by Janice Lynn
James gripped the steering wheel, wondering why he was getting so worked up. Probably just fatigue. Thirty-six hours with no sleep would do that to a man.
A hot shower, a decent meal, and Melissa, and he’d be good for a few hours before crashing.
Only when he clicked the garage door open, the bay sat empty. No Jeep Cherokee. James sighed, reminding himself exhaustion caused his annoyance.
Had he known he was coming home to an empty house, he would have stayed late with Kristen to review a course syllabus for next semester. She’d taken over an EKG class for a cardiologist who’d retired over the summer and wanted James’s input. He smiled at the thought of the pretty young doctor being so nervous of facing the incoming students. He remembered being just as anxious about his first teaching stint.
He liked Kristen. She was a lot like him. Loved medicine, but still found time to love life, too.
Once upon a time, Melissa had loved life. Memories invaded of them picnicking at Centennial Park. An unexpected spring shower had drenched them. They’d laughed, gathered their things, and, hand in hand and half-oblivious to the raindrops pelting them, had walked back to his apartment. They’d made love for the first time that afternoon. Holding her afterwards, he’d known Melissa was unlike any woman he’d ever known, that she meant more to him than any sane man would ever admit. She still meant that much.
But she’d changed, become engrossed in her work to the point she was only a shadow of the woman he’d fallen for.
Was she unhappy in their relationship? Was that why she’d gone from the dedicated but vibrant woman of two years ago to the workaholic he now lived with?
A shower, salad, and grilled steak later, James nursed a beer while reclining on a lounge chair on the long wooden deck that ran the back length of the house. The sun dipped behind the wooded hills, streaking the sky with hues of pink and orange. Birds chirped in the distance and two squirrels chased each other up a tree. A light breeze broke the heat, ruffling his hair. He could appreciate what Melissa saw in this place where the Tennessee Hills met the Appalachian Mountains, but he preferred the hum of the city.
That’s when he realized just how dissatisfied he’d grown with his and Melissa’s relationship. It seemed to him that he was the one making all the concessions so they could spend time together. On the occasions he arranged time off at the weekends, she had no problem ditching him to see this patient or that.
He admired her dedication, but needed more from the woman in his life than she was giving.
Was it time to cut their ties?
He couldn’t imagine his life without her but, then, she really wasn’t in his life these days. Even their once amazing sex life had fizzled out over the past couple of months to tired gropes in the middle of the night.
But those tired gropes appealed more than wild sex with any other woman.
Which was why he’d been in his relationship with Melissa longer than any other. They’d been together two years that had been in some ways the best of his life, particularly in the beginning when they hadn’t been able to get enough of each other’s company or bodies.
But he and Melissa needed a shake-up.
He was tired of coming last, and if something didn’t change soon he would move on.
The buzz of the garage door opening warned she had finally come home. He glanced at his watch. After eight-thirty.
A couple of minutes later the screen door screeched. He didn’t turn, just kept watching the squirrels playing in the fading sunlight.
He smelled the soft vanilla that always clung to her skin before she stepped into his line of vision. She came up beside him and kissed his forehead.
“Hey,” she said, dropping into the wrought-iron chair next to his, the floral cushion squishing beneath her.
Was it wrong that he wanted her to value their time together? Plain and simple, she took him for granted.
The more he thought about it, moving back to Nashville might be just what the doctor ordered.
“James?”
He bit his tongue to keep from responding.
“Is something wrong?”
He sighed. He was being such a jerk. She’d been out working, not screwing around.
“Just tired.” He turned toward her and frowned.
She looked awful.
Or at least as awful as a woman with Melissa’s classic features could look. Dark circles marred the pale skin beneath her almond-shaped eyes, and wisps of honey-colored hair haphazardly escaped the tight ponytail she usually wore.
“There’s steak and salad on the kitchen counter.” No need of her passing out from hypoglycemia when he told her he was moving. Let her eat, get her blood sugar up, and then he’d drop his bombshell. He’d remind her that he wasn’t content to be constantly shoved aside.
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat. You’ve lost weight.”
The skin over her cheeks was taut and the fullness of her curves had lost their lushness. She looked gaunt. She worked too hard, probably forgot to eat altogether when her office was busy, which was most of the time.
“Rough day?” she asked, averting her gaze at his continued scrutiny.
His frown deepened, but he let her change the topic of conversation as she looked ready to collapse.
“Not particularly. No one died.” Nobody dying always made for a better day when one worked in the medical profession. “At least, no one I wasn’t able to bring back.”
Death, the opponent he faced daily.
“That’s good.” She stared off into the woods, her astute eyes quickly picking out a deer grazing at the border of the trees. But she was on edge. Totally un-Melissa-like.
“Something happen?” he asked.
She blew out a long breath. “Ray Barnes got caught in his combine.”
He winced. Having worked on farming-equipment cases, he knew the man would have been a mess. Although he would have gotten an adrenaline rush from taking care of such a patient, Melissa preferred the routine aspects of medicine that bored him senseless.
“There wasn’t anything I could do.” Her voice trembled. “He died before he could be airlifted to Nashville.” She closed her eyes. “I’ve been with Wilma and their daughters all evening.”
The image of a portly white-haired woman and two spinsters in their forties came to mind.
Melissa’s shoulders shook, but she didn’t make a sound. Only the singing of crickets broke the silence.
James could feel her pain and struggled to find the right words to give her comfort. How was it he could calm a dying woman while he put life back into her body, but felt useless when it came to Melissa?
“How’s she holding up?” he finally asked, breaking the silence.
“Not well.” Her eyes remained shut. “At her daughters’ request, I prescribed Valium to help her rest.” A soft hiccup jerked at his heart. How could he dump his unhappiness with their relationship on her when she’d had such an awful day?
“I promised Lila and Faye I’d stop by to check on her in the morning before I go in to the office,” she continued.
And there was his answer.
There would always be some patient with a problem that Melissa took on as her own standing between them, taking precedence over anything they shared.
No doubt she’d made house calls that morning before starting her day at the office, too.
“You should have her come into the clinic like everyone else.” Only everyone else didn’t come into the office. They expected Melissa to run to them. Just look at what it was doing to her. “You can’t keep spoiling these people.”
Melissa’s eyes opened. “Taking good care of my patients isn’t spoiling them. Besides, say what you will, but I’ve seen you in action.” A weary smile played on her lips. “Few doctors can rival your bedside manner.”
“My patients don’t think its OK to invade my personal time.” His words weren’t anything he hadn’t said a hundred times be
fore, but tonight each one seemed to penetrate Melissa.
“What would you have me do? Tell Wilma to grow up? That death is a part of life and to just deal with it?” Anger pierced her questions. “The woman found her husband crushed, cut to pieces, held him while he died. Give her a break if she was half-hysterical with grief and I refused to leave her until I knew she was going to be OK.”
Death was a part of life and a person did just have to deal with it.
James knew that better than anyone. He did his damnedest every day to cheat death, and still memories of the lives he had failed to save haunted him. Cailee, his baby sister, in particular. Oh, yeah, death was a part of life, and he had dealt with it, but that didn’t mean he ever saw a baby without remembering the three-month-old sister he hadn’t been able to save.
Closing his mind to the past, he took a sip of his lukewarm beer. “You’re right. I’m just frustrated that yet again we missed out on spending the evening together.”
He patted his lounge chair, indicating he wanted her to sit with him.
Melissa’s anger evaporated as quickly as it had appeared and she settled between his legs, her back pressed against his chest.
He wrapped his arms around her, breathing in her warm fragrance, wishing he could snap back to the beginning when she’d rushed home to him every night, when he’d been able to look at her and know he put the glow on her face.
She snuggled closer. God, she’d lost more weight than he’d realized. He’d only stayed in Nashville for two nights. Hadn’t she eaten while he’d been gone?
He removed the band holding her hair and dropped it onto the deck. Her hair cascaded around her shoulders like a silky curtain. James inhaled the scent of her shampoo. His body stirred against her bottom pressed enticingly into the V of his legs.
She placed her hands over his and squeezed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t home when you got here,” she softly apologized.
“Me, too.” Because it was the catalyst that had pushed him into making a hard decision.
If he wanted the magic back, he had to make it happen.
She relaxed against him, running her palms over his denim-covered thighs in a caress. “This is nice.”
It was nice. And long overdue. Too much work and too little time was hard on any relationship. Theirs was no exception. He needed to pressure her to quit this country craziness and relocate to a job that wouldn’t demand so much from her soul.
“I’m moving out tomorrow.”
CHAPTER TWO
MELISSA stiffened, her life flashing before her much as she imagined it did prior to death. She had to have heard wrong. She twisted and their gazes met in the failing light.
“What did you say?”
James’s eyes appeared almost midnight-black, but they held steady. “I’m moving to Nashville.”
The words pelted her heart like chunks of hail through rusty tin. He was leaving?
Shocked, hurt, reeling, she scooted out of his embrace. How could he hold her and tell her he was dumping her in the same breath?
He couldn’t be dumping her.
“You’re breaking up with me?” The question sounded so high schoolish, but she didn’t know how else to take his words.
“I think we need some space apart.”
Space needed. The kiss of death for any relationship.
“You’ve met someone, haven’t you?” She ached at the thought, but why else would he suddenly decide to move out?
“That isn’t it.”
“Then what is?”
“Us.”
“Us? What’s wrong with us?”
“Just about everything.”
Melissa gasped. She couldn’t help it. How could she have missed that James was so unhappy?
Then again, maybe this was why he’d been spending more and more nights in Nashville. She should have seen the end coming. Didn’t she know better than to think anyone would stick around for her?
“What’s her name?”
James wasn’t the type of man not to have a woman in his life. Now that she thought of it, they hadn’t had much of a life together for some time. How had that happened?
“This is ridiculous, Melissa. I say I’m moving out and you automatically assume I’m involved with someone. Do you really think I’d do that? Become involved with someone while living with you?”
Was he moving so he could become involved with whoever it was he’d met? She thought over the names she’d heard him mention over the past few months. Only one stood out.
“It’s Dr Weaver, isn’t it?” She held back a sob at the thought of the pretty cardiologist James had introduced her to at the last meeting she’d attended with him. The brunette had been the guest speaker, discussing the impact of angiotensin receptor blockers on the long-term outcomes of patients with hypertension. Melissa had gotten tingles of unease at the way the woman had watched James, but when she’d asked him about it, he’d laughed away her concerns. Now who was laughing? Certainly not her.
“Kristen?” He frowned, seeming surprised that she had put one and one together so quickly. His mouth opened to deny her accusation, but he must have decided the truth would eventually come out. “Kristen and I work together on a research project at the hospital and as university faculty colleagues. She’s a beautiful, intelligent woman.”
And she’d acted half in love with James at that meeting. Apparently Melissa’s suspicions hadn’t been so unfounded after all.
“I hope you’ll be happy together.” A lie. Petty of her, but she didn’t want some other woman making James happy.
A snortlike sound erupted from deep within his chest. “That’s it? I tell you we need space and you toss me to another woman and say you hope we’ll be happy together?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
The truth. She wasn’t sure he could handle the truth.
She bit the inside of her lip, making fast decisions and probably coming up with all the wrong answers.
“Fine. You want the truth. I’ll give it to you.” But she hesitated, wondering if she should just keep her mouth shut. If he was leaving, did she really want to tell him? She didn’t. But, ethically, now that she knew for certain, could she keep her pregnancy from him, even if only for a short while? Wouldn’t it be better to just get it all out in the open up front?
“I’m listening,” James reminded her when she still hesitated.
“I’m not sure how to say this, except you need to know before we go further with this conversation.” Her eyes lifted to his and she prayed he’d somehow see into her heart and tell her what she needed to hear him say. “I’m pregnant.”
For the first time in his life James wondered if he might be having a panic attack.
Either that or he was having a heart attack.
He preferred to think the pain in his chest resulted from severe anxiety as he was a fairly fit thirty-three-year-old and had no family history of heart problems.
“What did you say?” He searched Melissa’s face, certain she must be joking, although he didn’t find her comment the slightest bit funny.
“We’re going to have a baby.” Her chin lifted with bravado, but her lower lip quivered, giving clarity to the uncertainty he’d seen in her eyes.
A thousand thoughts and emotions hit him at once.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“You missed a Pill and didn’t tell me?”
“No,” she quickly denied. “Never.”
“Then how?”
She glared at him before walking to the deck railing. Her knuckles whitened against the handrail. She stared out at the hills she claimed to love so much.
“You’re a doctor,” she said, without looking at him. “You tell me.”
Oral contraceptive pills weren’t failproof. Every year thousands of babies attested to that.
“But…” Damn it. He didn’t want to be a statistic. He didn’t want to be a father. Didn’t want Melis
sa pregnant, didn’t want a baby, to risk facing what he’d gone through with Cailee, what he’d watched his parents go through prior to their divorce. “I knew I shouldn’t have quit using condoms.”
Melissa spun, pinning him with a scowl. “Don’t you dare blame me for that. You made that decision all on your own.”
True. Melissa had been on the Pill the entire year and a half they’d lived together. He’d forgotten to buy condoms. When he’d woken up needing her, and her warm body had actually been curled next to him, he’d decided, Why not? Being inside her with nothing between them—their first skin-to-skin experience—had been amazing. He’d felt reconnected to her, like they’d recaptured the closeness from those first few months. From that point on, they hadn’t used extra protection.
“I’m not blaming anyone.” Except himself for putting her in this position. Of putting himself in this position. A baby? He couldn’t do it.
“Sure sounded that way.” Accusation and hurt coated her words.
James raked his fingers through his hair. This couldn’t be happening. “Look, you know how I feel.”
Not all the reasons why, but he’d not beat around the bush. Point-blank he’d told her that he never wanted children and she’d agreed.
“I didn’t do this by myself and sure didn’t plan for it to happen.”
“I’m not saying you did.” Everything he said was coming out wrong. He didn’t want to hurt Melissa. He wanted to do and say things to comfort her, to take the horrified look off her face, but he didn’t want a baby. “I’m trying to figure out what to do about it.”
“It? As in our baby it?” Her eyes narrowed and her voice bubbled on the verge of hysteria. “We aren’t doing anything about our baby, so just put that thought out of your head.”
Do anything? She thought…
“I wasn’t insinuating you should have an abortion, Melissa. That didn’t even cross my mind.” Wouldn’t cross his mind. He’d sworn to protect lives the day he’d taken his doctor’s oath and, for him, that meant at every stage.
“Weren’t you?” she accused. Her entire body shook and as the temperature was in the balmy high seventies, it couldn’t be from cold.