She told Joss about the proposal with Nathan Sellers falling through. And the rejection letter from a gallery that had arrived in the mail that morning. “And if you lecture me about persistence and not giving up hope,” Sarah said acidly, “I swear I’m going to scream.”
Joss chuckled. “I wouldn’t advise screaming on an airplane these days. People in uniform might meet you at the gate.”
In spite of her bad mood and her reluctance to be yanked out of it, Sarah smiled. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Look, I won’t pretend to know what an artist goes through to stay motivated and productive. The only thing I’ve ever known to do when I feel like I’m falling behind or when I’ve lost confidence in what I do is to work even harder. You probably don’t want to hear that.”
“You’re right, I don’t. Because right now I’m tempted to throw all my paints and brushes and canvases in the nearest industrial Dumpster. Soon as I get home.”
“Well, if it means anything, I don’t think you should. You’re very talented, Sarah. You’re extremely good at what you do, and it would be a real loss if you gave it up.”
Sarah felt her eyes widening in response. “How do you know I’m any good?”
“My mother has one of your paintings. It’s very good. I’d love to buy one myself sometime, if you’ll let me.”
“Thank you, but you’d have to buy a hell of a lot of my paintings to make up for all the time, energy and education I’ve put into them over the years.” Sarah smiled a little to take the sting out of her words, but she’d spoken the truth.
“I don’t want to buy one of your paintings out of charity, Sarah. If you were a stranger, I’d still pay top dollar for it, so please—stop discounting my interest in your work. You’re determined to be upset and pissed off—for which I don’t necessarily blame you—but I can’t snap my fingers and make you a famous artist.”
Anger bubbled up Sarah’s chest until it formed a hard, choking knot at the base of her throat. Who the hell did Joss think she was, talking to her this way? As if she were a child? What did she know of how long and hard she’d worked to be recognized as an artist? She’d probably worked as hard at her career as Joss had hers, although she didn’t have the bank account to prove it. “I’m not asking you to make me anything, Prince Charming.”
“Hmmm.” Joss smiled from one corner of her mouth. “Princess Charming, actually.”
Sarah’s anger dissipated as easily as it had come on. Joss had an uncanny and frustrating ability to fire her up until she wanted to throw something in anger. Then every bit as quickly, Joss would suck the wind from her sails and provide her a soft landing. “Did we just have another fight?”
Joss turned eyes on her that twinkled with relief. “I think so. And I remember how the last one ended.”
Heat returned to Sarah’s cheeks with a vengeance as she remembered the fiery kiss they’d shared in Joss’s car. The kiss they hadn’t brought up before now. “That’s quite the method you have of resolving disagreements. Too bad we’re on a plane, huh?”
“Ah, daring me now, are you?”
Sarah bit her lip to keep from laughing. And to keep the swell of excitement from deepening. “You were the one who talked about people in uniform waiting at the gate, not me.”
“Good point.”
Sarah looked through the window again as the plane began its descent over Lake Michigan. A freighter the size of a small pencil appeared below, looking as though it were standing still in the water, a miniature toy in a big blue bathtub. For the first time, the gloom that had been weighing her down all day felt much lighter and far less daunting. Her despair, she realized with surprise, had almost evaporated entirely.
“Thanks,” Sarah said to Joss, meaning it. “For cheering me up.”
“You’re welcome. Did I?”
“Yes, you did. And I’m sorry about the woe-is-me act. Artists can be a temperamental bunch, you know.”
“So I gather,” Joss replied, more teasing than rebuking. “Actually, it’s a nice change from the humorless, dour medical types who suddenly lose their ability to speak if you try to talk about anything other than medicine. Including myself.”
That was an exaggeration, Sarah knew, because she’d had little trouble drawing Joss and her colleagues into conversation about numerous topics, none of them related to medicine.
“Well, you’re certainly not dour or humorless.”
“And you don’t strike me as temperamental. Well…” Joss winked. “Not much, anyway.”
“Touché,” Sarah said, laughing. Lauren was the only other person in her life who could make her go from crying to laughing in about sixty seconds. She and Lauren had known each other since they were kids though. Joss was only a couple of notches above being a stranger, and yet there was a thread of familiarity between them that felt like it weaved back decades.
“Speaking of medical stuff,” Joss continued, “there’s someone I want you to meet when we get back to Nashville.”
“Oh no,” Sarah said, dreading the possibility that Joss was playing matchmaker. It would be so wrong, so objectionable, so…she didn’t know what, but matchmaker was not the role she wanted Joss to play in her life.
“Oh no, what?”
“You’re not going to try to set me up with someone, are you?”
Confusion deepened the lines around Joss’s eyes. “Do you want me to?”
“No!” Sarah snapped.
“Good.” Joss’s smile was a mix of satisfaction and relief. “We’re on the same page then.”
And what page is that? Sarah wanted to ask but didn’t. “So who is this mystery person?”
Joss went on to tell her about a young patient by the name of Roxi, a shy little girl who needed a new heart and whose artwork was surprisingly advanced for someone who, Joss had learned, was only nine years old. She might not have long to live, Joss warned, and art was the girl’s saving grace, a place where she could escape what had become a harsh and fatalistic reality for her. Sarah’s heart melted, not only for the little girl, but for Joss too. Joss hadn’t said much about how patients affected doctors, how the losses and the difficult cases might weigh on them, but Sarah could see that she was very much affected by the little girl’s plight.
“Of course I’ll do it. I’d be happy to meet with her.”
“Good. Thanks.”
Joss reached for her hand. Sarah expected her to pat it, but instead, she held onto it as the plane approached the O’Hare runway. Sarah clasped her fingers tightly. “No. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For pulling my head out of my ass. I needed that.”
Joss smiled smugly. “Well, since kissing you wasn’t an option…”
* * *
Joss wished for more separation between the two bedrooms in their hotel suite. Like different floors, perhaps. But it was a nice suite at least, with a view of Lake Michigan, a full kitchen, two bathrooms and a fifty-inch flat screen television. It wouldn’t be a bad place to hole up for a couple of days of vacation instead of a conference—except that led to thoughts of snuggling with Sarah on the sofa or cooking a meal together or enjoying a glass of wine together while taking in the view from the window. Other things began to crowd her mind as well, like kissing Sarah, like running her hands up and down the length of her silky thighs, like spanning her fingers across Sarah’s stomach, just beneath the swell of her breasts. There were parts of Sarah she wanted to kiss too, like the soft skin of her belly and the tantalizing valley between her breasts.
It was imperative that she banish such dangerous thoughts in favor of something more mundane. And more real. Like the presentation she would give tomorrow as well as tonight’s opening reception, which typically was a snore fest, although the buffets were usually good and the drinks were always on the house.
“Do I look okay?” Sarah said, adjusting an earring as she emerged from her bedroom.
Joss had known enough good-looking women over the years to
know Sarah’s question was rhetorical, but she had no trouble answering truthfully. “You look exceptional, Sarah.” And she did, in a perfectly fitted jade green dress that didn’t quite reach her knees and revealed one shoulder in a tasteful yet tantalizing way. Long dangling earrings matched the color of the dress, and so did her shoes, which lifted her to Joss’s height.
“Thank you,” Sarah replied, her soft pink glossed lips turning up in a smile. “You sure I’m not cramping your style by accompanying you to this thing tonight?”
“Absolutely not. You’ll be a pleasant distraction from what will be a dry-as-dirt reception. Ready to go? I’ve already called a cab.”
Twenty minutes later, a flute of bubbly in her hand, Joss busied herself scouting the buffet table. Bowls of salads, platters of four different styles of potatoes, a variety of hot vegetables and a small mountain of roast chicken, roast beef and pork tenderloin crammed every available space.
“Joss McNab, I thought that was you.”
Joss turned toward the familiar French accent, feeling anything but thrilled. Especially with Sarah standing a few feet away.
“Rebecca Despres. Nice to see you again.” Joss held out her hand, which Rebecca immediately ignored. She swept in and kissed Joss intimately on both cheeks.
“A handshake is no way to greet a former lover,” Rebecca said in a provocative purr.
“I suppose not,” Joss answered stiffly, shame heating her face. Although what she found shameful, she couldn’t say. She and Rebecca, a cardiologist from Paris, had hooked up at a similar conference in D.C. fourteen months ago. Their liaison had been respectful, mutual, good but not especially memorable. They’d not kept in touch.
Remaining close enough for her breath to flutter Joss’s hair, Rebecca whispered, “Hotel and room number?”
Joss took a step back. “I’m…” What? Not single anymore? That would be a lie, and yet she didn’t want to hook up with Rebecca—or any woman—right now. There was no reason for her to remain chaste, and yet, doing otherwise somehow felt…maybe not wrong, but not quite right.
“Don’t tell me you have a girlfriend?” Rebecca said in a voice thick with undisguised contempt. “We all have a girlfriend, darling.”
From behind, a hand softly landed on the small of Joss’s back. “Joss, honey. I would have figured you’d be all over that buffet table by now.”
Sarah was beside her, her hand still on Joss’s back—a possessive gesture that Joss found surprisingly satisfying, especially in Rebecca’s presence. Back off, we belong to each other, Sarah’s gesture implied. As did the territorial gleam in her eyes.
“Yup, guilty as charged, darling. Oh, Sarah, this is an old friend, Rebecca Despres. We were just catching up. Rebecca, may I introduce Sarah Young.”
The two women shook hands stiffly, and it was clear Rebecca was sizing Sarah up, making calculations and deductions that momentarily appeared to leave her disappointed. Her deceptively sweet smile wavered before failing completely.
“A pleasure,” the two women said simultaneously, though there was not a trace of enthusiasm in their voices or in their body language. They were two cats sharing a cage.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Joss said urgently to Sarah, steering her toward the lineup. “I’ll join you in just a second.”
She returned to Rebecca, who greeted her with a smile that belonged on someone who’d just won a Nobel in medicine.
“Just so you know,” Joss whispered, anxious to deflate Rebecca’s misguided expectations. “I don’t know about your girlfriend, but mine is something special. I’ll see you around, Rebecca. Oh, and happy hunting.”
Rebecca turned on her heel like a practiced drill sergeant and marched away, and Joss was almost giddy with relief. A sure thing with Rebecca paled in comparison with what she anticipated with Sarah tonight. Oh, there’d be no sex. And that was fine, because, she realized with a start, being with Sarah was more than enough to extinguish the loneliness that was occupying her soul these days. Without even trying, Sarah was becoming her port, a place where she could rest and recharge, a woman with whom she could be herself. She liked being with Sarah, and it was disorienting to realize she could get so much satisfaction from a relationship that was devoid of sex.
From a few feet away, Joss took a moment to observe Sarah, who was engaged in conversation with a short, pudgy, but well-tailored man in line ahead of her. Sarah chuckled warmly at something he said, said something back that made him smile widely, and Joss felt her heart expanding, lifting, making room for another person. She was a soaring kite whose tether was about to snap, and it was all because of Sarah.
The image brought Joss back to earth with a thud. Joss had never had her heart broken, had never wanted to risk it. But Sarah…Sarah was exactly the woman who could, if she let her in, do exactly that. Instinct told her that having her heart broken by Sarah would be like dying a million deaths—something she could do without, thank you very much.
With that sobering thought, Joss straightened her spine and stiffened her resolve. They would be friends. Good friends. But they could never be anything more.
Chapter Eleven
A little bit of Tennessee in a glass helped smooth out the turbulence that marked Sarah’s mood, but only a little. Joss had ordered a couple of mint juleps from the hotel lounge to bring back to their suite, and Sarah closed her eyes as she sipped the sweet and smoky concoction of mint and lemon and bourbon. Expensive bourbon too, her tongue told her. Clearly, Joss didn’t do anything in half measures. But then, why would she? She was a woman who was used to getting what she wanted, including women.
“Sorry,” Joss said, shedding her suit jacket and emitting a weary sigh as she took a seat on the sofa, leaving a respectable amount of space between them. “That reception was even more boring than I expected, which is not an easy thing to do.”
The distance between them, physical and otherwise, was a gulf as big as an ocean in Sarah’s mind. All evening long that French doctor had been sending bold glances their way, her big, imploring come-fuck-me eyes spearing Joss at every opportunity, her knowing smile seeming to brim with memories only the two of them were privy to. It was obvious they’d been lovers. Maybe still were. Or planned to be again. Joss had gone back and whispered something to Rebecca while Sarah was in line at the buffet. An invitation for later tonight perhaps or at some point over the next day and a half? The thought left a bitter taste in the back of her throat that the bourbon couldn’t expunge.
“What?” Joss said, setting her glass down.
“What do you mean, what?” Oh no, Sarah thought, I’m not going to act like the jealous sort-of-but-not-really girlfriend. We are so not going there!
“You look like you want to say something. Like you’re upset with me. What’s going on?”
Why did Joss have to be so damned pushy in demanding what was on her mind? About getting her to express her emotions? It was annoying, disturbing, that the challenges thrown down by Joss were so difficult to resist. And whenever Sarah rose to the bait, a rocky exchange between the two of them usually ensued.
“No. If I tell you what’s on my mind, we’ll only end up fighting. Then you’ll kiss me, and then where will we be?”
In one swift movement Joss eliminated the space between them. “You’re right. Let’s skip the fighting and head straight to the kissing.”
Sarah’s heart skipped a beat. She set her drink down. This was serious. Joss produced a smile, trying to disguise her comment as nothing but a flirtatious joke, but her eyes said she meant it, that she wanted to kiss Sarah more than she wanted to breathe.
“Joss—”
“Okay, I do want to kiss you, Sarah,” Joss said, a slow, rising heat to her voice. “I know it’s crazy, and I know I shouldn’t—can’t—want to, but I can’t seem to help it.” Her eyes had gone a bit wild, a bit reckless, almost pleading for Sarah to take the initiative, the way she had the one and only time they’d kissed.
Oh, God, Sarah thought,
swallowing against her suddenly dry throat. It was crazy, but she wanted to kiss Joss every bit as badly. She wanted to get lost in that mouth, disappear in Joss’s arms and never give another thought to her flagging career, her waning hopes, nor to the fact that she and Joss were only pretending to date. Losing herself in Joss, she knew, would be temporary insanity and would do nothing to solve any of the issues in her life. She didn’t need the sweet but pointless diversion of kissing. And she sure as hell didn’t need rescuing, didn’t need Joss to be her savior. The realization dashed cold water on the nuclear reactor her body had become.
She pushed a hand lightly against Joss’s rapidly rising and falling chest. “I’m not your damsel in distress. Your project. And I don’t need you kissing me into next year so I can be your possession.”
Joss stiffened, clenched her jaw once, twice. “Is that what you think you are to me?”
“Am I?”
“Absolutely not. I don’t collect things and I don’t take on ‘projects,’ as you call it. I have enough of a godlike complex in my work as a surgeon, thank you very much. I’m not looking for it in my private life too.”
Sarah laughed. She didn’t mean to, but it was funny, and she needed an outlet for her tangled emotions.
Joss’s frown deepened, spreading across her face like an advancing storm front. And then a smile broke through, so radiant that Sarah immediately felt the tension snap. “I wasn’t trying to be funny, but I do like making you laugh.”
“You make me laugh a lot, Joss, and I adore that. And I want to kiss you, but not as your hired help and most definitely not because I’m a charity case.”
Joss’s face flushed with fresh anger. “I never kiss hired help and I only do charity that comes with a tax receipt. Look. I don’t own the book on what the hell is going on between us, but can’t we just be two single women who enjoy kissing one another?” Softly, her anger receding, she added, “I want to kiss you because you’re beautiful. I want to kiss you because you’ve somehow managed to reach in and touch me in a place that hasn’t been touched, ever. I want to kiss you for who you are and not for what you aren’t or what you wish you were.”
By Mutual Consent Page 9
