What a Girl Wants

by Jennifer Snow

  “We’ll work on all that, okay?” It was the only answer he could give. Love or not, he was on a plane in the morning to Miami.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “WHERE ARE BRANDON and Jordan?” Bailey asked, sliding into the corner booth at Joey’s across from her father the following morning. She slid her sunglasses to the top of her head, and squinted in the bright light. Lack of sleep and the countless tears she’d shed the night before made it difficult to keep her eyes open. In the kitchen, the sound of a tray of dishes crashing to the floor made her wince. That certainly didn’t help her headache.

  “I asked them if you and I could do breakfast just the two of us today.”

  “Why?” This would be the first time the boys hadn’t joined them. Glancing around the crowded diner, she noticed them in a booth several feet away. “Why are they sitting over there?”

  “I thought maybe you might want to talk.” Ben sounded uncomfortable as he said the words.

  Bailey peered at her father. “Talk? Since when do we talk?” Hiding their true feelings and putting on a brave front was more their style.

  “Just humor me, okay?”

  “Sorry, Dad. I do appreciate it.”

  “I just want you to know that I’m here...and so are your brothers. Well, they’re over there, but you get what I mean.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  Her father leaned back against the plush booth and studied her for a long moment before asking, “So you’re doing okay?”

  She was so far from okay she couldn’t even see what okay might someday look like. “I will be.”

  “When does he leave?”

  Bailey glanced at her watch. Two hours and forty-eight minutes from now. “Soon.”

  Ben nodded. “You said everything you needed to?”

  Not even close, but then how could she? She wanted to tell him she loved him, beg him to stay, choose her, choose them, but she couldn’t.

  “It wouldn’t change things.” Picking up her coffee cup, she savored the lifesaving brew. Just about the only thing that was going to get her through the day.

  Her father surprised her as he leaned forward and said, “Believe it or not, it would change a lot of things.”

  “How?” He couldn’t possibly understand what she was facing. Loving someone and knowing there was no way they could be together. Her stomach did an involuntary flip-flop. Or just maybe he was the only one who could understand.

  He sighed. “Bailey, your mom was sick for almost six months before she told me. I was so busy getting my business off the ground and working so many hours that it was too easy not to notice her gradual weight loss or her frequent naps. I never knew about the doctor’s appointments...until time grew short.”

  She’d suspected that had been the case, but she’d assumed her mother had just kept her illness from her and the boys, not her father, as well.

  “When she finally did tell me, I was angry, but her reasoning was that it wouldn’t have made a difference. Me knowing wouldn’t have made her better.”

  Bailey swallowed a lump in her throat.

  “But she was wrong. Knowing would have made a big difference. Had I known, I wouldn’t have worked so darn much. Time with her would have been a priority. I would have told her a million times a day how much she meant to me, how perfect she was, how much I would miss her. It wouldn’t save her, but it would have made all the difference in the world. Because after she was gone, I’d have had no regrets.”

  “Mom knew how you felt, Dad,” Bailey reassured.

  Ben nodded. “I know she did because, believe it or not, the memory I hold in my mind of your mom was in her last days.”

  “Really? They were so awful, so full of tears and pain....” She didn’t like to think of the last few weeks leading up to her mom’s passing. It surprised her that her father chose to remember that time fondly.

  “They were,” Ben agreed. “But they were also full of love and connection. It was in those torturous days that we realized how special our love was. We knew our time together was short, but it was more valuable than any other lifetime of love could ever have been.”

  Bailey slumped against the booth. “Wow.”

  “You need to tell him how you feel and you need to hear it from him. Whether it’s meant to be a lifetime love or not, you both deserve to have no regrets and to experience a moment of real connection.”

  Bailey hesitated. Could she do that? Could she admit to and accept love from a man as he walked away from her? Could she recover from that? She checked her watch. “His flight leaves in a little over two hours...out of Newark.”

  “Well, I suggest you get going.”

  * * *

  BAILEY PUSHED AGAINST the large revolving door that was moving much too slowly for someone in a mad panic to catch the man she loved before he boarded a flight to a different life.

  “Come on,” she muttered, readjusting her purse on her shoulder as the door finally gave way. Long lines of passengers stood at the various airline check-in counters, dragging suitcases and carry-ons behind them. She searched the rows for Ethan, but didn’t see him anywhere. Oh, please, God, she hoped she wasn’t too late. Once they passed through security, there would be no chance of seeing him before he boarded the plane for Miami.

  Standing on tiptoe, she moved closer to the lines, bumping into a large blue suitcase. The woman wheeling it behind her turned and shot her an irritated look.

  “Sorry, excuse me,” Bailey said, her shoulders sagging as her eyes searched the line a final time. They weren’t there. She checked her watch. 9:45 a.m. According to the flight schedule above the United Airlines clerk, the Miami flight was scheduled to leave at 10:35 a.m. They had to have checked in already.

  Swallowing the thick lump in her throat that had plagued her on the high-speed ride to the airport, she turned and scanned the hallways. The security checkpoint was several yards away to her right. It couldn’t hurt to try.

  Jogging, she weaved through the passengers heading in the same direction and struggled to catch her breath four minutes later when she arrived at the entry point. The lineup was even longer than the one at the ticket booth. She’d be lucky to see him at all in the sea of travelers, let alone grab his attention.

  She moved along the roped corrals, looking for Ethan, ducking and leaning to see around the crowd. “Sorry, excuse me.” She had to say goodbye. The right way. He couldn’t leave questioning how she felt about him, even if there wasn’t a thing either of them could do about it.

  Then she saw him. At the front of the line, shoes in hand, removing his belt to place inside the square white bins along with his coat and carry-on.

  “Ethan,” she whispered. Well, he sure wouldn’t hear that. “Ethan!” she called loudly, waving a hand above her head. Every face in line turned to stare at her, but all she cared about was one.

  A look of wide-eyed surprise and relief spread across his face as he slowly raised his hand in a wave. Oh, thank God. Tossing his shoes into the bin, he picked it up from the conveyor belt and started toward her. Emily caught his arm with a questioning look. Bailey couldn’t hear what he said, but a second later, Emily was placing her items in a bin and he was heading toward Bailey. The passengers in line shifted to the left, grumbling, but he didn’t seem to hear them or care as he made his way to her.

  Reaching her at last, he stood silently for a brief second before dropping the bin and wrapping her in his arms. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head.

  Bailey nodded, hugging him tightly, but unable to find her voice. She had so much to say, and absolutely no time, yet she was speechless. He stroked her hair and clasped her to his chest, which heaved heavily.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” he repeated.

  “I couldn’t just let you le
ave....” she said finally. She moved away just enough to look up at him and her heart ached at the sight of tears rimming his lower lids. “I had to see you, to tell you...I love you. And I’m not here to convince you to stay,” she rushed on. “I know what you have to do and the last thing I want is to make it harder for you...or fight for you...but I never want you to doubt...me, us, what we had.”

  As hard as the words were to say, once they were out, it felt as though a large weight had been lifted from her chest. One she’d been carrying around for weeks. Her father was right. In that moment of sorrowful joy, she knew what real love felt like—the sacrificing unselfish act of doing what was right for another person. She had no regrets.

  “I love you, Bailey,” Ethan said, placing his hands on her cheeks and bending slightly to look into her eyes. “I don’t want you to ever wonder about that. There is nothing that I’d like more than to stay here with you. Please believe that.”

  “I do.” She did. She believed it wholeheartedly.

  He hugged her tight again, whispering words she couldn’t decipher against her hair. It didn’t matter. She closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of his arms around her, never wanting to stop holding him. In a minute, she’d have to let go and she would...for him. Drawing in one final breath of him, she clenched her jaw, forced her voice to remain steady, and backed out of his embrace.

  “You have to go now.”

  He took her hands and nodded, bringing one at a time to his lips and kissing them softly. “I’ll think of you every day,” he promised.

  And in that moment she allowed herself to believe it, though deep down she knew in time he would move on, find happiness again with Emily and the baby. And that was what she hoped for him.

  “Go.” She pulled her hands away, and standing on tiptoes, she placed a final soft kiss on his lips, before turning away.

  “Bye,” she heard him say before the first tear slid down her cheek, followed by a hundred others. She kept walking. Away from him. Away from everything she’d always wanted.

  * * *

  “MA’AM, PLEASE WALK through.” The security official motioned for her to pass through the metal detector, but Emily couldn’t tear her gaze away from the scene happening several feet away on the other side of the glass, just beyond the long line of travelers. Ethan was holding Bailey. From where she stood, it didn’t look like a hug one would give a friend, no matter how close.

  “Ma’am?”

  Emily glanced at him quickly, then moved aside. “Please go ahead of me,” she said to the man holding a dog kennel behind her. She squinted and leaned around the people waiting behind her to see better. He was stroking her hair...and now kissing her hands. What was going on? When she saw Bailey lean forward and kiss his lips, she gasped loudly and her hand flew to her mouth.

  A woman who’d been watching the scene as well patted her shoulder as she passed. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said, but her sympathetic gaze at the bulge in Emily’s T-shirt said everything.

  Emily nodded, her mind reeling. Ethan and Bailey? Since when? Why hadn’t he said anything? And why was she here? Had she come to convince him to stay in Brookhollow? Had she somehow found out her secret?

  A wave of nausea made the room spin around her, and just as her knees threatened to give way, Ethan was walking back toward her. She breathed a sigh of relief as she struggled to compose herself and stop the dizziness. He was still coming with her. Everything was going to be okay.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “RECALCULATING... RECALCULATING...” The woman’s calm voice on the GPS system in Emily’s Nissan Rogue did nothing to soothe Ethan’s already frazzled nerves as he approached a stoplight on Oak Avenue and waited impatiently while the GPS adjusted his route after the last missed turnoff. “Recalculating...”

  “Oh, for the love of...” he muttered as he sailed through the amber light.

  Emily had said the station number two fire hall was only a few blocks from Play Hard Sports head office. But he’d been driving in circles for over a half hour now. Big-city driving was something he hated, but he would have to get used to it. He suspected the most challenging part of starting a new job with the Miami fire department would be navigating his way around the city in an emergency, and according to the chief he’d spoken to on the phone the day before, emergencies were a daily occurrence.

  That was, of course, if they offered him a job. There were fourteen fire halls in Miami, and since arriving almost a week ago, he’d visited thirteen of them. None had any immediate openings, despite his experience, and station two on Oak Avenue was his last hope.

  “Turn right in fifty yards,” the voice said.

  “Okay....” He did as instructed, waiting for the next direction.

  “Destination on your left,” the machine announced.

  Pulling over to the side of the road, he put the car in Park and turned to look out the driver’s-side window. Sure enough, there it was. Fire hall number two. Right where it had claimed to be. Two ladder trucks sat parked in front and through the open bay door, he saw three more. A group of uniformed firefighters stood around the center truck with clipboards. A shift change. He suspected the changeover in crew took more than the ten minutes it did in Brookhollow.

  Grabbing his transfer paperwork from the passenger seat, he climbed out of the car, and jumped back as a large truck sped by him. That was close. The crazy traffic and less-than-courteous drivers here were going to take some getting used to. Checking both ways, he jogged across the street and entered through the open bay door.

  The group turned to look at him as he entered. Wearing his own Brookhollow uniform, he couldn’t help but notice the slightly different logo on the captain’s crest of the man closest to him. Disappointment crept over him. Soon he would no longer be representing the Brookhollow unit.

  “Hey. I’m Ethan Bishop. I’m here to see Chief Ellison.”

  “Chief is in his office,” the young man with the captain’s crest said. “Just through that door on the right and down the hall. You can’t miss it.”

  The realization that he was both leaving the fire hall that had become a second home to him and giving up his rank hit him hard. He had worked long hours for the honor of leading the fire team in Brookhollow. He’d just have to work hard to prove himself again. “Great, thank you, Captain...?”

  “O’Neil. Just call me Chris,” he said, extending a bandaged hand.

  Ethan stared at it for a second before noticing the other one was wrapped, as well.

  “It’s okay.” Chris O’Neil shrugged. “The feeling still hasn’t returned in them. I won’t even feel your handshake.”

  Ethan shook his hand carefully. “What happened?”

  “A chemical burn from a manufacturing plant fire last week.” He pointed to the turnout suit hung on the wall behind him. The edges had melted and deteriorated along the seams. “Those things can only take the heat for so long.... I was trapped by a fallen beam for over an hour.”

  “I’d say you were lucky that you got out when you did,” Ethan said, his gaze fixed on the damaged suit. Of course, he’d seen the damage and the danger overexposure to heat and fire could cause, but only in training. They’d been fortunate in Brookhollow never to have experienced anything so extreme.

  “It had nothing to do with luck,” he said with a nod toward his crew.

  “Well...take care,” Ethan said before heading through the doors toward the chief’s office. Making his way down the hall, he took the time to look around. The first room on his right was a kitchen, fully functional with a full-size fridge, stove, microwave and dishwasher. Two long tables were set up in the center and four vending machines with pop and snacks lined the walls. A large garbage bin and a soda-bottle recycle bin sat near the doorway.

  He pushed through a swinging door to his left and glanced inside. A tr
aining center. Impressive. Three treadmills stood next to a rowing machine, bike and elliptical. A full weight bench was positioned before the mirrored wall to the right and two heavy bags hung from the ceiling. Definitely a step up from the solitary treadmill and set of weights at the fire hall in Brookhollow.

  Continuing down the hall, he paused to examine the photos of the crew members. Sixteen faces stared back at him. Faces he didn’t recognize. Men he didn’t know, hadn’t trained with. Men who could be responsible for his safety in an emergency situation and he, theirs. He let out a slow, deep breath. It was a totally different ball game here in Miami. Dangers were more real, more frequent.

  He turned away, and when he reached the office at the end of the hall, he tapped on the door, which was slightly ajar.

  “Come in.”

  He pushed the door open and entered. A thin, older man sat behind a desk stacked sky-high with paperwork. He glanced up as Ethan entered.

  “Chief Ellison, I’m Ethan Bishop. We spoke yesterday.”

  The chief stood and came around the front of his desk. “Yes, Ethan, hi.” He extended a hand in greeting. “You found us okay?”

  No. “Yeah, no problem.”

  “Great. You have your transfer papers?”

  Ethan handed them to him.

  “Have a seat.”

  Moving a large binder off the only other chair in the room, Ethan set it aside and sat as the chief leafed through the papers. “Impressive. Twelve years of service, eight of them as captain.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, unfortunately, Mr. Bishop, as I mentioned when we spoke, I don’t have any ranking positions available. You’ll be starting at the bottom.”

  Ethan nodded. He’d been prepared for that. He couldn’t expect the hall to place priority on his file. The other men had served their time on staff, and in truth, they were probably more advanced than he was. Definitely more experienced, having dealt with a broader range of emergencies. “I understand.”