by Gina Wilkins
“We talk,” Shannon answered with a slight shrug, not sure what Haley meant by ‘a lot.’
“We really should try to get together for dinner or something next week before we leave for our rotations,” Anne fretted. “To celebrate James’s birthday a little early. I don’t like to think about him being alone in Seattle for the occasion.”
“Maybe he won’t be alone,” Shannon suggested. “He’ll probably make some friends there.”
Women friends, perhaps, she thought a little glumly. After all, there was no reason why James shouldn’t go out with any interesting women he met while he was away.
Because that thought was a little depressing, she quickly spoke again. “Did any of you know that James has never had a birthday party? Not even when he was a kid? He said he’s gone out to dinner with his parents and his friends, but was never thrown a real party. I guess because it’s what I do that seems sad to me.”
“Oh, to me, too,” Anne said with a little frown.
Mia nodded. “I’ve never really thought about it, but we’ve never attended a party for James, even though he’s come to many of the ones we’ve hosted for various events. We’ve had dinner with him on his birthday the last couple of years, but I guess we didn’t think about a party. He never seemed to expect one—or even to want one—but maybe he would have liked it. It’s hard to tell with James.”
“I always assumed he’d had parties as a kid, like the rest of us,” Mia commented, leaning her elbows on the table as she focused on the conversation. “I knew he was an only child, but so was Connor and his parents hosted birthday parties for him.”
Haley scowled. “I get the impression his parents are sort of…well, jerky,” she finished with an almost-defiant bluntness. “They don’t seem to be involved in his life at all. He always seems so alone. He rarely talks about them and when he does, it’s never anything critical or derogatory, but I get the impression his childhood wasn’t exactly fun-filled.”
Shannon thought of James’s passing comment that his maternal grandmother had brought fun into his life when no one else had. She glanced quickly across the room, saw him being drawn into a conversation with someone new and took advantage of his absence to make a suggestion. “I could put together a surprise party by next weekend. It wouldn’t be the first party I organized with only a few days’ notice.”
Haley’s face lit up. Mia looked intrigued. Anne’s eyes widened.
“A surprise party?” Anne asked. “For James?”
“It’s just a thought,” Shannon murmured, suddenly uncertain. “I mean, I could do it on short notice, but that doesn’t mean the rest of you…”
“I love that idea!” Haley practically bounced in her seat. “We don’t leave for our away rotations for almost two weeks. We could do it next Saturday night. We’ll all be finished with this block then. Is a week enough time, Shannon?”
“It is if you can help me with a guest list. It won’t be anything elaborate, of course, but we could invite anyone you think might want to come. And maybe I could send an invitation to his parents. If they’re both faculty at the university, their e-mail addresses should be available at the university Web site.”
“That’s about the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.” Anne blinked rapidly, as if fighting back tears. “I wish we had thought of it, but we’ll certainly help you as much as we can.”
“Can we get together tomorrow and talk about it?” Haley asked with a dramatically stealthy look toward James. “We can meet at my place.”
“I can meet tomorrow,” Shannon agreed. “What time?”
Five minutes later, their plans were set.
“Here comes James,” Haley hissed. “Everyone look natural.”
Glancing from one suspiciously innocent face to the other around the table, Shannon had to stifle a grin. If they managed to keep this a secret for six days, it would be a miracle. But she was rather pleased with herself for coming up with the idea that had been so well received by James’s friends.
Even if she and James never connected again after he left for Seattle, he would always remember that she had organized his first birthday party.
Leaning on one elbow, James propped his face in his hand and smiled down at Shannon. “You and the other girls seemed to hit it off tonight.”
She shifted her weight against her pillow, trailing a hand down his bare arm as he leaned over her. Both of them had just recovered enough breath to hold a conversation. Her limbs felt deliciously heavy and her mind was still a little clouded from passion, but she managed to answer coherently, “I liked your friends very much.”
“They liked you, too. I could tell.”
“I had a very nice time tonight.” She giggled softly. “Oh, and the party was fun, too.”
Chuckling, he kissed the end of her nose. “What were you all talking about while the other guys and I were fetching snacks? I’ve never seen such guilty expressions on Anne’s and Mia’s faces. And Haley looked suspiciously angelic.”
She walked her fingers up his smooth, nicely sculpted chest. “We might have talked a little about you. How cute you are. What pretty eyes you have. What a very nice backside you have. Has anyone ever told you you have a very sexy walk?”
He grinned. With his dark hair ruffled around his face, and a bit of a flush still lingering on his cheeks from their earlier activities, he looked more relaxed and happier than she’d ever seen him. It warmed her heart that she’d been the one to put this look on his face. She thought she’d distracted him neatly enough from his questions.
But he wasn’t quite so easily diverted, even with blatant flattery. “You talked about me, huh? What did they really say?”
“They all love you,” she answered candidly. “They’re going to miss you when you all go your separate ways next year.”
“I’ll miss them, too.”
“I know.”
He reached up to wind a strand of her tousled red hair around one finger. “Have you ever been to Seattle?”
“No, have you?”
“No, my rotation next month will be my first visit there.”
“I’ve heard it’s beautiful. I hope you get a chance to see some of the area while you’re there.”
“I’d like that. Um—”
She tilted her head against the pillow, studying his face. “What?”
He met her eyes in the shadows created by the dimmed light on her nightstand. “Would there be any chance you could fly out to join me there for a few days next month?”
She moistened her suddenly dry lips. “That’s very nice of you, James, but I can’t.”
“If it’s a matter of airfare…”
“No, it isn’t that,” she assured him, though airline tickets to Washington were hardly in her October budget. “I’ve got a full calendar next month. I don’t have any vacation time left from the toy store and I’ve got several parties scheduled, including two Halloween parties. I can’t just take off on a Seattle vacation, no matter how much I’d like to do so.”
“I understand.”
His expression was shuttered again, so that she couldn’t tell exactly how he felt about her response. Disappointed? Irritated? Resigned? Indifferent?
It bothered her that he could still hide his thoughts from her so quickly and so easily. Every time she thought they were getting closer, he pulled away.
He’d asked her to join him in Seattle, which meant that he didn’t want to say goodbye to her in a week and a half, either, right? Or was he simply affected for the moment by the pleasant evening they’d shared, followed by spectacular lovemaking? Maybe later he’d be relieved she’d turned him down. Maybe he already was—who could tell with him?
He glanced past her, toward the clock on the far nightstand. “It’s getting late. Guess I’d better go.”
“Do you have to work tomorrow?”
“No. It’s just…well, your roommate—”
“Won’t be home for several hours yet,” she assured him, reaching up to
wrap a hand around the back of his neck. Perhaps James was an expert at hiding his feelings, but she had never tried that hard to conceal her own. And what she was feeling now was a reluctance to waste any more of the little time she had left with James before their obligations—and probably their differences—drove them apart.
He hesitated only a moment, but then he lowered his head and covered her mouth with his. He made no effort to hide his response to the embrace. At least that was something.
James supposed turnabout was fair play. He had talked Shannon into attending a medical-school gathering with him Saturday night and she persuaded him to attend game night at her parents’ house Sunday evening. He had to admit she didn’t have to twist his arm. Her family fascinated him.
Stu and Karen and their three kids—Ginny, Caitlin and Jack—were there, though Stacy stayed home with her brood, including her recuperating son. There was food, laughter and general pandemonium as the adults played cards and board games while simultaneously supervising the energetic children, who were stationed on the carpeted den floor with games of their own.
As seemed to be the custom in the Gambill household, several conversations went on at one time, all at fairly high volume. Rules of the games were a bit fluid, arguments were heated but good-natured and generally a good time was had by all. James certainly enjoyed the evening.
He was even getting used to Virginia’s blatant matchmaking, finding her efforts more amusing than disconcerting now. She did everything but place her daughter’s hand in his, but because Shannon deflected the arch hints with indulgent humor, he was able to do the same.
“Sorry about Mom,” Shannon said late in the evening when she and James went into the kitchen to make a fresh pot of decaf. “She’s nuts, of course, but we love her, anyway.”
“I like your mother very much.”
Shannon dimpled, obviously approving his answer, despite her apologies. “She has a good heart. But she’s a compulsive matchmaker, especially where I’m concerned. Don’t know about you, but I’ve been hearing ‘Kiss the Girl’ playing in my mind all evening,” she added with a laugh.
He didn’t catch the reference. “‘Kiss the Girl?’”
“You know, the song the sea creatures sing in The Little Mermaid, when they’re trying to encourage the prince to kiss Ariel.”
He chuckled. “Never saw it, but I get the gist now.”
In a very pretty voice, she sang the chorus of the ditty, which seemed to be taunting a shy boy to kiss a girl or lose her.
Smiling, James reached out to tug her closer. “Well, since you put it that way…”
He lowered his head to steal a quick taste of her smiling lips.
“Oh.” From the kitchen doorway, Virginia smiled smugly when James and Shannon broke apart.
“I just came to see if you need helping finding anything in here,” she explained. “But I see you have everything under control.”
She left the echo of her giggle behind her when she turned and hurried away.
Shannon and James shared a wry look, then burst out laughing.
After another quick card game, the adults took a break to stretch and focus on the kids for a few minutes. While three-year-old Caitlin sang a preschool song for her adoring grandparents, Shannon engaged in some horseplay with Jack, pretending to engage in a ferocious lightsaber battle. He chased her out of the room and into the hallway. A few moments later, they rushed back in with Shannon doing the chasing this time while the giggling four-year-old evaded her.
“You come back here, Jedi Jack,” she threatened teasingly. “Vengeance will be mine!”
Something clicked in James’s mind. He very clearly pictured a pretty, intriguing redhead chasing a little boy named Jack across a crowded fairway. The image of that redhead’s brilliant smile had stayed in his mind for hours afterward, even though he’d been accompanied by another woman that evening. Elissa Copeland. Attractive, pleasant and just slightly avaricious, she hadn’t fit in at all well with his group of friends. That had been his last date with her.
“Did you take Jack to the fair last fall?” he blurted to Shannon as though he expected her to follow his line of thinking.
She blinked in response to the non sequitur, but nodded. “Yes. Why— Oh, my gosh! I remember you now.”
He grinned. “Jack got away from you and—”
“He ran across the fairway and you—”
“Caught him before he got lost in the crowd.”
It occurred to him only then that they’d fallen into the Gambill habit of talking over each other. “I kept thinking you looked familiar that day at the lake,” he said when she finished speaking.
She nodded. “So did I, but I didn’t figure out why until just now.”
The others looked from one of them to the other, trying to follow the garbled exchange.
“Are you saying you met before the picnic at the lake?” Virginia clarified.
Shannon shrugged. “Not exactly a meeting. We exchanged a few words at the fair last fall when James caught Jack after he got away from me.”
Tilting her head in James’s direction, she asked, “Were Ron and Haley there with you? They thought I looked familiar, too.”
He nodded. “They were.”
“And there was another woman,” she recalled.
He shrugged. “Was there?” he murmured with a smile he knew didn’t fool her in the least. “If so, I’ve completely forgotten.”
“Uh-huh.” She seemed to be amused by the obvious prevarication.
Finally figuring out the sequence of events, Virginia clasped her hands together. “You mean you met last year when James rescued another of my grandchildren?”
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t really rescue—”
“It was obviously karma,” Virginia continued, ignoring his attempt to correct her. “The two of you were fated to connect.”
“Okay, let’s not get carried away here, Mom.” Shannon looked just a little uncomfortable now despite her indulgent tone. “We just happened to cross paths a couple of times. Just a coincidence.”
Virginia waved a hand dismissively, refusing to be dissuaded from her fanciful speculation. “You were meant to know each other. That’s so romantic.”
“You know, it’s getting a little late,” Shannon said with a quick look at her watch. “I’ll help you clear away the dishes and games, Mom, and then James and I have to go. We both have to work tomorrow and his day starts early.”
“We have to be going, too,” Karen agreed. “Got to get the kids into bed.”
“When do you leave for Seattle, James?” Virginia asked while the others tidied up.
“A week from Friday. I start my rotation the first Monday of October.”
“I’ve heard Seattle is a beautiful city.”
“Yes, ma’am, so I’ve heard.”
“Shannon’s never been there, you know.”
“Yes, she told me.”
“Maybe while you’re there—”
“I can’t go to Seattle next month, Mom,” Shannon interrupted, overhearing. “I have to work.”
“Your boss at the toy store would probably let you take off a couple of days.”
“Even if he would, I have my party business to run. I have several parties scheduled for October.”
Virginia waved a hand again. “Devin could probably handle those for you. All she’d have to do is supervise the kids, right?”
For the first time, James saw a spark of temper in Shannon’s eyes when she looked at her mother. “Kid Capers isn’t Devin’s business, Mom. It’s mine. And there’s a little more to it than babysitting.”
“Shannon,” Hollis murmured in warning while Virginia pouted. “Your mother didn’t mean to insult you.”
Shannon rounded toward her dad. “She wouldn’t have suggested that Stu just drop everything at work to take off on an impulsive vacation.”
“Hey, leave me out of this,” her brother protested.
Virginia seemed abo
ut to offer an argument, but thought better of it, to James’s relief. If Virginia had suggested that Stu’s job as a high-school principal was more important or more demanding than Shannon’s business, he thought Shannon’s irritation would probably have heated into genuine anger. He wouldn’t even have blamed her. He was just now beginning to understand why she complained about her family treating her like the indulged little sister who just played at life and work, no matter how hard she worked to establish her own identity.
Had he done the same when he’d suggested she take off to join him in Seattle? He shifted his feet uncomfortably, telling himself he really hadn’t intended it that way. He’d simply wanted to have her with him, knowing he would miss her while he was gone. That in itself was enough of a novelty to make him reevaluate his feelings about Shannon.
The brief argument was over almost as quickly as it began. Virginia dropped no further hints and Shannon kissed her mother good-night some twenty minutes later with her usual affection. “Good night, Mom. I love you.”
“I love you, too, sweetie. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Shannon went through the same ritual with her dad, exchanging good-nights and I-love-yous—saying a variation of the words to her brother and sister-in-law, nieces and nephew, all of whom assured her they loved her, too. James shook hands with the men, swapped cheek kisses with the women and accepted surprise good-night hugs from the kids, who seemed to think he was to be included when they made the rounds before leaving.
As he climbed into his car with Shannon afterward, he tried to remember the last time he’d told his own parents he loved them, or had them tell him in return. It had been a while. They had never made a habit of saying the words, as the Gambill family did so easily. He knew his parents loved him, and that they were proud of him, in their way, though such sentiments were rarely exchanged in their household.
In the passenger seat beside him, Shannon snapped her seat belt then released a long sigh.
Fastening his own belt, James started the car. “You sound tired.”
“A little,” she admitted. “It’s been a long day. I got up early for church service, had lunch afterward with an old friend, then had a meeting with…with a party client, and then barely had time to get home and change before you picked me up to come here. Kind of hectic.”