“Hope you left some room for dessert, young lady,” Roger said to Vic after she’d stuffed herself with turkey, mashed potatoes, squash, and fresh cranberry. It was the best Thanksgiving meal she’d ever had, bar none. Thanksgivings usually involved working or Karen Googling how to cook turkey for two. Neither she nor Karen resembled anything close to being great cooks. “Suzanne’s pumpkin pie is not to be missed this side of the Mississippi. Isn’t that right, Angela?”
Angie, seated beside Vic, said, “Don’t worry about stuffing yourself, we’ll go for a walk later.” She leaned closer, her breath warm against Vic’s ear. “And Dad’s right. The pie really is to die for.”
A shiver, a pleasant one that also had the promise of torture beneath it, raced down Vic’s spine. She looked into Angie’s eyes to steady herself, but the warmth and honesty in them only rocked her again.
“Actually,” she said to Angie, “what if we had that walk now and saved the pie for later?”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea.” Angie rose first and made their excuses. “Don’t worry,” she said to her mother. “This way Vic will have even more room for a gigantic piece of pie. Right, Vic?”
“Hmm, well, maybe if you’re planning to jog me around the farm.”
Angie’s eyes sparked with mischief.
“Don’t even think about it,” Vic hissed, earning a wave of laughter from around the table.
Chapter Fifteen
The light from Angie’s flashlight played on the ground ahead of them. She knew every inch of the farm and didn’t really need a light, but she didn’t want Vic tripping over a tree root or a rock. In the cool air, their breaths rose in small milky clouds.
“Your family’s wonderful. Although I would have been surprised if they weren’t.”
“How so?”
“Because they brought you up right.”
Duty, loyalty, hard work, respect. It was true that she and her family prided themselves on those attributes. They were values she’d risked her life for in the military. “Warm enough?” she asked, touching Vic’s elbow with her free hand.
“Yes, plus I have enough food in me now that I think I’ve gained a layer of fat.”
“You haven’t, but stick around here long enough and you will. Why do you think I run at least a dozen miles a week?”
“Nice try. You run because it’s a stress valve for you. Am I right?”
“I suppose.” Vic was right and there was no sense in denying it. “And guess what? I booked an appointment with that shrink you told me about.”
“You did?”
“Didn’t think I would, did you?”
“I…wasn’t sure, to be honest. But I’m glad you did. And you know what else I’m glad you did?”
“What?”
“Confided in me about being a writer. That took guts, you know. And trust.”
Angie kept her silence for a few steps. “When you trust somebody, it doesn’t take a lot of guts to confide things. And I trust you, Vic.” More than Vic knew. She couldn’t understand how that trust had manifested so quickly or where it came from. But it was there, as solid as the John Deere that lay beyond the barn doors.
Angie couldn’t see Vic’s eyes in the darkness, but she could feel them on her. “Well, I’m not sure what I did to deserve that trust, but thank you. It means a lot to me.”
They halted behind the barn. Angie leaned up against its rough boards and toed the half-frozen earth with her boot. “I’m just glad you don’t think my little writing hobby is stupid. Brooke did, that’s for sure.”
“I don’t think anything you do is stupid.” Vic put her back against the barn too, her shoulder touching Angie’s. “And I’m not Brooke, so please don’t compare me with her.”
“Sorry. That was stupid. I know you’re nothing at all like Brooke.”
“What attracted you to her? I mean, besides the obvious. If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Of course I don’t mind you asking. It’s not like I haven’t been asking myself the same thing a million times over. I guess it was the whole opposites-attract thing. Except I didn’t realize that once the flame starts to fizzle out, it’s actually the sameness between two people that keeps the pilot light going.”
“Huh. That’s quite the metaphor.”
“I’m a writer, remember? And don’t you think it’s true?”
“I do, yes. I think some differences are good, but I think the important things, like your moral system, your values, your outlook on life, the things you desire, need to be the same. And it helps to share interests for sure.”
Angie thought about the love for books she and Vic shared. Their sense of humor too, plus the methodical, confident way they both went about their jobs. There was comfort and familiarity between them, whether it was in the emergency room or hanging out here at the farm. Being with Vic was like the buttery soft leather work gloves she always reached for because they felt like a second skin.
“This is how clueless Brooke was about me. Our first Christmas together, she bought me a Gucci purse. A fucking purse, can you believe it?”
Vic laughed. “No, I can’t. And what did you buy her?”
Angie’s indignation died with her answer. “I bought her a power drill. All right, look,” she said over Vic’s laughter. “I know I was every bit as bad and every bit as much to blame. She didn’t get me and I didn’t get her. That should have been our first and last Christmas together. But I figured I’d chosen her, so…”
“You had to stick with her?”
“Something like that. But I don’t plan to repeat my mistakes.”
“Ah…no more dating women with Gucci purses?”
“Nope. Or women who haven’t read a novel since high school. Or whose annual clothing budget is enough to buy a compact car. I’m done with the whole opposites-attract thing. Doesn’t work. At least not for me.”
“So you’re looking for salt-of-the-earth types. Loyal, honest, genuine. Maybe even somebody who wants a family someday?”
“Maybe.” It wasn’t really that simple. But it wasn’t exactly complicated either, once put that way. “What about you?”
“Oh no. I’m not looking for anybody. Been there, done that.”
“Ever?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Ask me in ten years.”
Angie moved to face Vic. Vic who was full of shit about not looking for anybody for at least ten years. Vic was every bit the marrying kind, more so than Angie. Companion, wife, a loyal heart were all stamped on her soul. She was exactly the kind of woman other women married. Vic Turner was built for the long term. Built to be a partner in every sense of the word.
And that was the major difference between the two of them because Angie, as Brooke had so succinctly put it, was incapable of being a true partner, thanks to her stubborn resistance to letting anyone in.
“Stop,” Vic whispered.
“What?”
“Whatever negative thing you’re thinking.”
Angie wanted to ask Vic how she seemed to so easily search out the hidden corners of her mind, the same way she herself knew every hill, every valley, every vine on this farm. Instead she stepped closer and gently took Vic by the shoulders before she could second-guess herself. “You get me, Vic. I don’t know how, but—”
Vic’s mouth closed the distance between them, her lips brushing the side of Angie’s mouth, like a breeze ruffling the page of a book. Angie’s eyes fluttered shut because she didn’t want to see, only to feel. She angled her face so that their mouths met. Soft, impossibly soft, were Vic’s lips. Angie wanted to devour them, spread them with her tongue, taste and consume them with her mouth, but she didn’t. The kiss was warm and sweet and full, and it rolled through Angie like a hot afternoon rain shower, forever changing the landscape it left behind. Vic’s mouth pressed harder and Angie met the pressure with her own, understanding that they could never go back after this kiss, because with every heartbeat, the kiss was sweeping aside everything Angie t
hought she knew about herself and what she wanted and everything she thought she knew about Vic and their so-called friendship.
Angie’s hands fell to Vic’s waist and she pulled her into her. What she really wanted was to get her hands under that heavy jacket because a fire was raging in her core, a fire that needed more fuel. Vic began to moan softly, to press her body into Angie, and it was blissful agony, a pleasure pain that ripped through her body, a slow unfurling of heat that left her wanting more. It would be so easy to tug Vic right into the barn, to pull off her clothes, to take everything offered, to make love to this woman who…
Shit. Visions of Karen Turner, of Brooke, of the two of them together, stampeded through Angie’s mind, like enemy troops suddenly breaching the secure perimeter she’d set up around her heart. Her libido came to a screeching halt, and in its wake came wave after assaultive wave of doubts and self-condemnation. What the hell am I doing? I cannot do this. Not with Vic. Oh God, anybody but Vic.
She pulled back and immediately began apologizing, stammering words that didn’t make much sense and certainly did nothing to explain her sudden change of heart. Her chickenshit heart.
In the darkness she could barely make out the look on Vic’s face, but it wasn’t good. Inwardly Angie cringed. “I’m so sorry,” she said lamely. “I—I don’t know what…I—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Vic said, her tone polite but carrying a knife-sharp edge. “I’ll go thank your family and then I’ll be on my way.”
“No, Vic, wait…”
But Vic was off, striding through the dark as if completely unconcerned about the minefield of tree stumps, rocks, and ankle-twisting divots in the soil. And something inside Angie’s heart clanged shut.
* * *
Vic rushed to the ambulance bay to receive a fifty-two-year-old heart attack victim. He was reported as stable during the ride, but she knew how quickly such things could go south.
Angie leapt out of the back of the ambulance, athletic grace in motion. The sight of her momentarily forced Vic back on her heels. Her stomach clenched as the kiss outside the barn two nights ago came flooding back to her, swamping her. She remembered, had replayed in her mind, everything about it: Angie’s lips, their soft persistence, their heat, the tenderness with which they took and gave.
And then there was her own visceral reaction and the tangle of her emotions—caution even as she silently begged for the kiss to continue. Each moment the kiss continued, Vic lost more territory because Angie stirred her, unglued something deep in her that didn’t want to remain pinned down. How close she’d been to total surrender exactly at the moment Angie so jarringly, so humiliatingly, ended the kiss. But later, as her anger settled, Vic, truthfully, was relieved. It was too soon, too confusing, too complicated to be taking things further—a disaster that would spell not only the end of any romantic hopes between them, but their friendship too. Painful as it was, Angie had done them both a favor.
Angie met her eyes, but barely.
“Let me have a look at the EKG strip,” Vic said, all business.
Wordlessly, Angie handed it to her before she and her partner, Jackson, pulled the stretcher from the ambulance with an efficient clatter.
“Good call. Looks like an MI. Let’s take him to Room Three.”
The man was conscious. Pale and weak, but alert. They wheeled him to the treatment table, and Olivia began hooking him up to the Emergency Department’s monitoring equipment. Angie and Jackson stepped back, Jackson disappearing with the empty stretcher and the EMS equipment while Angie lingered near the door. Vic hated this awkwardness between them and was glad Angie had hung back. It was just a kiss, after all. A hot, bone-rattling, take-your-breath-away kiss to be sure, but nothing they couldn’t walk back. Or maybe they could simply agree to forget about it, let time bury it.
“What’s your name?” she said to the patient. Angie would have to wait.
“Chris,” he said thinly. “Chris Manning.”
“All right, Chris, we’re going to help you. I want you to tell me what happened.”
He explained how he thought he’d had indigestion all day. Had some shortness of breath the last couple of weeks too, come to think of it. Then about a half hour ago, suddenly it was as though an elephant was sitting on his chest.
“How is the pain now, is it worse?” Vic waited for a response. The patient’s eyes were open but now vacant. “Chris?”
“He’s in v-tach,” Olivia announced, her eyes on the cardiac monitor. The patient’s rhythm was chaotic—up and down, fast then slow.
“He’s unconscious,” Vic confirmed. “Call a code,” she said sharply to Olivia. A code meant her patient was crashing and she needed more help. Olivia dashed for the wall phone.
From the shadows Angie stepped forward. “What can I do?”
Vic pressed the defibrillator paddles to the patient’s chest. “Give me two hundred joules.”
Once Angie adjusted the controls, Vic yelled “clear” and they watched the patient’s chest heave as his heart kicked in again.
Olivia returned, followed by a second nurse and Ray, one of the Emergency Department interns. Vic ordered blood thinners and rhythm stabilizers to be administered intravenously and asked Olivia to call a cardiology consult and to book the catheter lab for angioplasty.
“Nice work,” Angie remarked, backing out of the room.
“Wait. Can I talk to you for a sec?”
“Of course.” Angie visibly swallowed. Clearly she was nervous about what Vic might have to say.
In the hallway, staff bustled past them and they had to flatten themselves against the wall. “Are we okay?” Vic said to her.
Angie gave a short, clipped nod, as something closed up in her eyes. “Yes. We’re okay.”
“Good. Because it kinda doesn’t feel like it. But I want it to be.”
“Vic.” Angie dropped her voice as a loaded stretcher buzzed past them. “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault that—”
“No. This isn’t the place.” A physician’s assistant and a nurse sauntered past them, seemingly deep in conversation, but the hospital had ears. Everywhere. “What are you doing Saturday?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“I’d like for us to go out for lunch. We should talk.” And have some fun. She didn’t want their time together to always be dominated by heavy conversation, to always tug at their emotional strings. They could talk about the kiss and get it the hell over with and then not talk about anything serious for a change. “I was thinking maybe we could make a day of it. Drive over to Charlevoix or something.” She didn’t want to lose Angie, this friendship, because Angie got her. Angie could both read her and understand her. It was a potent attraction and one she found she needed. Most of all, she really liked her. Please say yes.
Angie’s smile was slow and she crooked a teasing eyebrow, making her wait. Damn you, Vic thought, but she grinned even as her stomach somersaulted with anticipation.
“Only if you let me pay,” Angie finally said.
“You’re on. I’ll pick you up at your folks’ place.”
“Jones-ing for another dinner invitation from my mom?”
Vic laughed. “Maybe.”
Chapter Sixteen
Angie tapped her boot impatiently on the plush carpeting of the shrink’s office. Melanie Scott, PhD, was old enough to be Angie’s mother and as capable as her mother of giving her a good butt kicking. It was Angie’s second session; during the first they’d gone through the history of her life until now, ending the session with Brooke’s betrayal.
Melanie was asking her if she was still angry with Brooke.
“Hell no. Good riddance. She did us both a favor, though screwing around wasn’t a cool way to go about it.”
“Ah yes, the tough Angela Cullen couldn’t possibly be hurt by anything Brooke could do to her. Tell me. What could hurt you, deep down, if not that?”
Angie took a minute to think about it. Someone in her family dying would hurt he
r. Her career coming to an end would hurt her. No, the psychologist clarified. Romantically. As in, what could a romantic partner do that would hurt her. Wouldn’t infidelity be at the top of the list?
“Maybe if it was somebody I was actually in love with.”
“So why weren’t you in love with Brooke? You spent four years with this person. Lived with her. Do you always live with women you’re not in love with?”
“Of course not,” Angie said. She’d never lived with anyone before Brooke. Sure, she loved her or at least cared for, but she wasn’t in love with her. They were never truly meant for the long haul. They were oil and water, opposites in pretty much every way.
“So why did you stay with her until she forced an end to it?”
“Doc, is there really a point to analyzing my relationship with Brooke? It’s been over for more than three months.”
Blue eyes the color of a frozen lake bored into her. “If you don’t come to terms with what went wrong with your relationship, how can you expect to be a good partner to somebody else in the future?”
“By choosing a better partner in the first place?” Melanie wasn’t cracking a smile at Angie’s joke. “All right, fine. I stayed with her because I believe in commitments, in loyalty. I’m not a quitter.”
“You may not be a quitter, but you’re a coward, Angela.”
Angie’s heart hammered her shock and anger. “Excuse me?”
The therapist’s eyes softened considerably, but not the set of her jaw. “There’s nothing brave or honorable about sticking with a failing relationship. Do you dislike yourself that much?”
Fury continued to pulse through Angie. This woman knew nothing about her. “I don’t dislike myself.”
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