Slow Hands

won’t forget,” she murmured, wishing she could.
    Her father had insisted on one last “family” dinner before things got too crazy. Which meant she’d be seeing her stepmother, the only person who did not seem to be going insane with wedding preparations, or to even be involved with them at all.
    The woman had been avoiding her—and Tabitha, too—as if they both carried the Ebola virus. Maddy suspected she was too embarrassed to face her stepdaughters, having to know that they were both fully aware of why she’d been at that auction.
    Tonight, though, Deborah could no longer escape. Neither, unfortunately, could Maddy or her sister.
    Absolutely the only good thing about the evening, in Maddy’s opinion, was that she would have the chance to warn her stepmother about who her escort would be, both at the rehearsal dinner and the wedding.
    She didn’t merely want to avoid any embarrassing moments that her father might pick up on. She also didn’t want Jake subjected to any whispered come-ons. Frankly, the way she was feeling, if her stepmother made a move on the man Maddy had come to consider hers, she’d rip the woman’s hair out by its platinum blond roots.
    So much for the ice queen.
    * * *
    H AVING TO PICK UP some extra shifts to make up for the time off he’d need to escort Maddy both to tonight’s rehearsal dinner and tomorrow afternoon’s wedding, Jake found himself missing her like crazy after only the few days they’d spent apart. It was as if she was a drug to which he’d become completely addicted. And honestly, he’d never felt like that about anyone before in his life.
    “You’re losing it, man,” he muttered that morning as he filled out some paperwork for a patient he and his partner had just brought in to the hospital. “Absolutely losing it.”
    And damn, didn’t it feel fine. As long as, sooner or later, Maddy “lost it,” too.
    Seventy-two hours. That was far too long. He hadn’t seen her since Tuesday morning, when she’d taken him back to his truck. It had been parked outside the same restaurant where they’d tried to dine Sunday night—before Jenny’s interruption. They’d rescheduled for Monday, and had actually managed to complete an entire date. A great one, filled with laughter and good food, and more of that flirtatious banter Maddy seemed to want to try out—and was getting very good at. She was so adorably sexy to watch as she let her inhibitions fall away, one by one.
    Speaking of sexy, that bridesmaid dress… Whew! While it had definitely lived up to all his heated expectations, he’d found himself dreading her actually wearing it to the wedding. He wasn’t sure he was ready for the way other men were going to look at her, whether she believed that or not. The last thing he wanted to do was go off on a jealous rant in the middle of the fancy yacht club reception because some rich dickhead high on one-too-many glasses of champagne looked at her the wrong way.
    She can take care of herself , he forced himself to acknowledge, remembering the drunk at the ball game.
    “You finished?” the admitting nurse asked, interrupting his heated musings. Jeez, it wasn’t often he got distracted from his job, especially with a case as serious as this one.
    Maybe it was because this case was such a serious one. And because of the way the victim’s wife had looked when she’d arrived here a few minutes ago.
    Utterly and completely terrified.
    Madeline Turner might not have seen a lot of true love in her lifetime, but oh, God, did it exist. Jake saw it every day—saw the anguish and the heartbreak that came with the thought of losing someone who was so deeply loved that their partner couldn’t imagine life going on without them. Like the wife from this morning.
    “Yeah, I’m done,” he muttered. “Hope the guy makes it.”
    The patient he and his partner, Raoul, had brought in was a shooting victim, injured in an apparent home invasion. He’d been found unconscious on the floor of his own house. A neighbor had heard the shots and called 911. Jake and Raoul had arrived right behind the police and Jake’s hands had been the first on the wounded man’s bloody chest.
    “I think he will.”
    Good. The guy was middle-aged, had a nice home and a loving wife who’d apparently just left for work when it had happened. He deserved a hell of a lot better than to die for opening his front door to the wrong stranger.
    Though they needed to get back to the station, he