She smiled then, guilelessly. It made her seem almost beautiful. "You always think you're right."

"Oh, and you don't." Amus.e.m.e.nt highlighted Nik's expression

His question struck her as a little ambiguous. "Think you're right?

No. Think I'm right? Yes."

Christmas Every Day 9l

Nik shook his head. He shouldn't have expected anything else from her.

"Hospital coffee's pretty poor as I remember it, but if you're game, I'll spring for a cup in the cafeteria."

Because there was something about his kindness that made her want to lose herself in it, Sara resisted. She knew where giving her trust to someone led. To a dead-end Street "Your good deed is over, Sinclair."

"" The way I see it- " Nik took her hand and led a semi unwilling

Sara down the hallway to the bank of elevators in the rear of the hospital " " it might just be beginning. " The elevator door opened and he gently herded her into the elevator The car was empty.

Sara looked at him defiantly as the doors closed again. "Let's get something straight. I don't like people meddling in my life."

The cafeteria was located in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Nik leaned around Sara to press the b.u.t.ton marked B. "I'm not meddling ," he told her innocently.

"I'm buying two cups of coffee."

Sara sighed and leaned against the elevator wall, feeling suddenly very drained. Maybe coffee would help chase away the feeling.

Nik noted the way she seemed to just collapse, like a balloon whose air had just whooshed out. "What's the matter ?"

"Nothing." Self-conscious, Sara straightened again just as the doors opened. Arrows pointed the way to the cafeteria'I'm storing up energy for round two. "

He thought about taking her hand again and decided against it. He wasn't about to play tug-of-war with her. She could follow on her own if she chose. "This isn't a fight."

Sara fell into step next to him. "Maybe not, but you're crowding me."

Nik stopped just short of the entrance and looked at her, stifling his annoyance. " " Lady, do you always snap at a hand that's being offered to you in friendship? "

Their eyes met and held. The man behind them walked around them in order to enter the the cafeteria. "Until I know what's up their sleeve."

"Hair," he said. "Light brown." He pushed his sleeve up to show her.

"Any more questions?"

She laughed then. The light sound dissolved the tension hanging between them. She followed Nik into the food service area. "No, not at the moment."

"Good." He picked up a tray, then indicated the various desserts that were spread out on the ice behind the gla.s.s. "Now, do you want anything to eat with your coffee?"

Sara gave the display a cursory glance. She wasn't really hungry.

Nerves had sopped up her appet.i.te like bread absorbing the last drops of gravy on a plate. She shrugged. "Surprise me."

"Get us a table," Nik instructed, going toward the coffee urn.

Sara sat at the first empty table she came to. Her legs felt oddly hollow. Maybe she'd been subjected to more tension than she'd initially realized, waiting for the doctor to come and speak to her.

Now that this hurdle had been surmounted , things could go back to the way they had been. She and her father would return to their separate camps, their separate lives.

Maybe she'd go to Hawa next, she mused, her eyes drifting closed. She had always wanted to live in Hawa . At least for a while.

The sound of a tray being laid on the table had Sara opening her eyes.

Nik was just placing an ice-cream sundae dripping with multicolored sprinkles before her. Sara looked up at him in surprise as he slid into the seat opposite her. "You look like the ice cream type."

The observation brought a smile to her lips. "I am." The appet.i.te that hadn't been there a moment ago suddenly materialized , full grown.

She drew the dish closer and picked up the spoon Nik had brought her.

He seemed oddly intuitive , especially for a man. "How could you tell?"

He grinned as he watched her dig in. A certain gusto had returned to her face. "It wasn't that hard to deduce. Your eyes took on a sensuous light when you looked at the whipped cream Antonio had put on the mocha mint coffee the other night ."

Sara loved all ice cream, high-quality and bargain-priced brands alike.

It was her one indulgence. She considered coffee a necessity of life.

so that didn't count. "Very observant of you ."

She had downed three ice-cream-laden spoonfuls before she noticed that Nik had nothing more than half a cup of coffee before him. And he wasn't drinking it. "Aren't you having anything? "

Nik tasted the coffee. It was weak and tasteless. "Chefs don't sample other people's food."

She'd noticed his physique the first time they'd met. Muscular, he was broad shouldered, with slender hips and an incredibly flat stomach. She was beginning to understand why.

"Jennifer says you don't sample much of your own, either" She let another spoonful slide down. "What do you eat? "

He thought for a second. "Vegetables and fruit mostly, usually on the run."

Sara grinned slyly. She had caught him in a contradiction'I thought you said food was sqipposed to be savored"

He knew she'd remember that. Sara struck him as the kind of person who would catalog almost everything in order to save it as future ammunition.

"Don't throw my own axioms back at me." He pushed aside the coffee. It was hopeless. "That's for other people, not me."

She nodded knowingly. "Oh, I see. An exceptional man."

He grinned to himself.

She'd unintentionally managed to feed his ego, she thought. "What, you accept the homage?"

"No." He let her in on the private joke. "It's just that Antonio referred to you as an extraordinary woman today"

Actually, he had been the one to make the reference, but Nik didn't think he should mention that to her. In her present frame of mind she might think he was coming on to her. And he didn't want her thinking that, although, he realized , his eyes slowly drifting over her face, he wouldn't mind doing exactly that. There was something about Sara that attracted him, sharp tongue and all. He dragged a hand through his hair. Maybe he'd been spending too much time with his pots and pans, after all.

Sara accepted his remark at face value. "Antonio's a good judge of character."

The sundae was almost gone. Sara concentrated on it, blocking everything else from her mind. It was easier that way. And a great deal simpler.

Nik folded his hands before him on the table and just watched her in silence.