by Janice Lynn
Head held high, Blair stormed out of the elevator, ignoring the curious onlookers who’d been impatiently waiting.
Two weeks had passed since Dr Talbot’s hospital admission. Having received timely treatment, Dr T was recovering quite nicely and was in better spirits than he’d been prior to his admission.
“What are you looking so gloomy about, boy?”
No wonder Dr T asked. Oz had been staring unseeingly out the hospital room window for Lord only knew how long.
“I’m going home today,” Dr T reminded him, pushing up on his hospital bed pillow. “That’s cause for celebration.”
Dr T was right. His going home was cause for celebration. Actually, the man looked better than he had in weeks. Oz only hoped his improved health wasn’t the calm before the storm.
Still, his friend’s smile was enough to pull one out of Oz, too.
“You’re right. Your going home is cause for celebration. Although Stephanie’s wound tight about your fund-raiser tomorrow night, she’ll still manage to pull together something to mark your coming home.”
“Figured she would.” The old man gave him an ominous look. “Blair and Addy going to be there tonight or are you two still avoiding each other?”
Blair was adamantly avoiding him. The first week, she’d taken leave from work to sit with Dr T. Canceling the surgeries on schedule could mean loss of lives. Oz hadn’t been able to reconcile that with his conscience, so he’d continued to work, another nurse filling in for Blair. At night, instead of going home, he’d slept in Dr T’s room. Which left him and Blair on alternating shifts. Scarcely speaking.
When she had returned to work this week, she’d only said the bare minimum to him.
He’d tried to talk to her, but she’d shut him down, telling him she’d made a horrible mistake thinking they could be friends and that things were better this way.
Better for who? Certainly not him.
He looked like hell. If he hadn’t already known, Kanesha had kindly pointed out the fact to him, telling him to go home and get some sleep or he wasn’t going to get a single bid at Dr T’s auction. Like he cared. He’d match whatever the highest bid was and be done with it. He’d never wanted to be auctioned off in the first place and had only agreed because of Blair.
Dr T’s hired nurse, Angie, would be at the house tonight to sit with him, but Oz doubted he’d sleep much for worrying about the older man’s first night home. For worrying about how his friend would hold up to attend his fund-raiser. Both his oncologist and his primary care provider had okayed the excursion, but Oz worried it was too soon for him to be undertaking such an outing.
“Son?” Dr T prompted. “You ready to talk about what happened between you and Blair?”
“Not really.” Oz sighed. He hadn’t told Dr T that anything had happened between him and Blair. He doubted she had. But their friend was no fool. They’d gone from cozy to barely speaking. “She’s upset with me.”
“Noticed that, did you?” Dr T pressed the button on his hospital bed to raise him to a sitting position. “Question is, what did you do and what are you doing to make things better?”
“She’s upset I took Addy out in my boat.” He wouldn’t go into all the other things Blair was upset about. Rightly so. He sighed. He should just leave her alone. He wasn’t good for her and she didn’t trust him. So why couldn’t he just put her out of his mind? “I’ve tried talking to her twice since the night you were admitted, but she refuses to talk about it.”
“Just twice?” Dr T looked disappointed. “Surely you know women well enough to know that groveling twice isn’t nearly enough when you committed that big a mistake.”
“Taking Addy sailing wasn’t a mistake.” Perhaps he should have asked Blair first, but she should have trusted him.
“No?”
“Blair shouldn’t put her fears on Addy. It isn’t healthy.”
Dr T’s thin brow lifted. “She told you about Chris? About how he died?”
He nodded.
Dr T’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “She’s in love with you. That’s what all of this is about.”
“Blair doesn’t love me.” He’d thought so, but now he knew better. Otherwise, how could she have turned on him so quickly? How could she have kicked him when he was in just as much pain as she was? When they should have been helping each other through their pain, she’d turned her back on him.
But it had been her verbal attack that had left him cold. Listening to her curse him had opened old wounds of fights between his parents, reminded him that he’d had no business to think he could have a relationship with Blair.
After all, he was a Manning male, and wasn’t that better than giving Blair the power to hurt him?
“Hogwash.”
Oz’s gaze cut to Dr T.
“If you really believe that, then you’re a fool. Just like you’re a fool if you think I don’t know what goes on in my house. I may be dying, but I’m not dead yet.”
Oz winced. Nope, his friend didn’t mince words.
“She scares you, and you’re doing what you do best. Playing the role you think you’re supposed to.”
Oz leaned back in the chair, propped his feet against the side railing of Dr T’s hospital bed. “Blair doesn’t scare me.”
“You think not?” The older man’s thin brow rose. “Then why aren’t you fighting for her?”
Fighting for her? Not meeting Dr T’s eyes, Oz crossed his arms over his chest. “She doesn’t trust me.”
“Do you trust her?”
Oz glanced up, stared into unrelenting pale blue eyes. “I’m not the one who threw a fit about my taking Addy out in my sailboat.”
“If you trust her, why haven’t you told her how you feel?” Dr T’s pale eyes narrowed and as usual he cut right to the heart of the matter. “How you really feel about her?”
Why, indeed?
That evening, Blair and Addy helped Stephanie blow up balloons and hang a welcome home banner in Dr T’s living room. Ever efficient, Stephanie had even had a cake made. When Oz had arrived with Dr T, they’d cheered, “Welcome home.”
“You’re looking at him again,” Reesee whispered in Blair’s ear.
Standing just inside the patio door, Blair sighed. Darn it. She wasn’t. “I was looking at Addy.”
“Who just happens to be sitting in Oz’s lap.”
True. Much to Blair’s chagrin, Addy couldn’t get enough of Oz. From the moment Oz had arrived, Addy clung to him, telling him in no uncertain terms that she’d missed him and demanding to know why he’d yet to take her sailing again.
“Personally, I agree with Addy. He’s hot.”
“Quit saying that.” Blair frowned at her sister. “Whether or not he’s hot doesn’t matter. He’s a jerk.”
“A jerk who adores Dr T, adores your daughter and looks at you like he wants to rip your clothes off with his teeth.” Reesee shrugged. “Whatever he did that upset you, get over it, Blair. Life’s too short to stress the little things.”
“The little things? You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Blair bit into her lower lip.
“Then perhaps you should tell me. Or better yet, why don’t you tell him?”
“I don’t want to talk about him or to him.” She didn’t. She didn’t even want to think about Oz, yet her brain failed to take note and constantly dwelled on him. “I should go make more tea.”
Before her sister could do more than shake her head, Blair ducked back into the house. Anything to escape her sister. To escape the vision of Addy cuddled in Oz’s lap. Besides, Dr Talbot loved her sweet tea. She needed to make him a pitcher prior to going home.
And she would be going home soon. She couldn’t take much more of Oz. Reesee was right. Oz had been looking at her like he wanted to rip off her clothes.
Why?
Did he want more “cheap sex”?
As if.
She might be a slow learner, but eventually even she got the message. She wouldn’t
be used by a man again.
She got the teapot out of the cabinet, filled it with water, and placed it on the stove. Twisting the control knob to high, she leaned against a countertop.
“I’m sorry I took Addy out in my boat without your permission.”
Blair spun toward the opposite end of the kitchen. Looking impossibly handsome in his jeans and American Heart Disease T-shirt, Oz stood in the doorway.
He searched her face, waited for her to respond. Did he expect her to leap with joy? To fall down on her knees in praise that he’d apologized for something he shouldn’t have done to begin with?
“Fine.”
“No, it’s not fine.” He advanced toward her, grasped her arms, forcing her to look at him. “Nothing has been fine since the morning I came back from my run and you started shutting me out of your life.”
Wasn’t that what he’d wanted? Or had he wanted to continue their little fling a while longer before he called it quits?
“Dr T was being rushed to the hospital. What did you expect? That I’d throw my arms around you?”
God, would he quit touching her? She couldn’t think straight with him this near, with his skin against hers. The last time he’d touched her, they’d been in his room, in his bed.
Wincing at the unwanted memories, she averted her gaze. Unfortunately, she stared at the cabinet where Oz had tossed a noodle at her and it had stuck to the oak finish. Everywhere she looked, some memory of Oz lambasted her.
He inhaled a deep breath, brushed his palms over her bare arms. “I’d have preferred that to you giving me the cold shoulder during a time when we needed each other.”
She pulled free of his hold. “I didn’t need you.”
“No?” His brow arched. “I needed you, Blair. Each and every night while I lay in that god-awful cot in Dr T’s room, I needed you there with me.”
Blair’s heart raced. What was he saying? That they’d shared more than cheap sex?
No, that couldn’t be what he was saying. He’d told her point-blank he was leaving. He’d been the one to pull away before his heart rate had even returned to normal.
“You need to find someone else to be your friend, Oz. I no longer want that job.”
“Damn it, I’m not talking about being my friend, Blair. I’m talking about me and you, about what happened between us, about what is happening between us.” He frowned. “Or was happening.”
“Don’t act like I’m the bad guy here, Oz Manning. You were the one who called what happened ‘cheap sex’.”
He shook his head. “You misunderstood, Blair. Making love to you could never be cheap sex.”
Only it had been. With Chris. And that night with Oz. Afterward, he’d left her feeling cheap. Feeling that once again, she’d let her heart put her in a humiliating place, a place that would leave her raw and aching yet again.
“None of this matters.” She just wanted away from him. Far away. Somewhere she wouldn’t have to be constantly confronted by what she’d foolishly wanted. “So what, we had sex? It’s not like either of us expected anything more.”
“I expected more, Blair. Lots more.”
He’d wanted to keep having sex with her? Okay, so that soothed her hurt ego a little, but she couldn’t handle an affair. Not with Oz. She cared too much for him. Addy cared too much for him. The best thing she could do was put as much distance between them as possible so when he left they wouldn’t be devastated any more than they already would be.
“I don’t want more.” She wanted everything. All the things Oz would never give her. All the things she’d dreamed of prior to Chris breaking her heart. She wanted a happily-ever-after of her own. One where she loved and was loved. One where she had someone to share her life with. One where Addy had a father who cherished her. One where Blair had someone to share a pregnancy with, to have him caress her belly and love the growing life inside as much as she did. She wanted all that and more from Oz.
He wouldn’t give her more. She wouldn’t settle for less.
“The night we made love was the best night of my life, Blair.” His words teased, made hope surge inside her. “I didn’t want that night to end. I still don’t. I want you in my life. I want to be a part of Addy’s life.”
Did he have any idea how difficult he was making this? It would be so easy just to say yes. To let Oz carry her upstairs and make love to her again and again. But then what? He’d leave and she’d be left to pick up the pieces of her and Addy’s broken hearts. No, she wouldn’t do it.
She’d focus on what had happened with Chris, on the horrible pain she’d felt, anything to protect her from allowing Oz to do the same.
Oz raked his fingers through his hair. This wasn’t going as well as he’d hoped. Hell, when he’d followed Blair into the kitchen, he hadn’t had a plan. He’d just known that he’d been ignored long enough, that he wanted her in his life. All day, he’d been trying to figure out how he felt about Blair, what exactly it was he wanted from her.
A few cold, hard facts hit him. The main one being that he missed her. Her smile. The way her eyes sparkled like big green jewels. The expression she wore when deep in concentration. The feel of her lips against his. The taste of those lips. God, he missed how she tasted.
He reached for her. “I want you in my life. Quit shutting me out.”
She shook her head in denial, backing away from him. “You took Addy out in a sailboat. A sailboat.” She practically choked on the word. Her eyes searched his. “How could you?”
“I didn’t know about Chris, Blair. But even if I had, I might still have taken her.” The truth hit him, hard. Why hadn’t he realized before? Probably because he’d been gutted by Dr T’s collapse, gutted by Blair’s refusal to have anything to do with him. “This isn’t about my taking Addy out in the boat, is it?”
Her gaze narrowed. “What do you mean? Of course it’s about you taking my daughter out to sea without my permission.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care if you believe me or not.” She rolled her eyes, snorted, turned to remove the whistling teapot from the stove. Ignoring him, she dropped a couple of tea bags into the boiling water. “Go away, Oz. I have nothing to say to you.”
She wasn’t going to make this easy. Had he really expected her to? Was he laying everything on the line for nothing? Yet he had to tell her, had to know.
“Fine, then listen to me.” He held up his finger, shushing her when she started to interrupt him. He’d been cut off by her one time too many over the past two weeks. Tonight, she was going to hear him out. “For the first time in my life, I want a relationship. With you. I understand you were hurt by what happened with Chris, but I’m not him.” Did she have any idea how difficult this was for him? How it went against everything within him to make himself so vulnerable to her whims? “But we can’t have a relationship without trust.”
She opened her mouth again, but he rushed on. “You have to decide, Blair. Do you trust me? Do you really trust me and want to be a part of my life?”
CHAPTER TEN
THE following night, Blair sat in her car in the hotel parking garage. She closed her eyes.
She didn’t want to go inside. Once she went into the hotel, the evening’s events would move forward without her having any real control.
For so many reasons, she’d rather go home, to the safety of the nice little cocoon she’d made for herself over the past two weeks.
For the past six years.
From the passenger seat, Reesee patted Blair’s arm. “No worries. You look great, sis.”
“Like a princess,” Addy piped up from the back.
Taking a deep breath, Blair nodded. “Thanks to you two.”
She touched one of the rhinestone studded combs that Reesee had pulled her hair back with. When Reesee had asked what Blair planned to wear to the fund-raiser, her sister had thrown a fit and taken Blair shopping for a new dress, heels and handbag. She just hadn’t had time for shopping. Not with
worrying about Dr T, sitting with him at the hospital, spending time with Addy and fielding questions about why the little girl hadn’t seen Dr Oz.
Blair had insisted Addy and Reesee have new outfits, too. Her treat. They’d had great fun dressing up and for a short while Blair had forgotten all the things weighing so heavily on her mind. Her sister and Addy had done Blair’s makeup and hair, too.
Glancing in the mirror, she admitted that she didn’t look bad. As a matter of fact, they all looked great, and she was ready to spread her wings and fly.
Okay, so maybe not really, but she still had to go inside. After all, she’d helped put the bash together.
Determined to be positive, even if it killed her, Blair winked at Addy in the rear-view mirror. “Come on, Princess Addy. The party can’t get started without the Pendergrass princesses.”
Addy giggled as Blair let her out of the car seat.
They left the parking garage and rode the elevator up to the ballroom level. Addy insisted upon pressing the buttons, of course.
Planning to help Stephanie with any last-minute items that came up, they’d arrived early. When Blair had spoken to her at Dr Talbot’s the night before, Stephanie had assured her the night would be a success and that every detail had been covered.
Last night at Dr Talbot’s.
Blair closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped into the ballroom.
Immediately, she spotted Oz talking to one of the band members.
How appropriate that he’d be the first person she’d see.
How appropriate when just looking at him in his tux with its crisp bow tie tugged at her heart.
His gaze lifted, met hers. For several heartbeats neither of them moved.
“There’s Dr Oz.” Addy tugged on Blair’s hand. “Mommy, come on. It’s Dr Oz!”
Blair’s gaze dropped to her daughter. Just because tension zapped between her and Oz didn’t mean her daughter didn’t still idolize the man.
“You can say hello with Aunt Reesee.” She glanced at her sister for confirmation. “I’m going to see if Stephanie needs help.”