Dating Impossible by Kathleen Grieve

over again. She
placed her hands on her hips. “When I went to check on Mrs. Hayden, that
jackass surgeon was there at the desk yelling at Angie and throwing his weight
around.”
    Cruz smiled and JJ’s heart hiccupped against her chest.
    Oh my God. Don’t
do that! His
smile had been lethal in high school and was just as deadly now.
    “That sounds like him,” he agreed. “Well, we should file an
incident report about the chart missing and the stat CT not being done just to
cover all the bases. That way the matter will be properly investigated. If I
get the director’s job, there are certainly a lot of things around here that
could be approved upon. And how we process our orders is definitely one of
them.”
    Oh, shit! JJ mentally
slapped her forehead. If Cruz became the new Director of Emergency Services, he
would be her boss. Another really good reason she needed to keep her hands to
herself.
    “Err…well, good luck with that,” JJ said lamely and turned
to leave.
    “Hey,” Cruz said softly, placing a halting hand on her
shoulder. “Don’t go.”
    He must’ve closed the space between them because the words
were spoken near her ear and his warm breath rustled her hair. JJ’s legs turned
to a giant slush pile. She locked her knees together. All she had to do was
lean back into his solid chest and she’d be in his arms. JJ sighed. There never
could be a relationship between them.
    Time to lay a
few ground rules…
    She turned and faced him. The tenderness and need in his
deep gray eyes as he stared at her threw all her well intentioned words right
out the window. JJ shook her head. “Cruz…”
    “JJ…” he mimicked, smiling.
    He rested his forehead against hers and her schoolgirl
butterflies stirred deep within. Why, oh why couldn’t he have noticed her years
ago? Before med school. Before the disaster happened at her last job? The
reality of her tenuous situation weighed heavily upon her. She was absolutely
screwed.
    Reining in all her willpower, JJ stepped back and out of his
reach, exhaling slowly. “Last night was an aberrance.”
    An aberrance. Was
that the best she could do? Was she
fucking kidding herself right now? It was the best night of her entire life.
    Cruz gazed at her thoughtfully and nodded. “Yes,” he agreed.
“I can see where you would make that assumption given our history. We’ve known
each other for years and haven’t ever thought of each other as being in any
kind of relationship.”
    JJ’s heart plummeted. Maybe
you haven’t, but I sure as hell have. “Cruz. There is no relationship. It
was just sex.” JJ forced the words out past the anguish building within her
like a tornado before she chickened out. “We work together. Colleagues. That’s
it.”
    Hurt flared across his face. “Come on. We’re more than that,
JJ.”
    A determination she recognized instantly gleamed in his
smoky gray eyes. He stepped closer and she backed up. The edge of his desk
brushed the back of her ass. She held up her palms outward. The wall of his
broad chest met her hands, heat radiated under her fingertips and she
remembered how good he’d felt when she’d crushed her breasts against him last
night. But she would not be screwed out of a job, leaving her medical license
in jeopardy, ever again.
    “I’m completely serious about this,” JJ said. Her
determination matched his own. Dropping her hands, she squeezed around him. “We
don’t have a relationship, Cruz,” she said, facing him from safely across the
room. She placed her hand on the door knob. “Maybe a long time ago we knew each
other. That doesn’t exactly make us friends. And I don’t date people I work
with. Period. End of discussion. Forget last night happened.” She opened the
door and stepped into the bustling hallway of the ER.
    Because I
wish to God I could.
     
     

Chapter Eight
     
    JJ poured herself a glass of her favorite merlot and grabbed
the true crime novel she’d been reading. Distraction .
And booze. The