The Perception
Page 20
“No, Blaine. Anything we might have ever had is in the past and I’m not sure what there was between us then. But I do know, without a doubt, that there’s nothing between us now. Everything I have belongs to someone else.”
“Sam said you’ve been fighting.”
“Sam can go to hell.”
He chuckled. “Did you ever think maybe Max doesn’t want you now that he knows the truth?”
My heart stilled in my chest, a sadness swooping over my soul. “Yeah, I have. And if that’s the case, so be it. But that doesn’t change my love for him.”
“I heard he was out with a bombshell yesterday afternoon.”
My hands shook. “Don’t call me again. I mean it. I want nothing to do with you.”
I ended the call but somehow managed to answer an incoming one at the same time. I saw Max’s name and I froze.
“Hello?” I asked nervously.
“Kari,” he said, his voice rough. “How are you?”
I forced a swallow. “Good. I’m good. How are you?”
I heard his truck start, the roar of the engine rumbling through the phone. “Heading home.”
I wonder where he’s been.
“Oh,” was all I could manage.
“Are you coming to our house after work?”
“Do you want me to?”
I heard him take a deep breath and blow it out slowly. “I have one question for you.”
“Okay.”
“Do you love me? And don’t just say yes because you don’t want to hurt my feelings. If nothing else mattered—no medical conditions or ex-boyfriends—would you want to be with me.”
“Yes,” I said automatically. The line grew quiet and it made me nervous. “Max?”
“I’m here,” he said, chuckling. “I’m just getting into some traffic now so I need to go. I’ll see you later, sweetheart.”
“I’ll call you when I’m off and we can talk about it,” I replied, not sure what to say.
He laughed. “Okay. See you soon.”
I tossed my phone into my purse, my heart pounding in my ears. I was trying not to smile, trying not to read too much hope into what he had said, but damn it if I didn’t want to jump up and down a little. I wanted Max, I ached for Max . . . I loved Max Quinn. People said love could conquer anything and I’d always laughed that off.
But what if they were right?
I made my way back upstairs to the nurse’s station, hoping that my shift would end quickly. I had been so lethargic during the first half of my shift, but now I had a spring in my step. I set my things down and turned to check a few charts.
“How’s your day going? Pardon my bluntness, but you look like hell.” Dr. Manning walked beside me and grabbed a chart. His blue eyes looked as tired as mine felt.
“I didn’t know you were back. How’s your mother?”
He flipped through the paperwork. “She’s tenacious, I’ll say that for her.”
“Better than not, right?”
“I suppose. So what’s up with you?”
I smiled nervously. “You know how it goes.”
“Problems with the boyfriend, I’m assuming?”
I nodded.
“Guys mess up a lot. It’s our calling card.”
“This one doesn’t mess up much. That’s the bad part.”
He grinned. “How’s that bad?”
“Because he’s so perfect and I’m so . . . not. I just keep thinking he’ll wake up one day and realize it, too.”
“I’m going out on a limb here and saying that he thinks you’re pretty perfect. And I’m giving you my professional opinion that he’s right.”
I couldn’t help the red that crept across my face, yet I rolled my eyes. “You’re full of shit.”
“Probably. But I’m also right,” he smirked. “I know you like to control everything, keep everything in order. But what he thinks about you isn’t your decision. You can’t control that, Ms. Stanley.”
“He’s just . . .” My voice trailed off as my eyes met a pair of green ones coming around the nurse’s station. His smile, so sweet and shy, made me melt into a little puddle on the floor.
“What?” Dr. Manning asked.
“Max,” I whispered.
Dr. Manning turned around and saw Max standing at the counter. He looked to the doctor and then to me. I could tell he didn’t know what to think and the fact that he seemed jealous made me happy.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Max asked, his voice full of caution.
“No,” I said softly, ignoring the looks from the other nurses shuffling around. I was standing between two of the best looking guys I’d ever seen—it wasn’t a bad place to be. “You okay today?”
“Yeah.” He looked from me back to the doctor again.
“Max, this is Dr. Connor Manning. Dr. Manning, this is Max Quinn.”
Connor extended his hand to Max and they shook firmly. Connor had a coy smile on his face and Max looked apprehensive, his jaw tensing.
“I was just telling Kari here that you can’t make decisions for people. You have to let everyone decide what’s best for them. Would you agree?” Connor asked him.
A slow smile spread across Max’s face as he realized what Connor was getting at. “I do, actually.”
Connor shot me a wink and started towards the hall. “Nice to meet you, Max.”
“You, too, Dr. Manning. If you don’t mind me asking, have we met before?”
He stopped in the hallway and turned around. “Unless you’ve been in here with a gunshot or pneumonia, probably not.”
“Dr. Manning? There’s a Kellie Manning on the phone for you. She said she’s your mother,” Chanda said from the front of the station.
“I need to grab that. Nice to meet you again.”
I looked back to the beautiful, dark-haired man in front of me. His eyes were on me. As he realized I wasn’t going to throw him out of the station, his dimple popped.
“I thought you were going home?” I asked with a huge smile.
“I did.” He leaned against the counter, a slow smile spreading across his lips. “You’re my home.”
I tried not to swoon in the middle of the hospital, but I couldn’t help the ridiculously huge grin on my face.
“I brought you something,” Max said softly. He reached into the inner pocket of his black leather jacket and pulled out 4 little envelopes. He handed them to me.
I turned them over in my hands. “You brought me flower seed packets?” I laughed. “I don’t get it.”
“I was going to stop and buy you flowers to tell you I’m sorry. I should’ve come to you or at least called you last night. But in my defense, I needed to make sure you wanted to be with me. I needed to know that I wasn’t forcing you or pressuring you. But now I see I was wrong. I should’ve went to Cane’s and told you to make sure you were home in the morning. That I wanted you there because you belong with me. And my heart belongs to you. We both know it.”
“So I was going to buy you flowers, but they die,” he went on. “In a week, two tops, they’re done. Forgotten. So I bought you seed packets. You can plant those at our house and then in the spring, we can watch them grow until it gets cold again.” He shrugged. “It’s my way of telling you that I expect you to still be in my life, at our house, this time next year.”
“Oh, Max,” I said, rounding the corner and letting him envelop me in a hug. Everything about being in his arms, surrounded by his scent, his lips on the top of my head, was right.
It was home.
“I love ya, Kari. I woke up this morning without you beside me and I never want to do that again. It really hit me not having you there.”
I squeezed him tighter.
“I’m not letting you leave me. If you still love Blaine—”
“I never loved Blaine,” I interrupted, looking into this eyes. “I thought I did, but then I fell in love with you and I realized that what I felt for Blaine was nothing in comparison.”
&nbs
p; “So you’ll come home?”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “I’m pretty sure I’m there right now.”
KARI
I slung my bag over my shoulder. “See ya later, Chandra.”
“Night, Kari.”
I brushed my fingers across the seed packets tucked safely in my pocket and smiled. My fingertips touched a stray piece of paper and I pulled out the packets curiously. Attached to the back of one of the packets was a sticky note.
I stroked my thumb across the words written in Max’s handwriting.
I pressed the button for the elevator and was relieved when it opened quickly and was empty. I got in and pressed the P for the parking garage when I saw Dr. Manning walking towards me.
“Can I ride with you?” he asked, entering the elevator.
“Sure,” I smiled. “How was your shift?”
“Not bad, not great. No fantastic stories to remember to tell the grandkids one day, but I’ll survive,” he winked.
I laughed. “I should write a book about some of the stuff I’ve seen.”
“I’ll be your co-author.”
The elevator began its descent. “Was that your mother that called for you earlier? Is she okay?”
Connor’s face softened a bit. “Yes, it was. She’s okay, just had a question about her meds.”
“She’s lucky to have you.”
He shrugged. “Well, I’m all she has, so she’s stuck with me either way.”
“You’re an only child?” I asked as the door opened and we walked into the cool darkness. I hated walking through the parking garage at night. It was such a lonely place.
“Yeah. Well, my mother has a son from a previous marriage, but I don’t know him. She married my dad and they had me but divorced when I was a teenager. She’s kind of a hard pill to swallow sometimes, pardon the pun.”
“I’m sorry.” I stopped at the branch in the roadway, needing to take a right but knowing that he parked in the doctor’s lot to the left. “I hope she gets better soon.”
“Me, too.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned. “So, you going home to Max?”
I matched his smile. “Yeah.”
“He seems like a decent guy. I think you should go work out whatever was going on. A girl like you deserves a man that will appreciate you and Max seems to understand that.”
“Ah, doling out relationship advice along with medicinal instructions tonight, huh, Doc?”
“I am a professional at everything I do.”
I laughed. “Noted. Have a good night, Connor.”
“You, too, Kari.”
KARI
The house was dark when I pulled up. I would’ve thought that Max wasn’t home except that his truck was in the driveway. I parked my car and walked up the front steps, knocking lightly before going on in.
I felt weird knocking, since I technically lived there. But it seemed like the right thing to do.
I tossed my bag beside the front door. The kitchen light in the back of the house was on and I bent down to pet Titus before making my way into the lit room. It looked like it did before I left the night before, except a mark on the far wall.
“Max?” I called out. I walked cautiously through the house and up the stairs. I could see the bedroom light on beneath the door and I knocked timidly. “Max?”
The door popped open. He took my breath away. His dark hair was unruly, his green eyes soft and glistening. He had a dark pair of denim jeans and a plain white t-shirt, his feet bare. When he saw me, he smiled and the dimple in his cheek shined.
“What ‘cha knockin’ for, sweetheart?” He reached for my hand and guided me into the room, his eyes never leaving mine. All at once, he pulled me into him, wrapping his arms securely around my waist, pinning mine to my sides, and kissed me like his life depended on it. He rested his forehead against mine and caught his breath.
“I missed you,” I whispered. I sagged into him, my cheek resting against his heart.
“The only thing I hate about any of it is that you didn’t tell me this stuff before. Not because it would’ve made a difference, but I hate it that you don’t trust me. To know that Blaine knew and I didn’t . . . it feels like you had something with him that we don’t.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing that I couldn’t put this conversation off any longer. “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. It’s not that at all.”
“That’s how it felt.”
“I know. It probably did. Does. Whatever. But it’s the opposite, really.” My throat was tightening, the warmth that came with tears and sadness creating waves inside me.
Max kissed the top of my head and held my hand, pulling me gently to the bed. We climbed on and rested against the headboard. “I’ve told you before that I can’t be what you need if I don’t know what you need. And when I try to get close, you push me away. And then I see in black-and-white that you had no issues getting close to another man.”
I snuggled into his side, trying to comfort him by letting him feel me close. “It was different with Blaine. He didn’t want kids, so he didn’t care—hell, he was happier knowing that I probably would never be able to have them, even if I wanted them. But you are the opposite. You were meant to be a father. Family is everything to you. So I figured telling you that would be writing my own exit.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “Do you really think I’m that shallow?”
“It’s not shallow to want a family.”
“No, it isn’t. But to think I’d love you less because you have a health issue that you can’t control would be pretty damn shallow.”
“It just felt wrong to love you and know that I would eventually put you in a position where you had to pick me or a future.”
“You think that my future and you are separate things? You silly girl.”
I smiled against his side.
“Is that why you push me away all the time? You’re afraid you’re cornering me or something crazy?”
I nodded sadly. “That’s exactly what it is. And then I meet your parents and hear them talk about grandkids and they look at us with such expectations,” I sighed. “They’ll hate me, Max. They’ll look at me and look at Isa and I’ll be the loser. I’ll be half the woman she is. I’ll be—”
“My wife.”
“What?”
“You’ll be my wife. You’ll be the woman I chose to spend the rest of my life with because you make me happy.” He paused. “The only half of anything you are is half of me,” he whispered.
Tears welled up and fell in one swift moment. “Oh, Max.” I rose up and planted one knee on either side of him, straddling his midsection. He winced in pain. “You alright?”
“Take it easy on this side, sweetheart.”
I shifted my weight and curiously lifted the hem of his shirt. His eyes narrowed, his forehead marred in what seemed like fear.
The shirt lifted to his neck and I saw a white gauze pad taped to the top of the tattoo that spanned his side.
“What happened?” I looked at his face and he closed his eyes. A slow smile spread across his face, his dimple ever-present.
“I got a little marked up on the way home.”
“What do you mean?” I asked nervously. “Did you get hurt? Are you bleeding?”
“Ah, just a bit. I’m okay.”
“Did you put something on it? What happened?”
He moved his head side to side. “I sat down in a chair and got stuck with something sharp. It’ll be okay.”
“You might need a tetanus shot, Max. That’s nothing to play with. You don’t even know how many people come to the ER and have serious issues because their tetanus wasn’t up to date. Let me look at it.”
“Be my guest.”
I slowly peeled the gauze off and my hands dropped to my side, my eyes growing wide. “Max!”
KARI
I stared at the fresh ink staining his angry skin. A purple orchid was weaved through the top of the vine that anchored the side-lo
ng tattoo.
I covered my mouth with my hand, unsure of what to say. I finally dragged my eyes from the design and to his eyes. He was watching me, as unsure as I was.
“It’s so beautiful, Max. I just want to touch it.”
He chuckled softly. “Please don’t.”
“How did you get it to match mine so perfectly?”
He shrugged.
“That’s forever, you know.”
“What’s your point?” He challenged me.
“You put the orchid that means something to me on your vine. You can’t remove it. It’s permanent.”
“And so are you.”
“You didn’t have to do that to make your point,” I said softly.
“Sweetheart, this vine on my side holds together little pieces of all the places and things that matter to me. My grandparent’s initials are in the bottom, an anchor for my dad. There’s a heart for my mom and a B for Brielle,” he said, working his finger up his side as he pointed out different things woven intricately into the vine. “There’s a star for what I’ll always think of as home back in Texas and a horseshoe for my grandparent’s ranch. And now,” he grinned, “there’s an orchid at the top of the vine for you. Because whether you love me or leave me, you will always be someone special to me. The lady that captured my heart.”
“I think it was a fair exchange then because you’ve certainly captured mine, Mr. Quinn.”
I saw a flash of his dimple before his lips covered mine softly. I took both sides of his face in my hands and guided him on top of me as I rolled onto my back. He kissed from my mouth to my ear, down my throat and back to my lips again. I ran my fingers through his hair, enjoying the feeling of his body, of the safety I felt with him.
Of the love.
A love I hadn’t felt before, a love I hadn’t allowed myself to feel before, lest my heart be left in shambles. Max’s acceptance of me, his assurances, his knowing everything and still coming for me soothed my soul and replaced the walls around my heart with confidence of being loved.
“I need you inside me,” I breathed against his ear as he nipped my bottom lip. I needed to feel him, to allow him every part of me. I wanted to cry in a weird way, the restraints I had always fought against now mostly gone. “Now, Max.”