by Robin Gianna
“How’s she feeling?”
“Surprisingly, she seems pretty good. But of course that’s while she’s lying in a hospital bed, getting pain meds. Being home and moving around might be a different story. I... I want to thank you again for being there for both of us. Doing it all alone would have been rough.”
“You do realize your thank-you is more of an insult, don’t you? As if you wouldn’t have done the same for me, or anyone. As if we weren’t always there for each other when we needed to be. Until you left.”
His words and the intensity in his eyes made her chest squeeze hard. “I...yes, I know. Sorry, it’s just that—”
“Hello, Aurora,” Beth said, coming to stand next to Jake. “How’s your mom? What a scary thing!”
“Yeah, it was scary. Thank heavens Linda called me and we were able to get there fast.”
“And that you and Jacob are both doctors who knew how to take care of her right there. Sounds like trying to get her to Fairbanks while she was bleeding like that might have been bad.”
“Yeah. It was a huge help that Jake was there with me.” He deserved that credit, no matter what he’d said to her seconds ago. Though it was true. They had always been there for each other. He’d always been there for her. Until she hadn’t been able to accept that unwavering support from him anymore.
“Does this mean you’re going to bring your mom to my office so I can check on her in a couple days? Or stubbornly refuse to, like before?” Jake asked.
“I’ve come to appreciate your point about having all the equipment for checking her vitals and drawing blood to send to the lab,” she said, trying to sound professional and unemotional. “And her surgeon wants to have her follow-up doc be someone he can reach, or who can reach him, if she has some complication up the road. Which makes sense, obviously.”
“Glad you agree.”
He inclined his head, and she could just see him battling wanting to say something more, but resisting.
“Call the office and get it scheduled with Ellie for before you leave. Or after, if you want, and your aunt can bring her instead.”
“No, I’ll bring her. One less thing to bother Aunt Patty with.”
“Are you leaving soon, Rory? Or staying longer now?” Beth asked.
“I’m not sure. It depends on how Mom’s doing after she’s been home a few days. I don’t want to overburden Aunt Patty if she needs more help getting around, bathed and dressed than she did before.”
“What do you think about coming to Mika’s first birthday party? Bring your mom, too,” she said. “You could see Jake’s beautiful house and some of the family again. I don’t think Tim’s going to be able to make it, and Jake’s dad will be at a conference in Anchorage, but Grace will be there. And friends you haven’t seen for a long time.”
Probably old friends, who knew all about what had happened. Who probably thought it was long ago and far away and that neither she nor Jake thought about it anymore. Except she did, and it was obvious that he did, too.
“When is it?” Hopefully after she was gone, so she’d have a good excuse not to go. Not to see the small but beautiful family being formed around Jake and his son.
“Sunday.”
“I’ll see how it goes. Twinkie might not be well enough.”
Her stomach balled into a knot at the thought of spending the afternoon in the midst of all that family happiness, celebrating beautiful Mika turning one year old. Then she realized that maybe Beth might help convince her mother to leave Eudemonia for a while.
“Although if she’s feeling well enough to attend, maybe you could encourage Twinkie to come back to LA with me. She’s reluctant, but I think it’s the perfect solution. I can make sure she’s healing fine, and getting stronger, and she wouldn’t be all alone here as winter comes. She could get outside to walk and exercise, since it’s warm year-round.”
“That’s a very good idea, and I’d be happy to do that,” Beth said. “Though your mother’s pretty stubborn, despite being the sweetest person I know.”
“Runs in the family,” Jake said under his breath.
“Anyway, I hope you can make it to the party. Speaking of which—I have some more things I need to get for it. I’ll meet you at the car, Jake. Okay?”
“Sure.”
As his grandmother walked away the baby practically turned himself into a pretzel in order to face Rory, his brown eyes studying her. She found herself unable to look away from his sweet face, noticing how thick his dark lashes were. Very like his daddy’s, despite their not being biologically related.
He sent her a sudden wide smile that showed four white teeth—two on top and two on the bottom. The tightness in her belly loosened, to be replaced by a warm glow around her heart. How adorable he was. She wanted to reach out and touch his soft cheek, the way she had when Beth had held him on her lap in front of the clinic that first night she’d met him.
“He’s so precious,” she murmured, giving in to the urge to run her hand down his small back. “Like a little angel.”
“Not always an angel,” Jake said. “Sometimes he—”
The baby’s arm flailed backward, and then in a quick release he flung his plastic cup right at her, hitting her in the sternum. Startled, she let out a cry, somehow managing to grab it and clutch it to her chest before it fell to the floor.
“Mika! No throwing things,” Jake said in a firm voice. He looked up at Rory and shook his head. “Sorry. Just proving he’s not an angel, I guess. Are you okay?”
“Fine. Though it’s surprising that a plastic cup thrown by a little hand can actually hurt some.”
She handed Mika his cup and he threw it back, clearly enjoying this game, and his gurgling laugh had Rory smiling, too, even as her heart pinched.
“I recall that your games of choice were football, basketball and soccer,” she said, deciding it was safer to hand the cup to Jake than the baby. “But you might have to add baseball to that list—he’s got quite an arm.”
“He does. But I’m hoping that’s going to pass, since flinging projectiles to get attention sometimes results in bruises and broken things. I had no idea how much a house had to be babyproofed.”
“Yeah.”
She swallowed down the ache that had stuck in her throat. The ache that was there because she’d lost her chance to experience all the things that came with having a baby, and because her desire to even try again to make it happen had been permanently flattened.
“Where do you live these days? I didn’t think to ask.”
“I have a house up the east hill. You remember Dave and George from back in high school? They do construction now, and they did most of the building, with me helping when I could. Which gave me a whole new appreciation for the skill involved in that.”
A vision of Jake hammering and sawing, possibly shirtless and wearing a tool belt on his lean hips, made her feel a little short of breath.
“Do you think they’d prep and paint Mom’s house? I think it’s probably too late in the season now, but I’d like to get it on the schedule for next summer. I could pay a deposit, if they want.”
“I’m sure they would. They usually have to go to Fairbanks or other towns to get jobs, so they’re always happy to have work in Eudemonia when they can. I’ll get you their number.”
“Thanks.” She looked down at the baby again, who was reaching up to Jake and starting to complain a little, obviously fidgeting to get out of there. “Well, I’ll let you go. See you in the office when I bring Mom in, I guess.”
She swung her cart around and past his, anxious to get going. Relieved to finally be done and through the checkout line, she rolled the cart to her rental car and loading up the trunk.
She was startled when a hand wrapped around her arm.
With a gasp and a near shriek, she slapped her palm to her thudding heart and w
hirled to see who’d grabbed her.
Jake.
“What the heck?” she demanded. “You scared me.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. But the things I want to say to you keep rolling around and around in my head. I have to get them off my chest, and I might not have another chance.”
They stared at one another, and there it was again. That familiar longing, sadness and confusion that kept filling her heart every time she was around the man.
“You wanting to take your mom to LA makes sense right now, while she recovers, I admit it,” he said, his voice taking on a hard note. “But you know what? I understand why she wants to stay here, in her hometown, where she’s lived her whole life. And I just have to say it. I thought you’d always want to stay here, too—no matter what.”
“I had to leave,” she choked out. “You know that.”
“I don’t know that. Why, when I begged you to stay? You left anyway, without even saying goodbye.”
So there it was. She’d hoped maybe he’d forgotten that she’d decided to leave without telling him. Or that he didn’t care anymore. That the pain she’d seen on his face since she’d come back was all about their baby and not her. Except if she was honest with herself she’d known since she first moment she’d seen him at her mother’s house the night she’d arrived that he still felt upset about all of it.
God, she needed to get out of Eudemonia—before she ended up all messed up again.
“I couldn’t stay another day. I couldn’t face what I’d done. I couldn’t live with it staring at me every day I was in this town. The whispers when I left a store. The sympathetic or disapproving looks wherever I went. Surely you can understand that?”
“No. I didn’t understand it then and I still don’t. You had me here to help you through all that. We’d have gone through it together.” His hands balled into fists. “I loved you. I loved our baby...the future we’d planned. We should have grieved together, healed together. But instead all you could think about was yourself.”
“I... I was thinking of him. Of you, too.”
“No, you weren’t. You left me high and dry. You abandoned me when I was hurting from losing our baby, then broke my heart a second time when you left. You smashed it into tiny pieces when you never came back. And you never even tried to get in touch with me.”
Her heart shook hard, then fell into her stomach as she stared at the raw judgment in his eyes, at the anger and hurt. “I... I didn’t mean to abandon you.”
“No? Well, that’s sure as hell what you did. I never knew you could be that self-centered. But you were.”
“How can you not understand at all?” Anger welled up in her chest, matching his. “How dare you judge me that way? I lost our baby because of a stupid decision. How do you think that made me feel? You can’t understand the pain I felt.”
“You think I don’t understand that pain? I lived it, Rory. I lived it twice because of your selfishness.”
“Selfishness? It seems to me you’re the self-centered one, thinking only about how you felt. I was—”
The rumble of a truck parking two spaces over had Jake pressing his lips together and tugging her to the other side of the car, his other hand pulling the cart holding Mika, still sipping away on his cup.
Rory gulped, her heart pounding. She didn’t want to talk about this. Not now, not ever. But even as part of her wanted to run the other way, jump into the car and take off, she knew she had to endure this conversation.
She’d already run the other way long ago, hadn’t she? She hadn’t even realized he believed she’d been thinking only of herself when she had.
It was past time for them to have this conversation—horrible or not. To clear the air and put all this behind them once and for all.
She saw Jake glance around to make sure they were more or less alone before he spoke again, his voice tight.
“You were what? Heartbroken? Grieving? Join the club. Yet you didn’t care enough to stick it out with me. For us to deal with it together. I lost you both at once. And I have a hard time forgiving you for that.”
A lump formed in her throat, so big she couldn’t speak. When she’d finally swallowed it down, she managed to croak out just a tiny bit of what she wanted to say.
“I have a hard time forgiving myself for any of it. If I let myself think about it the guilt drags me under. I had to leave to survive. Don’t you understand that?”
Before she even knew it was going to happen tears spilled from her eyes and she swiped hard at her cheeks. She hadn’t fallen apart in a long time. The last thing she wanted was to break down right in the middle of this stupid parking lot. In front of Jake and this beautiful child he was building a new life with.
“Rory... Don’t.”
Strong hands closed around her shoulders and pulled her closer to his warm, firm chest. Emotion welled up all over again. It was just like Jake to reach for her, to try to comfort her at the very same time as he’d expressed how angry and upset he’d been with her. How angry and upset he still was.
The sweetness and strength of character that had always been a part of who he was weakened her even more. She knew if she didn’t get out of there she might fall apart completely. She put her hands against his chest and could feel the steady beat of his heart. She forced herself to push him away, even though it felt so good to touch him again, to feel his warmth against her palms.
“I’m done talking about this,” she said, working to pull herself together. “You’ve said what you wanted to say and I hear you loud and clear. It sounds like you practically hate me, in fact, so the sooner I get to LA the happier we’ll both be.”
“Damn it, Rory!” Anger flared in his eyes, showed in the jut of his chin all over again. “Why do you—?”
His sentence unfinished, he cursed and dropped his mouth to hers in a hard kiss that lasted just a split second before a shriek and something whacking into Jake’s jaw set them apart.
They stared at one another for long seconds before Jake took a step back and reached to retrieve the plastic cup now rolling on the asphalt of the parking lot.
Dragging in a gulp of air, Rory watched him give the cup to Mika and turn without another word to stride toward his truck, apparently feeling exactly as she did. That there was nothing more to say.
She lifted trembling fingers to her lips, wondering why he’d kissed her. Except she knew. Yes, he’d been angry and frustrated with her. But just before that... He’d always hated to see her cry.
Shaking, she managed to get inside the car and she closed her eyes, remembering what she’d forgotten for so long. How he’d stayed up for who knew how long the night they’d lost their tiny boy, building the box they would bury his small body in. How he’d carved the name they’d chosen—Adam—into a candle, along with the date he’d been stillborn. How Jake had held her close as they’d watched the candle burn in memory of the tiny premature infant, both of them in floods of tears.
The next day she’d been released from the hospital. He’d taken her to her parents’ house so she could rest, and she’d stayed in her room until the funeral. After they’d buried their baby boy in the cemetery she’d told Jake she needed to get a little more rest. Back in her old bedroom, she’d packed up her things, left a note to her mom and dad, and another to Jake. Told them she needed time alone to think, and got on a plane to LA.
And she’d never come back.
Everyone had told her the accident wasn’t her fault. That it probably wasn’t why she’d gone into labor so early. That it had nothing to do with why the baby had been stillborn.
She’d been so sure it was a perfectly reasonable decision to go on the snowmobile to search and rescue that day. Now it seemed beyond stupid. But no one knew for sure why her baby had died in utero at seven months along, and doctors had reassured her that probably something had been wrong befor
e she’d even gone out that night.
She’d wanted to believe it. She’d tried so hard to convince herself it wasn’t her fault. But in the end she’d had to get out of Eudemonia to try to heal. To move on somehow when her grief, guilt and despair told her that if she’d been smarter, less stubborn, if she’d listened to Jake, who had told her to stay home that night, that they’d have their son, Adam, in their lives today.
The day she’d left, and all the days after, she’d never considered that it had been a selfish decision—probably because she hadn’t been thinking straight. She was stunned that Jake saw it that way, and she realized he was probably right.
It had been selfish of her to go out on that snowmobile, even convinced she was doing it for the right reasons. It had been selfish of her to leave Jake when times had gotten tough, thinking only of herself when she’d taken off for California.
Was she continuing that trend? Leaving her mom alone so she could get the permanent job in LA? Was selfish the kind of person she wanted to be?
No. But she didn’t think she could come back to Eudemonia, to be reminded of her fatal mistake every single day.
This trip home had become an even worse mess than she’d expected, and she’d expected it to be pretty bad. So how, exactly, was she going to fix it? The solution, again, was to somehow convince her mother that Southern California was the perfect place for her to get strong again, so they could leave soon.
Much as she dreaded going to Mika’s birthday party, taking her mother there so Beth could help convince her to go to LA for the winter was her best shot at making that happen.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHY THE HELL had his mother asked Rory to come to Mika’s birthday party? He hoped she wouldn’t come. Hell, he hoped Wendy would be feeling well enough for her sister to take over and that Rory would be gone by then.
He put a sleeping Mika into his crib, tucked the blanket under his chin and kissed his plump little cheek, smiling even as his heart squeezed with all the feelings he’d buried long ago, which had insisted on floating back to the surface since Rory had come back to town.
