Something else. Something more. Something he didn’t quite appreciate, because he didn’t want it. He wasn’t looking for it.
The moment passed, and with it, so did his strange reaction which would, of course, never happen again.
“So you’re coming, then.”
“Don’t sound so happy about it.”
Her straight-faced quip had him grinning before he knew it.
“I’m afraid this is new territory for me.”
“I suppose it is. Something going according to somebody else’s plan instead of yours—how could you cope?”
She was, he realized, teasing him. Nobody had teased him in so long. Not since Abby had left him.
“I’m sorry.”
The quiet words had him looking at her in surprise.
“I’m sorry for bringing up whatever you thought of now. I recognize sadness.”
“I... It’s nothing.”
She shrugged, an elegant gesture that barely had her moving, but he noticed that her hand had unclenched.
“I won’t pry. But you don’t have to lie to me, Dave.”
Was it the first time she’d called him by his given name? Why did it make his heart pick up its pace yet again?
“Tomorrow, then.”
“You don’t have to make time for me. I can entertain myself if Meg is busy.”
Dave paused.
“You don’t think very highly of me, do you?”
She grinned at him, and something clutched at him deep in his belly.
Oh, this was trouble, wasn’t it? He knew what trouble felt like and this sure felt like it.
“Maybe you can change my mind tomorrow.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Thank you for coming down here to invite me personally. It wasn’t necessary but I appreciate it very much.”
Dave nodded.
“Of course, doctor.”
“Call me Tamara.”
He took a moment before he said it.
“Tamara.”
The sound rolled over his tongue, escaped his lips like a caress, and he knew he was in trouble. Of course, it was nothing he couldn’t handle. He just needed to take a step away and build another wall. He knew all about building walls.
She nodded, unaffected by hearing her name on his lips, to his disappointment, and Dave took his cue to leave, even if his legs felt a little wobbly.
What was it about her that could do that to him? He hadn’t felt it like that—not like that—the first time he’d met her, when she'd been cool and composed, and in complete control. But this time, with that vulnerability shining through, and that strength that kept that vulnerability locked in, he'd lost something to her.
Dave walked out of the deliberately calming suite of rooms and slowly felt like himself again.
Well, that had been something. So, she would be there, in his home, the next day. That was going to be interesting.
But for all her talk about what Meg needed, he had a feeling that there was more to it than that. He remembered enough of her conversation on the phone to figure out that she was looking for an escape, and his home was going to be one.
Well, he wouldn’t pry.
But he didn’t like leaving things unfinished. He definitely didn’t like feeling at a loss of any kind. He was going to take care of that.
The good doctor might find that her escape wasn’t quite as simple and uncomplicated as she might be hoping for.
***
Tamara let out a sigh of relief that came from the very depth of her being.
Wow.
Wow, what was that?
The air had crackled with electricity. She could practically still see the sparks flying in his wake.
Sure, the last time she’d seen him, she’d acknowledged that he was a very attractive man. This time, she’d been punched in the gut with it. This time, he’d come to her with doubt and uncertainty in his eyes, not quite hidden as well as he thought they were, and she'd found herself responding to that in ways she hadn’t responded to his confidence and his assurance that he knew what needed to be done at all times.
Well, damn.
“Good morning! We have your... Are you all right? What happened?”
Georgina flew in and crouched down next to where Tamara sat, all concern, obviously ready to fight a battalion of demons if necessary. The fierce loyalty was appreciated, as always. And as always, Tamara knew that she needed to fight her own battles. There would be no princes ready to sweep her away from all her problems. There would be no knight in shining armor for her.
She’d made that mistake once, and she was still paying for it, wasn’t she? Quite literally. She’d just got her bank statement for the previous month and just thinking of it made her wince. Maybe it had been a mistake to give Terry so much money. But since when had she been able to stand her ground with him? The only time she’d managed to do that was when she’d finally left him.
“Nothing, nothing’s wrong. You’re early.”
“I know, there was absolutely no traffic, can you believe it? Did your father call again? Did Mr. Burke call?”
Tamara smiled.
“If they did, I’d have to handle it anyway, wouldn’t I? Don’t worry, I’m fine. Let’s get our day started, shall we?”
Georgina hesitated, but she let it go.
“All right, then. But you have lunch with Felicity.”
“Oh!”
“She’s going away for the weekend, remember?”
“That’s right, she is. With her boyfriend.”
“I don’t think she’d appreciate him being called that,” said Georgina with a smirk, and Tamara had to chuckle.
“Probably not. Well, let’s get through the morning and then we’ll get through lunch,” decided Tamara, and set everything else out of her mind.
Or at least, she tried.
***
“You’re kidding!”
Tamara shook her head.
“I wish.”
“Seriously, your father wants to invite himself and his new girlfriend over to your mother’s Fourth of July party.”
Tamara sighed.
“That’s what he said.”
“But your father hates your mother’s parties.”
Tamara shrugged, a little defeated.
“He does, but most of the, you know, respectable members of the family go to mama’s party, and there are all her friends there, and you know how her friends gossip and decide who's accepted and who isn't.”
“Her friends,” said Felicity, rolling her eyes. “That’s one way of putting it. So your dad wants to take his trophy girlfriend and let all of those women judge her.”
Tamara sighed again. She was beginning to feel like she might be changing weather patterns with all the sighing she’d been doing.
“I know. None of it is fair. I’ve been trying to get him to change his mind, mama needs more time than that. She does, you know. Even if they do end up getting married, he’ll have to either live with knowing that his new wife isn’t going to be accepted by the people at church and all of those friends they used to have, or he’ll have to just keep them separate. It’s not like he’s had trouble keeping his lives separate before. I don’t know why he’s being so headstrong about this.”
Felicity hesitated.
“You met Tricia, didn’t you?”
“I did. She’s nice enough, really. Not much going on up there, but there isn’t a spiteful bone in her body. Or so it seems. She’s really sweet.”
“Dumb but sweet, yes, that’s what I hear too.”
“Do you know what the weird thing is? She really seems to be in love with dad. Can you imagine that? She’s really young enough to be his grandchild, all things considered, and he sees nothing wrong with all of this. She’s about fifteen years younger than I am!”
Felicity patted her hand.
“Well, how about we make this a wine lunch? Sounds like you could use some of that.”
Tamara shook her
head.
“You know I can’t, I’m working. Anyway, it wouldn’t help.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be there to help you tomorrow. I can cancel my trip and be there and we can handle this together.”
Tamara sat back, a very resolute look on her face, and she shook her head.
“No, you won’t, because I won’t be there.”
It was, Tamara reflected, a little satisfying to shock Felicity like that. Her best friend was so worldly that she was frequently unshockable. Well, she’d done it. She'd finally gone ahead and done it.
She’d shocked her best friend.
“You what?”
“I'm not going to be there.”
“You're going to let your parents go at it without playing referee?”
Tamara shrugged and ruthlessly ground the guilt down beneath her mental stilettos.
“I am. They're both fully grown adults, or so they claim to be. They can handle their own problems.”
“Leticia is going to handle her own problems? Donald is going to handle his own problems?”
“Are you trying to change my mind? Haven’t you been trying to get me to let my parents sort their own problems out without getting in the middle? How long have you been telling me that I need to do that?”
“Whoa, okay, calm your tits my girl. I have, and you should, but I thought maybe you would consider easing into it instead of leaping right in like that. I don’t think your mother has even handled a loose hinge on one of the doors of her kitchen cupboards on her own without calling somebody to help her.”
Tamara was stoic.
“If she needs somebody to help with her kitchen cupboards, I’ll find her somebody.”
“So you’re just going to let them... duke it out.”
“I hope they won’t. I think dad is counting on me being there to handle the fallout, and if I tell him I won’t be there, maybe he’ll change his mind.”
Felicity’s eyes narrowed.
“Hold on, I need wine.”
She signaled for wine, was served in short order, and sat back.
“So, you,” said Felicity, pointing at Tamara with a fork, “are going to hide out all weekend to avoid facing your parents, in the hope that it will head off a confrontation between your parents and your father’s new girlfriend.”
Tamara didn't like the ring of truth in that, so of course she had to correct Felicity.
“No. I have other plans and I'm not going to break my plans to get in the middle of my parent’s mess, not this time.”
Felicity put her fork and her wine down with quiet clinks.
“Do not tell me that you plan to spend the weekend with Terry, Mara. Just do not. Don’t even think about it.”
Tamara grinned.
“I am definitely not.”
“Then what plans do you have?”
Tamara bristled.
“Do you think I have no life?”
“Well, you do, but your life is mostly your work, and your family, and you have friends but you’re not really close to any of them except me. Are you going to Georgina’s family for their barbecue? I know you have a standing invitation, they love you.”
Tamara shook her head.
“No, actually. I’m going to David Wilson’s party.”
It was gratifying to see Felicity’s jaw drop like that.
“What!”
“You heard me.”
“The David Wilson?”
Tamara shrugged.
“Sure.”
“How? Why? What for?”
“I know his daughter. She wants me to be there. It’s important to her, so I’m going.”
Felicity shook her head.
“Wait, is she one of your patients?”
Tamara neither confirmed nor denied.
“Mara, isn’t that a little... not quite kosher?”
Tamara shrugged.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, not strictly. It would help, actually, for me to see what her life is like. It’s nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary?”
Incredulous, Felicity drank the rest of her wine and faced her best friend.
“You,” she pointed out, “refused to attend weddings because you didn’t want to get involved. You went to one christening and then agonized over whether that was ethical for so long that I had to get pizza to get through it. I ate pizza, Mara. Pizza. That tasted like cardboard. And now you’re telling me that you’re going to a party at David Wilson’s mansion—because it is a mansion—and it’s all fine? What’s going on? No, don’t lie to me. Tell me exactly what’s going on. Or else.”
Tamara frowned.
“It’s nothing. It’s just...”
Uncomfortable, she looked away.
“You... like him.”
“What? No! That's ridiculous.”
Felicity sat back and shook her head.
“You know you can’t lie to me, Mara. You like him. That is crossing a line, you know that.”
“Since when are you the keeper of my conscience?” snapped Tamara.
Felicity raised her hands.
“I'm not. I won’t say another word. But promise me that you won’t lie to yourself about this.”
“I’m not,” insisted Tamara, and Felicity dropped the subject, at least for the moment.
But Tamara had an uncomfortable feeling that her friend might have been more right than wrong.
Maybe.
Chapter 6
Not knowing it, Tamara stood outside the gates that led to the Wilson mansion—and it was a mansion, of course it was, it was probably as forbidding as the man itself when you got inside. What was she even doing there, what was she thinking, what was wrong with her—and exactly what had Dave done outside her own clinic’s door a day ago?
She took a deep breath and argued with herself, knowing that there was no talking herself out of it because she'd made the commitment. She had to do it.
Besides, unsettling as this was, it was better than the alternative. She’d told her father that she wouldn’t be at her mother’s, and he'd reluctantly changed his plans. Then he'd called her ex-husband, who had called and tried to cajole her into going to his place for the celebrations.
She knew what he wanted from that.
Then her mother had called, and cried and raged at her, accusing her of being a bad daughter who knew no love or duty, who didn't appreciate the sacrifices Leticia had made to give her a stable home, everything she'd put up with until she'd finally agreed to that divorce for Tamara’s sake, ruining her own life.
Tamara had listened, tried to tell herself that none of it was true, that her parents were responsible for their own decisions and their own choices. She tried to let her patients believe that, didn’t she? She needed to believe it, too.
We are all responsible for ourselves, she said in her head, and took another deep breath.
And she'd made a choice. She would be responsible and follow through, if only because not doing so would hurt a young woman she cared about very deeply.
Meghan deserved better than to be used as a pawn for her to get away from the drama of her own family, but it was worse, far worse, to be let down.
To be disappointed.
That young woman had had to deal with enough of that already. No more, not because of her.
Tamara took stock of her surroundings.
The wall along the boundary of the land that should cost a fortune was no surprise. Neither was the very sturdy and very closed gate.
She'd been dropped off a block away by the cab, and she’d tried to use the walk to clear her head. But there she was, and there was no putting it off anymore.
The intercom system was very obvious. She supposed it needed to be.
The gate was very closed and very unwelcoming.
She supposed that too was serving the purpose it had been designed for.
She pressed the button and leaned in.
“Name?”
Th
e question came before she could say anything.
“Tamara Jackson.”
“Dr. Jackson, welcome to the Wilson residence. We’re opening the gate for you. Do you need to be picked up?”
“Picked up?”
“It’s about two minutes to the house if you prefer to walk.”
“I’ll walk.”
“Then just follow the driveway and you’ll be there.”
“Thanks,” said Tamara, a little nonplussed.
Well, she supposed security of this kind was necessary for a family like that.
She didn’t hear much of a party going on as she stepped inside and the gates closed behind her.
Stalling—she could admit that—she looked around. It was beautifully landscaped, with trees lining the drive, what looked like expertly planted and tended gardens that looked like a wildflower meadow with little rockeries and streams, and a weeping willow that trailed its leaves in a small pond.
She walked up the drive, and slowly the sounds of a party started filtering through. It was all muted, as if people were too subdued to be making noise. It was obviously not the kind of raucous and rowdy party that Felicity preferred. She’d taken Tamara along a couple of times and despite herself, and with the help of a glass or three of wine, she’d loosened up and had fun.
Now she could see the stable of cars. They looked like they were parked in an actual converted stable.
And now she could really hear the sounds, people talking, laughing, music.
She made the final turn and saw the mansion—it was a mansion, sure, but it was lovely. It was warm and charming, just the kind of place where you’d want a child growing up. The whole place, she realized, had been created with a child in mind. The colors were gentle but bright, with porches and porticos, pretty blue trim, a climbing rose on a trellis—it was everything she might have dreamed of when she was a child and hoping, somehow, for a home that still felt like a home.
A place made for Meghan, thought Tamara.
As if she’d conjured the girl from her mind, Meghan popped out of the door and ran down, dressed in a riot of colors and looking so different from the blank girl she’d been that first time they’d met.
“You’re here! Dr. Jackson, you came! You said you’d come and you’re here!”
Over 40 And Head Over Heels: BWWM, Over 40's, Billionaire Romance (BWWM Romance Book 1) Page 6