by Bella Andre
“Fuck.”
It was, quite possibly, the biggest moment of solidarity she'd ever had with her sister's husband.
“I feel exactly the same way.”
He shook his head, confusion taking over his face. “So then why won't you take him back?”
It was easiest to say, “Because I'm a bitch.”
His eyes softened. Just slightly. “You're not a bitch.”
“But it would be easier if you thought that was the reason.”
Not just for him, but for her too.
“You're right,” Travis agreed. “It probably would be. But I'd rather hear the real reason.”
She thought about it for a second. “I really don't want to have to say the words aloud to you, Travis.”
He nodded and she thought that maybe, just maybe, he was going to go now and she would be left alone in her abject misery. Instead, he said, “All my life, until Lily came along, Luke was the most important person in the world to me. He was the only one who really knew me. Who saw through all my bullshit. But the thing is, I don't think I've ever been able to see all the way through his. I've seen him work himself into the ground, I've seen him date women who are so cold you wouldn't want to touch them with your tongue because it would stick. But I've never seen him like this, Janica. Help me help him.”
They were more words than she'd ever heard strung together out of her brother-in-law's mouth. Now it was her turn to be stunned.
“What makes you think I know how to help him?”
“I can't believe I'm about to say this,” he said, looking well and truly appalled, “but on the way over here I started to see things differently. Different enough that I actually think you're perfect for him. You're not one of those frigid bitches he's always been with. He knew he wouldn't fall in love with any of them. But you...well, clearly he didn't know what the fuck to do about you. Which is why I'm thinking that you might be the only person on the planet who can get through to him. The only person who can actually reach him.” He shook his head. “I may need to go have my head examined after this.”
“Good idea,” she said, working like hell to fight back the rush of moisture that was building behind her eyeballs at her brother-in-law's unexpected words.
But his eyes saw too much, damn him.
Damn all the Carson men.
“You haven't told me yet why you won't take him back. Especially when I can see how badly you want to.”
She couldn't sit behind her computer anymore. Her legs were itching to move, to run—and keep running. Away from everything that was hurting so bad. But even as she jumped up out of her chair, she realized not only did she have nowhere to go, but that even if she tried, she'd never be able to hide out, she'd never be able to steal away from her feelings.
“I just can't.”
“Have you heard a word I've said?”
“And then some,” she muttered. “Look, it doesn't matter what you think or what Lily thinks or even what I think.”
She shook her head, hated the way she felt, like she was going to break apart, literally shatter from the inside out.
“It just doesn't matter.”
“It does, Janica.” He paused. “He told you he loves you. In front of all of us.”
Her nostrils flared. She swallowed. Fought for whatever last shred of composure she retained.
“That was really big of him to do it like that. The grand gesture. You must have been really impressed.”
“Fuck being impressed, Janica. The point is he did it. He said it. He feels it. So why the hell are we sitting here having this discussion? Why are you sitting here arguing with me instead of making his life a living hell?”
No.
This was where she had to draw the line. She wouldn't sit here and explain how it had felt to hear Luke say, “I love you,” while everything else about him said he'd failed. While every piece of him clearly screamed that he couldn't believe he'd actually gone and fallen for the notorious, the slutty, the wild-child Janica Ellis.
“I want to be with—” She cut herself off and started over. “I need to be with someone who actually wants to love me.” She felt the edges of her mouth start to wobble and sat back down behind her desk, putting her fingers on her keyboard in a desperate attempt to steady herself.
“Not just someone who can't help himself.”
* * *
Lily lay in the curve of Travis's arms later that night. After putting the kids to sleep, he'd made the sweetest, most passionate love to her. Every touch, every kiss, every stroke of his body inside of hers had been pure emotion.
Pure love.
On the verge of falling into a deep, sated sleep, she heard him say, “You haven't asked me about my conversation with your sister yet.”
She shifted out of his arms and sat up in the bed, moonlight streaming over her lush curves. “You didn't seem ready to talk about it yet.”
His eyes drank her in, roving from her face to her breasts and stomach and hips, then back up to her eyes. “My God, sweetheart, you're so damned beautiful.”
She reached for his hand and threaded her fingers through his, knowing she'd never get tired of hearing him say those words. Even though she saw the truth of it in his eyes every time he looked at her.
“I love you,” she said, and then, “So what happened?”
“I was wrong about her.”
Another time she might have laughed at his look of almost physical pain from his admission, but she couldn't. Not when she was so terribly worried about her sister. And his brother.
“She's not playing Luke,” Travis said. “She really, truly cares about him.” His face tightened even further. “He needs her in a way that he doesn't need you or me. And I'm afraid he's going to lose her.”
Her heart was so heavy a couple of tears fell before she even realized she was crying. “I'm afraid of that too.”
“Hell,” Travis said. “I'm thinking if things don't change soon, we're going to have to get them on a plane to Italy and force the issue.”
Her eyes sparkled at the memory of their surprise wedding. “Oh, wouldn't it be amazing to see them up on that stage at the Festival of Weddings?”
Travis pulled her back into his arms and loved her tears away, but even after he fell asleep with his head on her chest, she couldn't stop worrying. Because she knew that dragging her sister and brother-in-law off to Italy wouldn't make a lick of difference.
She and Travis couldn't make the decision for them.
Luke and Janica needed to choose love for themselves.
All she could do was pray that they did. Because Luke and Janica meant everything to her.
And they both deserved the kind of forever love that she and Travis shared.
Chapter Twenty-three
As soon as Janica touched down in Italy, she knew she should get right back on the plane.
She always loved Italy. The architecture. The passionate natives. The food. The fashion. And as soon as Travis had left her office, she'd booked the next flight out to Milan to deal with some accounts that she'd recently picked up and to get a feel for the new fabrics and styles coming out of fashion's center of business.
But neither of those were the real reasons she'd gotten on the plane.
She'd had to leave. Had to get away from any and everything that reminded her of Luke.
Only, how could she have forgotten that she'd been here, in Italy with him, when they'd been trying to help Lily and Travis with their own roller-coaster relationship?
I love you, he'd said. It shouldn't have taken me this long to figure it out.
Okay, so he'd finally owned up to his feelings. But how long would it take him to accept them? To embrace them? To not be embarrassed by his feelings for her or to wish he didn't feel them? And if she had to tell him, if she had to give him step-by-step instructions on how to really and truly love her, then how could it possibly be real? And in the end, she couldn't force him to feel anything other than what he really, trul
y felt.
Only, it was one thing to try and resist Luke from 5,000 miles away. It was another entirely to think that she'd be able to do it when they were both back in San Francisco, meeting regularly at family events.
One touch, the slightest stroke of his fingers against her skin, and she knew she was going to be lost.
She'd loved him too deep, for too long.
Janica had never settled for anything her whole life. But if Luke could only love her part of the way, maybe settling for whatever he could give her was something she'd need to learn to live with.
Not even bothering to pick up her luggage, she stepped up to the ticket counter and got herself on the return flight out to San Francisco. A dozen hours later as she got off the airplane, knowing she couldn't go another second without seeing Luke, she told the taxi driver to take her straight to the hospital.
And then, from out of nowhere, she felt the truck in the lane beside them clip the back bumper, spinning the taxi off into the center divider on the freeway. Everything went black.
* * *
"Taxi crash. Twenty-nine-year-old woman. Head wound. Possible internal bleeding."
Luke was heading into his tenth hour for the day and had just downed his fifth cup of coffee. He'd worked much longer hours in the past, but now the days seemed longer than they ever had. Coming off his four-week leave, he still felt tired, like he was dragging all the time.
And yet, at the same time, his hours in the ER were the only time he even felt remotely alive.
Somehow, none of the things that used to give him a rush, not even a car accident victim who would need every ounce of his concentration, set off a spark inside of him. Whereas Janica, with nothing more than a wicked little smile, had made him feel like it was the Fourth of July every single day.
Every single moment.
He was still amazed to realize that in less than a week she'd taught him how to have fun. How to appreciate everything around him. And how incredible it was to share his life with someone else.
How had he screwed everything up so badly? And how the hell could he possibly win her back?
The first time she said “I love you” he should have been right there with her, showering her with everything he'd felt for her for so long—and had so stupidly held back. He'd been scared to love and lose again. But he'd had no idea just how much it would really hurt. Especially when the losing part was entirely his fault.
Grabbing the chart from the paramedic, he moved to the quickly moving gurney and finally looked at his patient.
Oh God.
No.
Please, let this be a nightmare.
Please, God, please let this not be real.
But the blood across Janica's forehead and cheek, dried in clumps in her soft hair was real. Her pale skin, her closed, bruised eyelids were real. Her small body, so still and lifeless beneath the thin white sheet—so completely different from the way she normally was, the woman who didn't know how to stop moving—was real.
All of the patients he had ever worked on throughout his years in the ER came down to this moment.
The moment when he needed to save the woman who meant everything to him.
One of the first things he'd learned as a doctor had been that emotions had a time and place, but not in the operating room. He'd always known how to segment the surgeon from the flesh-and-blood man.
He called out instructions one after the other, held out his hands for the nurse to put on his gown and surgical gloves, while his brain worked methodically to assess the damage to Janica's body.
Sweetheart, please hold on. I'm going to save you. I promise.
But before he could lay even a finger on Janica, he felt a hand on his arm.
Luke looked at Robert, frowned as his colleague said, "You're crying."
Without thinking, Luke reached up to touch his face. He couldn't feel any wetness through the latex of his glove. And yet, he knew Robert was right about his tears.
Because no matter how hard he tried to push his emotions into the appropriate box, it just wasn't possible. Not this time.
Not with Janica up on the operating table.
"Do you know her?"
"She's the woman I love."
It was as easy as that.
They all watched him carefully, the operating room nurses, the doctor he'd worked with and socialized with for so many years. No one said anything. No one made the suggestion that he should step away. No one told him he wasn't equipped to do this job right now. No one tried to make him see that Janica would be better off in somebody else's hands.
Thank god, this time they didn't need to say it.
Walking away from the operating room with Janica on the table bleeding and hurting, trusting someone else to heal her and make her whole, was going to be the hardest thing he ever did.
But he had to do it.
For her.
“Please,” he began, but Robert just shook his head, letting him know he didn't have to say anything more.
“We'll take good care of her, Luke. Don't you worry for even one second about that. You're going to have a long life with her. I promise you that.”
Luke's feet felt like lead as he left the operating room. He couldn't go to the waiting room. But his legs wouldn't hold him either. Slowly, he slipped down against the wall until he was sitting on the floor. His head was in his hands and his heart, well, his heart was barely beating.
As the minutes slowly ticked down, he could feel himself alternating between numb and scared.
Scared shitless.
But although he had been crying in the operating room, he wasn't crying now. He didn't even have the relief of tears.
If anything happened to her, anything more than the crash, if something went wrong on the operating table, Luke knew he'd never feel anything again.
He simply couldn't live without her.
Somewhere in the back of his brain he knew he should call Lily, that she needed to know her sister was in the hospital, but he couldn't do it. Not until he knew more.
And all the while, the urge to bust into the OR and take over was so strong it took every ounce of control he possessed not to storm back in there and yank the instruments out of Robert's hands.
"Luke? What are you doing here? On the floor?"
He lifted his head, as heavy as a bowling bowl, and saw Dr. Jones, the woman who'd sent him off on leave, standing in front of him.
"Waiting."
He was surprised when she joined him on the floor. "Waiting for who?"
"Janica."
He didn't say anything more. He didn't say that she was his sister-in-law. He didn't say that he had been in love with her for so many years, there was no pinpointing the exact date or time when his feelings had become clear. He didn't tell her that Janica had offered to give him everything he'd ever wanted, even when he was giving her nearly nothing in return. He didn't tell her that he'd screwed everything up.
The psychiatrist’s voice was gentler than he'd ever heard it. "I don't know what the situation is here, but you've got to know that she's going to be okay, Luke. Every doctor in the hospital is the best at what he or she does.” When he didn't say anything, just let his head fall back to his knees, she squeezed his hand and said, “Let me know if you need anything. I'll be in my office.”
Intellectually, Luke knew she was right. His colleagues were the best in the business. But deep inside, he wouldn't believe it until he heard Janica laugh again.
He wouldn't believe it until he saw her dance again.
He wouldn't believe it until he saw her twirl Violet and Sam, dressed in pink lace, around in Lily and Travis's living room.
Then, and only then, would he believe it.
And he'd never stop telling her he loved her.
He'd never stop trying to get her to see that she could love him back without fear. Because he'd never be so stupid again.
After what felt like hours, the operating room door opened. His colleagues walked o
ut and were clearly surprised to find him on the floor.
For nearly two decades people in the waiting room had tried to read his face, post-operation. Now, he was the one looking for clues. For anything that would tell him if she was going to be all right. Or if she had—
"How is she?" The words came out harsh. Raw.
"She's young and healthy and things couldn't have gone better,” Robert said with a reassuring smile.
They were the same words Luke had said to strangers a thousand times before, but this time, each one was his own nugget of gold. Relief hit him so hard that if he hadn't already been on the floor, that's exactly where he would've ended up.
"Thank you."
Those two whispered words held every ounce of his gratitude.
"Just like I told you,” Robert said softly, “we wouldn't have let anything happen to her, Luke."
With Robert's help, Luke got up off the floor and followed Janica into the recovery room. Doctors didn't stay with patients, obviously. And usually, loved ones didn't either immediately post-surgery. Luke had never broken protocol like this before.
But nothing would stop him from breaking the rules this time.
He was not going to leave her side. And as he watched her sleep, needles in her arm, bandages on her head, her vital signs moving across the digital screen above her bed, he heard her voice in his head from that night out on the beach in front of the bonfire.
I knew I’d regret it forever if I didn't go for what I wanted.
She'd been so right.
And that was when another bomb hit him: He already knew he loved her.
But he hadn't realized until this very moment that she was his entire soul.
Chapter Twenty-four
Janica felt like crap.
Hangovers like this always made her want to roll over and go right back to sleep. Unfortunately, she knew from painful experience that she'd only end up feeling worse when she woke up again in a few hours unless she made herself get out of bed and take a couple of aspirin.