Cross My Heart: A Contemporary Romance Novel

by Abigail Strom

  After a moment, she decided she didn’t really want to know the answer to that question.

  ***

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you know Jenna. I went on and on about her last night.” Jim was standing in the office doorway, waiting for him to finish up his paperwork and head out for the night.

  “You didn’t go on and on. You mentioned her briefly.”

  “You still could have said something. You knew I was interested. And I’m still interested. My God, this is perfect. Next door neighbors! Invite me over this weekend, will you? I know if I have a little one-on-one time with her I can—”

  He looked up, and Jim froze. A few seconds ticked by.

  “Damn,” the younger doctor said softly. “Wow.”

  “What do you mean, wow?” Michael asked irritably, his eyes on his paperwork again, wondering what had been in his expression to make Jim look like that. He’d always prided himself on his ability to hide his emotions, but today that skill had deserted him completely.

  “I didn’t realize you and Jenna—”

  “There’s no ‘me and Jenna’. We’re just friends.”

  “Yeah, but you want more. Don’t deny it. I’ve never seen you go all alpha like that over a woman. Not even when Denise started dating again.”

  Michael looked up again, frowning. “Alpha?”

  “Alpha wolf, man. I’m telling you, if I had a tail, it would be between my legs right now. You should have seen your face. You made it clear that no other guy is welcome anywhere near her.”

  Alpha wolf. It sounded so primitive.

  But was it true?

  Hell yes, it was true. He didn’t want any other man going near Jenna. The idea made something twist inside him. It made his muscles twitch, like he was getting ready to hit somebody.

  “I need to finish this. I’ll see you in a couple of minutes.”

  Jim took the hint and left him alone.

  He looked down again, but the charts on his desk were just a blur.

  He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Jim had been right about something else—he’d never felt this way before. But the idea that it showed in his face…what the hell was happening to him? Where was his self-control?

  The way he’d talked to Jenna just now…God, she probably never wanted to see him again.

  But when he’d seen the two of them right there in the clinic, so close to a violent scene that could easily have ended worse than it did…even now, his stomach tightened in reaction.

  He’d grown up in a neighborhood where poverty and addiction and violence had been an inescapable part of life. His mother had been a drunk, his dad a card player who drifted in and out of their lives. He’d always been surrounded by ugliness and chaos, and as a father he’d sworn to keep Claire a million miles from any of that.

  So, yes, he’d overreacted when he saw her in a place that wasn’t exactly a war zone but could definitely get dicey now and then. And it hadn’t only been about Claire—it had been about Jenna, too. The thought that either one of them could have been hurt…

  His stomach tightened again.

  And then the damn haircut. He might be an idiot when it came to the female of the species, but even he knew better than to insult a woman’s hair, no matter what her age.

  It was just…Claire had had long hair since she was a little girl, and he was used to it. He remembered how she used to put it up like Cinderella’s, every Halloween until she was ten.

  Seeing her look so different had thrown him. Seeing her and Jenna at the clinic, so close to danger, had thrown him.

  The feeling itself was understandable. What bothered him was the fact that he’d let it show.

  He finished up his paperwork, said goodbye to Jim, and left the clinic. A little while later he was pulling into his driveway. There were lights on in his house and in Jenna’s.

  It looked like she’d dropped Claire off and gone home, which seemed to be a clear indication that the three of them wouldn’t be getting together tonight.

  He sat in his car for a moment, trying to figure out who he was more reluctant to face—his daughter or Jenna.

  Better tackle the home front first. Claire was probably so mad she’d locked herself in her room, and he could make his apologies through the closed door.

  He sighed. Then he got out of the car and went into the house.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  He closed the front door behind him and turned to see Claire sitting in the living room, curled up on the couch with a magazine. She must have showered as soon as she got home, because the blue was out of her hair and it was still damp.

  Viewed objectively, he had to acknowledge she’d gotten a good haircut. If she were anyone else’s daughter, he’d even say a great haircut. Those spiky layers flattered her face perfectly. As attached as he’d been to her long hair, it had always been messy and stringy and falling in her eyes, and he’d hated the way she’d slouch with a strand twisted around her finger.

  She was sitting up straight now, and there was a new kind of confidence in the way she held herself.

  “Your hair looks great,” he heard himself say.

  She smiled. “Yeah, I know.”

  He was used to feeling out of his depth around Claire, but this was a new level of mystification.

  “Why aren’t you yelling at me? Aren’t you mad about the way I talked to you and Jenna at the clinic?”

  She shook her head. “Nope.”

  He went into the living room and sat down across from her. “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “You freaked out because that guy was in the waiting room when we were there. You were just worried about us.”

  “I’m always worried about you.” As he said the words, he realized how true they were. “I worry about you every single day. That’s no excuse for losing my temper the way I did, and snapping at you and Jenna. I’m sorry I did that, Claire.”

  “It’s all right. It was kind of...comforting.”

  He stared at her. “Comforting?”

  She nodded. “I’ve never seen you lose your temper before. Everyone else yells or screams or cries when they get upset, but not you. It’s kind of depressing sometimes, like you’re, I don’t know, superhuman or something. I hate it.”

  He remembered Angela yelling at him once, and saying she wished he’d yell back at her. He’d never understood why. He’d been subjected to plenty of screaming and crying growing up, and it was never an expression of love.

  “I never wanted to be the kind of dad who yells.” He hesitated, and then told Claire something he never had before. “My parents yelled. A lot. And it never made me feel like they cared about me.”

  Claire was staring at him with big eyes. “I didn’t know that. Did they...hit you, or anything?”

  He shook his head. “No. Just a lot of shouting.”

  She drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around her shins. “You’ve never told me anything about them before.”

  “It’s not my favorite topic. They weren’t good people, and I never wanted to be anything like them.”

  “And that’s why you don’t yell and stuff? Because you don’t want to be like your parents?”

  “That’s part of it, yeah.”

  “Oh.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. He could see Claire pondering this new information, and he wondered if he should have burdened her with even this small piece of his childhood.

  “So you’re not upset with me?” he asked after a while.

  “No. Jenna’s another story, though.”

  He dragged a hand through his hair. “She’s mad, huh?”

  “Well...I don’t know if she’s mad, exactly.” She frowned at him. “You made her cry, Dad. She kept wiping the tears away when she thought I wasn’t looking.”

  His heart clenched in his chest.

  “When everything went crazy at the clinic, Jenna got in front of me.” Claire bit her lip, which made her look younger than her fourtee
n years. “Mom used to do this stupid thing. Whenever we were driving somewhere, if she had to brake a little faster than usual, she’d throw her arm across my chest. It was totally ridiculous, because I was always wearing my seatbelt, but she did it anyway.”

  She looked up at him. “That’s what Jenna was doing. Protecting me, you know? And you made her feel like she’s totally irresponsible, like you made a mistake trusting her, or something.”

  His gut twisted. “I know. I know. I was just...”

  “Freaked out. I get it, Dad. You just have to make Jenna get it. You have to go over there and apologize.”

  “What if she won’t forgive me?” he heard himself ask.

  And suddenly Claire was there, throwing her arms around him. “I’m sure she will.”

  He couldn’t remember the last time his daughter had hugged him voluntarily. He hugged her back, feeling a tightness in his chest and an unfamiliar ache at the back of his throat.

  “Your hair really does look great.”

  “I know. But thanks for saying so, Dad.”

  Chapter Six

  A little later he was ringing Jenna’s doorbell with no idea of what he was going to say. A minute went by, and he wondered if maybe she wouldn’t answer at all.

  But then the door opened, and she was there.

  She was wearing jeans and a gray tee shirt, her silky black curls held back by a red bandana, and she looked so beautiful that for a moment all he could do was stare.

  “Hi,” he said, finally.

  “Hi,” she answered, her voice cool.

  He took a deep breath. “Can I come in?”

  She nodded, her expression as cool as her voice. She turned and headed for the kitchen, where he could smell coffee brewing.

  Her jeans were old and faded and soft, and they fit her body like a second skin. He couldn’t take his eyes off the curve of her hips as he walked behind her. The events of the day had left him feeling a little raw, and he was almost painfully aware of his attraction to her.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “Yeah. That would be great.”

  “How do you take it?”

  “Just black.”

  She filled two mugs and handed him one. She stayed standing, so he did, too.

  He was finding it hard to speak. His normally sharp brain was moving slowly, memories of what had happened at the clinic jumbled together with thoughts of Jenna. Wildly inappropriate thoughts.

  He couldn’t stop staring at her, and he prayed she couldn’t read his mind. He wanted to kiss her soft, lush mouth and every inch of her skin. He wanted to pull her shirt over her head and fill his hands with her breasts. He wanted to...

  He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Is Jim all right?”

  He dropped his hand to his side. “Yeah, he’s fine.”

  “Does that kind of thing happen a lot?”

  “Not really. Once a week, maybe, we’ll have some kind of incident—a drunk or a drug addict, or something like that. We usually have a security guard in the waiting room, but he left early today.”

  She’d been avoiding his eyes, but now she looked up at him. “I would have thought...you being a surgeon...that you wouldn’t get into fights. Because of your hands.”

  He smiled a little. “I try to avoid throwing punches. Luckily there are other ways to subdue people. Not that I’m in that situation a lot,” he added. “Like I said, we usually have a security guard down there.”

  “But it seemed like you were used to it. Used to dealing with violence.”

  It was a question, and after a moment’s hesitation he answered it. “I grew up in a bad part of Chicago. If I hadn’t learned to take care of myself, I wouldn’t have survived.”

  Her eyes softened a little. “That sounds rough.”

  He shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I got out a long time ago.”

  Okay, it was time to do what he’d come over here to do. “Jenna, I’m sorry I snapped at you and Claire at the clinic. I had no right to lose my temper like that, to make you feel like I don’t trust you. Especially because I do trust you.”

  She frowned down at her mug, which was black with a skull and crossbones on it. He hoped it wasn’t emblematic of her feelings about him. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I shouldn’t have taken Claire to that salon without checking with you, and I should have called before bringing her to the clinic.”

  He shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Claire’s hair looks great, and I’m glad you took her to get it cut. I was just...surprised. And yeah, the clinic’s not the best place for a visit, but you didn’t know that. And today wasn’t typical. If you’d come on a quiet day I probably wouldn’t have reacted like that. It’s just...”

  He wondered why it was so hard to say the next part. “When I saw you there...” He hesitated. “I thought about what could have happened, and I...” He remembered how Claire had put it. “I guess I freaked out.”

  Jenna’s chest rose with a quick breath. “I get that. I do. That’s why I’m sorry. I should have called, but we thought it would be fun to surprise you.”

  “I love that you wanted to do that. And I’m sorry about what happened.”

  “I know.”

  Relief spread through him. “So you’re not mad at me?”

  “Oh, I’m mad at you.”

  He stared at her. “But you just said—”

  The cool reserve disappeared from her eyes, replaced with a flash of anger.

  “I’m not mad because you freaked out.”

  He felt confused. “Okay, then, enlighten me. What are you mad about?”

  She leaned back against the counter and folded her arms. “I’m mad because you took a couple of digs that really hurt my feelings. And you haven’t apologized for that.”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “What digs?”

  “Well, let’s see. How about, ‘I know you can take care of yourself, Jenna. You make sure everyone knows that.’” She took a breath. “And later, when I told you Claire’s hair color was temporary, you said, ‘That is your specialty, of course.’”

  Damn. “I don’t know why I said those things. I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a stupid—”

  “Bullshit. You did mean something by it, and I’d like to know what.”

  He felt an unexpected flicker of anger. “Look, I told you I was sorry. Can’t you just let it go? Not every feeling has to be dragged to the surface.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “No, I can’t let it go. Unlike you, I don’t sweep my emotions under the rug.”

  “Okay, fine.” His voice sounded cool, for which he was grateful. “You want me to talk, I’ll talk. Maybe the whole lone wolf thing bothers me a little.”

  “I never said I was a lone wolf.”

  “Gypsy, then. You’re determined never to settle down, never to put down roots. You said so, remember?”

  She turned her back on him, taking her untouched cup of coffee to the sink and dumping it out.

  “Yes, I said so. I said so on your porch last night, and you seemed fine with it then. I didn’t realize you were judging me.”

  He set his own mug down on the kitchen table. “I’m not judging you. But I don’t think it would kill you to keep an open mind about...things. You won’t even consider the possibility of staying here. What’s so terrible about Iowa? Your family’s nearby, and—”

  She whipped around to face him. “Don’t you dare try to play the family card. Your own daughter lives in Florida, for God’s sake! Talk about a double standard—”

  He struggled to keep his tone detached. “I just think if you spend your whole life drifting from place to place you could miss out on some things. Things that might make you happy.”

  “What, like marriage and children? Not every woman wants a white picket fence, Michael. Did the feminist movement just pass you by, or something?”

  His usual control was deserting him, replaced by
anger he couldn’t justify and desire he couldn’t tamp down. His hands clenched into fists, as if he could fight his emotions physically.

  “I didn’t say anything about marriage and children. But you said yourself you’re changing, and I know that scares you. I think you should make sure that leaving really is what you want, and that you’re not making decisions out of fear.”

  Twin patches of red appeared on her cheeks. “I see. And what, exactly, do you think I’m afraid of?”

  There were a dozen danger signs warning him off, but he waded in anyway. “Maybe you’re afraid of getting attached. You lost your sister, and you lost your fiancé and your best friend a few years later. Maybe you don’t want to be hurt like that again.”

  She stared at him. “Wow. I suppose I should thank you for the free psychoanalysis. Of course, it’s pretty damn ironic that you’re telling me not to make decisions out of fear. You won’t even ask Claire to come live with you.”

  His jaw tightened. “We’re not talking about me right now.”

  “Oh, of course. It’s okay to put my choices under the microscope, but I’m not allowed to talk about yours? You’ve got no right to judge me or my choices.”

  Her lips were parted, her eyes turbulent. Her body was taut with anger, her skin flushed with it, and all he could think was how beautiful she was.

  And how much he wanted her.

  He’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted Jenna. Not having her was a sudden agony, a burning pain that ignited his heart and his groin and every other part of him.

  “It’s true. I don’t have any right at all.”

  “Then where do you get off—”

  He felt the exact moment his control snapped. For one instant he was weightless, motionless, balanced perfectly between opposing forces.

  Then he lunged for Jenna like an animal bursting from a cage, grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her hard against him.

  She gasped, her eyes wide with shock. Hunger swept through him as he looked at her, at those lips that had tempted him from the first moment he saw her.

  Then he brought his mouth down on hers.

  He kissed her with everything he had, everything he was. He kissed her like it was the last thing he’d ever do.