by Audra North
She opened the door, stepped out, and started walking toward her car, half hoping that he would follow, but he didn’t. And then she was at her car and there was no choice left but to get in and drive away, leaving heartbreak behind.
Chapter Eleven
Greg pulled out of the apartment-complex parking lot shortly before eight o’clock that morning. There was no way he was going to stay in Carrie’s place after she’d cut him loose, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.
In fact, he’d been trying to tell her that he liked her—all of her—in his life, and that he couldn’t imagine going back to living without her. He’d been trying to tell her that he wanted what they’d had this week, but that he’d also wanted more, and all she heard was that he was using her to relieve his anxiety. If she’d bothered to listen, he would have told her that she was the one who had forced him to think beyond himself, who had introduced him to laughter and friends and things that had somehow slipped out of his life without him even realizing. She was the one who had made him want in every way, more than just sex.
Although that had been great, too.
But she’d let that asshole Eddie get in the way, and now…
He wasn’t sure what to do.
Have his day off, he supposed, and then go back to working like a dog? Somehow, it no longer seemed right. Maybe he simply needed a distraction. Something to get his mind off Carrie. He could go into the city today and have lunch with his sisters and Andrew and Meredith. He needed to make more of an effort to see them—talking to Carrie had reminded him of that.
And now he was thinking of Carrie again. Damn it.
He stopped at a light, dialed Lily’s number, and put his phone on speaker. The phone rang on the other end. Once, twice, three times.
Finally, in the middle of the fourth ring, she answered. “What’s going on, Greg?” Her voice sounded hoarse, and he frowned.
“What’s wrong. Are you sick?”
He heard her huff through the phone. “No, idiot. I’m in California with Bruno. It’s quarter to five in the morning. You woke me up.”
Damn it. Second time in one day that he’d woken someone up.
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Lil. I forgot you guys were on the West Coast this week.”
He had been the most skeptical one when, nearly two months ago, Lily had arrived home from a trip to Chile with the news that she’d met the man she wanted to marry. Greg had scoffed at it back then, thinking it was much too short an acquaintance on which to base a long-distance relationship. It seemed that the universe was having a good laugh at his expense.
Even worse, he wanted Carrie and she didn’t want him.
“It’s all right,” she said with a sighed. “You know I’m an early riser, anyway. But Bruno kept me up—” she stopped abruptly. “Never mind. What do you want?”
He fought the urge to tease her by gagging into the phone. “I was thinking we could meet up for lunch today. But since you’re in California, it might have to be a really late lunch.” He punctuated his words with a laugh, but Lily didn’t join in.
“Lunch? You’re never free for lunch. At least, you’re never the organizer. Are you sick or something?”
“No, I’m not sick. I wanted to see my family, that’s all.”
“What prompted the urge to see us? You’re always at the hospital or—well, you’re always at the hospital. I’m serious, Greg. What gives?”
Christ. Sisters.
“Fine, if it’ll get you off my back, it’s because I met someone and—”
An earsplitting squeal came through the receiver. “Oh my God! That’s fantastic!”
He heard a low, rumbling voice through the phone, but he couldn’t make out the words. Lily’s voice faded in the receiver, but he could hear her saying, “It’s Greg. He met someone.” A pause, and then, “Oh dear. I don’t know. I’ll ask him.”
Her voice got louder again. “Bruno wants to know if you’re calling because you met someone but then fucked it up.”
For all that he was new to the Stanton family, Bruno seemed to know them very well already.
“I didn’t fuck it up!”
Lily groaned. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He told her everything that had happened, from the moment he had first seen Carrie in the hospital waiting room a year ago, all the way until he had left her place a few minutes before. He left out the more graphic details, but it wasn’t like Lily wouldn’t be able to piece it all together.
“Why are men such idiots?” she asked when he finished. “Except for you, baby,” he heard her say to Bruno.
He rolled his eyes. “Why are you calling me an idiot? She’s the one who freaked out on me. What did I do?” He eased his car onto the freeway toward his house.
Lily laughed. “You’re such a mess, but I love you anyway. She thinks you’re using her, fine. But that’s her problem. Yours is that you keep experiencing anxiety and you haven’t done a damned thing about it other than run into her arms every time you experience a little twinge of panic. That’s why she was so convinced that you were using her.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, sis.”
“Hey, you asked for advice. Take it like a man.”
He snorted, but didn’t argue.
“The way I see it, she likes you a lot more than she’s saying. But she’s already emotionally involved with you and doesn’t want to be hurt when you’ve gotten what you need from her and walk away, like this Eddie guy did. You haven’t given her any reason to believe that she’s not your cure-all. So show her that it’s harder to get rid of you than she thinks. It’s not helping your case much that you let her walk out the door this morning and didn’t bother protesting.”
Fuck. He had thought about stopping her, but he hadn’t processed what was happening quickly enough. Still—“It wouldn’t have made a difference. She’s made up her mind about me.”
She huffed, the sound coming out of the phone like loud static. “Have you actually done anything to make her think otherwise? Or have you only thought about it and expected her to read your mind?”
Damn. She was right.
He blew out a breath. “I’ll think about it. Thanks, Lil.”
“Anytime, bro.” There was a pause, and then, “Actually, preferably not in the wee hours of the morning. But otherwise…”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it. I’m sorry again for waking you. Say hi to Bruno.”
“Oh, I will.” Her voice turned husky and suggestive, and he heard Bruno’s low laugh in the background.
“I didn’t need to hear that!” he yelled into the phone, but she was already gone.
Chapter Twelve
“Where’s Greg? We have a chess game scheduled for after lunch. And why are you sitting by yourself today? You look like the nerdy kid in one of those high school movies. My granddaughter likes to watch that crap.”
Carrie looked up to find Robert frowning down at her. He set his lunch plate on the table across from her and sat down. She was sitting by herself because she hadn’t wanted to ruin anyone’s meal by making them watch her weep over her tilapia.
“Oh, Robert. I’m sorry. I don’t—I don’t think he’s coming in anymore. He probably forgot to call and cancel.”
Robert thumped his cane on the floor. “He wouldn’t do that.”
Her eyes misted over. For goodness’ sake. What was up with all the crying?
She rarely cried, and yet a week in Greg’s nearly nonstop company and she had turned into some kind of weird crying animal. She’d even cried so much on the drive to work that she’d had to pull over.
Robert made a disapproving sound. “You want me to rough him up for you?” he asked. “I might not be as in good of shape as I used to be, but I’ve got a cane.” He picked it up and brandished it, and she half laughed, half sobbed.
“God, no. But thank you for the offer. It was very, er, sweet.”
“You want to talk about it?”
She shook her head, b
ut her brain seemed to have other ideas, because in the next breath she was spilling the entire story. Robert listened with concern. By the time she got to the part where Greg had accused her of letting Eddie’s actions color her view of him, June, Arkady, Candace, and Maureen had joined the table.
“I told him it was over, and then I left,” she finished mournfully.
The table was silent, and she looked around, frowning. “What? What are you all thinking?”
Robert cleared his throat. “I remember when I was still practicing and would get called at all hours of the day and night to attend to my patients. I did house calls back then, you know. And no matter what happened, whether I went to attend the birth of a baby or to hold someone’s hand as they passed away from cancer, I was able to withstand anything because I knew my Georgina would be there for me when I came back home.”
His eyes grew bright, but his voice didn’t waver as he stared hard at Carrie. “I loved my wife precisely because she gave me something no one else could, which was support and healing in the right places. I needed her, and she needed me. Her parents hadn’t thought that education was a good thing for a woman, but I told her she was smart and capable every single day. When Matt was six years old, I shifted my schedule around so that she could go back to school, and she said it was my faith in her that let her become more than she’d ever thought she could.”
“You used—” Carrie stopped herself immediately. No. Robert and his wife hadn’t used each other. That was wrong. “You gave to one another.”
He patted her hand and nodded. “Exactly. She never thought of me as someone to pay the tuition or watch our kids while she studied, even though to say so would still be true. Maybe some people might look at it and think that we were using each other, but without all those wonderful things…” He trailed off, swallowing convulsively, and Carrie had to look away at the intensity of emotion in his eyes. Finally, he was able to whisper, “Without what she gave to me, she wouldn’t have been the Georgina I loved. And she felt the same away about me. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Robert nodded. “These past couple of days, you’ve been different. Greg brings out a spark in you that we haven’t seen in a while. You’re right that Greg still needs help. But maybe you’re something special, just the same, and that’s okay if it means that he gives you as much as you give him.” Robert looked at her meaningfully. “Which I think he does.”
Carrie was reeling. Hadn’t she told Greg, at the beginning, that there was so much to learn from the residents at New Beginnings? She thought of them as wise, wonderful people from whom one could learn so much. And that was true. But if she applied the same lens of judgment to herself that she had to Greg, she would say she was using them for their wisdom.
She’d been the one who had practically pitched them to Greg like a product in the first place. In her office that day, she had talked to him about how life was so complex, and yet this morning she had refused to see anything in Greg other than what Eddie had put her through.
Everyone she loved brought something different and special to her life. And she’d never accused them of using her.
But then, she’d never been afraid of losing them the way she’d been afraid of losing Greg.
Goodness. She was an idiot.
She let out a small sound of despair. “I’ve been such a fool.”
Arkady nodded. “True.” But then he grinned and chuckled. “Although Greg is a bigger fool.”
She jumped up, her chair scraping back on the floor. “I have to call him.”
Everyone in the group murmured their approval.
But before she could even move away from the table, a man appeared in the doorway.
“Greg,” she breathed.
…
“I love you.”
He blurted it to the entire room, and at least a dozen pair of eyes swiveled around to stare at him.
Great. Way to scare her off again.
But Carrie didn’t seem scared. She didn’t even seem like she was upset with him anymore, because as soon as he’d uttered those three words, her face lit up and she walked around the table toward him. He came forward, too, meeting her halfway across the room, grabbing her hands in his.
Thank God. She had come to him. She wasn’t turning away.
“I’m sorry, Carrie. I didn’t mean to make you feel used. That wasn’t why I wanted to keep seeing you. I don’t want you for just sex. Or just because you do ease my anxiety, even though I know I made you feel that way. It’s more than that.”
“Shh, Greg.” She leaned forward and kissed him, gently. “I see that now. I’m sorry I overreacted. I think I was so scared, after Eddie, that I’d never know where I stood with a man. I was afraid, and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”
She smiled up at him, and he stroked her hair. “I’ll show you, Carrie. I promise. I won’t treat you the way Eddie treated you.”
She shook her head, bringing her arms around his waist and holding him tightly. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I feel something, well, really strong for you, and I’ve been so much happier with you in my life. You gave me back something I hadn’t even realized I was missing—joy—and it wasn’t fair of me to pretend that the happiness you bring to my life is that much different from the peace I bring to yours. I’m sorry I made you feel like that was wrong.”
He kissed her forehead. “Can we start over, then?”
She shook her head, and for a moment he looked crushed. But then she smiled. “We can’t start over, but we can continue. These past few days, wild though they’ve been, are part of our life together, after all. The good and bad, happy and sad, for what that’s worth.”
“Kiss her, Doc!” Robert yelled then, startling them both and making Greg laugh in surprise. He’d been so wrapped up in Carrie, he’d forgotten they had an audience.
“With tongue!” Maureen added, and several of the other residents actually hooted at that.
Carrie was blushing.
“Get a room,” Arkady piped in, and then everyone laughed.
And then it all faded away as Greg leaned down and captured her lips in his.
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Acknowledgments
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop thanking my husband for how much his support has meant to me for my writing and my life. It’s about so much more than the gift of time. His belief in me and what I’m capable of has allowed me to accomplish so much.
Likewise, my children are an endless source of inspiration and joy. They light up my life and make me want to be a better person every single day. And that includes being a better writer!
To my editors, Tahra Seplowin and Allison Blisard, thank you for the hard work and always-cheerful effort you put into my works. I feel so fortunate to be a part of such an incredible team.
Jackie Horne, you were the first person to read and critique this manuscript and I cannot thank you enough for being both patient and encouraging with that first draft. I am so lucky to have someone as brilliant as you offering such insightful feedback.
To the ladies of Wonkomance, my friends on Twitter, and especially to all of my smart, wonderful readers, I thank you for loving romance and creating a community of positive, supportive friends.
About the Author
Audra North fell in love with romance at age thirteen and spent the next twenty years reading as many romance novels as she could. Even now, after having read over one thousand of them, Audra still can’t resist the lure of a happily ever after, and her collection continues to grow. She lives near Boston with her husband, three young children, and a lot of books. Visit her website at audranorth.com or find her (way too frequ
ently) on Twitter @AudraNorth.
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