by Janice Lynn
Ignoring the woman studying him, James scribbled a note on the document he was scanning.
“It’s been a month, James. Are you or are you not going to tell me what happened?” Kristen leaned across the counter. When he continued to ignore her, she tapped on the paper. “James, I asked you a question.”
“I already told you, I don’t want to talk about it.” Calling Debbie for information daily was bad enough.
“You haven’t said anything about what happened, and I know it couldn’t have been good. For that matter, you haven’t said much of anything, period. You just walk around all roboticlike, holding everything in, and I’ve had enough of it.” When he continued to ignore her, she jerked the pen out of his hand and tossed it onto the counter with a resounding whack. “I want my friend back.”
James watched the pen flip, then roll across the counter and drop to the floor. He ran his fingers through his hair, looked around the laboratory he and Kristen used for their research. Three high-tech computers topped one counter. Another counter ran the entire length of the room and curved halfway around the adjacent wall. Two double sinks broke the monotony. Cabinets hung above the counters, more rested below them. Models of hearts were crammed into a corner. Numerous anatomy posters lined what free wall space there was. Nothing fancy, but they didn’t need fancy.
“Look, I’ve had a rough few weeks and prefer not to have this conversation.” Hoping she’d take a hint, he picked up the pen and made more notes.
“It’s a proven fact that talking helps.” She tapped her short, unpolished fingernail against the countertop and gave her bossiest look. “So talk.”
“Since when did you get a PhD in psychology?”
“My specialty is hearts. Do you think I can’t see that yours is breaking? I’ve given you space. At first I thought that’s what you needed, but you’re not getting any better.” Her green eyes searched his, saw that she had his attention. “Talk to me, James. Let me help.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“I take it Melissa refused your proposal?”
Why had he told Kristen about his plans that night? Because he’d been so damned sure Melissa would accept and that he’d become a married man.
James snorted. “Technically, she didn’t refuse.”
“Then you’re engaged?” She looked skeptical. “Because with the way you’ve acted I would have sworn things hadn’t gone well.”
Kristen was on a mission. He knew her too well to think she’d let up now that she’d given voice to the questions in her eyes. They’d stayed behind, analyzing data collected from six major trauma hospitals and putting finishing touches on their work. She’d been watching him, biding her time.
“I left before she came home,” he admitted.
“You left?” Kristen’s dark brow rose. “You bought a diamond the size of Texas and left without giving it to her?”
“She didn’t come home. She called and canceled.”
“Canceled?”
He stooped, picked up his pen before giving a nonchalant shrug. “She said something came up with a patient.”
Kristen gave him a speculative look. “Did you ever stop to think that perhaps it really did?”
James shoved away from the work space and paced across the lab, flicking a paper clip along the length of the countertop with his pen. “I’m sure it did.”
Kristen followed him. “Then what’s the problem?”
“That’s just it.” He turned, facing her. “There’s always a patient, always someone who needs her more. She’s a great doctor and gives one hundred percent of who she is to her patients. There’s nothing left for me.”
“Have you told her how you feel?” Kristen touched his shoulder. “That you need her?”
James cringed. He didn’t want Kristen’s sympathy. He didn’t want to be having this conversation. “When was I supposed to do that? She’s always at work.”
“Maybe you should book an appointment.”
He rolled his eyes. “Very funny.”
“I’m serious,” she said, giving him a soft smile. “I’ve never known you to give up so easily.”
“Give up?” he scoffed. “I didn’t give up a damned thing. I walked away.”
“Give up. Walk away. Whatever you want to call it.”
“You don’t understand.” He sounded like a whiny kid.
“You’re right. I don’t. How could a man who will work thirty minutes trying to bring life back to a flat-lining heart walk away from his own heart’s desire?” She touched his face, placing her finger over his mouth when he started to deny what she’d said. “Don’t even say it because we both know she’s who you want. Once upon a time I hoped, but I know hearts.” She let her finger drag across his chin, then fall to her side. “And yours belongs to Melissa.”
She was one of his best friends and a trusted colleague, but he’d never felt anything more for her.
“I’m sorry.” He felt like a heel.
“Don’t be.” Sadness shone in her eyes, but she smiled. “It’s not your fault.”
Why couldn’t he have fallen for Kristen? They had so much in common. In that moment he wondered if he could make himself forget Melissa by focusing on Kristen. What would it feel like to kiss her?
Like he was cheating. Because, no matter what his mind said, his heart did belong to Melissa. He’d not wanted anyone else since first setting eyes on her at a medical meeting they’d both attended on asthma.
He’d made some corny comment about her taking his breath away and she’d offered to do mouth-to-mouth. They’d shared a smile, a laugh, a look full of awareness, and the rest, as they said, was history.
Only their history had taken a drastic turn in the wrong direction.
God, he missed her. Missed the way her eyes opened slowly in the mornings, the way she stretched the sleep from her body, missed the way she said his name when they made love.
“James.”
God, now he was hearing things. But if he was, Kristen imagined it, too, because her gaze moved to behind him where he instinctively knew Melissa stood. No one else made his heart hammer like a wildebeest stampede across the Serengeti.
He turned.
Glancing back and forth between him and Kristen, Melissa stood just inside the doorway. Hurt and accusation blanched her face.
Thank God, she’d finally come.
Kristen stepped back. “I’m going to call it a night.” She got her purse from a cabinet and shot him a quick glance. “Remember what I said, James. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
He nodded, his gaze remaining on Melissa. How could someone look so good and so bad all at the same time?
“Nice to see you, again,” Kristen acknowledged as she walked past the thin woman. “Congrats on your pregnancy.”
Melissa’s gaze grew more accusing. Had she not wanted him to tell anyone she was pregnant? Did she think no one would notice the soft swell beneath her blue blouse? Or, despite her weight loss, how her breasts were fuller?
When Kristen was gone, Melissa closed the door. The door that usually would have been closed, but he’d been distracted.
Once they were alone in the room, she seemed unsure what to say. Awkward seconds passed.
“I have an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow morning here at Vanderbilt. For the baby,” she clarified. “Dr McGowan wants to confirm my due date as my last period was so scanty. Based on that and his palpation of my uterus, he thinks I’m five months pregnant rather than four.”
Five months? James felt the blood drain from his face. He studied her belly more closely, wondering if it was possible. He’d have even less time to cope with becoming a father. He didn’t speak, just waited for her to tell him why she’d come.
She hesitated, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “I thought you might like to be there. For the ultrasound, I mean.”
“OK.” He wasn’t sure how he was going to deal with a baby, but if Melissa wanted him there, he’d go.
&nb
sp; She appeared surprised at his quick answer. He bit his tongue and waited.
“I’m really sorry about that night.” Standing in front of the door, clenching and unclenching her fingers, she looked frail, unsure of herself. “I wanted to be home.”
“It’s OK.”
“No, it’s not.” She blew out a pent-up breath. “If it had been OK, you’d have been there when I got home.”
“True,” he admitted, wondering why he’d said it was OK to begin with. Nothing about falling at the end of Melissa’s priority list was OK.
CHAPTER FIVE
JAMES fought telling Melissa just how un-OK her not coming home had been. At this point, what did it matter? She’d made her bed, now was the time to lie in it. Wasn’t that his intention?
“You packed your clothes,” she said, watching him closely.
“Yes.” If tossing his things into garbage bags that still lined a friend’s spare bedroom wall counted as packing.
“You’re not coming back, are you?” Her voice wobbled, but her gaze remained steady, boring into him with their chocolate depths.
It would be so easy to give in, to beg her to let him come home. They could kiss and make up and pretend everything was fine. It’s what he wanted to do. Particularly the kissing and making up part.
Going home wouldn’t solve anything. It would just expose his heart to the next round of her careless arrows.
But, looking at her, seeing the hesitation in her eyes, he yearned to take her in his arms and kiss away the pain.
“No,” he answered, knowing the best gift he could give Melissa was to open her eyes. The best gift he could give a son or daughter he was afraid of was to make sure Melissa put their child first in her life. “I’m not coming back.”
Her gaze lowered to the floor and she reached out to grasp hold of a countertop as if she was dizzy.
He started to go to her, but she steadied and he held himself back.
Just seeing her ripped the scabs off his wounds, made his insides ache. No matter how important she was to him, he needed more than she was willing to give. She’d proved that time and again.
He had to stand his ground.
She dug in her pocket and pulled out a box. The jeweler’s box he’d left on the deck.
“Then you should take this.”
James watched her set the box on the counter. Her fingers shook and she slid them into her pants pockets. Her gaze lifted to his. The unhappiness he saw there undid everything but the need to comfort her.
He crossed the room to stand in front of her, stared down at her, and couldn’t resist touching her cheek.
His body screamed that this was Melissa and why wasn’t he pulling her to him? Showing her how much he wanted her? How happy he was to see her? He managed to restrain himself to brushing his fingertips over her smooth skin.
“Why are you here, Melissa?”
She trembled, giving testament to how much coming here had cost her emotionally. Her eyes closed, and she swayed slightly into his touch. “I told you.”
“Tell me again.”
Her lower lip disappeared into her mouth. “I want you with me when I have my ultrasound.”
She wanted him with her. Not just that she was having it and he could tag along if he wanted. Progress.
“I’ll be there.” If it ripped his insides apart, and it damned well might, he would be there. “What else?”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t drive an hour to ask me to go to your ultrasound.” Saying the words gave them credence. She could have called, but hadn’t.
“I was in town for my appointment with Dr McGowan, but—” she met his gaze “—I wanted to see you.”
His heart flopped in his chest like a fish out of water.
“Why?” Deep down he knew the answer, but wanted to hear her say the words out loud. Needed to hear her say them.
“I miss you.”
Yes.
“We barely saw each other,” he reminded her perversely. “Between the nights I stayed in Nashville and your work schedule, I’m surprised you noticed I was gone.”
She leaned toward him, pressed her palms against his chest. “I noticed.”
His pulse raced so rapidly he expected someone to wave black-and-white checkered flags at any moment. Having her touch him, even through his scrubs, made him feel like a winner. It also reminded him of what he’d lost, yet he wouldn’t yield, not on something so important.
“I want you to come home.”
His heart said yes. His lips said, “No.”
She must have known his heart, because her eyes widened in surprised hurt. “You never gave me reason to think you were unhappy. Not until the night before you left. Why won’t you come home?”
“My home is in Nashville. It always has been.” He pulled back, stepping away from her closeness before her sweet vanilla scent caused him to nuzzle closer. “My moving in with you was never meant to be permanent.”
Thick lashes swept her cheeks. “It wasn’t?”
“No.” He’d meant to convince her to move to Nashville, become a part of his life. At the time he’d been spending so much time in Sawtooth that more and more of his things had ended up at Melissa’s. When she’d asked him to move in, it had made sense to let his apartment go, rather than continue to drive back and forth.
Because she hadn’t been willing to budge on where she belonged. In Sawtooth.
Her hands fell to her sides and she paced across the room. “I see.”
Somehow James doubted she did, at least not the truth. That their relationship was too precious to allow it to be treated as an afterthought, there for her convenience and nothing more.
She spun, pinned him with an angry glare. “So I was right?”
Color stained her cheeks and her eyes glittered. She looked more like the woman he’d fallen for than she had in months. Alive, vibrant, aware that he existed as a man.
She was aware. He felt it in her radiating energy, saw it in the way she looked at him with hungry eyes that said she saw a desirable man, one she’d like to tackle right here, right now.
God, he wanted to kiss her, touch her. But if he did, he’d lift her onto the countertop, peel away her clothes, and make love to her. One touch and he wouldn’t be able to stop.
He shoved his hands into his scrubs pockets. “About?”
“You and Dr Weaver.” She sounded jealous. “You looked—what’s the right word?—close when I arrived.”
Possessiveness shone brightly in her dark eyes and, despite his body’s protest at his denial of its yearnings, his spirits lifted.
“We are close.” Which was true enough. Kristen was one of his best friends. Until moments before Melissa had arrived he hadn’t known she’d wanted more, but that didn’t change the friendship they shared. Neither did it mean he had to reveal to Melissa that there would never be anything more than friendship between Kristen and him. Melissa’s brown eyes turned green went a long way to soothe his bruised ego.
“You’ve moved in with her?”
“No, I’m staying with one of the residents I had in class last year.”
“A female?”
He bit back a smile. “No, the one I stayed with on the nights I worked late. Ted Jefferson. You’ve met him.”
Melissa paced across the room, her whole body screaming with agitation and tension.
“Has she—” the pronoun came out high-pitched “—offered to let you stay with her?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Which means she has.” Her tone bounced between defeatist, determined, and accusatory.
He had to make a stand, to play hardball, otherwise he and Melissa would both end up losers. So, praying for strength, he reminded her of the basic facts. “When you opted not to come home the other night, you ended our personal relationship. Where I stay isn’t your concern.”
She sucked in a deep breath. Her face grew ghastly pale and guilt hit h
im. Why feel guilty? He’d spoken the truth. He was a free man and could sleep anywhere he liked. Do whatever he liked. Not that he would even if she weren’t pregnant.
The baby. He swallowed the lump in his throat. Was that why he’d run so quickly? Kristen had accused him of giving up. Had he given up or run scared? No, Melissa had pushed him aside. The baby had had nothing to do with him leaving.
He’d been taking a stand, a difficult but necessary one.
“I’m not rushing into anything, but make no mistake—” he stared straight into her dismayed eyes “—I have no intention of remaining celibate. There will be other women in my life.”
She stepped back, leaned against the counter. “I made a mistake, coming here.”
“What did you expect? That you could say you were sorry and I’d come running back to be available whenever you had time to fit me into your schedule?”
The look on her face said that’s exactly what she’d thought. No. Hell no.
“As the mother of my baby, you’ll always be a part of my life, but you willingly gave up the right to any say in what I do.”
She didn’t comment, just clutched the countertop. He didn’t want to hurt her, had never wanted her to hurt. So why was he trying to make her jealous?
Because jealousy meant she cared, and he wanted her to care. But her painful, devastated expression gutted him.
“Look, it can’t be good for the baby for you to get upset.” Actually, her reaction surprised him. If she cared so much, why hadn’t she made an effort to be there for him? He’d told her how much he’d needed her to come home that night. “What is it you want of me, Melissa?”
“To come home,” she immediately responded, almost echoing his former sentiments.
“Sawtooth has never been my home.” That wasn’t completely true. In the beginning, he had been happy wrapped in the warmth of her attention and the life they’d started carving out for themselves. What had changed?
“Because you wouldn’t let it be. How many times did I ask you to give the office a chance? To get to know my patients so you’d understand how I feel about them?”
“That’s just it, Melissa,” he sighed. “I do understand. Which is why I’m back in Nashville. Your patients need you. But not only that.” The thought had hit him with such clarity he felt a fool for not seeing it sooner. “You need them to need you.”