by Gina Wilkins
“James, wait—”
He opened the door and his expression was as completely shuttered as she’d ever seen it when he glanced back at her over his shoulder. “See you, Shannon.”
She released a sad sigh when the door closed with a restrained snap behind him. That exchange had not been pleasant. In fact, it had hurt like hell.
Despite his denials, he had obviously been annoyed with her. She hadn’t handled the discussion as well as she’d hoped. Or maybe he was really as take-charge and controlling as she had feared at the beginning. Perhaps he just hid it better than most people, but still wanted to be the one to call the shots, to decide when to say goodbye. In which case, her decision was even more justified.
Whatever the cause for his resentment, she noted sadly that he certainly hadn’t tried very hard to change her mind.
Chapter Eleven
Seattle was as beautiful as it had been billed, lush with the greenery that had earned it the nickname The Emerald City, surrounded by water and mountain ranges. The population was as diverse as the architecture and the many parks and public attractions tempted residents and visitors alike to spend a great deal of time outdoors. A center of research and technology, the city bustled with energy and activity, yet had a generally relaxed atmosphere that set it apart from some of the other large metropolitan areas James had visited.
He could see himself living here if he decided to join the residency program at the highly respected children’s hospital. He liked the facility and the staff with whom he worked during his October rotation. When he wasn’t working, he explored the area, imagining himself making use of the jogging and biking trails, hiking and skiing in the towering Olympics and Cascades, sailing and kayaking on the many waterways. Yeah, he’d fit in fine here.
Of course, he could imagine himself living in Boston, too. He’d spent some time at Harvard for an undergraduate summer research program and he’d mingled as well with the slightly stuffier cliques there as he did with the Seattle crowd. He’d never had a problem getting along with people or working congenially beside them.
It was true he’d never felt as closely tied to a group as he did to his study friends in Little Rock, nor did he ever expect to feel those ties again, no matter how many friends he made in future pursuits. But he would make new friends and he’d stay in contact with the ones he already had.
I still consider you a friend.
The echo of Shannon’s carefully practiced little speech whispered in the back of his head as he sat on a bench in Green Lake Park on his second Sunday in Seattle, staring blankly at a few ducks paddling in the water, oblivious to the joggers, strollers and dog-walkers milling on the paths around him. As much as he’d tried not to think about Shannon while he was more than two thousand miles away from her, thoughts of her still crept into the back of his mind whenever he let down his guard.
It was his own fault that he’d let himself get hurt, of course. She’d said from the beginning that she wasn’t interested in anything long-term. Hell, she’d turned him down the first two times he’d asked her out—he should have taken the hint then.
Without undue conceit, he privately admitted that he’d never actually been dumped before. He’d been involved in a few relationships that had seemed to have promise, but had then just fizzled out—usually, he confessed uncomfortably to himself, because he had lost interest.
Reluctant to risk hurting anyone, he had confined himself for the past few years to dating women who didn’t seem particularly vulnerable to heartbreak. Women like Elissa—intelligent, competent, savvy, admittedly thick-skinned. While Shannon had been very different than Elissa, she’d had her own air of self-confidence and directness that had made him believe they could share a few weeks of fun and companionship without risk of her being hurt.
He’d been all too right about that, he thought, absently rubbing the center of his chest, where a dull pain throbbed. He’d never even imagined that he would be the one who’d walk away with both his heart and his ego in shreds.
The worst part, other than missing her so badly his teeth hurt, was that he still didn’t even know what he’d done to make her send him away.
Her business was booming. If it kept up like this, she would be able to significantly cut back her hours at the toy store—or maybe quit that job altogether, Shannon thought as she studied the figures displayed on her computer screen. Kid Capers was operating in the black. Just barely, and most of the profit would be funneled back into the business initially, but modest success was within reach.
She closed the computer, satisfied with her evening’s work. Standing, she stretched out some kinks and headed for the kitchen, thinking she should find something for dinner. She’d lost a few pounds in the past month and she really hadn’t needed to. Her family was starting to fuss that she worked too hard. Devin was convinced she was suffering from a broken heart.
She refused to acknowledge that any of them were right.
Her life was swimming along exactly as she had planned. No one told her what to do or when to do it. Though everyone seemed to have suggestions and advice, she was the one who made her own decisions and she liked it that way.
Maybe she missed James a little—okay, maybe she missed him a lot—but her life was still on track. She had emerged from their affair intact—mostly—and on her own terms.
But when she lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling, it wasn’t her pride or independence that occupied her thoughts. Instead, she had spent too many hours wishing James had been able to share more of himself with her so she could have known how he really felt about her. She’d sensed his irritation over her clumsy attempt to put some distance between them, but had there been any more to it than that? Had she been just another Elissa to him? Someone to keep him company at parties, to warm his bed when he was in the mood, to serve as a conversation starter between him and his parents?
There were times she still thought she might have meant more to him than that—but maybe that was her own wistfulness speaking. Even if they hadn’t had so many other obstacles between them—their polar-opposite families, his parents’ disapproval of her educational and career choices, his career obligations, her own—that deeply ingrained reserve would have driven them apart eventually. Because of her own background, she couldn’t spend her life with someone who made her always have to guess what he was thinking or feeling.
Closing the fridge without taking out any food, she wandered to the back door, looking out at the darkness of the mid-November evening. It was starting to get dark so much earlier. Winter lurked very close now, waiting to drain more heat and light from her days.
She would bet it was already cold in Boston.
“Hello, Shannon.”
Kneeling on the floor of the toy store to replace a game she’d found on the floor, Shannon swiveled to look up in response to the greeting. “Haley!”
Smiling in pleasure, she stood, straightening her green apron. “It’s good to see you. How was your away rotation in…Lexington?”
“Cincinnati,” Haley corrected. “Ron was in Lexington. And my rotation was great. So was his. We’re going to interview in both places for residency programs.”
“I hope you get the one you want. You have to be accepted, right?”
Haley nodded. “It’s called matching. We list our top choices and we’re matched with the programs that select us. It’s a little more difficult when a husband and wife are both trying to get into programs in the same city, but it happens enough that there are protocols in place.”
“And you’ll learn where you’ve matched in March?”
“Right. Match Day. It’s a big deal all across the country when every medical-school graduate learns his or her fate.”
“Sounds exciting.”
They were both smiling, both speaking in warm, breezy voices. Shannon suspected Haley was as aware as she was of the unspoken name hovering between them.
“Are you looking for anything in particular, Haley? Can I help you find any
thing?”
“I’m looking for a baby-shower gift for a friend. She’s registered here for some of the infant supplies.”
“Did you stop at the front and get her list?”
Haley waved a couple of sheets of printed paper in one hand. “Got it. I take it the items with an X beside them have already been purchased?”
“Yes. Let me take you over to that department and we’ll see what’s left.”
“I guess you’re starting to get pretty busy for the Christmas rush.”
Glancing at the unusual number of customers milling in the aisles on a Tuesday afternoon, Shannon nodded. “Weekends are crazy already.”
“Did you work on Black Friday last week?”
Laughing, Shannon nodded at the reference to the Friday after Thanksgiving, notorious for kicking off the holiday shopping frenzy. “We opened at 4:00 a.m. We had a line waiting for the doors to open.”
“Crazy.”
Shannon shrugged. “It was sort of fun. Here’s the diaper bag on your friend’s list.”
Haley glanced at the pink-and-mint plaid bag without much interest. “Maybe I’ll look at the umbrella stroller, instead.”
“Sure, that’s in the next aisle.”
Haley studied the selection of folded strollers with a bit more interest than the diaper bags.
Drawing a deep breath, Shannon figured she might as well broach the awkward subject herself. Their avoidance was getting a little ridiculous. “Have you heard from James lately?”
“Yes, we all got together last weekend, the day after he got home from Boston. It was good to see him again after so long.”
“How is he?”
Haley shrugged. “He seemed fine. He said he liked the programs in Seattle and in Boston, but I think he liked Seattle a little better. From what I could tell, anyway.”
“He didn’t say?”
Haley opened the stroller and locked it into position. “Not in so many words.”
“Doesn’t it make you crazy?”
She didn’t even have to explain. Haley shot a wry smile over her shoulder as she rocked the stroller back and forth in front of her. “That James is so hard to read, you mean? It used to.”
“But it doesn’t now? Or have you learned how to read him during the past few years?”
“Oh, heavens, no. Not unless he wants us to.”
“Then—”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t have to know every thought that crosses James’s mind to accept that he’s one of the nicest, kindest and most decent guys I’ve ever met.”
“Your rock.”
Haley seemed pleased that Shannon had remembered their earlier conversation. “Yes, that’s the way we’ve always thought of him.”
Refolding the stroller, Haley glanced around the increasingly crowded store. “I know you’re busy, so I won’t keep you. But before I go…Ron and I were thinking about having a drop-in Christmas party next weekend. We’d love it if you could stop by.”
“Thank you,” Shannon replied gently, “but I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
“He misses you, Shannon.”
She swallowed hard. “Has he said so?”
“Well…no.”
“Has he mentioned me at all?”
“Um. No.”
She hoped her smile wasn’t as sad as it felt. “Then you don’t really know, do you?”
“I’m pretty sure. There was just something a little off about him last weekend. Ron and I think he misses you.”
“It’s been two months and he hasn’t even called. I think we can safely say he’s moved on. And so have I.”
Frowning, Haley asked, “You’re dating someone else?”
“No. Between two jobs and the upcoming Christmas season, I’m too busy to date anyone right now.”
Haley sighed, seeming to know when it was time to quit. “It was good to see you, Shannon.”
“You, too. Tell Ron and Anne and the others I said hello, will you?”
Haley had moved a few steps away when she paused to add over her shoulder, “You were good for him, Shannon. He was as open with you as I’ve ever seen him with anyone.”
Yet it still hadn’t been enough, Shannon thought with a pang. James simply hadn’t been able—or willing—to offer what it would have taken for them to stay together against all the odds.
Haley and Ron’s cozy apartment was filled almost to capacity with friends and classmates drinking spiked eggnog and cinnamon-flavored hot cider and nibbling on Christmas cookies mostly purchased from local bakeries. It wasn’t a formal affair, by any means, just a casual drop-in gathering to mark the end of another semester. A little over four more months and they would have their degrees, James thought, amazed by how quickly these four years had passed.
Ron and Haley stood side by side, chatting with their friend and classmate Hardik Bhatnagar. Ron’s hand rested familiarly on Haley’s hip as she nestled against him. On the other side of the room, Anne and Liam laughed with Connor and Mia while young Alexis admired a humorously decorated tabletop Christmas tree—Ron’s contribution to the holiday decor.
Standing alone with his cup of cider, James thought about how much he had missed these people during the past couple of months. Phone calls and e-mails had not been the same as seeing them all the time—he supposed he’d better get used to that.
Over in another corner, two classmates exchanged a quick kiss under a dangling ball of plastic mistletoe. Those two had been dating for a couple of months, but James didn’t expect it to last. He figured it was just a temporary fling during the relatively easy fourth year—though some people would scoff at the term “easy” being applied to any part of medical school. He hoped they would walk away generally unscathed when the affair ended.
“You’re being awfully quiet tonight, James.”
He didn’t realize Ron had approached him until the other man spoke. “Just taking everything in,” he replied lightly. “Nice party.”
“Thanks. It’s the first time Haley and I have actually entertained, you know. It’s not so hard if you use bakeries and delis for the snacks and buy your decorations at the local discount store.”
James chuckled. “None of that matters as much as the chance to get together with friends.”
“That’s what we figured. So, how come you’re here by yourself? You know you could have brought a guest.”
James shrugged. “No one I particularly wanted to bring. I’m having a nice time on my own.”
Ron cleared his throat. “So, have you called her since you’ve been back in town?”
It was tempting to prevaricate by asking blankly who Ron referred to. Instead, James merely shook his head and took another sip of his cider. “I’m sure she’s very busy this time of year,” he said after swallowing the hot beverage. “It’s a hectic time for both retail and party businesses, I would imagine.”
“I bet she’d like to hear from you.”
“I doubt it.” It took a bit more effort than usual to hide the pain and regret he still felt whenever he thought of Shannon. “Apparently, I wasn’t her type.”
Eying him over the rim of an eggnog mug, Ron murmured, “I wouldn’t have thought Shannon was your type.”
Staring at the plastic mistletoe, James replied with uncharacteristic candor, his tone bleak to his own ears. “You’d have been wrong.”
After a moment, Ron asked somberly, “Did you ever tell her that?”
“Not in those words.”
“Uh-huh. You thought she could read minds? Because, face it, my friend, she’d have to be a psychic to know what you’re thinking most of the time.”
James gazed down into the dregs of his cider. Oddly enough, he thought he had learned from Shannon and her charmingly open family how to communicate a bit more effectively. Comparing her family gatherings to his own, he had realized that the rather formal manners that had been drilled into him, while very useful in their place, tended to hold others at a distance in most settings.
He would probably never be as easily approachable as Shannon or the other Gambills, but he’d worked on being a little less solemn in his physician role and he thought he was making progress. He’d had few criticisms of his communication skills in his evaluations from the Seattle and Boston programs. There had been one comment from a ponytailed, aging hippie attending physician in Seattle that James could stand to “loosen up” a little, but other than that, he was going to be a superb doctor.
Shannon deserved the credit for helping him in that respect, James thought now. Too bad she would probably never know what she had done for him in those few weeks they had been together.
The week-old newspaper article had been handled so much that it was already starting to shred a little around the edges. Shannon was glad she’d stashed a few copies away for mementos and scrapbooks. She just couldn’t seem to stop admiring this one.
The brief article had run in the features section of the local newspaper last Thursday. Buried inside the section, it was hardly a headline story, but she didn’t care. There was a pretty decent photo of her wearing a wizard’s robe and leading a mixed group of birthday-party guests in a well-received game she had created for the event and a nice write-up of some of the services she offered through Kid Capers party planning. She’d booked three more parties in the next four months as a result of the publicity. The new year was definitely starting out well from a business perspective.
Refolding the page, she set it aside on her business table and stood, stretching out kinks in her back. Now that the Christmas season was behind her, she had cut back her hours at the toy store a bit, but today had been a long one. She’d barely had time to eat lunch. She headed for the kitchen, deciding to dig out the leftovers from a veggie casserole Devin had made for them yesterday.