Nerds on Fire (4 page)

“
Tough day?” She attempted
to radiate sympathy.

“
Yeah, most of my team
hasn’t shown yet.” He shoved a hand through his hair.

“
What’s going to...” She
didn’t get a chance to ask her question because another page with
an emergency code blared from the intercom for Mark.

He took off. It left her speaking to
empty air.

Chapter 4

When Mark entered the
cafeteria, he selected a large sandwich, larger coffee, and some
fruit. He circled tables until he found Trixi. She was already
eating. A container nearly touched her elbow while she ate from a
different one. He set his meal down.

“
Hello,” he
greeted.

“
Hello,” she returned and
by then Katy, followed by Leo, settled in beside them.

“
Katy is getting
transferred to my department,” Mark announced.

“
What? When did that
happen?” Trixi’s fork hovered over her container. “That’s what your
emergency meeting was about right before lunch?”

“
Yes, since I know nothing
about neurosurgery, they decided I would be perfect to fill in
there, starting this afternoon.” Katy eyed Trixi’s tea. She handed
it over. Katy tossed back a belt before stealing a bite of roast
beef.

“
I’ve got three staff
members out as of this morning.” Mark reflected on the nightmare
he’d encountered upon entering work. The morning disintegrated from
there.

“
Three down?” Trixi’s eyes
rounded. “That’s a major blow.”

“
Yes. One has the flu, one
was in a really bad car accident last evening, and the other is out
on immediate maternity bed rest.” He stared at his sandwich, and
wondered if he had the energy to actually eat it.

Leo dove into the first thing he
picked up. Mark turned back to his own tray and finally picked up
the coffee. He took several long draws.

“
You’re drinking coffee at
lunch?” Leo’s eyebrows met over his nose.

“
It’s necessary.” Mark took
another long swallow before he picked up his sandwich.

Katy opened the tea on her tray. She
pried the lid off her salad and then stared at it like she didn’t
know what to do next.

He could commiserate as he finally
managed to tear the wrapper off his sandwich. Leo helped Katy and
soon she made inroads into her salad.

After she finished eating, Trixi
tugged the lid off the container at her elbow and Katy’s head
turned so fast, she might suffer from whiplash pains later. “Your
famous chocolate fudge cake.”

“
We had some last
evening.”

Even Leo stopped shoveling food in to
stare in awe at the double-layered cake oozing rich chocolate
frosting. It was covered with a thicker chocolate on the top and
sides. Before Mark took full inventory, he was drooling.

Katy snapped her salad lid in front of
Trixi. “Load her up.”

He liked how she thought. Mark set his
own plate in front of Trixi after she settled a huge piece on
Katy’s lid. Leo sampled Katy’s before shoving his plate close. By
the time Trixi served him, Katy was busy moaning. Mark understood
because this cake was unreal.

“
You could make a fortune
selling these.” Mark paused only long enough to say this before he
dove back in.

“
Then they wouldn’t be fun
anymore.”

Mark paused, his next bite hovering
between his mouth and plate. Katy eyed it with avarice while Leo
stole some of her cake since his was gone already. She turned a
censorious gaze on him. With a contented smile, Leo leaned back in
his chair and sent Katy a cheerful wink in return.

Her lip curled up.

By this time, Mark regained his
faculties since his cake was gone. “You bake these for
fun?”

“
Of course. She loves to
cook and bake and she excels at both.” Katy shoved her empty lid
close to Trixi again. Trixi took a moment to add another slice.
Interested, Leo copied her motions and received a second serving as
his reward. He dove right in, before Trixi could change her
mind.

This was not the moment to be shy, so
Mark presented his plate again. He received the remaining
wedge.

“
Where did you get purple
eyes from?” Leo asked Katy randomly. It was a great question
though, because he’d been wondering the same thing.

Katy paused in demolishing her second
helping of cake. “They run in my family. Usually someone has
them.”

Trixi swallowed a dainty bite of her
first piece of cake. “Really? Why didn’t I know that?”

Katy grinned. “Because I was too busy
nagging you to make this cake to talk about my family
genetics.”

“
I’ve met both of your
aunts and neither of them have your eyes.”

“
No, my paternal
grandmother had them. They must run through her side of the family.
From what the aunts tell me, my grandmother was thrilled when I
ended up with her eyes.”

“
Where’d the yellow hair
come from?” Mark polished off his second slice of cake and downed
more coffee.

Katy wrinkled her nose. “My mother.
From what I learned from my aunts, all the women on her side end up
with this hair color.”

“
Isn’t it normally called
blonde?” Trixi asked delicately. A smile flirted with her lips and
he liked the affection between the two women.

“
Yes, but her hair isn’t
blonde. It’s yellow.” Mark used his chin to point at
Katy.

Beside him, Leo also stared at Katy’s
amazing hair. “It’s definitely yellow.”

Katy and Trixi’s eyes met. “Maybe
they’re both color blind,” Katy ventured with a mischievous
glint.

“
Maybe.” Trixi’s smile was
so sweet it rivaled the delicious cake. The woman was
gorgeous.

Her expression shuttered when she
turned to Katy. “Dad’s engaged.”

Katy choked on her iced
tea. “
What?
”

“
Yeah, I was surprised
too.”

“
To what’s-her-name?
Chrissy?”

Trixi’s sigh was heartfelt. “Yes.” She
snapped the lid back onto the empty cake container.

With a napkin she swiped from Leo,
Katy wiped her mouth, purple eyes wide. “I can’t imagine him
married to her.”

“
I know. She was checking
everything out in the house; mentally assessing items and
determining their value.”

“
I wouldn’t put it past her
to sell the house out from under you.” Katy’s mouth turned
wry.

“
Yeah, unfortunately for
her, I don’t think she knows that can’t happen.”

For a moment there, Mark thought
Trixi’s eyes turned hard, but the emotion was gone so quickly he
wasn’t certain.

“
Gold digger?” He swirled
the remaining coffee in his disposable cup.

“
Yeah, his current
girlfriend is a nasty piece of work. She’s beautiful with a
gorgeous body and money signs in her eyes,” Katy said.

Leo stirred. “How do you know
this?”

“
I keep in touch.” She
tried to poke Leo.

Trixi nodded in agreement. “Katy has
tolerated their relationship with me.”

“
It’s been painful to
watch. He fell hard and fast. Meanwhile she’s calculating how to
squeeze the very most out of him she possibly can.”

He nodded. “I’ve seen her type
before.”

“
So has Dad. He’s always
been able to see through their guises in the past.” Trixi’s lower
lip jutted out as her forehead crinkled. “I don’t get
it.”

“
I can’t imagine Dad
falling into her trap in the first place. Now that he has, why
don’t we ask them to wait a little while? Try to stall the wedding
somehow until he comes to his senses.” Katy tapped the
table.

“
That’s a good idea. We can
probably stall them for a little while.”

“
What do Gran and Miriam
think?”

More names he had never heard before.
They must be Trixi’s family, but it was interesting Katy seemed to
know them well.

“
They recognized what she
was the instant they met her last night, of course.”

Katy sat up straight in her chair.
“Wait, why hasn’t Dad taken Chrissy to meet them before
this?”

“
I don’t know.” Trixi’s
mouth flattened. “That’s why I didn’t think it was serious. Plus
they’ve only been together a few months.”

“
But he told you they were
engaged?”

“
She kept flashing a
massive diamond on her finger when they told me last
night.”

“
A cap on an already
stressful day?” Katy sent a sympathetic look at Trixi, who
nodded.

“
Why do you think I needed
to thaw this cake?”

“
Right. Of course you
needed a double infusion of chocolate. Sounds like a necessity.”
Katy rubbed Trixi’s arm. Trixi leaned into her.

“
How long have you two
known each other?” he asked abruptly.

His question startled both women. “I
don’t know.” Katy frowned.

“
Since our second year of
college when we decided to become roommates.”

“
We found a cheap
efficiency apartment. It provided decent housing.”

“
Why did you share an
efficiency apartment?” Leo finished off his tea.

“
Mostly because it was
affordable and bigger than a dorm room, which we both lived in
during freshman year, and hated.” Katy shrugged as she gathered the
remains of her lunch in preparation to leave the
cafeteria.

“
Both of us were eager to
move off campus.”

“
We met when we went to
look at the apartment. The building manager made a mistake and gave
us the same time to view the place. We decided living together
would be fun.” Katy shared a smile with Trixi.

Trixi nodded. “We became
sisters.”

“
How long did you live
there?” Mark asked, fascinated by the conversation. Beside him,
Leo’s body language also read interested.

Again, Trixi and Katy looked at each
other. “All through college, and then after graduation Katy got
accepted into a nearby medical school. I wasn’t certain about
continuing my education so I took a nursing job.”

Katy shook her head. “You know you
wanted to keep going, but we couldn’t both afford to stay in
school.” She turned to them. “Trixi got a job and supported us
while I went to school. She worked any extra shifts she could to
pay our bills.”

“
It was only for a year.
You can do anything for a short amount of time.” Trixi made this
sound like it was no big deal.

“
What happened after
that?”

Katy toyed with a saltshaker. “My
inheritance for school kicked in finally, since I started college a
year earlier than my grandparents expected. I also graduated a year
early, as did Trixi.”

“
Once we had her
inheritance, she demanded I go back to school.” Trixi smiled. “By
then I knew I wanted neonatal and I only had one of the required
two years so I waited another year before applying to become a
nurse practitioner.”

“
How long ago was this?”
Mark couldn’t get the math to add up.

“
The thing is, I liked my
job, since getting one at a hospital like this is difficult. I knew
I might not land another if I left, so I kept working while I went
to school.”

“
Nothing I said convinced
her to give it up,” Katy said dryly. “But I paid for our expenses
so Trixi could save every penny she made. I knew she’d need the
money eventually.”

“
By keeping my job, it took
me longer to finish my schooling, but I finally did a couple months
ago. I had to give up a bunch of hours to complete my clinicals for
a short time but the Human Resources Department assured me I would
have a job when I finished.”

“
And now she’s a permanent
nurse practitioner.” Katy beamed.

“
Speaking of, I’ve got more
paperwork and then a couple of meetings, so I better hurry.” Trixi
glanced at the clock.

He and Katy had a brain tumor to
remove at one.

“
Glad it’s working out for
you,” Leo told Trixi laconically.

“
Thanks. Although I’m
itching to actually get to the neonatal unit now.” Her reply came
with a quicksilver grin Mark wanted to see more of. In fact, he
wanted a copious amount of time with her.

The question was how to make it
happen? He hadn’t been interested in the fair sex before because of
all of his schooling, but this lack of knowledge put him at a
disadvantage. How did a man ask out a woman he wanted a
relationship with?

For the first time in ages, he had no
idea what to do.

Chapter 5

When she got
home that evening, Trixi was more than ready to be. After a boring
day of filling out forms and listening to spiels about benefits and
perks she was already enjoying, there was something soothing about
arriving to this place of refuge. It was feeling more like hers
now.