Nikki sighed heavily. Lately, she’d been doing a lot of that, she thought. Putting her hand on Room 5’s doorknob, she twisted it, opened the door and walked in.
Then stopped dead.
“Lucas!” Her first inclination was to throw her arms around him, but that would only propel her back to square one. So she held her ground. “What are you doing here? And where’s the baby?”
He’d missed her a great deal, but the actual full extent didn’t hit him until just this minute. It felt as if his very soul lit up. He’d been so afraid to let himself go, to let himself love again. But he realized now that he had no control over something like that. Not when it was real. When he’d lost Carole, he was certain he’d never recover, never love again. To find out that he could felt like a humbling miracle.
“She’s fine.” He didn’t tell her that he’d left Heather with her mother who had been more than happy to watch the child. “We have to talk,” he told her.
Tension wove through her. “I thought we already did.”
“No, you talked,” he corrected. “I listened. Now it’s my turn to talk and your turn to listen.”
She didn’t want to listen because her resolve would fall apart. Even if he only recited the alphabet. If he said the slightest kind thing, it would be all over for her.
Still, she couldn’t just throw him out, either. “All right.”
“To begin with, Heather doesn’t like Dr. Crosby. She bursts into tears when she sees him.”
Disappointment rushed in. Was that what this was about? He was here to get another referral?
Well, what do you expect? You all but gave him the bum’s rush. You hurt his ego.
“All right,” she said quietly, turning to the door. “I’ll refer you to someone else.”
Lucas shifted and blocked her path. “No, you won’t,” he informed her. “She doesn’t want to be referred to anyone else. She wants you.”
She was losing ground. Nikki couldn’t suppress the amused smile that came to her lips. “Heather’s gotten pretty vocal since I last saw her.”
“Someone told me that they do a lot of growing in the first year,” he deadpanned. And then he grew serious. Taking her hand in his, Lucas looked into her eyes. “What did I do wrong, Nikki?”
“Wrong?” she echoed.
“Yes, ‘wrong,’” he repeated. He forced back a wave of frustration. “I had to have done something wrong for you just to walk out on Heather and me like that.”
She skirted the answer. “I walked out to make it easy on you. And me.”
He didn’t follow her. He’d given her time and space, but she hadn’t come back. He’d gone over and over the situation and came up with no answers. At this point, he needed a clue.
“Make what easy?”
“The breakup that was coming.” She closed her eyes and sighed. That sounded really silly out loud. She broke up with him to prevent a breakup. He’d never begin to understand that.
She was right.
“The only breakup that was coming was the one you initiated,” Lucas pointed out. “Up until then, I thought things were going pretty well—and then you dropped that little bomb on me.”
Maybe they were going “pretty well” in his eyes, but they weren’t going anywhere in hers. That was the problem. She could only make judgments about things by the input she’d gotten.
“I didn’t think it mattered to you one way or another,” she said, referring to the breakup. “I didn’t think that I mattered.”
Lucas stared at her. She was making less and less sense to him. “How could you possibly think you didn’t matter?”
“How could I not?” she countered, pulling her hand away. “You never talked about our future together, never said anything about how you felt about me, or even if you felt anything at all.”
He looked like Newton at the moment the apple had fallen on his head and he’d discovered the theory of gravity. “You’re kidding. Is that it? Damn.”
For a second, it looked as if he was internalizing an argument. But then the next moment, he grabbed her by the arms, pulling her close to him, as if that would help communication between them.
“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to scare you off. I was afraid that you’d think you were only getting me on the rebound. I was deliberately trying to go slow so that you would know that what was happening between us was real. That it wasn’t happening because I was trying to replace Carole with the first beautiful, warm, sensitive woman who came along.”
Her eyes widened as the words sank in. Things began to fall into place. It was all making sense now. “Really?”
“Really,” he underscored. Well, he’d come this far, he might as well tell her everything. “I know it’s too soon to ask you to marry me, but I would like you to give ‘us’ another chance. I want to be part of your life, Nikki, and I want you to be part of mine—Heather’s and mine—for all the tomorrows that we have.”
Her eyes met his. “No.”
“No?” he repeated incredulously. He’d just bared his soul and she was turning him down?
“No.” This time, she accompanied the word with a nod of her head, as if confirming her answer. “No, it’s not too soon for you to ask me to marry you. And if you don’t want to ask me, then I’ll ask you. Lucas Wingate, will you mar—”
The laugh interrupted her.
She didn’t get a second chance to finish her question. Moving her lips proved to be too difficult when another set of lips were pressed against them.
But that was all right. She had her answer.
They both did.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5002-8
DOCTORING THE SINGLE DAD
Copyright © 2010 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella
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Doctoring the Single Dad Page 16