Surge (St. Martin Family Saga: Emergency Responders) Book 3: St. Martin Family Saga: Emergency Responders by Gina Watson Page A

sounding gasp. “But she’s … she’s in medicine and she’s your age. Lexi’s perfect for you.”
    She used to ask why he wanted her, a dumb sixteen-year-old girl. It had taken him a year of uttering reassuring words in her ear for her to start believing him. He’d finally told her she was everything good and pure he’d ever known. In comparison he was dust, a black hole. She’d stopped asking after he’d shared those words.
    “No.” He shook his head. “Bug, I’ve found my perfection already.” He took her hands in his. “Hey, look at me.” Her pained eyes burned him. “All that I am, all that I’ll ever be is wrapped up in you. You alone make me who I am.”
    Her smile broke. “That sounded like emo lyrics. I thought you hated emo.”
    “I could never hate something you love.” He kissed her nose. “Your expressive powder-blue eyes follow me in my sleep. You’re all over my dreams. I could never exist apart from you.”
    Others started to arrive so they broke apart and he removed their bags from the car.
    “What’s this bag with wine and cheese in the backseat?”
    “Give it to me.”
    “You want to explain why you have a bottle of wine given that you’re under age?”
    “Oh pipe down with the underage speech. I’d not intended for you to see it until tonight. It’s from Moretti’s—an expiring Manchego cheese and a bottle of petite Syrah that Lucian said would pair nicely.”
    “Mmm.” He licked his lips and brushed them together.
    “And guess what? It’s a Viejo, aged one year.”
    He smiled widely. “Are we sharing this lone bottle and my Manchego with the rest of your family?”
    Her eyes sparkled. “I sure didn’t have that in mind when I packed it. Thought you could sneak into my room later tonight, like you did last time.”
    “You should be a party planner. You’d earn millions.” They kissed behind the privacy of the car door.
    Inside he greeted most of her brothers and went upstairs to stow the luggage just to get away from the leering eyes and snide comments about the Granger girl. Truthfully, it was hard for him to watch all of her brothers happily married and making googoo eyes at their wives. It made him yearn for the day they’d be accepted as a couple. His gut seized when he realized they probably never would be.
    He dropped her bags on the bed in the room that had served her during her childhood years. As he looked around the room with its handwritten passages and colorful Chinese lanterns, he thought the décor was whimsically original and thoughtful just like her.
    In the hall he ran into her mother. “Mrs. St. Martin.”
    “Jackson, honey, you look tired.” She placed his jaw in her palms and kissed his cheeks. “You don’t come around enough. How’s your residency going?”
    He loved this warm woman who was the only semblance of a mother he had. Her sincerity with him, despite the fact that she had seven other children, always boosted his spirits. He liked that she made his time special. “The hours are long.”
    “I just read about the huge accident on I-10. They took a lot of the victims to Baton Rouge General. Guess you saw them both going and coming didn’t you?”
    “Yes ma’am.” He felt his eyes go unfocused at the graphic memories.
    She clasped his hand in hers. “Will you have coffee with me in the morning? Just you and me.”
    “I’d love to.”
    “Great. I’d like to catch up with my favorite son.”
    He smiled, knowing she said that to each of her children.
    “Hope you plan on staying the night.”
    “Yeah, we thought we’d stay through Monday.”
    Her brow furrowed and it was then that he realized he’d referred to Clara and himself as a we.
    “I mean Clara and me, she rode with me.”
    She smiled at him, squeezing his forearm. “I’m so grateful she has you to look after her. I don’t worry so much about her alone in that big city.”
    He couldn’t say anything at her overt display of trust in him, but his insides