had kissed me, or she didn’t think I was someone he would ever want to kiss. Since I knew that she would never have thought the latter, I was convinced there was something in all that I’d shared that was still confusing her.

  “Why do you say that, Kaia?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “I mean, I guess I’m just a little shocked that a guy who didn’t want anything to do with you on Saturday night was so willing to kiss you while you were working. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, of course. I’m so happy for you.”

  “Thanks. I’m so relieved, and I’m really kind of excited,” I confessed.

  I didn’t hesitate to tell my sister because I knew this was the reaction she’d have.

  No sooner had I left work and gotten home when I pulled my phone out of my purse and called her. I’d filled Kaia in on everything that had happened from the minute I walked into the exam room until the second Nash left the office.

  “And so now you guys are going out on a date?” she asked. “Did you say that he wants to take you out on Thursday?”

  “Yes, and yes,” I answered.

  “That seems odd,” she noted. “Why not a Friday or Saturday?”

  “Well, after Nash had kissed me and I’d given him his adjustment, he told me he wanted to take me out,” I started. “I let him know my schedule, and he said that normally he’d want to take me out on the weekend, but unfortunately, this weekend doesn’t work for him. I guess there’s a race he has to go to or something.”

  “A race?” she repeated.

  “I don’t know a whole lot about it,” I admitted. “I just know he works on race cars for a living.”

  “Ooh, nice. So, did he say where he was taking you? Have you already figured out what you’re going to wear?” Kaia questioned me.

  “I’m still in shock over the whole thing,” I told her. “I literally just got home and called you right away. I haven’t thought about any of that yet.”

  “Well, I know you, and I know you’ll have it figured out before you go to bed tonight,” she teased.

  Kaia knew me well. I was a planner, and I liked everything to be just right, so I would do exactly as she said and have everything figured out before I went to bed tonight.

  “Yeah, I will,” I agreed. “All I know is that he said I could dress nice but not too nice.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Even though she couldn’t see me, I shrugged my shoulders. Then I said, “I’m not exactly sure, but Nash said he wanted to take me somewhere fun and that something like I wore out to Lou’s on Saturday night would not be a wise choice.”

  “I wonder where he’s taking you,” my sister returned.

  “Honestly, I really don’t care where it is. I’m just excited I’m going to get to spend some time with him outside of the office,” I shared.

  There was a brief moment of silence before Kaia asked, “Who are you, and what have you done with my sister?”

  After two weeks of tension, what happened at Lou’s on Saturday, the horrible two nights of sleep, and all the stressing I did today, not knowing how things would go with Nash, I couldn’t help myself. I burst out laughing.

  It felt excellent.

  “I don’t know, Kaia,” I started. “I just… I can’t explain it, but I haven’t had anything good to look forward to in a very long time. So, when Nash told me that he and his team had a race this weekend and that he’d likely be at the shop late on Friday night, Thursday was the next best option. Honestly, and I know this sounds completely crazy coming from me, but I would have agreed to go out with him tonight.”

  “I really hope he’s good to you, Parker,” Kaia murmured. “You deserve a little slice of happiness.”

  “We both do,” I insisted.

  “I know. And I’ll get it,” she assured me. “I’m too stubborn not to find it. I know it exists.”

  “I hope you’re right about that,” I said softly.

  The silence stretched between us again. Finally, Kaia promised, “I am.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, I continued to chat with my sister about my date and all the excitement I was feeling. When we disconnected, I made myself some dinner before heading upstairs to shower.

  And before I did anything else, I made sure I knew
exactly what I would be wearing when Nash picked me up for our date on Thursday.

  Days later, I could hardly contain my excitement.

  I was pacing back and forth in my bedroom as I waited for Nash to arrive. It had been so long since I’d gone out on a proper date, so my nerves were going a little crazy.

  But, for the first time in a long time, it was happening in a good way. The nerves weren’t about fear. They were about excitement and anticipation. And I had to admit how wonderful that felt.

  I couldn’t explain what it was, but there was something about Nash that just gave me an odd sense of reassurance. Of course, as much as my nerves were about how eager I was for our date, I would have been lying if I didn’t admit that I was also feeling a smidgen of anxiety.

  Eight years.

  It had been eight long years since I’d been with a man.

  And based on everything that Nash had said to me when he was in my office on Monday, I had a feeling tonight was bound to put an end to that drought. I didn’t think I’d screw it up. It had to be like riding a bike. You didn’t forget how to do it just because it had been a long time. I mean, Nash did kiss me. If he didn’t like how that went, he could have very easily delayed this date.

  Realizing I was doing little to help myself relax, I took one last look in the mirror, confirmed I looked nice in my jeans, cute top, and three-inch strappy sandals, and made my way downstairs.

  I couldn’t have been more grateful that by the time I made it downstairs, my doorbell rang. Even though it made my heart rate kick up a notch, Nash arriving right away would at least save me from all the thoughts I’d had in my mind since he left my office on Monday evening.

  Surprisingly, except for a text late last night to confirm we were still on for tonight, Nash and I hadn’t communicated with each other. While I thought it would have been a good way to get to know each other a little better, he never called. I wasn’t upset about it, but it struck me as odd.

  Opening my front door, I found Nash standing there looking as handsome as ever.

  “Hi,” I said, stepping back to allow him to come inside.