“You must be Dr. Turner.” Claire smiled and warmly shook Vic’s hand. “It’s my pleasure to meet you. Welcome. Again. I’m Claire Cullen, Angie’s sister-in-law.”
“Nice to meet you, Claire, and thanks, but please call me Vic.” She cast her eyes around, surveying the massive steel tanks, their various tubing and spigots. “I love it here, it’s gorgeous. And I especially love that view to the bay. It’s so quiet here.”
“It’s only this quiet on Mondays, but I agree, it is gorgeous.” Claire was adept at engaging people’s trust, and Angie noticed Vic lean in almost imperceptibly as Claire added, “Angie’s told me a bit about you.”
And here comes the inquisition, the part where Claire takes over as new best friend and confidante. Angie fought to suppress her irritation, surprised to realize that she wanted Vic all to herself. “We’re going to the tasting room for a glass of wine and some munchies. I’d ask you to join us, but I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do.” She shot her sister-in-law a private look that told her to get lost in the nicest possible way.
“Oh, yes, you’re right, I do have things to do. Especially with Nick and your parents away today.” The three had gone to check out a cherry orchard north of Petoskey that the family was considering purchasing, thanks to their new plans to start making cherry cider. Claire whispered to Angie, “You almost got away with sneaking her in.”
“’Bye, Claire,” Angie said pointedly before steering Vic toward the tasting room. “Sorry about that.”
Vic hopped up on one of the leather-upholstered barstools. “What are you sorry about?”
“My nosy sister-in-law.” Angie pulled down two wine goblets. “What’s your pleasure?”
Vic leaned her elbows on the bar, the kind of mischief in her smile reminiscent of a kid playing hooky from school. “Ooh, I love the merlot, but what else do you recommend? And I like Claire. She obviously cares about you. You’re lucky.”
Angie rarely thought about how lucky she was to have family so close and so involved in her life. More often she considered them smothering, overly involved in her business, constantly inviting her to family dinners, regularly pressuring her to become a partner in the business (although they mostly stopped doing that after she hooked up with Brooke). She paused at the double refrigerator that held several dozens of bottles of red wine, keeping them chilled at sixty degrees. “The 2012 pinot noir is pretty spectacular.”
“That sounds enticing. I’ll try that.”
Angie poured them each a generous glass. From a jar underneath the bar she dumped out some of her mom’s famous spiced and roasted pecans into a pottery dish. “I take it your family’s not as involved in your business as mine is.”
“You can say that again.” Vic tilted her head back and slowly, pleasurably, swallowed a mouthful of wine. Her neck was long and smooth—silk came to Angie’s mind—and it was one of those moves that was sexy without meaning to be. “Oh, this is spectacular.”
Angie came around the bar and claimed the stool beside Vic’s. She swirled the wine in her own glass before taking a healthy sip. It was perfect. Medium body with hints of raspberry, cherry, and chocolate with a fruity finish. “Is your family back in Chicago?”
“I’m not sure. I guess so.”
Angie raised her eyebrows questioningly but didn’t speak. She resisted prying into peoples’ lives, mostly because she hated it when people pried into hers. It was up to Vic to share her history—or not.
“I didn’t know my father. My mom raised me. My first year of college, she walked in on me kissing another girl. That was it for her. She kicked me out. I put myself through the rest of college and then medical school.”
“Jeez, that must have been rough. I’m sorry. Did you ever try to reconcile?”
“Once, yes, right before I graduated from medical school. I went to her house. She slammed the door in my face and I haven’t seen her since.”
“Wow. Harsh.” Angie sipped her wine and tried to imagine having nobody. At least, nobody who’d known her all her life. Nobody who supported and loved her unconditionally. When she came out to her family at the end of high school, they were protective, worried for her, but they never stopped loving her and certainly never thought less of her. “I’d have thought your mom would be proud of you, being a doctor and all.”
Vic laughed without pleasure. “My mother can only see one thing, and that’s that I’m a lesbian.”
“Wow,” Angie said again, knowing how inadequate her response was, but it was stunning how people could be so close-minded, so mean, to people they were supposed to love. “I’m surprised you’re not a raging alcoholic.”
“How do you I’m not?”
“Ah…”
Vic threw her head back and laughed. “I’m not, don’t worry. But I do find comfort in other things. I play tennis. I love to sail.”
“Really? You have a sailboat?”
“I do. She’s in dry dock now for the winter. Just a little twenty-one footer. I call her Genome. Genie for short.”
“Genome, that’s cute. I’ve always wanted to sail.”
“Then let’s do it next spring, when I get her back in the water. Come sail with me!”
There was a spark in Vic’s eyes when she talked about sailing, the gray in them now edged with green the color of a bright sea.
“I’d love to. But only if you teach me everything you’re doing.”
“Absolutely.” Vic sipped her wine and kept her eyes on Angie. “Now that I’ve told you mine, what’s your salvation? Besides work?”
Angie didn’t have a lot of hobbies besides running. And reading. “Here I guess. The farm, the winery.”
Vic glanced around. “I can see why. It’s wonderful here. You never wanted to join the family business?”
“Not really. Believe me, they tried. Everything from bribery to guilt until they finally figured out I’m more of an adrenaline junkie than a farmer.”
“Gee,” Vic said with a teasing note in her voice, “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
Angie laughed. ER docs were every bit the adrenaline junkies that paramedics, soldiers, cops, and firefighters were. She looked at Vic, really looked at her as though trying to memorize every line, every curve, every subtle movement. Claire was right; Vic was nice looking. And not simply because of her pretty eyes and the alluring dimples when she smiled, but because there was something honest in her face, something straightforward, uncomplicated, an unspoken contract that said the outside matched the inside. Which meant somebody good, decent, somebody you wanted to know. What a waste, Angie thought, that this woman should have spent so many years with someone who didn’t appreciate her.
She cleared her throat and decided it was time to push Vic on the question she’d tried to ask her the other night. “So. You didn’t answer my question the other night. At your place.”
Vic figured she’d successfully dodged the question and her heart sank at its resurfacing. She decided to play dumb. “Which question is that?”
“About Karen. Whether you want to try to get back together.”
She tried to gauge Angie’s tone and how much judgment was in it. In her eyes too. She wavered for a moment, wondering if the question was academic or serious. Then it struck her that Angie wasn’t the type to ask rhetorical questions.
“I don’t know.” It was the truth.
Something flared in Angie’s eyes, but it was gone before Vic could get a read on it. Probably condemnation. Angie hadn’t disguised the fact that she wanted nothing more to do with her ex, that the damage and the hurt exacted by the affair was irreparable. And unforgivable. But that was Angie and she was entitled to her own feelings. Life, Vic had learned a long time ago, wasn’t that simple. Or at least, people weren’t. There was a lot more gray in the world than black or white.
Angie contemplated her drink. “Then I’m guessing that means you’d like to try.”
“Maybe, maybe not. I honestly don’t know because I haven’t been able
to exchange more than a couple of words with her since everything went down.” Vic took another sip of wine, then popped a couple of nuts into her mouth. “What are you and Brooke doing with your house?”
“She’s buying out my share. I’ve already moved my stuff out and put it into storage.”
“Does that mean you’re staying here awhile longer?”
“Only until I find a place of my own. I have to decide whether I want to rent or buy. What about you? You’re obviously keeping the house.”
“Karen wanted out of everything we bought together. Wants a clean break, I guess. I understand that she’s moved into an apartment across town.” She tried to picture the place and wondered how much Karen had invested of herself in it. Or was it merely window dressing to make it look like she wasn’t living with Brooke? Which she probably was. Vic had driven past Brooke’s house a few times, Liv having told her where it was, and sure enough, Karen’s car had been there.
“I guess that tells you right there what her intentions are.”
“Maybe, but I don’t give up easily. Marriage means something to me, you know? Relationships, years together, shared memories. They matter. You don’t throw all those away for nothing.”
“Nothing?” Angie’s face tightened. “You call what they did to us nothing? Months of carrying on behind our backs? They’re a couple now, for Christ’s sake. They want nothing more to do with us. Which is exactly fine with me.”
Vic had to swallow the roughness in her throat. It did not please her that Karen continued to hold this kind of power over her, especially in front of the take-no-prisoners Angie Cullen. “You’ve made it clear how you feel. But I want to be sure it’s over between us, that’s all. I…I can’t put it behind me until then.”
Angie’s mouth slid open. She closed it with a loud crunch of her teeth. “Suit yourself, but it’s obvious that barn door has closed, as my father would say.”
Heat blazed a trail through Vic’s chest and into her cheeks and up to the tips of her ears. “Well, if you’re so sure everything is in the past, why don’t you start dating? Move on with your life?” Instead—Vic wished she had the guts to say—of hiding out at your family’s home and being so bitter?
Angie smiled. A lazy, lopsided smile that reminded Vic of a cowboy with one leg on the fence rail and a blade of grass tucked firmly between his teeth. The look was brazen, ballsy, unapologetic. “What makes you think I haven’t?”
Vic felt her own mouth drop in surprise, the way Angie’s had a moment ago. “You are?” Jesus. She’d not been serious challenging Angie to date again, and it hadn’t occurred to her that Angie could be so callous, so insensitive. It’d only been seven weeks! Well, seven weeks and two days, but who was counting?
Angie’s smile fell away and she shook her head. “No, I’m not. But maybe I should. I’d have every right to. And so would you.”
“The thought of it makes me nauseous.”
Angie topped up their glasses. “Why?”
“Why? Are you kidding? I don’t even know what dating is like anymore. And even if I was brave enough, which I’m not, I just…I can’t imagine being with someone else. At least not yet. It’s way too soon.”
“You can date somebody without sleeping with them, you know.”
Vic thought about that and her stomach roiled. Aside from Karen, she’d only slept with two other women—her first girlfriend in college and then another woman in her final year of medical school. She wasn’t ready to think about sleeping with somebody. And as for the whole dating thing without sex, well, who did Angie think she was kidding? It was like wine without cheese. A boat without a sail. A book with no pages. It simply didn’t ring true. “I thought sex is supposed to be the whole point of dating.”
Angie looked at her, then broke down in laughter. Deep, howling laughter. “And I thought you said you didn’t know anything about dating. Oh, wait, I get it. You watch The View every day and read Cosmo religiously.”
“Ha, ha, very funny. I don’t know anything about dating and I don’t watch that TV show or read that silly magazine, but I do have ears, and that’s the way everyone at the hospital talks about it. That you’re not really dating if you’re not sleeping with the person. Everything seems to come down to sex. Always.”
“Not always.” Angie grinned. “This isn’t. What we’re doing.”
Vic forgot to breathe. She’d gotten comfortable hanging out with Angie and not thinking about sex. But now it was out there and couldn’t be reeled back in. It was like someone reminding you as you obliviously hiked through the mountains that you were fourteen thousand feet up and that falling over the edge that was just visible beyond the thin stand of trees would mean certain death.
“Sorry.” Angie seemed to sense her discomfort, and it was as though the light in the room had suddenly been extinguished. Both, it seemed, understood that talking about sex, sex that wasn’t and wouldn’t happen between them or with anyone else in the near future, served as a reminder of what their exes had done and were doing together. Sex was a subject between them that would have to remain off limits.
“It’s okay. Really.”
They sipped their wine, the silence broken only by the crunching of the roasted pecans being chewed. Finally, Angie said, “All right, let’s make a deal. Let’s at least start taking notice of cute, single women.”
“Oh no, wait, I don’t—”
“Seriously. I’m not talking about dating. In fact, forget I even said anything about dating. I’m talking about looking. Sort of. Like, not looking looking, but secretly looking. Like pretending you’re staring at the computer when you’re really looking at the cute woman standing beyond it. Or you’re staring out the window and a woman walks by and she doesn’t even know you’re looking. Or if she does, she thinks you’re lost in thought. If that doesn’t work and you get caught, like, nakedly staring at a woman, like totally undressing her with your eyes, you apologize and say you thought she was somebody else.”
“You’re funny, you know that?” Vic hadn’t expected Angie to have such an engaging sense of humor.
“I can be, I guess, though I haven’t felt very funny the last few weeks.” She held her glass up. “Now let’s clink glasses and be merry and seal our little deal.”
With only the slightest bit of hesitation, Vic touched her glass to Angie’s. What the hell. Looking never hurt a damn thing.
Chapter Nine
Angie didn’t flip on the siren, but with the roof lights engaged, she swung the ambulance around in a U-turn and sped toward the mall parking lot she and Jackson had been dispatched to. The call wasn’t a Priority One, but it was the type that could go south if they took too long getting there. It came in as a twenty-year-old woman who had been struck with an asthma attack while shopping with friends.
The patient was sitting on a curb, hunched over, flanked by her two friends. Worry etched on their faces as they rubbed her back and whispered encouragingly to her.
Angie knelt in front of the patient. “Hey there, I’m Angie Cullen. You’re not feeling too well, huh? What’s your name?”
Pale, her chest rising and falling starkly with each breath, the young woman squeezed out, “Danielle.”
“Danielle, can you make it into the back of the ambulance with us, or do we need to get the stretcher?”
The woman started to rise, a good indication, and let Angie and Jackson guide her to the bench in the back of the rig. But she struggled to breathe, and her bottom lip looked bee-stung.
“What happened before you got sick?” Angie kept her voice calm and steady but insistent. “Were you exposed to anything like perfume or lotion? Did you eat anything unusual?”
“I…I…ate a couple of peanuts.”
Jackson took Danielle’s pulse and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her arm. “Are you normally allergic to peanuts?”
She shook her head, crying softly.
You are now, Angie thought, and asked Danielle if it was okay to unbutton her bl
ouse. When she pushed the fabric aside, right away she saw the raised welts on her stomach. “All right,” she said to Jackson. “Let’s get her on a Ventolin mask. I’ll start an IV so we can get some epi and some Benadryl in her.” To the patient, she said, “Danielle, you’re going to be okay. You’re in anaphylactic shock, but we’re going to get some medicine in you to counter it. And the breathing mask will help you too. We’re going to take you to the hospital as well so they can check you out, okay?”
She nodded through the wheezing and Angie patted her shoulder reassuringly.
At the hospital, Julie Whitaker took the handoff. She and Angie had not exchanged more than a few pleasantries and some small talk since Angie had rejoined regular paramedic duties in August. Now, as Angie took a closer look at her, she wondered why she hadn’t tried to engage the young doctor in more conversation. Julie seemed nice. And she was definitely cute. And she was supposed to start noticing these things, as per the deal she’d struck with Vic. “These things” being cute women. Well, preferably cute, single women, of course. She wasn’t Brooke with her apparent weakness for married women. Christ.
“Nice work,” the cute doc said to her a few minutes later, her smile friendlier than usual.
“Our patient going to be okay?”
“Absolutely. But she would have been in real trouble if you hadn’t helped her when you did. Even five more minutes might have made things real interesting.”
“Well, I’m just glad her friends called for help right away. But thank you.” Angie’s tongue began to thicken, as though she were suddenly the one in anaphylactic shock. She’d never been nervous in front of Julie before, but now she was. And all because she’d decided she was cute. And because she was supposed to take note of cute women. Damn it, why did I ever suggest that stupid deal?
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