becoming emotionally involved with him were two different things. She would do well to remain as personally aloof as possible for a number of reasons. For one, the man was obviously self-destructive. For another, he did not share her faith. Thirdly, his lifestyle was utterly foreign to her. Spurred by that, another thought occurred.
“What does liefje mean?” Kaylie asked after a moment. She’d first thought that Stephen had merely mangled her name due to his drug intoxication, but then Aaron had repeated the word back to him in that teasing manner of his.
Aaron shot her a knowing, lopsided grin. “Sweetheart. It means sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. Kaylie’s heart thunked. She felt a disturbing shiver of delight, which was pure foolishness, of course. It meant nothing to him, and should mean nothing to her.
“Hey, I’ve picked up a lot of the Dutch, you know,” the bluff agent went on, swaggering a bit.
“I’m sure,” Kaylie muttered with a limp smile.
“I’m pretty good at stuff like that,” he bragged. “Stevie, now…” Aaron wagged a finger at her. “Stevie’s good at two things—hockey and hockey. Everything else, like life, for instance, well, he just never has seemed to get the hang of it.”
Kaylie felt her heart sink. It was no more than she had suspected, of course. Mentally shaking her head, she sternly told herself to get her mind back to business. What was wrong with her anyway? She had allowed the mutterings of a drugged patient to set her thoughts on a path that they would never have wandered down otherwise. She chalked it up to exhaustion. Losing several hours’ sleep plus several hours of stress must have scrambled her brain.
She suddenly wanted to go home. And why shouldn’t she? Stephen was out of surgery and would be spending the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours in the hospital. Aaron was here to lend support; she was no longer needed. Pushing aside memories of how Stephen had clutched her hand earlier, she walked Aaron to the elevator, where she checked her watch. The time was just after 11:00 a.m.
“Listen,” she said, punching the up button for him. “I’m going to swing by and give my aunts a brief report on Stephen, and then I have to get home to make lunch for my father.”
Aaron blinked, obviously surprised. “But you’re Steve’s nurse.”
“Aaron, he’s in the hospital. He doesn’t need a private nurse in the hospital.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I have this sneaking suspicion that he’s going to expect to see you, anyway.”
“Tell him I’ll be by tomorrow to check on him,” she decided, backing away.
Aaron raised both eyebrows. A ding signaled the arrival of the elevator. Aaron spread his hands as the doors slid open. “Okay, then. Say hello for me to the old…uh, your aunts.”
Kaylie nodded and made a little wave before turning and swiftly walking away. Stephen, she told herself, would be just fine, and she would be…
Safe? From what? Temptation?
Obviously, she would do well to keep her distance for now. Tomorrow, she would reestablish a professional relationship, and that would be that.
Meanwhile, her father undoubtedly needed mollifying. She regretted now the manner in which she had left him that morning. He had come to depend on her, after all, and she had impatiently blown him off. Yes, the situation had been an emergency, but now the crisis had passed.
It was time to get back to her real life and let God work in both situations—without her silly overreactions getting in the way.
“You really didn’t have to come,” Stephen said to Aaron, settling into the bed. Another day, another bed, he thought with a sigh. He was heartily sick of this state of affairs, but at least he wasn’t in pain. Oddly, the leg throbbed but it didn’t hurt. How weird was that?
“Hey, I had to be sure my meal ticket didn’t get punched,” Aaron said, shaking a finger at Stephen. “I’ve still got a few more meals in you.”
“Right,” Stephen drawled. It was a little late for Aaron to pretend that his only interest in Stephen was financial. “I appreciate it, man. I really do, but Kaylie says it’s going to be all right, so you really didn’t have to come all this way. Kaylie will take care of things here.”
Aaron hunched a shoulder, a grim look on his face. “Yeah, well, she’s going to be taking care of them from a distance then.”
“What do you mean?”
“She ran along home to daddy. He needs his lunch.”
Stephen frowned then told himself not to be ridiculous. “She’ll be back