by Fiona Lowe
“Let me guess. You’re older and wiser, and you’ve taken some kind of vow against marriage. You’re never going near it again.”
Edie laughed. “Well, maybe I won’t go quite that far. But I did take a vow that the next one has to be the right one. The one and only. And my list of qualifications going in is pretty long, and stringent.”
“You have a list?”
“That’s the only way to do it these days. You decide what you want, and—”
“And go shopping with your list.” A fake frown covered his face. One that gave way to an amused grin. “I think you’re on to something, Edie. Maybe I should make a list of my own.”
“Starting with?” she asked.
“Hands down, this is the list topper. She has to make me laugh. Everything else is negotiable.”
“Then you’re pretty easy to please. Some lucky lady’s going to find you irresistible just for that alone.”
“That alone?” He faked a wince. “That cuts to the core of my ego. A man likes to live in this delusion that he’s irresistible in other ways. You know, that list thing. Most men do have their lists.”
And Rafe’s was a very long list. In fact, there was practically nothing about him that wasn’t irresistible. Which was turning into a big problem. “Well, in the defense of some men, maybe it’s not a delusion. Of course, maybe the list isn’t as long as they think it is either. But I suppose irresistible is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? And depending on the beholder, that list could be very long, or very short. So, if your only real requirement is that she has to make you laugh …” Edie leaned across the table to him. “I won’t say this too loud since you apparently don’t want to get caught, but you could be a sitting duck if you want to be. Look around you, Dr. Corbett. The world is full of women just waiting for the snap of a finger.”
He leaned even closer to Edie. “The thing is, Miss Parker, I’m probably the hardest man to please you’ll ever meet because I don’t laugh.”
She pulled back then folded her arms across her chest. “But you do, Rafe. All the time. Especially around Molly.”
“So to you that means that Molly is the one who’s supposed to catch me?”
“So to me that means you don’t know yourself as well as you think you do.”
“And you know me better than I know myself?”
Edie didn’t answer that. She didn’t have to, because the answer was obvious. At least, to her it was. In this matter, she did know him better. Which meant her biggest task was to introduce Rafe Corbett to Rafe Corbett. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. More than that, she wasn’t sure how yet.
The next fifteen minutes passed in a nondescript blur of inconsequential small talk—weather, current events, hospital—over a frosty pitcher of beer and, finally, a pizza. “Aunt Grace used to bring me here,” he said, as the server made a tableside production of cutting the pizza into slices. “Lilly Lake’s done a lot of growing since I’ve been gone, but this place … nice memories. Not much change either. Especially here,” he said, taking Edie’s plate and holding it up for the first slice.
“It is nice,” she agreed. Nice ambiance, the smell of the pizzas was wonderful, the servers all friendly. she felt good here. Felt like she belonged, which was something she hadn’t felt since her mother … “We used to have a little deli down the street. It was a lot like this place. Not fancy, but nice. You felt welcome, and sometimes, when my mother was feeling up to it.” She smiled, fighting back the memory. They hadn’t been able to afford the deli, but Mr. Rabinowicz, the owner, had never turned them away.
“You mother was sick?”
This wasn’t the topic of conversation she’d hoped for over dinner, but she’d started it, after all. “Sometimes … most of the time. But we managed …” She smiled sadly. “Most of the time.”
“Care to talk about it?”
“There’s not a lot to say, really.” She stared down at the slice of pizza on her plate. Didn’t want to see his expression, didn’t want to see his sympathy, or pity, as the case may be. She’d seen that too often in her life, didn’t want any more of it. “My mother had pernicious anemia. It was diagnosed when I was seven and lasted until, well …” She didn’t have to say the words. He was a doctor. He knew the consequences of a condition where, in even the best cases, survival was measured in remissions and relapses that never stretched out into a normal life span. “Mum had good days as well as bad ones in the early years then we hit a mid-point where the doctors thought she might be achieving some sort of remission. False hope, of course. But it was nice while it lasted. Then came the relapse, and as the disease progressed to its end stage, the bad days started outweighing the good ones. That’s the nature of the disease, as you know, and the more debilitated my mother became, the more I took care of her. Consequently, I had more responsibility at home than most girls my age did.” Finally, she gained the courage to look at his face, and what she saw there was so compassionate it brought tears to her eyes. He wasn’t pitying her, or looking at her as some kind of martyr. He was simply understanding her words, maybe even understanding a little bit of her heart. Which scared her in ways she didn’t understand, in ways she didn’t want to understand.
“And you wouldn’t trade those years for anything, would you?” he asked.
“No, I wouldn’t. My mother was this wonderful fount of so much knowledge and love, and I never saw her frown, never even saw her get angry. I mean, she went through the worst, things you can’t even imagine, and she did it with so much grace and strength. She had a tough life, raising me alone, not much money coming in, always up and down in her health, but she never complained, never felt sorry for herself.” “No father?”
Edie shook her head. “He left before I was born. Didn’t want the responsibility. The only thing my mother ever said about him was that he didn’t have the heart for it.”
“Kind words for a man who didn’t deserve them.” Rafe said, not even trying to hide the bitterness in his voice.
“Maybe he didn’t, maybe he did. I’ll never know, because he was killed when I was a toddler. My mother always said that he was a sad man who didn’t know how to follow his heart, and that’s how I like to think of him … as a sad man. And the thing is, even though I never met him, what I learned from him is that people don’t follow their hearts the way they should. They get so caught up in what society expects or dictates, or whatever other trappings are out there ready to grab them, they forget to follow their hearts. But every day my mother showed me how much that mattered, showed me how to do just that, no matter what else was going on.”
“She sounds like she was an amazing woman,” he said, as sadness washed down over his face. “I’m sorry she’s gone now. Sorry I’ll never have the chance to know her.”
“She was amazing, and I’m sorry about the way your father treated you. Grace told me some of it, and there are rumors … it was horrible, Rafe. You deserved better. But you had your aunt.” She reached across the table and took hold of his hand. “Grace found me when I was pretty lost, you know. Sheltered life, failed marriage, fresh out of college a decade later than I should have been and totally without a clue, and there she was, a great big miracle in a tiny, feisty package, crooking her finger at me, telling me to follow her.” She paused, swiped at a stray tear that had found its way down her cheek. “I’m glad I did, because what I have found in Lilly Lake is … everything.” Her path finally restored. “I’m happy here, and I’m sorry you can’t be.”
“It’s that obvious?”
She shook her head. “Grace warned me.”
He chuckled. “It seems my aunt was the prognosticator of a great many things.”
“And a good judge of pizza,” she said, picking up her slice, glad for the opportunity to change the subject. She held it out to touch it to his slice in a toast. “To Grace Corbett,” she said. “A woman of influence and perfect insight.”
“To Grace Corbett” he said, smiling fondly. “A
woman who knew her heart.”
“She did, didn’t she?” Edie asked.
He nodded. “Not only did she know her heart, she knew everybody else’s.” With that he took a bite of the pizza.
Edie filled up after one huge slice, and Rafe went on to eat three before he was feeling the need to loosen his belt. One last swallow, and one final sip of beer swigged, and he pushed his plate and beer mug away, then settled back in the chair. “So, what’s next?” he asked Edie.
“As in?”
“As in, are you planning on staying here? Settling down, making Lilly Lake your permanent home?” It was occurring to him that if he succeeded in persuading Edie to adopt Molly, it might be good to give her Gracie House, so Molly wouldn’t have to be uprooted.
“Maybe. I haven’t really thought about it in the long term. In the short term, I love my job, I’m renting a nice little cottage … it’s good. I don’t really have a reason to go anywhere else.”
“But if better job opportunities came up?”
She frowned, clearly puzzled by this line of questioning. “What’s this about?”
“Just curious. I mean, I do own the hospital, so I have a vested interest in what you do since …”
“Since I work for you? Have you turned into my employer now?” Said in quite an irritated voice.
“True, I own the hospital. That’s all paperwork and legalities, nothing to do with the actual operating of it. But I was just curious about you. Future plans, hopes, dreams …”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Future plans—keep on working. Hopes—keep on working. Dreams—get an advanced degree and keep on working. Is that what you wanted?”
OK, he was doing it again. Opening mouth, inserting foot. He hadn’t meant to. In fact, he’d hoped to settle back into a nice, relaxing conversation and approach the subject of Molly’s future. But he’d put her on edge…. again. Which meant any talk about Molly wasn’t going to be met with the most receptive attitude. “What I wanted was to start a nice after-dinner conversation with a lovely lady. But the lady seems to be taking it the wrong way.”
“Or the gentleman seems to be starting it the wrong way. Look, Rafe, I like you, but this … this so-called date isn’t really a good idea. We did better when our mouths were full, but now that we have to actually sit back and talk to each other …”
“And you wonder why I don’t date,” he huffed.
“It’s not you. It’s both of us. I have my agenda, you have yours …”
“What if our agendas overlapped?” he asked. “Would that be common enough ground to keep us on this date for another few minutes? Because, as bad as I am at it, I don’t want it ending so soon, Edie.”
“Why?” she asked, trying to mask all emotion in her face.
But he saw the emotion … the warmth in her eyes, the way the corners of her mouth turned up ever so gently. She couldn’t help but care, couldn’t help but put herself out there for someone who needed her. And while he wasn’t about to admit that he needed her, he would freely admit that Molly did, and that was what this conversation had to get on to. Molly. “Because I like being with you,” he said, kicking himself for those misspoken words before they were all the way out. He should have told her it was about Molly. Had meant to tell her it was about Molly. Then he’d gone and said he liked being with her. Another kick to the head. “And I have a bad habit of shutting out the things I really like. Over the years, I’ve developed this uncanny way of letting in only what I want to let in, and shutting the rest of it out. It keeps things in good balance that way, and my old habits aren’t yielding very much this evening, for which I truly am sorry, Edie.”
“There’s no need to apologize for you being you. But what I have to wonder is what happens if you shut something out that really would have been nice to let in?”
“Do you mean Molly?” he asked.
“That’s not where I was going with this, but we could turn this into a conversation about Molly, if that’s what you want to do.”
“Maybe we should, because Molly’s my priority, over everything else, and I’m counting on you to help me with her. The thing is, I’m not shutting her out. I’m opening new doors for her. Or trying to.” Trying hard to open Edie’s door and, so far, failing miserably.
“Opening her doors, shutting your own at the same time. Isn’t that what you’re doing, Rafe? Because I wonder what would happen if you could keep all the doors open for a little while … yours and hers. Give it some time, see what happens, instead of being so … so stubborn about it. You know, forget the open doors for now and try being open-minded for once.”
He arched amused eyebrows. If there was only one thing he could say for Edie, it was that she was fierce in her loyalties. Of course, he was glad he didn’t have to say only one thing because that list she’d mentioned earlier, the one with her stringent qualifications. well, he had a list, too. And it all concerned Edie. But nothing on it was stringent. More like, it was a list of attributes … lovely to look at, nice to talk to, wonderful to just sit back and watch. “Did you know you fairly glow when you’re impassioned?”
“And you’re condescending when I’m impassioned. This is a serious discussion, Rafe. Don’t deflect it by telling me I glow.”
“OK, so maybe I’m deflecting. I’ll admit it. Talking about Molly’s future is difficult. But, Edie, you’ve got to understand, I don’t have many doors in my life, open, shut, or otherwise. I’m all about structure. I live by it. I’ll die by it. Everything in my life is so damned structured it’s like I stay on a very linear, very narrow path, and I can’t get off it. But I don’t want to get off it because it works for me. Me. Alone. Nobody else involved. I accomplish what I want to, have everything I need, and the thing is, I do want what’s best for Molly, which is not my life. I wish it could be, because that would be the easiest thing to do. I genuinely care for that little girl. But she needs more than I can give her, more than I can be for her.” More than his own father had ever been for his sons.
“And you can’t adjust your life just a little to accommodate her? I mean, how do you know that if you haven’t tried?”
“I know it because … hell, it’s complicated.” He shifted in his seat. “Look. I am who I am, and while I may not be the person you want me to be, I have the good sense to know my limitations. Getting involved with someone else in a way that matters … that’s my limitation. It’s not an excuse. It’s a fact.”
“But what if there’s something else inside you, Rafe? Something you’re not seeing, or something you’re trying hard not to let get through?”
“Yeah, the Rafe Corbett who’s just waiting to be some poor little girl’s daddy. Well, that’s not me. And if that’s what you’re seeing, you’d better look again.” He huffed out an impatient sigh. “Look, I’m sorry. I wanted this to be a nice evening, but with Molly’s situation hanging between us. I feel horrible about what I’ve got to do, Edie, and you’re seeing the fallout from that.”
“Then the simple solution is not to do it.”
“Easy to say, impossible to do. Sometimes we don’t get what we want, no matter how hard we try to make it work. That’s just a fact of life, like it or not.” Tonight he didn’t like it one little bit, because he could almost see himself staying in Lilly Lake, settling down, raising Molly, maybe even he and Edie … No! He blinked it out of his head.
“But sometimes we do get what we want. It might be a struggle, or it might be a battle like we’ve never fought. My mother always told me that if there was something out there I wanted badly enough, I’d find a way to have it. And I believed her. I mean, look at me. Who knew I’d ever get this life? I started late, messed myself up before I hardly got started, yet I’m here. And before you go and tell me something like what I wanted was simple, and what you want isn’t, don’t. I never had simple in my life. Not for one minute. What I had, though, was desire, and that’s what got me through.”
“And I’m happy for you, Edie. I know it wasn’t e
asy, and I know your dream wasn’t simple. But you had a dream. That was a starting point.”
“And you don’t?”
“What I have is a function. I like being an orthopedic surgeon. I’m good at it. I take great satisfaction in helping people. But is it a dream? Or have I ever had a dream?” He shook his head, trying to remember a time when he’d had a dream. And came up blank. Well, almost blank. Because for the first time in his life he was feeling some regrets. Which meant there must have been some kind of a dream in there somewhere. As further proof, when he looked over at Edie, his heart clenched. So he blinked away from her in an instant and set about the task of blinking away what had just happened to him.
“But why can’t you embrace what you have and, at the same time, try for more? You’re a talented doctor, but can’t you define yourself some other way? Something that isn’t about your function but about your … your heart?”
“My heart? It beats, Edie. It’s a biological necessity to keep it beating if I wish to continue living. Which I do. But the rest of it … the romantic notion that my heart can dictate something in my life? I don’t buy into it. Which is precisely why I can’t be Molly’s father. She needs someone who subscribes to the whole theory that the heart is more than an organ in the body. And don’t go looking all sad on me now that you know you’re not going to win this argument, and get Aunt Grace’s way.”
“My way, too, Rafe. Molly is meant to be with you. When I was younger, I chose to go one way. Then when I got a little older, I made another choice. We can make those choices in our lives, but we have to take the first step, which is admitting we want that change. So why limit yourself, or even stop yourself where you are, if you want more? And I think, deep down, you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so torn up about finding a family for Molly.”
He didn’t have an argument for that. No comeback, no response. Edie was right, of course. But how could someone who was so full of love understand someone who was not? In her rose-colored world, love took care of everything. In his world, love didn’t exist. It was easier that way. It didn’t open him up to be hurt. And he was better at being alone than anybody he knew. So why change it, and take the risk?
