bags. The patient was sitting upright at the edge of the bed with a blood pressure cuff around his bicep. His shirt was off, and he wore nothing but a thin sheet stretched across his lap.
I squeaked and nearly dropped my load. Both men turned at the noise.
“Miss Hurst, you’re back,” Mystery Man observed, a hint of a question in his tone.
Before I could speak, the other man, whom I guessed to be a nurse, said, “I’m sorry but we’re in the middle of an examination. Could you come back in a few minutes?”
“Oh—yes. Absolutely.” Red-faced, I fumbled with my packages and dragged my eyes away from Mystery Man’s bare shoulders and ripped abs long enough to look for a place to set down my things. I ended up dumping them hastily onto a rickety metal stand and backing toward the door.
“Wait, it’s entirely all right,” Mystery Man called after me, appearing unembarrassed. “You don’t have to go.” But I shut the door on his words.
Out in the hall, I could’ve choked on my mortification. It wasn’t walking in on him in the middle of a physical that had done it. It was my clumsy reaction that kept replaying itself in my mind.
Blushing like a teenager!
Not only that, but he couldn’t have missed my eyes burning twin holes into his bare chest. And a pretty amazing chest it was too. Mystery Man must hit the gym once in a while. Maybe he wasn’t a librarian after all.
I checked the silly thought as I paced down the hall. Carlita was right. I should never have come back here . Something about this man seemed to make a gawking idiot of me every time I was near him. I toyed with the idea of abandoning the food and not coming back. But that would be a childish and pathetic move, and I had the humiliating sense that he would somehow know why I had done it. Besides, those doughnuts I’d left behind were blueberry and cream filled—one very worthy reason to hang around.
In the end, I took the elevator to the second floor and wandered down to the maternity ward to kill time. I’d always liked looking through the nursery window at the newborns. Here lately they also served as a little needed reminder that I was pushing thirty and still what they used to call an “old maid.” I would’ve preferred the term “single career woman” but supposed you had to have a career before you could lay claim to that title.
Never mind. I couldn’t stay in a bad mood in such a joyful place. Evidently, this had been a busy day in the maternity ward. Every face I passed in the hall looked like a smiley sticker. I joined the handful of grandparents and other visitors crowded around the glass, cooing over the new arrivals. Taking up a stance before the prettiest and the happiest infant behind the window, I goo-gooed and made silly faces at the wide-eyed newborn until it started to fuss and cry. Then I melted off swiftly into the crowd, before anyone could peg me as the troublemaker.
Back in the elevator, I checked my watch. Surely the patient was done with his exam by now. I had to find out this guy’s name today, I realized. I couldn’t go around thinking of him as Mystery Man forever. But then after today I really wouldn’t need to call him anything ever again, would I?
I paused outside his room. This time no voices drifted out. Even so, I rapped my knuckles loud and clear against the doorframe to announce my entry.
“Um—hi,” I called through the door. “It’s me again. All finished in there?”
To my surprise, the door was tugged open and there stood Mystery Man himself. He was in his bare feet and hospital gown and still carried his arm in a sling, but other than that he looked like any ordinary healthy person standing in the doorway—except this doorway happened to be the entrance to a hospital room. I couldn’t help noticing that he had run a comb through his hair since last I saw him and had donned a robe over his gown. I supposed that was as far as a patient could go around here toward preparing for