“Understood. Now can we . . . ?” Jane pointed at the back again.
Nick and his mountain-wide shoulders sagged. “I just don’t see why it has to be today. I said I’d come back another time.”
“Please refer to my earlier answer of no.”
Nick huffed out a huge sigh and started shuffling into the lab. Halfway there, he turned back.
Jane was still pointing.
With a huge sigh, he vanished through the doorway.
Jane turned to Levi, registering nothing but a quiet surprise. “Tarzan.”
He grimaced. “Tell me you remember my real name.”
“Of course I do. But then again, I’m not the one with a head injury.”
“I’m fine.” He knocked on the top of his head. “Hard as a rock. And you?” He gestured to her wrist, which wasn’t splinted.
“I’m good.” Her dark green eyes gave nothing away, including how she felt at seeing him again.
As for what he felt, it seemed a whole lot like relief. “I wanted to thank you for saving my ass.”
“You’d have been fine if I hadn’t been there. You only got hurt because you were trying to protect me.”
“I liked the company,” he said, and while she looked to be absorbing that comment, he made another. “You ducked out on me at the hospital.”
“Hey, I made sure you were going to live first.”
This made him laugh. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Are you in need of medical attention?”
“No.”
She looked him over anyway. He’d like to think that there was some attraction as well as assessment in her pretty eyes, but she was damn good at holding her own counsel. “Okay then,” she said. “Welp, I gotta get back to work. Make sure the door shuts behind you. The latch doesn’t always catch.”
He smiled at being so thoroughly dismissed. “Nice bedside manner. Sexy. Only you’re not the boss of me, Jane. I mean . . . unless you ask real nice first.”
“Now you’re just trying to fluster me.”
“Didn’t know I could.”
She rolled her eyes and pushed a few loose strands of hair out of her face. “Like you don’t know you have that effect on most women.”
“But not you.”
“I’m not most women. How did you find me anyway?”
“First, I braved North Diamond’s mountain looking for you, only to find out that you weren’t scheduled at that urgent care today. Or at Sierra North, Homeward, or Starwood Peak . . .”
That won him a low laugh, but her smile slowly faded. “I’m off rotation at North Diamond for now.”
He hated the idea that she was afraid to go back up there, but he certainly understood it. “I nearly had a panic attack at the idea of getting on the gondola,” he admitted. “I had to get a buddy from ski patrol give me a ride on his snowmobile.”
That had her looking at him again, her gaze softer now. “It’s not often people try to find me,” she said. “Usually it’s been the opposite.”
That effectively swiped the smile from his face, remembering what she’d told him, that she didn’t have family. His family was a huge pain in his ass, but he couldn’t imagine not having them. “Can we talk?”
Those sharp eyes assessed him, taking in the scar the stitches had left through his eyebrow. “I’m glad you’re okay. But I don’t know what there is to talk about.”