Read Online Baby, It's Cold Outside by Jennifer Greene, Merline Lovelace, Cindi Myers - Free Book Online Page B

mistake. Everyone does. Nobody can avoid making an occasional mistake, but when you do it, someone could die. Not this kid. He wasn’t your fault, of course. But someone else. And then that mistake would be on your conscience forever.”
    “Yes. Exactly. You understand.” It was such an enormous relief, to have someone listen to her, someone agree with her.
    “Someone else can take that responsibility. Why should it be you? There are lots of other doctors. Lots of people who love that power over life and death. And there are lots of people who really don’t give that much of a damn, because they just don’t feel things that deeply. They won’t go through what you’ve been going through.”
    She frowned. “Exactly,” she said again, but somehow not as strongly.
    “The job is probably done better by someone who doesn’t care. They don’t get hurt that way.”
    Abruptly she shifted in his arms. It was too dark to see his face clearly, but his eyes met hers, clear and calm. He’d sounded so sympathetic. He looked so sympathetic. But now she got it. He was being manipulative, saying between the lines that she had to go back to work—because she did care. Because she did hurt.
    “Hey,” she said, “I thought you were on my side.”
    “I am. Aren’t I saying the right things?”
    She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think I love you anymore.”
    “I didn’t know you loved me before this.” He sounded more amused than hurt by that revelation.
    “Well, I did. I was wildly in love with you yesterday. Wildly in love, stupidly in love, totally in love for the first time. But no more. You threw that away. So don’t try being smarter than me ever again.”
    “Did I say I was smarter than you?”
    Under the covers, she poked his bare chest. “And another thing. You’re up here for the same reason I am, cookie. Because you don’t want to get hurt again. Pretty idiotic, for someone of your talents and skills and experience, to play out your life as a hermit.”
    “I’ll be darned. Did I ask for your opinion?”
    “Yeah, well, I probably wouldn’t have given it, if we hadn’t made love. You’re an extraordinary lover. How can you think it’s a good idea to live alone forever, the rest of your life, without sex? When you’re so fabulous at it?”
    “Was that a slap or a compliment?”
    “It was a slap, you jerk. Can’t you tell when you’re being insulted?”
    “Apparently not with you.”
    “And another thing—”
    He shuddered. “Oh, God. Not that. Anything but that. Every time a woman says ‘and another thing’…nothing ever follows that a guy wants to hear.”
    Even though he retucked the covers around her neck, she poked him in the chest again. “And another thing,” she said firmly. “I don’t know why she cheated, but it’s not on you. It’s nothing you failed to do or did.”
    His voice dropped the teasing tone. “You don’t know that.”
    “Yes, I do.”
    “You couldn’t possibly know that.” He was starting to sound just a wee bit outraged.
    She sighed. “She was shallow. And stupid.”
    “For Pete’s sake. You don’t know that at all.”
    “Yes, I do. A bright woman would never leave a great guy because of a momentary click for another man. First off, she wouldn’t open that door. And second off, she’d fight for what she had. Love. A good man. The vows and commitment she made. And third off, if she was that unhappy with you, then she should have gotten out of the relationship, before cheating. Because that’s ethics.”
    “And you think you’re the final word on this, because you’ve had so much experience with relationships?”
    “Oh, quit giving me a hard time. You know what I’m saying is true. She hurt you. Maybe it was such a bad hurt that you’ll never forget it. But if you think her cheating is somehow your fault, that’s just dumb. She had a major fault line in her ethics. In her values. Frankly, you can do better.”
    “Is it because we had sex that