by Andrews, Amy
But she was over being alone on this day—isolating herself from the world, retreating to lick her wounds. She wanted to be with him. She wanted him by her side not just because of the distraction, but because now that she’d pulled the stick out of her butt, she actually enjoyed his company.
So they went to the movies. It was some awful complicated sci-fi dystopian thing, but they ate popcorn and frozen Cokes until their tongues were blue, then necked in the back for a while like teenagers. They even stopped by an arcade on their way home and Doyle showed her his mad pinball skills from his misspent youth.
Despite the history of the day and the almost hourly texts from either Josie or Mack, Sal had enjoyed herself. Sure, she’d thought about Ben and the baby a lot, too, but the memories didn’t seem to grip as hard as they once had.
They were laughing about the teenagers they’d disgusted in the movies with their public display of affection as Doyle turned off the main road into suburbia, music from the radio playing softly in the background. Doyle’s deep chuckle washed over her and Sal’s heart beat a crazy beat, filling up her entire chest as he traversed the winding road that bordered the park where they’d held puppy preschool.
It felt a lot like love…
And that’s when it happened. In the blink of an eye. Just like last time. A speeding car rounded the bend, taking it too fast on the wrong side of the road, coming straight at them.
Sal froze, watching the oncoming lights in some kind of fatalistic slow-motion.
Maybe it was always her destiny to die in a car crash. Maybe death was coming back for her. Maybe her number was finally up.
“Doyle,” she screamed.
“Fuck,” he cursed, his reaction time swift as he slammed on the brake and turned the wheel hard to avoid the imminent collision. The dual cab spun twice before coming to a halt on the grassy verge beside the road.
The radio seemed screechingly loud in Sal’s ears as everything went still. She held her breath, waiting for the sound of crunching metal from the other car, turning around wildly, compelled to look. Miraculously, it wobbled all over the road but somehow righted itself before disappearing from sight.
“Jesus.” Doyle ran a hand through his hair. He looked at her. “Are you okay?”
Sal nodded automatically, her mind blank, her body in a state of shock, not feeling anything, just numb.
“Christ.” Doyle’s forehead slumped against the steering wheel and he took some deep breaths. “What an idiot. He could have killed us.”
A flash of Ben, his unseeing eyes, blood dripping down his head, blasted Sal out of her shock. She remembered that fateful night driving along, listening to music, happily arguing about baby names, not a single clue that her life was about to go to shit.
Like it had almost gone to shit again just now.
Sal’s heart rate rocketed and her hands started to tremble, the air felt stuffy and she breathed harder, but it didn’t help. She reached for the door handle with one hand and the seat belt with the other, both hands shaking violently now.
She had to get out. She had to.
“Sal?” Doyle frowned at her as she tried to coordinate her hands. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t breathe. “Have to get out,” she said. “Can’t breathe.”
She almost whimpered when her fingers finally managed to wrap around the handle and release the seat belt. She pushed the door open, almost falling out of the vehicle in her haste. Doyle was at her side in seconds.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, his hand at her elbow.
“No.” She bent over at the waist, dragging in the fresh air, gulping it in.
He crouched down beside her, cursing. “Shit. Your accident…”
Sal shook her head, her heart rate and her breathing settling slightly. “It’s fine. Just had to get out of the car.”
“No, it’s not. Here.” He stood. “Come and sit down, there are some tables over there.”
He eased her gently up, and Sal was too weak to argue with him. She let him lead her over to one of the picnic tables that ringed a kids’ playground, leaning into him, her legs shaking as violently as her hands. He helped her clamber onto the table, and they sat side by side, his arm around her shoulders, their knees bent, their feet resting on the seat.
His big body dwarfing hers.
It seemed to take forever for the trembling to start subsiding, for her heart to stop beating like a runaway train. For the image of Ben to fade from her brain.
And through it all, Doyle just sat there, the reassuring thump of his heartbeat against her side, the warmth of his arm and the earthy smell of wood chips all grounding her in the present despite the insistent tug from the past.
“I’m sorry,” she said eventually as the panic started to recede. She moved slightly so she was angled more toward him, and his arm fell away.
“Don’t be,” he said as he adopted a similar position, their knees brushing.
“It just…it took me back…”
“I’m sure it did,” he said gently. “Today of all days.”
Sal shook her head, her gaze falling on a bright yellow slide. “I was doing so well, too. And then—”
“Some idiot nearly kills us and it brings it all back,” he said. “That’s understandable.”
Us.
Not Ben this time. Not just her. But Doyle. The image in her head morphed into Doyle. Doyle with blood running down his face. Doyle’s lovely warm eyes, cold and dead.
Oh God. She felt sick.
Sal’s pulse picked up again. She couldn’t do this. She’d gone and made herself vulnerable all over again. When she’d sworn she wouldn’t. Developing feelings for Doyle when he could be in that car right now, injured or worse. Just like Ben. If there was ever a sign from the universe that she’d overstepped, that she’d fucked up, this was it.
Who was she to think she could love again? She’d had her one great love and look how that ended. Look how it had almost ended for Doyle tonight.
She couldn’t love Doyle. Loving led to heartache.
And she’d never survive another.
It was a sign. And one she was going to heed.
Sal pushed herself off the table and scrambled to find solid ground on shaky legs. “Let’s go.”
He stood, sliding his hand under her elbow. The touch was so damn good to her fragile constitution, and she yearned to lean into him. But she couldn’t. It was over. She had to go back to being emotionally self-sufficient.
She pulled her elbow away and he frowned. “Sal?”
“Can we just go, please?” she said, her gelatinous legs kicking into action.
“We don’t have to just yet if you’re still rattled,” he called after her.
Sal shook her head, a wave of unshed tears building behind her eyes, the pressure shooting back into her sinuses, cramping across her face. She didn’t want him to be nice to her. She wanted to go home and curl into a ball and give in to the threatening tsunami building inside. She needed to be alone.
“I’m fine,” she rasped, her voice wobbly, her chest heaving with suppressed emotion, as she neared the car.
He tried to talk to her as he got in the vehicle, but Sal just shook her head and looked out the window. He tried again when he pulled up outside the practice and when they were climbing the stairs, but Sal couldn’t. What she needed right now more than anything was to be inside the apartment, her safe house, the place that had sheltered her six years ago through that loss and would do so again through this one.
The door clicked shut behind them, the glow from the range hood the only source of light in the apartment. “Okay. Out with it.” His voice rumbled with authority behind her. “What’s wrong, Sal?”
Sal turned, scared out of her wits by what had happened tonight and by how close she’d come to falling in love with him. Feeling gut-wrenchingly sick about it. Matilda ran out from the lounge, meowing happily to see them, doing her usual traitorous body rub against Doyle’s ank
les.
She took a deep breath, forcing herself to look him right in the eye, the jungle drum of her pulse pounding through her ears. She had to do this. “I want you to leave.”
He blinked. Then he frowned. “What?”
“Now. Tonight.”
He regarded her for long moments. “No,” he said, shoving his hands on his hips.
Sal ignored him. “I know your house is still unlivable. I’ll pay for a hotel.”
“I can pay for my own damn hotel,” he growled.
“I’ll also pay out the last month on your contract.”
His eyebrows practically hit his buzz-cut hairline. “You’re sacking me, too?”
Sal shook her head. “I’m releasing you from your contract early.”
“And how are you going to manage without me? One vet down?”
“I’ll arrange a replacement through the agency first thing. Or just make do till Mack gets back in a month.” God knew she was going to need to keep really busy to get through this, so a heavier workload suited just fine.
He shook his head slowly and Sal could feel his intense gaze probing hers. “Why?”
“Because I can’t do this. I should never have let you…never have allowed myself to…”
He took a step toward her. Sal took a step back. Her pulse was pounding. Her thighs were trembling. She felt like she was breathing helium. She was hanging on by a thread.
“You need to stop running, Sal.”
“I know what I need in my life, Doyle,” she snapped. “I’m a big girl. Don’t patronize me. Please just…” She sucked in a breath to cover the sob desperate to escape her throat. “I need to be alone.”
Doyle shoved his hands in his pockets to stop from reaching for her. Sal looked like she needed a lot of things right now, and being alone was definitely not one of them—she looked like she was barely holding on. He understood she’d had a shock. A stark reminder of the fragility of life on a day when that had already been well and truly rammed home to her. She was reacting. Not thinking. Reverting to type.
So tonight, the last thing she needed was for him to leave. Sal needed to know that he was the guy who could heal her hurt if she let him. That he was here for the long haul.
He’d wanted to take this slow, build a relationship with her first, but she was forcing his hand.
“I can’t do that, Sal, because I love you, and I can’t bear to see you like this. I want to be here for you. And not just tonight but every night.”
Two pale blue eyes widened and brightened, shimmering with unshed tears in the low light. She swallowed and shook her head, taking another step back. “No.”
Doyle stood his ground. “Yes.”
“Feeling sorry for me isn’t love, Doyle.”
Doyle felt the low, quiet observation like an ice pick to his heart, but it only made him more determined to break through her resolve. She was messed up—who wouldn’t be given what she’d been through six years ago and then again tonight of all nights? But he’d seen signs of life these last few weeks and he wasn’t about to give up on her.
“You think I don’t know what love is?”
“I think it’s…easy to confuse.”
Doyle agreed. It was easy to confuse for some. But he’d never been in love before, so he knew the difference. He’d known from the very beginning she was special.
“Have you ever stopped to think why me?” he asked into the still of the night. “Why was I able to get you off that night when the others couldn’t? Did I really do anything different than any other guy, Sal, or was it just the fact that it was me? You blamed me for your lack of orgasms, but was it deeper than that? More psychological? Maybe your orgasm issues started because I’d moved in down the hall and your body understood long before your brain that I was the one you wanted?”
She didn’t say anything for a really long time. Doyle hoped she was processing it. Thinking back. Seeing the truth of it. Remembering that they’d both felt something from the beginning even when neither of them had wanted to. “I think we only get one chance at love,” she said.
“Really? Out of billions of people in the world, there’s just one person for everyone?”
She raised her chin. “There is for me.”
Dismay hit him like a sucker punch to the solar plexus. A few days with relaxed Sal and he’d forgotten how intractable she could be. “I don’t think that’s right, and I don’t think you think that’s right, either.”
Her chin held firm for a beat or two, and then her shoulders slumped and the determination fell from her face. Moisture shone in her eyes again. “Doyle, please…if it’s true, if you do…l-love me, then I’m asking you, I’m begging you, to please just go. I can’t do this. Please…if you love me, don’t ask me to put my heart on the line again.”
Doyle sighed as her plea and the utter dejection it was made with pierced him right through the heart. She didn’t play fair.
She couldn’t do this? How long could he do this? Fighting for her love and coming up against brick walls?
“Are you testing me, Sal?”
“No.” She shook her head.
The honesty in her statement almost broke his heart. But the implications stirred in his gut. “You’re just asking me to walk away, right?” he said tersely.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just want to be alone.”
Doyle’s lungs seemed to collapse in on themselves at the finality of it all. Did he have the wherewithal to stay here and fight another pitch battle for her affection? Or was it wiser to cut his losses and retreat for a while?
Whatever was wisest, he knew he couldn’t deny her what she needed tonight. Not when she looked utterly miserable. Her eyes were begging him, making it impossible for him to breathe without it hurting.
“Okay,” he said, the stiffness of his frame easing as some of the tension oozed out. “You win. I’ll go. Because I love you and you asked me to. But this isn’t over, Sal.”
“Thank you,” she murmured on a hiccuppy intake of breath. “I’m sorry, so sorry. I didn’t mean for this—”
Doyle raised his hand, stilling her qualification. He didn’t want to hear it. He just needed to go. Before he changed his mind. He gazed at her. “Ball’s in your court now, Sal.” Then he turned on his heel and left.
…
He loved her. Two weeks later, Sal hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it even though she desperately wanted to.
He loved her.
She wished she could dismiss it as some kind of euphoric, grandiose statement coming from a guy high on two solid days of spectacular sex. But she knew, deep inside her, that it was true. That Doyle wasn’t the kind of guy who went around blithely declaring his love to women. And he’d been right. From the very beginning he’d gotten under her skin. Him. Doyle of the magic fingers. And it wasn’t just sexual, either.
Two weeks later, the thought still scared the bejesus out of her.
Because try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She thought about him during the day and craved him during the night. It was big and scary and she wasn’t sure she was ready for it. She’d been resigned to living her life alone. She’d had her one great love and that made her lucky. She knew some people didn’t even get that chance.
It was wrong—greedy—to want more, surely?
Even though part of her recognized, if she was being totally honest, that she did want more.
And what kind of a person did that make her? What would Ben, her one great love, think about that? She stood in a church and made promises to him and it wasn’t his fault he was gone; it hadn’t been his choice. Till death, that’s what she’d promised.
But she was still alive…
…
“Okay, enough.”
Sal startled as a crazed-looking Gemma marched through her office door after close. “Two weeks of cranky, snippy, too-skinny, working-herself-into-the-ground Sal is enough. We’re going to have no staff left soon.” She pulled out h
er phone and hit a button on the screen.
“What are you doing?” Sal demanded, rising to her feet.
“I’m telling on you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Just watch me.”
“Gemma.”
Gemma paid absolutely no heed to the warning tone in Sal’s voice. “Hi. Mack. It’s Gemma.”
“Gemma!” Sal hissed, grabbing for the phone across the desk. Jesus, what was the time in London now?
“Yes. There is a problem,” Gemma said, carrying on unperturbed. “Your sister and the temp had a thing going on and now it’s over and she’s working all the hours God gave her, she’s not sleeping, not eating, and generally being unbearable to be around. Talk to her, will you?”
Gemma smiled sweetly and handed the phone over to Sal. “Talk to your brother.”
Sal glared at Gemma’s retreating back as the phone squawked in her hand. “Sal? Sal!”
“Yeah,” she sighed, sitting back in her chair. “I’m here.”
“What’s going on, Sal? Is Gemma telling the truth?”
Sal opened her mouth to deny it. But Mack’s voice sounded so good. Calm and unruffled like usual. The very voice that had soothed and gentled her through the fog all those years ago, then cajoled, harassed, and bullied her back into the land of the living. She shut her eyes as more tears gathered.
She’d turned into such a freaking crybaby lately.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s true.”
Mack didn’t say anything for a beat or two. “I’m glad.”
Sal snorted. “You wouldn’t say that if you’ve seen what a disaster it is.”
“Do you love him?”
Her heart said yes as her eyes fluttered open, but she clamped down on it. “I…love Ben.”
“Sal…you don’t think there’s room in your heart to love someone else? To love Doyle?”
“I can’t go down that track again. What if something were to happen to him?”