Her Hometown Hero

by Melody Anne

  “Thank you, Spence. It’s beautiful,” she said, and he took it from her and clasped it on her wrist. It was a perfect fit.

  “That’s only part one of the gift. Tomorrow, we’re flying to Vegas for a show,” he said as he lifted her up, then sat and pulled her down into his lap.

  “I can’t go to Las Vegas, Spence.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s almost Christmas, and I have to work . . .”

  “You don’t work tomorrow night, and we won’t stay. We’ll just see the show and come right back. If you have any last-minute gifts to buy, it’s the perfect place.”

  “You are ruining me for all other men, Spence Whitman. Who jets off to Vegas just for a date?”

  His eyes narrowed, but she couldn’t miss their dangerous gleam. “There will be no other men, Sage.” He pulled her close and kissed her soundly, showing her exactly whom she belonged with.

  When she was able to come up for air, she pulled back and looked into his eyes. “I can’t think when you touch me. I can’t make a single decision. I don’t like that—I don’t like feeling so out of control. I always know what I’m doing. I always have a plan. Why do I feel this way with you?”

  She wasn’t really asking him the question, just expressing her thoughts aloud. She needed to find the answers, and she needed to find them fast. The last thing she wanted was to lose herself, to be consumed by this fire between them.

  “You do realize that both of our families are already planning the wedding, so maybe we should just give in and elope while we’re in Vegas.”

  Sage stiffened in his arms. “What?” Her brain tried to compute what he was saying.

  “Let me get you some food. We’ve burned off a lot of calories,” he said, removing her from his lap, jumping up, and moving to the fridge.

  She followed him. “You can’t make a statement like that, Spence, and not clarify it. I’m not going to be sidetracked this time.”

  “It was just a comment, Sage.”

  “Have you talked to my grandmother about me?” She wasn’t that upset; she just wanted him to be truthful. Why would he go to her grandma and talk marriage before talking to her?

  “No, not exactly,” he said, and she knew he was lying. Like her, he wasn’t very good at it.

  “I wasn’t upset, Spence, but I’m fixing to get there. You need to explain,” she told him as he broke several eggs into a bowl and began stirring them so hard that they slopped over the side.

  “It was just something my dad and your grandma said about . . . us. They . . . well . . . they sort of threw us together. I didn’t think it was anything to get upset about,” he said, finally putting the whisk down and giving up on his attempt to distract her through cooking.

  Sage stared at him, trying to process what he’d just said. “How did they throw us together? I don’t understand this.”

  “You’d really have to talk to them, Sage.”

  “I want to hear it from you.” But she didn’t need for him to tell her. The pieces were falling together. The reason she’d had to accept the offer for residency in Sterling, the reason Spence, only a few months later, accepted an offer that would put him in charge of her training. The party. The meetings her grandmother had been having with Martin Whitman.

  They’d all thought she was so pathetic that she wouldn’t be able to find her own husband, so they’d rigged the game, placed her and Spence in each other’s path and lit a fuse, hoping there would be one hell of an explosion. Well, they just might get to see a show that would put the Fourth of July to shame.

  “How long have you known about this?”

  He looked lost as he searched for the right thing to say. “A couple of weeks,” he admitted, and the rockets’ red glare had nothing on her.

  “Did you find it amusing? Was it all a game? Let’s get the poor little virgin a boyfriend. She can’t possibly attract one on her own. She was in love with Spence when she was a child, so throw a little gasoline, light a match, and watch her go up in smoke. Did you have some bets going on? Was any of this real?”

  They’d all deceived her, all treated her like their personal puppet on strings. She’d been great in that role, doing exactly what was expected of her.

  “I didn’t have a plan!” he exploded, throwing his hands in the air. “I’m in love with you—stupidly, ridiculously, till-death-do-us-part in love!”

  Her entire body froze as their heated gazes locked. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to think.

  Spence now spoke more calmly. “That didn’t come out the way it should have.” He began to take a step toward her, but she held out her palm to ward him off. This was too much; too many emotions were being thrown at her in such a short time. She was on overload and she had to get away.

  “I need to go,” she said. She dashed to her room and grabbed clothes. She had to get out of there right now.

  “Sage, don’t do this. Let’s talk,” he said through the door as she yanked her clothes on in record time.

  “I don’t want to talk,” she said, flinging open the door and storming past him.

  To his credit, he didn’t try to grab her. “Do you love me, Sage?”

  That stopped her. She turned toward him, her purse in her hand. “I don’t know how I feel, Spence. You move at the speed of lightning. One minute you’re telling me you want to move in together, and then before I can even process that, you’re telling me that our families feel we’re meant to be together. And then you tell me you love me and suggest that you want to get married. I can’t do this. I can’t . . .” And it was true. She just couldn’t.

  “It’s simple, Sage. You either love me or you don’t,” he said, moving closer but still respecting her very electrically charged personal space.

  “I don’t know!” she said, her eyes burning. “I don’t know,” she said again more quietly. Panic was starting to rise. “Nothing is simple.”

  “Just because someone else may have made plans for us, that doesn’t make what we feel toward each other any less real. I know how I feel, and I know that I will always want you. Once I make a decision, I don’t back down. I’m strong enough to tell you how I feel. Are you strong enough to accept what I’m offering?”

  “No. I can’t do this,” she said, and practically ran to the door. She glanced back to find his eyes not angry but determined as he watched her leave. It wasn’t rational, but she was overwhelmed. Her once orderly life had just been thrown in total chaos and she needed to escape, to regroup.

  “I’m not giving up.” Those words followed her out the door and to her car. She realized she’d left him in her apartment, but she didn’t care. Getting away was her only thought.

  She took pride in the fact that she was organized, that she made her own choices, that even if she made mistakes, they were her mistakes. To find out that her grandmother had stooped to games to find her a man was humiliating. It also made her wonder if any of it was real.

  Sage tripped as she walked up the steps to her apartment, and her short heel snapped, making her fall to her knee. The impact cut into her slacks and gave her a deep scratch.

  “Son of a—” Managing to stop the swear word from coming out, she gritted her teeth and stood up. This wasn’t her day—not even close. Seriously grumpy after enduring a fifteen-hour shift and missing the last two meals, she finally managed to get the key in the door and open it.

  She refused to admit to herself that her mood had been bad from the beginning, its gloom and savagery only escalating when Spence hadn’t been at work for the second day in a row. Christmas was only a couple of days away and she hadn’t seen him since she stormed off after their confrontation.

  That’s what she’d wanted, to get away from him. She wasn’t going to be controlled. He was giving her the space she’d requested, and that was just fine by her. It certainly wasn’t the case that any action of his, or any inaction, was making her insides twist in two. So what if he was moving on? So what if he was back in Seattle
? She hoped he stayed there. The prickling in her eyes had nothing to do with the fact that he might not come back.

  Sage had always thought logically, had always been the one to laugh at those silly girls who wrapped their worlds around whomever they were dating. She wouldn’t be such a fool as to join their shallow ranks.

  It was just the long shift, the fact that she was starving, and that she’d just broken the heel on one of her favorite pairs of shoes. It had been a silly, impulsive thing to wear them in the first place. After a fifteen-hour shift, the last thing she had wanted to do was put on heels, even if they were only two inches tall. It had nothing to do with the fact that she’d wanted to look pretty just in case a certain doctor had decided to show up at work.

  When Sage saw the blinking light on the answering machine, she turned away. She had no curiosity at all to see who’d called. She deserved a trophy for not calling her grandmother and berating her for her unconscionable actions. Not that Sage would be able to do that. It was just best not to talk to the woman until she could say something nice.

  “Meddling old people thinking they know best,” she mumbled as she kicked off her shoes, not caring that they were flying beneath her perfectly decorated Christmas tree.

  Looking at the tree only reminded her of her trip with Spence to the mountains, of the fun they’d had picking out his tree, of decorating it, of the absolute euphoria that had come afterward.

  Turning her back on the tree, which she now wanted to throw outside as yard waste, she walked slowly toward the kitchen. Although the thought of food repelled her right then, she had to get something into her stomach, and then climb into her bed.

  Sleep. That’s all she needed. A great night’s sleep, and then a beautiful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with her grandmother. Of course she wouldn’t hold a grudge against the woman who’d raised her—she loved her grandma, and she could see how the woman had been trying to help, according to her old-fashioned ideas. If only it hadn’t meant that Sage was more miserable now than she could ever remember.

  Still, the apartment was too quiet, bitterly quiet. Sage really wished her best friend were there. She and Grace had been missing each other too much. Both she and Grace worked erratic hours, making it near impossible to see each other. Sage didn’t want to admit any form of weakness, but she could really use a friend right now.

  “No. I’m fine. Women survive breakups all the time. One little fight won’t turn me into a blithering idiot. I will eat some dinner, and then I will sleep. When I wake up, I’ll be back to myself, putting this whole Spence situation far behind me.” There. If that little speech didn’t turn her around, she didn’t know what would.

  She halted when she reached the kitchen. There on the table sat a wrapped package. At first her heart fluttered, and then she forced it to calm down.

  “No. This will not make me sappy. This will not change my mind. It’s ridiculous. I’m not even going to open you up,” she said, before realizing that she was speaking to an inanimate object. Was this what it was like to lose your mind? She wouldn’t be a bit surprised.

  She went over to the fridge and reached inside, grabbing the orange juice and a couple of sticks of string cheese. Just to show how strong she was, she sat at the kitchen table and carefully pulled back the plastic on the cheese, then began peeling it apart and taking tiny bites on each strand, while sipping on the orange juice to lengthen the “meal.”

  “I don’t care what the package is. As a matter of fact, I think I’ll just throw it in the garbage. It’s probably something stupid anyway,” she muttered. She finished the first stick of cheese and slowly unwrapped the second one.

  The box was screaming at her to open it. No. Sage was much stronger than her curiosity. It wouldn’t matter if the box was filled with twenty-four-karat-gold bars. She didn’t want to know.

  Her brain mocked her. Yes, you do.

  “No, I don’t.”

  Sage’s mouth dropped open when she said those words out loud. That was it—she was officially going crazy. If she was going to argue out loud with herself, she was in serious trouble.

  “I’m a doctor, for crying out loud. I’ve been through undergraduate school, medical school, many sleepless nights. I don’t need to get this upset over a man, and I don’t need to argue with myself over whether or not to open a stupid box.”

  She wished again that Grace was home. Then, at least, she’d be speaking to another human being and not a package or the wall or, even worse, herself.

  Sage finished her cheese and orange juice, then turned and walked deliberately from the kitchen, not allowing herself to turn back around. She made it halfway down the hallway before she stopped and glanced over her shoulder. Unable to see the kitchen or the table from this vantage point, she gripped the walls.

  “No, no, no.”

  She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t cave in to such a weakness as curiosity. “Curiosity does kill the cat,” she reminded herself. But she still turned and began walking back toward the kitchen.

  “What if it’s something that’s alive?” How could she not open that package? “I mean, it would be wrong if something died because I didn’t care enough to take off a lid. It’s not that I really care what Spence has sent over.” Sure, she told herself, there were no airholes, but you never knew . . .

  She stood there at the kitchen table, gazing at the bright silver box and sparkling blue bow, and she waited. Running her finger over the bow, she looked for a card. Nothing. There was always a card attached, usually only a few words, but there was always a card.

  Why not this time? Maybe because he’d given up caring about her, but he wanted to finish this silly game he’d begun. Okay, if he wanted closure, she’d give him his stupid closure. Anyway, she couldn’t stand the suspense anymore, so she lifted the lid and found tissue paper on top. Almost fearful, she removed the paper and then sank down into the chair.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered as the stinging in her eyes increased, turning her vision into a blur before the tears finally spilled over.

  She was done for. She was in love with a man she shouldn’t be in love with—a man who hadn’t even found her himself. She was being a good little puppet in a game set up by people she loved because they thought she wasn’t capable of doing something on her own.

  Though she was twenty-six, she would forever be a frightened ten-year-old child who had lost her parents too soon, who was afraid to love because love was so easily snatched away. Who always put work first. Who had goals and aspirations in life.

  And she couldn’t be in love with Spence—she couldn’t. It was just her hormones thinking she was in love because she’d given him her body, not because she couldn’t imagine a life without him. She reached into the box and picked up a wand; a note lay next to it.

  Make a wish, and I will make it come true.

  This wasn’t just any wand, some toy from a store. It was a scepter. Sage knew her history, and this was the real thing. At one time, royalty had held this, not to wield some magical force, but as a symbol of their importance.

  Did this mean he’d returned to town? She hated that her heart thundered at the thought. Was he telling her that he hadn’t given up? She didn’t know what to do. They’d been manipulated into dating, and then he’d found out and hadn’t told her. Didn’t that mean she couldn’t trust him, couldn’t trust anyone? Maybe it was herself she couldn’t trust.

  Spence gazed out his window and watched as the neighbor children built another snowman. Three snowmen now stood in their yard, each with a carrot nose, rocks for eyes, and something he couldn’t quite figure out for mouths. Each had sticks in its sides for arms, and he couldn’t help suspecting that the little tyrants had purposely chosen one of those branches because it had what looked like a hand making a gesture particularly inappropriate during the holidays.

  Chuckling, he watched as a snowball fight happened down the street, and his neighbor three doors down hollered at Jimmy to come back inside
. On the other side of the street a father was pulling his daughter on a sled, and she laughed with glee when he slipped and landed on his behind.

  “It’s almost as if I’m living in the middle of suburbia,” he said aloud. “Except that Sterling isn’t urban enough to have any suburbs.” Why he’d chosen to live here instead of buying a nice estate nearby, he didn’t know. When he’d found this place, he hadn’t hesitated. The Realtor was pleased. A little too pleased at first. When he’d shown no interest in her personally, she’d finally stopped calling—two months later.

  She probably figured he’d be looking for a wife to fill the five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and bonus rooms. She was right. He was looking for a wife—it just wasn’t her. And when he bought the house, he’d had no thought of marriage, but after one day in Sage’s presence, he’d known she would be his.

  Maybe he hadn’t known, exactly, but deep inside, he must have. All he had to do now was convince the woman. It wasn’t going to be easy, though. It had been four days since he’d seen her, and Christmas was only two days away. If his plans for Christmas Eve didn’t work, there was no hope.

  But of course his plans would work. He was a closer—he didn’t ever lose. It just wasn’t in him to give up until he got what he wanted. And right now he wanted Sage Banks to become Sage Whitman.

  When he knew something was right, he went for it, and he had no doubt that the two of them were meant to be together. It didn’t matter how their relationship had started. The bet, the meddling, none of it mattered. The point was that it had started, and now he couldn’t seem to focus on anything but her.

  It really didn’t help that he’d been called twice to Seattle this month for emergencies. It seemed the holidays were causing a lot of heart conditions. Maybe people should lay off on the eggnog and fudge. He normally lived to do surgery, and he’d done his job perfectly, but the second he’d finished with it, all he wanted to do was fall into Sage’s arms.