Page 10

H olden lifted the beer to his mouth, his gaze returning to Clara for what had to be the fiftieth damn time. She stood with Indie and Malcolm, and every time she smiled or laughed at something he said, there was this strong fucking urge to go over there and rip her away from the jerk.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t a jerk. He was a doctor. He helped people. Didn’t mean Holden wanted the guy getting close to Clara.

Briar had joined Holden for a while, but she’d obviously gotten bored of the little attention she’d received from him and returned to her friends.

“Careful, brother, you almost look jealous.”

He dragged his gaze from Clara to Becket, who stood beside him. Jesse was at the bar while the women were on the dance floor. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” A damn lie. And by the look of Becket’s smile, he knew it.

Becket swished his drink. “Is it Jesse?”

“Is what Jesse?”

“The reason you two aren’t dating.”

The worst part of this? Jesse hadn’t even been a consideration. Jesus, he was an asshole.

“Because,” Becket continued, “I think my brother would be honored to have his best friend date his sister. And so would I. You’re a great guy.”

His fingers tightened around his glass. “Thanks. But there’s nothing going on between me and Clara. She’s like a sister to me.”

Another fucking lie. They were just rolling off his tongue now.

Becket threw back his head and laughed. “You forget, Clara is my sister, and neither Jesse nor I look at her like that.”

Suddenly, Malcolm took Clara’s hand and led her to the dance floor.

Holden straightened. The fuck? They were dancing now? They barely knew each other.

“Hm,” Becket said softly, “that looks romantic.”

Becket was a shit stirrer, and he was damn good at it. But his words didn’t affect Holden. What did affect him was the way Malcolm’s hands touched Clara’s waist. The way the doctor held her close to his body like there was slow music playing when there wasn’t.

Gritting his teeth, he turned away. He needed to ignore it. Clara wasn’t his. She could dance with whoever the hell she wanted.

Jesse returned to the table, his brows lifting at the dance floor. “Who’s our sister dancing with?”

“His name’s Malcolm,” Holden said.

Jesse nodded. “And he’s with the hospital crew, so…nurse?”

“Doctor,” Holden corrected.

Becket cringed. “Ouch. That’s not good. For you, I mean. For Clara, it’s great. She always wanted to marry a doctor.”

Jesse frowned. “Since when?”

“Freshman year, she had to write about her dream guy. Hers was a doctor. Brown hair. Six feet tall.”

“And you remember it so specifically?” Holden just about growled.

“I’m good with details.”

He was tempted to tell the guy to fuck off, but the music suddenly changed to something slower.

Becket set his drink on the table. “That’s my cue to find my woman before someone else does.” He crossed to the dance floor and slipped an arm around Sky’s waist. She turned, her smile wide as she pressed her hands to his chest.

Jesse straightened as Aspen began to move through the crowd toward him. The second she reached him, they wrapped their arms around each other.

Holden told himself not to look at the dance floor. He fucking yelled it in his head.

But he looked. And Malcolm was even closer to Clara now, his arms still around her waist, and they were so close there was basically no space between them.

Screw it.

He set his beer on the table and strode to the dance floor.

Clara’s gaze shot up. “Holden.”

“Can I have this dance, Clara?”

Her mouth dropped open.

Malcolm frowned at him. “Actually, we’re just—”

“Thanks.” He took her hand from Malcolm’s and tugged her away, not caring about the open-mouthed doctor. Then he pulled her so close that her body was flush with his. And fuck , she was soft and warm.

Malcolm made a loud, exaggerated huff before walking away.

“What are you doing?” she asked quietly, shock weaved into her words.

“Dancing with you.”

She cocked her head. “Okay, but why?”

Her floral scent lingered in the air, surrounding him. And the feel of her sweet curves beneath his palm and her warm hand in his other…it made him want to hold her tighter.

“Because I want to.” It was all he had in the way of answers. That, and the fact that he didn’t want Malcolm anywhere near her.

She frowned, then she looked at something over his shoulder. He followed her gaze to Malcolm and Briar, now on the dance floor.

He almost scowled. “Do you like him?”

Her gaze shot back to him. “That’s none of your business.”

He knew that. And it just made him even more frustrated. He wanted it to be his business. He wanted to know exactly what she was feeling, and for who, even though he had no right to the information.

“I didn’t know you had a thing for doctors.”

“I don’t. I have a thing for nice guys.”

Holden laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “He’s not a nice guy.”

“How do you know?”

“The way he goes on about the protocol every week at running club. Like he wants every fucking person to tell him how brilliant he is. That’s not nice . That’s arrogant.”

“Well, I find him nice.”

A muscle ticked in Holden’s jaw.

A couple bumped into them. One of the women from the run, Helen maybe, looked up. “Whoops, sorry!”

A guy with a goatee didn’t even look up. He wore a leather jacket and had tattoos down his neck.

Clara watched them closely as they stepped away. “She drank a lot.”

“Are you worried about her?”

“Well, yeah, kind of. She just met that guy tonight. And he has a friend somewhere. People don’t make the best decisions when drunk.” She shook her head. “Her friends will step in if needed.”

That was the thing about Clara; she cared.

As if his thumb had a mind of its own, it stroked her waist.

Her chest rose on an audible inhale, and her gaze shot up. “Holden, what are you doing?”

“I told you, I’m dancing with you. Beyond that, I have no idea.”

Her head tilted slightly, and she looked like she wanted to ask him something, when yet again, something caught her gaze. “Scarlett’s here. What is going on with her?”

“Why do you think something’s going on?”

“She’s just really fixated on everyone who works at the hospital.” She shook her head. “It’s none of my business.”

“It is your business because she lives with you.”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I will always worry about you, Clara.”

Her focus shot back to him, eyes wide, emotions he couldn’t name flickering through them.

Another song started, this one slightly faster in tempo, but Clara didn’t stop or change the slow sway of her hips, and neither did he. He couldn’t. Because standing here, with Clara in his arms…it was the most at peace he’d felt for a while.

Throughout the dance, she softened against him, her body melding into his and her head almost touching his chest.

“Can I tell you something?” Her soft words cut through the quiet between them, catching him off guard.

“Anything.”

“Sometimes I get caught up in the memory of the moment the doctor told me I had stage four cancer.”

Something wrapped around his lungs at the mention of Clara having cancer…clenching, digging its nails into him. Every time he heard that word, he forgot how to breathe.

But he was careful to mask it. To watch the expressions play over her face. To wait, because damn, he wanted to hear what she had to say.

“It felt like my entire future disappeared in the span of a few seconds,” she continued. “Everything felt so infinitely unfair. I would have given anything to go back to before those words had left his mouth, to where my life didn’t feel like it was over.”

“But it wasn’t over.”

“No. It wasn’t. But I didn’t know that. I still remember him saying to me that if you’re going to get cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma is the ‘better’ kind of cancer. He said it like I was lucky, and his words just felt so absurd. Because no one’s lucky to get cancer.”

“Some people think they know what to say to make you feel better.”

“ Nothing in that moment could have made me feel better. I had to feel it before I was ready to fight it.”

He tightened his arm around her. “You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. You know that, right?”

“Just woman?”

He chuckled. “Person.”

“That’s better.” She smiled up at him, but he couldn’t even lift the corners of his lips. Because, fuck, she was beautiful. The kind of beauty that made the world quiet. The kind of beauty that was impossible to look away from.

Her smile shifted into a frown. “When you look at me like that, I can almost convince myself that you…” She stopped, and even though she didn’t finish her sentence, he knew exactly what would have come next. Because she saw everything he tried to hide.

He stepped back, forcing his hands to drop. And the look on Clara’s face, the disappointment…it gutted him.

“Thank you for the dance, Clara.”

“Anytime.” The single word was quiet, almost a whisper, and laced with hurt.

Yeah, he was an asshole. An asshole she was better off without.