The yellow lines of the parking lot blurred in and out of focus. “How would you know anything about it?”
“Because Whitney asked me to check her records.”
He dared to say her name out loud. All was fine until that man’s lips—once a vital part of Whitney’s life—formed the syllables Matt couldn’t say out loud. “I have never punched a man in my life, but I have to warn you, I’m dangerously close to changing my views on violence as a means of solving my problems.”
“And I’ve punched more men than you probably care to find out,” Jared returned calmly. “So go right ahead.”
They stood at a stalemate for a full minute before Matt realized how ridiculous the whole situation was—a thought bolstered by the sight of Laura coming out of the café located around the corner and behind the doctor’s office.
“What’s she doing getting coffee instead of seeing her doctor?” he wondered out loud, watching as she tossed an empty paper cup in the garbage and checked her phone. He looked at Jared and back at his ex-wife, no answers making themselves clear in the meantime.
“Whitney wanted to tell you herself, but maybe you should go talk to your ex-wife instead. I think you might have a lot to discuss.” He gestured at his watch. “I should go. I have surgery at two. Can we pretend this whole conversation never happened?”
“Nothing would make me happier,” Matt said, but he was already jogging up to Laura and didn’t catch what, if anything, Jared had to say in return.
“What are you doing?” Matt took Laura’s arm as she stepped down from the sidewalk. He led her to a black bistro set on the café patio, making sure she was settled comfortably in her seat before taking the one opposite her. “You promised us you’d talk to a doctor today. This isn’t a joke or some kind of game. This is your life we’re talking about.”
“Oh, you know.” Laura’s eyes filled with tears and she waved her hand. “I, uh, just couldn’t do it.”
“What do you mean, you couldn’t do it?” And why had Whitney asked Jared to check Laura’s records? There was no possible benefit to that, unless...no. It was too awful to even contemplate. “What’s going on here?”
Laura’s fingers trembled. They did that a lot lately, but Matt had assumed it was part of the illness. Now, he realized, it might actually be fear.
“Oh, Matt. I’m so sorry.”
“What aren’t you telling me—why are you here eating scones instead of seeing a doctor? And why do you refuse to answer all our questions about your diagnosis?”
“It’s not what you think.”
Had Jared been telling the truth? Oh, God. Had Whitney? “You mean it’s not cancer?”
Her lower lip trembled.
“Laura,” he warned, not fooled for a second.
“It’s mono!” she wailed.
Matt sat, stunned and immobile. A gust of wind picked up around him, lifting the edges of Laura’s dress, playing with her hair and painting her in the delicate image that had so long existed inside his memory. But when the wind fell flat, bringing her crashing down with it, Matt felt as though he, too, had been cast upon the ground.
“When you say it’s mono, you mean a special kind of cancer, right?” he asked slowly. “That’s a new name for it?”
Laura shook her head miserably and began playing with the bracelets around her wrist. “No. I mean it’s mono. The kissing disease. I probably got it from William, and it’s just now taking hold. The doctor says that between the virus and my stress about us and everything...”
“Us?” Matt shook his head as if to clear it. “Stress about us?” His voice was overloud, he knew, and the couple the next table over were listening with a keen tilt to their heads, but he didn’t care. How many books had he read on ovarian cancer in the past month? How many times had he delayed his plans with Whitney to take care of Laura?
How much of my life have I already sacrificed to this woman?
“It was just so hard when you left.” Laura’s voice cracked, and the eavesdropping couple scooted closer. “Everyone hated me for what I did—my dad, my sister, even my supposed friends had this way of getting quiet whenever I came near. And what with the house and trying to find a job and William dumping me...I don’t think I ever realized how much I depended on you for everything.”
“Not everything,” he said coldly.
Laura burst into tears. The woman the next table over handed her a napkin, which Laura promptly buried her face in. “And then for the first few months, you were so nice about checking in and making sure I was okay. That is, until you started dating that woman.”
Matt’s heart stopped. “Don’t you dare call her that woman.”
“You know what I mean. You disappeared, you moved on without me.” She sniffled loudly. “And then I began to feel really sick and you started coming around again. The doctors really did suspect cancer at first—that much wasn’t a lie. But when the diagnosis for mono came through, I was afraid you’d start pulling away again. Can you blame me? Can you really be mad at me for holding on to whatever I could of us?”
“Yes.” He got up from his chair, feeling cold all over. “I can.”
“Wha—” Laura’s jaw fell open and she scrambled to get out of her chair.
Matt turned his back on her, trying to gather his thoughts, attempting to moderate his billowing rage into something that wouldn’t make him look like a man transformed into a monster on the street.
And then he gave up.
“I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been.” He kicked the empty chair and squared off to face her. She took a cautionary step back, and Matt didn’t feel an urge to stop her. He felt proud of that. “You cheated on me—how is that in any way not clear? You took another man to your bed—our bed—on more than one occasion. And you’re the one who asked me for a divorce. Don’t you remember? You couldn’t pretend anymore, that’s what you said. We’d lost our connection and you hated to live a lie. You wouldn’t even try counseling.”
“I was wrong, I know that now.”
“We were both wrong.” He caught sight of the woman at the next table giving him a small fist pump, cheering him on. “You shouldn’t have thrown us away like that without even trying to fight. And I shouldn’t have stuck around as long as I did trying to make you feel better about the choices you made. Whitney was right.”
Laura had been doing nothing but manipulating him for months. And he’d let her.
“You don’t love her. Not like you love me.”
“That’s one thing you have absolutely right.” He was yelling now, channeling all the fury he’d flung so carelessly at Whitney into its proper channel for once. “I love her more than you’ll ever know.”
And if it wasn’t too late, he might have a chance to keep doing just that.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“What do you mean, you ran into him in the parking lot?”
“Well, in the most accurate sense of the word, he ran into me,” Jared said. “Quite purposefully. He’s very angry, your young man.”
“He’s not that young,” Whitney muttered. “And you’re sure it was Epstein-Barr? I was right about her diagnosis?”
“Of course I am. I haven’t been out of the medical world that long.” Jared released a well-worn sigh, a sound Whitney remembered as mounting frustration and a sign he was about to revert to imperious surgeon mode. “Can I be done with your relationship drama now? I really do have that patient at two, and the medical assistant you guys hired is just awful.”
“We had limited options,” Whitney retorted, but the irritable banter felt good. Normal. Friendly, even. “If you don’t like it, you know where the nearest airport is.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Jared started to leave, but he paused, his hand on her office door. “I’m glad you found someone who
can stand your awful personality, Whitney. I didn’t think it could be done.”
“Now all you have to do is find someone who can stand your awful face,” she said sweetly, not daring to suggest that she might not actually have Matt at all. “Unless you’d like me to do a little something about that overhanging brow ridge?”
“Don’t you dare start.” With that, Jared closed the door behind him.
It opened seconds later, and she formed another clever retort to throw at him. Fortunately, she called it back at the last second, helped along by the sudden lack of air in the room.
“Matt.”
He stood in the doorway, a picture of the first night they’d met. Ugly jacket, awkward confidence, a hint of dimples. Was it on purpose? Did he know how the sight of those heinous elbow patches made her heart swell?
It was all she could do not to launch herself across the room at him. “You’re here.”
“Of course I am. I came as soon as I found out.”
She rose from her desk hesitantly, bracing herself on the glass top, leaving an array of sweaty fingerprints behind. “Found out about what?”
“Mono.”
An overwhelming urge to giggle struck her, and Whitney clapped her free hand over her mouth. There was nothing funny about this situation—she’d never been closer to losing the most important thing in her life, and she wasn’t about to ruin her last chance with a poorly timed fit of hilarity.
“What?” Matt stepped forward, concern darkening his eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Say it again,” she ordered.
A look of confusion passed over his face, but it didn’t last long. He caught the amusement in Whitney’s voice. “Mononucleosis,” he said, drawing out each syllable.
This time, a full laugh escaped. “Oh, Matt. I’m so sorry you had to find out like that.” And she was sorry—about the method. Not that the truth had finally come to light. “It was the rash that gave it away. Can you believe I asked her about her symptoms in public? At a restaurant where dozens of people were gorging on pasta?”
“Yes, I can believe it.” Matt’s eyes twinkled. “When have you ever held anything back?”
That was all the cue she needed. Releasing her grasp on the desk, she threw herself at Matt, never more grateful for anything than when he caught her open-armed.
“Never. I’ve never held back and I’m not going to start now,” she said into his lapel. It felt so good to be pressed in his arms—so right—she didn’t dare look up for fear of what she’d see in his face. “I’m sorry you caught me embracing Jared, but you have to know that there is nothing between the two of us. Not like that.”
“I believe you,” Matt said into her hair, his arms tightening around her.
She felt brave enough to push harder. “And even though I know you don’t like him, he’s going to be a part of my life now. You can’t fly into a jealous rage every time we have to be alone together.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
She pulled back and stared at him, taking in the chagrin that made him look so much like a man she could spend the rest of her life with. “But you are allowed to tell me how you feel about Jared—and to have a say in how he and I move forward in our lives together. Just like I expect to be able to say things about you and Laura. We’ve got baggage, you and I. Lots of it. The least we can do is help each other carry it.”
The look of chagrin only deepened. “I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you about her. I was so sure I was doing the right thing, taking the high road.”
“I hear the high road is pretty lonely.”
“It is. And I think I lost my permanent membership when I walked in on you and Jared and acted like such a possessive ass. I have no excuse for the way I reacted, other than that it was the exact moment when everything I felt for Laura—all those awful feelings of jealousy and rage and betrayal I refused to let loose—came rushing to the surface. I didn’t know what to do with them, so I just threw them, let them fly, not caring where they landed. I’m sorry you had to play catcher.”
Matt’s eyes shone with emotion, and she let herself bask in it.
“It’s funny,” she replied. “That was almost the exact moment I realized that all the jealousy and rage and betrayal I felt towards Jared was a poor substitute for taking a long, hard look at my own life. I blamed him for my faults, thought that if he took all the responsibility for our breakup, I’d have a good excuse to never open myself up again.”
“And now?”
She reached up and traced the outside of his lips, a soft and intimate gesture that spiked her blood. “Did you really move back in with Laura? I’m half afraid I’m going to get mono if I kiss you.”
He let out a soft laugh. “No. And I was never going to. I came to your office that day to tell you about it and see if you had any insight about how to turn her down.”
“Oh, that would have been easy.”
One of Matt’s hands snaked around her waist, the other coming up behind her head, pulling her close. “It would?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She smiled. “You would have been forced to tell her that you’ve already made new living arrangements. With me.”
He almost dropped her. “Are you serious?”
“I want you barefoot in my kitchen, Matt Fuller. It’s where you belong.”
She didn’t hear his answer, but she assumed it was a yes. She was far too busy falling into the endless pleasures of his kiss to care either way.
Epilogue
“Your sister is the single most terrifying human being I have ever met.” Whitney hid behind Matt and slipped off her shoes. Without her heels, she could safely hide most of her body behind his broad shoulders and loose-fitting jacket. “Please don’t let her ask me any more medical questions. I’m begging you.”
“Trenton has this tiny recurring rash I meant to ask you about,” Hilly boomed, drawing closer. Matt’s shoulders—her supposed protection—shook with laughter. “He won’t let me check it because it’s on his S-C-R-O-T-U-M. But you’re a doctor. You’re pretty. You’re young. Maybe he’ll let you look at it.”
“Oh, God, Hilly.” Matt gave in to his laughter. “I can promise you that the last thing any boy his age wants is a young, pretty doctor checking his parts for signs of infection. Make him a real appointment with your family practitioner. And please leave my girlfriend alone.”
Hilly muttered something about selfish, hoarding brothers and stomped back into the kitchen, where a cauldron that smelled like a mildewing fish tank bubbled.
“I told you I was going to make you meet my sister,” Matt said triumphantly, whisking Whitney from behind him and encapsulating her in his arms. He kissed her lightly on the nose. “And I told you the experience was right up there with botflies and tapeworms. But it’s too late now. You’re one of us.”
Whitney stiffened.
“What?” Matt’s brow lowered, and he pulled away. “I thought you were excited about this meeting the family stuff. I thought it was what you wanted.”
“It is what I want,” she replied. God, he was so easy to rile up. “But I can’t hear the word botfly anymore without getting turned on. You don’t want to know what happens when I look at a picture of a tapeworm.”
His eyes flew open and he scanned his sister’s living room, a vintage patchwork of wood paneling, shag carpeting and the most adorable family photos of Matt growing up. “Here? Now?”
She kissed him softly, her lips a promise against his. “Anywhere. Always.”
“My sister is never going to forgive us if we miss dinner.” His voice low, Matt pulled her closer, their bodies pressed tight. Tapeworms seemed to have quite the positive effect on him too. “She might even refuse to cook for us ever again.”
Whitney grinned. “Maybe we’ll have to take the whole family out next week
to make up for it. I could invite my parents to join us. Who knows? Hilly might have all sorts of complex legal questions she’d like my dad to answer for free.”
“And if that doesn’t work out, he could always just take a look at Trenton’s S-C-R-O-T-U-M.”
Whitney threw her head back and laughed. Never, in all her years of casual relationships and forty-eight hour hospital shifts, had she thought happiness would be this easy. It was a sweet, caring man who always remembered to kiss her goodnight. It was a business she loved and her friends by her side. And most important, it was finding acceptance against all odds.
Her life in Pleasant Park might technically be just beginning, and she was pretty sure there were morality battles galore waiting on the road ahead, but Whitney was absolutely certain of one thing.
She was home.
* * * * *
About the Author
Tamara Morgan is a contemporary romance author of humorous, heartfelt stories with flawed heroes and heroines designed to get your hackles up and make your heart melt. Her long-lived affinity for romance novels survived a BA degree in English literature, after which time she discovered it was much more fun to create stories than analyze the life out of them.
Whether building Victorian dollhouses, consuming mass quantities of coffee and wine, or crying over cheesy 1950s musicals, Tamara commits to her flaws like every good heroine should. She lives in the Inland Northwest with her husband, daughter and variety of household pets, and only occasionally complains about the weather.
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The Rebound Girl (Getting Physical) Page 30