Doctor Holliday (Doctors of Eastport General)

Chapter 10

Monday, December 11 th

Keaton

He knew the moment she walked in; the air changed, like a magnetic force drew his eyes from his phone to the door. Dressed in a navy pantsuit, Keaton assumed Lucy had come to The Waterfront directly from her office. She hadn’t had time to talk much when he called earlier, but she had quickly agreed to meet him for a drink after work. Thankfully, her call status had changed just yesterday, so she was free.

Dark hair in a messy twist at the back of her head, with renegade curls slipping free, she wore onyx square-framed glasses. Keaton watched her sweep her gaze over the restaurant and finally the bar. Her face lit up with a genuine smile when she saw him straighten at the table he had snagged when he came in.

“Hey.” She approached him with that smile firmly in place. Tall and slender, she cut a striking figure in the bar. Keaton noticed a few men watching her, only turning away when she reached Keaton, and he leaned close to brush his lips over her cheek. While he had given that and other things a lot of thought, he hadn’t planned the move. Now that she was standing next to him, studying him with her dark eyes, the greeting felt right.

“Hi.” He pulled a chair out and nodded for her to sit down.

“Thank you.” She set a black bag on the table. Sleek black leather with gold studs and a designer name in tiny gold letters on the front told him it was not an old-fashioned doctor’s bag, but her purse. Keaton waited until she was seated before sitting down. Before either of them could say a word, the quirky waitress appeared to take her drink order. Keaton brushed his fingertips over the label on his longneck bottle and eyed Lucy Holliday.

“What can I get you?” the waitress asked with a smile. When she took Keaton’s order earlier, he had noted her blue hair, the gold hoop in her nose, and the lightning tattoo on her neck. Lucy simply asked for a glass of cabernet sauvignon without seeming to register any details. The girl gave Lucy a nod, looked at Keaton with arched brows, and hurried off when he shook his head in response to her silent question.

“So.” Lucy sighed and met his eyes.

“Hi,” he said again. Elbows on the table, he folded his hands and admired her pretty face. Lucy Holliday was most definitely a beautiful woman. Keaton didn’t know that he had a type, other than mature and responsible, but he told himself now that he’d been right. All weekend, after the delivery in his stockroom—Silent Plight, Violent Night, however one thought of it—he found himself thinking about her. Even before seeing her with her daughter at the mall Sunday, Keaton had spent more than enough time wondering about the woman who had shown up to deliver a baby in the back of his home goods store.

“Hi.”

Mimicking him, she rested her elbows on the table and folded her hands. Keaton raked his eyes over her face when she rested her chin on her knuckles and tipped her head at him.

“How was your day?” he asked her.

They didn’t know each other well, but it felt to Keaton like they did. Lucy seemed to feel that way, too. He supposed it wasn’t every day two normal people shared the experience they had the other night.

Then again, it was kind of every day that Lucy Holliday delivered babies.

“Good,” she told him. “I woke up today. And I saw healthy women and babies all day.”

Her words almost made him hum inside. Truer words were never spoken, blah blah blah. She woke up today. Keaton had learned after his divorce to be grateful for every day. Unfortunately, the last year of his marriage to Alyssa had been ugly. For both of them. Weird how being so in love with someone in the beginning could eventually turn so ugly and mean, but it had. He and Alyssa had both been as horrible and hateful to each other as they once had been loving and tender.

“I was with Alyssa when Ruby was born,” he said quietly. “And it was incredible.”

She nodded, but she said nothing, as if she knew he had more to add.

“But I was a wreck, then. Ya know? Worried about Alyssa. Worried about the baby. Scared. Excited.”

“I know.” Lucy looked up as the waitress breezed by, putting her wine glass on the table, and moving away as if she were in a relay race. “Mmm. I need this.”

She reached for the glass, hooking her fingers around the stem, and sliding it toward her. Keaton watched as she lifted it and took a small sip. Her natural nails were perfectly shaped; she wore a small gold band on her middle finger.

His eyes roamed from her lips on the glass and over her throat as she swallowed. She put the glass down; Keaton noted the lipstick stain on the rim.

“It was…different,” he mumbled when she hit him square with her intense gaze again. “This time. Incredible. But in a different way.”

“You didn’t have a personal stake.”

She was right. Kind of .

“No, but then again, there was this kid having a baby in my stockroom.”

She smiled. “You’re a good man, Keaton Thatcher. That’s why it was different and not all that different.”

He snorted softly, finally resting in his chair. Dropping his hands in his lap, he sighed and looked around. Alyssa would argue that fact, though not as vehemently now than she would have a few years ago.

“It’s just…” He shrugged. “I mean…creating life.”

Her soft laughter snapped him out of his philosophical rambling.

“Tell me about you.” He reached for his bottle and tipped it up for a drink. “What do you do when you’re not delivering babies?”

“Mmm.” She pursed her lips. “Well, you know I have a daughter. We’re close. We do a lot together.”

“I could tell.”

His comment lit her face with happiness.

“She’s leaving next year. For college. I have to keep reminding myself that she’s here right now. Otherwise, I tend to get a little maudlin and weepy which is a waste of the time we do have together.”

“Maudlin,” he repeated with a small smile. “I get it. Rube’s already double digits.”

“Yeah. It goes fast,” she agreed. “Don’t blink.”

“What else?”

“Um.” She tapped her finger on her glass. “I like to read. My guilty pleasure is a book, a few pieces of chocolate, and a glass of wine.”

“And the best place to enjoy that?”

“My bathtub.”

Not expecting such an honest answer, Keaton was blown away by the mental image. His dick stirred a bit, but she was looking at his face, so he was in the clear.

“You weren’t expecting that,” she said with a laugh. “TMI?”

“No.” He tipped his head. “Not as long as you don’t mind the fact that I like the idea.”

“I forgot to mention bubbles. Lots of bubbles.”

He didn’t mind bubbles. While the image of her bare breasts in a bathtub gave him all sorts of ideas, the thought of her nude body hidden by bubbles didn’t deter him or the ideas. He could almost feel the soft skin of her inner thigh under his fingertips.

“I like hockey,” she continued. Keaton assumed by the look of amusement on her face that she knew his brain—along with other parts of his body—was stuck with her in the bathtub.

“Who’s your team?”

“Toronto.”

“Really?” He drew back as if she slapped him. “Not the Bruins?”

“Nope. My dad and brother and I have always been Toronto fans.”

“Interesting.”

“My mom’s a football girl.”

“Do you have other siblings?”

“A sister. You?”

“Two brothers. One lives in Florida. And one lives in St. Louis.”

“Hockey?”

“Played in an intramural league in school. Floor hockey. I could skate like a pro. But I wasn’t worth a damn with a stick.”

Lucy’s eyebrows shot up comically fast making Keaton laugh.

“Hockey stick,” he added. “Not worth a damn with a hockey stick.”

“Whew.” Pink tinged her cheeks as she sipped her wine again.

Keaton figured now was as good a time as any.

“Have dinner with me?”