One Summer in Santa Fe - By Molly Evans Page 0,7

to shut silently. Caroline’s parting words had been not to disappoint Alex as his father had done. What had he done so far with Alex? Total disappointment.

Determined to fix it right now, he coughed loudly and entered the staffroom.

“Hey, Alex. How’s it going?” Taylor asked, and glanced between them.

“I’m sick,” Alex said, and made a face, then clutched his abdomen.

“Sick?” Taylor frowned and grew concerned. The kid hadn’t been feeling poorly that morning, just ornery because Taylor had dragged him out of bed at the crack of dawn. Maybe bringing him to the hospital had been a bad idea after all. Though he’d been here just a few hours, there were all sorts of bacteria in hospitals that he could easily pick up. “Sick how?”

“Sick of being here. Can I go back to your house if I promise not to spill anything again? I won’t drink anything. Not even water, I promise,” Alex said, his dark brown eyes beseeching in a way that cut right through Taylor. He ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t prepared for this. He couldn’t work sixty hours a week and care for a child. That camp thing Piper mentioned might have potential, though. Dammit. He just didn’t have it in him. The family he’d grown up in was no role model to draw from, either.

“You just can’t sit at my house and play video games all summer, Alex.” Taylor ran a hand through his hair, more than frustrated already and Alex had only been with him a few days.

“Why not?” he said, and gave Taylor a very adult look. “It’s what I do, Uncle T.”

“Didn’t you just say you wanted to climb mountains and jump out of airplanes like your uncle?” Piper asked from her seat beside Alex.

“Piper,” Alex whispered out of the corner of his mouth and cast her a conspiratorial glance. “He wasn’t supposed to know.”

“So how are you going to do any of this stuff if no one knows about it?” she asked, her manner totally at ease while talking to Alex. Taylor wished he could be that way, but his experience with kids was limited to birthdays and holidays and presents sent from far away.

Apparently, Alex had to think about that a moment because he didn’t have his usual snappy comeback ready. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t we go get a burger and fries and talk about it?” Taylor asked. “I’m sure there’s something we can fix you up with that we can both agree on.”

With only a sullen expression on his face and a noncommittal shrug, Alex tucked his belongings into a worn backpack. “Okay.”

“Want to join us, Piper?” Taylor asked, hoping she would.

“I brought a sandwich.”

“You can have that any day. Today is green chile cheese fries day at the cafeteria.” For whatever reason, he really wanted to have lunch with this woman. She’d offered him some hope in dealing with Alex and he’d…needed that.

“Sounds like death by french fry.” But she stood and followed them from the room. “But I’m game.”

Taylor slowed as Piper tugged on his sleeve and pulled him back.

“Just so you know, a bored kid is a bad kid. Especially the really smart ones.” She nodded at Alex who continued down the hall in front of them.

“So, tell me about this camp business I overheard,” Taylor said, and ushered Piper forward. “I ran wild on military bases as a kid, so I don’t know anything about how they work.”

Piper smiled up at him, and Taylor took a second look at her. Though not beautiful in the classic sense, her heart-shaped face and full lips were definitely attractive. But her warm blue eyes that sparkled with suppressed humor intrigued him more than anything. Straight caramel-colored hair in a shoulder-length bob swung enticingly as she moved. She was tall and trim, but curvy in the right places. Though he’d observed those things yesterday, he really hadn’t noticed them. Too busy with patients and work as usual.

Something in his chest cramped as he watched her catch up with Alex. If he’d been too busy to notice a woman as lovely as Piper, there was something seriously wrong with him.

After lunch, Piper returned to the ER to relieve another nurse for her break. Emily, the charge nurse, called her aside to make the assignment. “By the way, I hope I’m not intruding here where I don’t belong,” she said, and chewed thoughtfully on her lip a moment. “But I think I need to give you