“Nah. Don’t worry about it. I’m done with exams and don’t have to start my summer job for a week. Why don’t you tell Mrs. Moratti she’s got Friday off? I can meet Charlie at the bus and take him to the park or the library or somewhere. Finish what you need to get done so we can have a celebratory weekend, okay?”
Beth grinned her thanks. “Okay.”
***
Will had a lengthy confrontation planned with his cousin. As he drove away from his mom’s house a few hours later, he began rehearsing dialogue in his Ferrari.
“Just for the record,” Will said aloud to the imaginary Bingley, “explain something to me.” He knew his tone would sound icy but, with his heart refreezing, it was to be expected. “What did you think would be accomplished by getting me to search the Love Match website?”
Bingley would stutter, mumble something incoherent about having Will’s “best interests” in mind and slink off into the corner of the coffee shop or wherever they were meeting. Will would have to do everything in his power to keep from throwing the first punch at that secretive, arrogant, manipulative… He slammed his fist into the steering wheel, sending out a loud beep to the unsuspecting Ford Escort in front of him.
“Sorry,” he mouthed to the driver as he passed her. The woman inside shot him a worried glance.
Will sighed. Could Bingley’s behavior be anything but despicable? Maybe it could. The possibility of a benign motive was a tempting thing to hope for. After all, was it really wrong for his closest family members to want him to fall in love? To think he might be happier with a wonderful woman in his life, and not just his work obsessions?
Oh, brother.
He missed her. Beth. He couldn’t keep denying it. It was Bingley’s fault, though, for making him meet her. If Bingley hadn’t come up with that harebrained bet, Will would have never actually gone online and created a Love Match profile.
He wouldn’t have had to screen the hordes of women there, none of whom caught his attention like Charlotte Lucas, a.k.a. Beth Bennet.
He never would have gone out with her or watched the fading sunlight catch her hair.
He wouldn’t have kissed her, held her hand in the darkened movie theater or introduced her to his mother.
He wouldn’t have had to feel the extremes he was feeling. The elation. The agony. The desire. The despair. He could have stayed detached. Been emotionally untouchable.
And then he wouldn’t be in the state he was in right now. Which was mad. Really mad.
Will shoved his car into park and bolted out of it. He hammered on Bingley’s front door. The housekeeper answered.
“Yes, Dr. Darcy? How may I help you?” the middle-aged lady asked.
“I’d like to see my cousin. Now, if possible.”
She gave him a pained look. “I’m sorry, sir. Mr. McNamara left town on business rather suddenly. He won’t be back until Friday.”
Left town? Armchair Money Man? Like hell he did, the coward. “I guess I’ll see him Friday, then,” Will told the woman stiffly. “Please tell him to contact me after he returns.”
“Of course, sir.”
Will left and impulsively drove to the public playground near Beth’s apartment complex. He parked in the shadows and observed. Kids were climbing on the jungle gym and rolling around in the sandbox, their faces flushed with activity and innocence. Parents were scattered everywhere.
He scanned every inch of the fenced-in play area and, sure enough, there they were. Beth, who was talking to a redheaded woman, and the kid. Charlie.
Bingley’s birthday would be over in a few hours, and the clinic’s funding couldn’t be saved now anyway. A part of him desperately wanted to call Beth over, to try to work something out between them, regardless of what had transpired before. But the odds seemed stacked against him.
Beth’s life wouldn’t revolve around the clinic like he’d once imagined.
Even if he succeeded in getting the money from some other source to fund it, which wouldn’t be easy. Even if, somehow, he and Beth got together as a couple, which wouldn’t be likely.
The two of them working side-by-side had been a nice fantasy while it lasted, but an unrealistic one. She’d constructed her world differently and, hey, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing all in all.
But then there was her son.
For all of Bingley’s meddling, even he didn’t try to lecture Will on this issue. Bingley didn’t know what it was like to grow up with stepfathers. He didn’t have firsthand experience with how crummy it could be to have to live with a doomed relationship like that.
Will knew it wouldn’t be fair to take on such a role after what he’d gone through growing up. Not fair to himself, not to Beth and not to her little boy.
He watched Charlie swing on the monkey bars. He smiled as Beth and the other lady clapped for the kid while he performed gymnastic feats. He sat in the dark of his car and knew he shouldn’t be there, like some sick voyeur casing a family he didn’t belong to.
Will pulled out of the lot. He tried to hurry up the freeze on his heart but nothing, not even numbness, was cooperating today.
***
“How’re ya, child?” Mrs. Hammond said to Beth Friday afternoon, her face a little red from the walk to the door. She ambled back to her easy chair once Beth was inside and began issuing instructions. “Git into the kitchen, girl. Pour you’self some lemonade.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Hammond, I’d love some.”
“Fresh squeezed, it is. I be complainin’ to my grandson ‘bout how I missed the tart taste of real lemon. Told him his muscles needed buildin’ up. How they could use a good flexin’. He got right on the job.” She laughed. “Boys and men. They be all the same. Do anythin’ if they think their manhood’s in question.”
Beth wanted to give her a big hug. In her unassuming way, Lynn Hammond knew more about human nature and gender-role stereotypes then all the PhDs in the Ivy League.
“How have you been feeling this week?” Beth said, pulling out her clipboard. “Are the services we set up last month working out for you? The Merry Maids?”
“Oh, them girls are great! Cleanin’ up so fast, smilin’ like they be enjoyin’ themselves. Watchin’ them’s better than ‘Wheel of Fortune.’ Real entertainment, and I don’t gotta do no more dusting. Always hated that.”
Beth laughed. “Me, too. Well, I’m glad that’s going well.” She made a note of it on the page and asked about the meal delivery and a few other services provided.
When all of the required information was precisely recorded, Beth found herself relaxing as she usually did in Mrs. Hammond’s company.
“I thought about you a lot in the past few weeks,” she told the elderly lady. “Some of the things you said on our last visit really stuck with me.”
“Don’t you know why? It’s ‘cuz I’m so wise.” She shot Beth a saucy grin. “We get real smart once we hit ninety. ‘Fore then, we all be dumb as bricks.”
“I’ve got a lot of years left to be as dumb as a brick, then.” She thought of Will and the mess she’d made of their relationship. Every memory made her soul cry.
“You—what—twenty-three, maybe?”
“Twenty-six,” Beth admitted. “I’ll be twenty-seven next month.”
Mrs. Hammond shook her head. “Right. You got decades of stupidity to go. Good thing you got that nice smile and carin’ heart of yours. Maybe give ya a chance of bein’ forgiven for stuff.”
Not much chance of that, Beth thought. Smile or no smile.
“So, what you pond’ring so hard, Beth dear?”
Beth looked into her bright, empathetic eyes and knew her thoughts and fears were in a safe harbor.
“You talked about being honest with yourself about your choices,” she said. “That even when life wasn’t smooth, you should do your best so you could be proud of what you’d done.” Beth paused. “It was good advice. Advice I’d needed.”
“I ‘member that day. We was talkin’ about takin’ chances, t
oo. You do anything with them words of wisdom, girl?”
She sighed. “I tried, Mrs. Hammond, but the cost was too high. The whole thing frightened me, and I knew there’d be no way I could win.”
The old lady snorted. “S’not about winnin’, child. Takin’ chances don’t count if there’s no risk. If’n it’s easy, if’n you can’t fail sometimes, then where’s the stretch? There’s no challenge in that.” She waggled her finger in the air at Beth. “This all ‘bout a man, ain’t it?”
Beth nodded.
“Then think now, what be the worst thing that could happen? He break your heart?” She shrugged. “Time mends a heart.”
“What about the pain of breaking his?” Beth said. “I—I know I hurt him. I don’t know how he’d ever forgive me for that.”
Mrs. Hammond gave a small smile. “Now, finding that out—there’s a risk where you stretch.”
“But I don’t know if I can—”
Beth was interrupted by the high-pitched jangle of the telephone. The white cordless unit was within easy reach of Mrs. Hammond’s armchair.
“‘Lo?” The woman’s smile turned serious after a moment. She held out the phone to Beth. “S’for you, child.”
“Hello?” Beth said, her heart rate speeding up at the surprise call. Who would need to reach her here?
“Beth, I’m so sorry, but I had to reach you,” Jane said, her words coming out like a sob. “I’m at the hospital. Charlie’s had a little accident.”
TWELVE
Will had been up to his elbows in flu patients and high fevers when he spotted the kid. Beth’s son.
He saw Lang and another med student trailing after a resident. The three of them surrounded the boy as the young doctor examined both his arm and his head abrasions. The kid seemed too calm, as though he were going into shock. And some redheaded lady—the one from the park maybe?—looked on in panic. Will figured it’d be best to step in. See if he could avert hysteria.
He handed off his latest flu case to an eager resident and strode over to the group. “Hi, miss,” he said to the young woman. “I’m Dr. D—”
“You’re Mommy’s friend!” the kid shouted, suddenly coming to life. “Auntie Jane, I know him.” He pointed at Will with his good arm but still winced. “Me and Mommy were at her office when he came in. And Abby gave me two lollipops that day. And Robby played garbage toss and—”
Auntie?
The woman’s look of concern turned to narrow-eyed suspicion. “You’re not—I mean, are you, by chance, Will Darcy?”
He nodded. So Beth had talked about him to her friends and/or relatives. Huh. Well, that was something good. Maybe. He looked at the lady in front of him more closely. She didn’t seem pleased by the news. Maybe name recognition wasn’t such a good sign after all.
“And you are?” he asked her.
“Jane Henderson,” she said. “Beth’s best friend. I was watching Charlie today when he fell.” She looked worried again, but this time it was entirely directed at the boy’s cuts and bruises. “Is he going to be okay, Doctor?”
Will signaled Jane to hold on a minute. He dismissed the resident and the med students, but Lang asked, “May I stay and watch?” Will nodded once before turning his attention to the kid. Charlie.
The six-year-old’s face was scraped bad on one side. The eyebrow gash seemed especially deep. Charlie had his left arm pressed to his chest as though it would be agony if he let it move a centimeter. A few dried tears dotted his cheeks and blood stains splattered his t-shirt. All in all, it looked as though it’d been a nasty tumble but, fortunately, nothing life threatening.
Will glanced at Beth’s friend. “He’ll be all right once we fix him up.” He put a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Listen, Charlie, I’m going to need your help to do my job. First, you’ll have to tell me what happened. Then, you’ve got to explain every single part of your body that hurts. And, finally, you’ll need to hold still while I patch you up. Think you can do all of that?”
The kid bobbed his head solemnly.
“Great,” Will said, “because I keep Tootsie Pops on hand for only the bravest patients.” He gave Charlie a thorough once-over just so the little boy would know he was serious. “You look like you might be one of those brave types. Is that true?”
Charlie sniffled. “Ah-huh.”
“I knew it.” Will carefully drew the boy’s arm away from his chest, feeling for broken bones while keeping tabs on Charlie’s facial expressions. The kid’s eyes were red-rimmed and he clenched his jaw tight as Will pressed various places on his skin. “So, tell me about it, Charlie. How did you fall?”
Charlie sucked in some air. “I was on the top of the jungle gym being the great pirate Blackbird…I mean, Blackbeard, but my shoe slipped off and I lost my balance.” His chin quivered but he didn’t cry. “This hurts.”
The redhead—Jane—covered her eyes. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I should never have let you go up that high. Your mommy’s going to be so angry with me.”
His mommy. Beth. Will still couldn’t believe it. But looking into the face of the boy, he saw little flashes of her. Not in his hair, but in his eyes. Charlie’s were that same chocolaty brown. And there was something about the set of his jaw, so very stubborn.
He touched Charlie’s unscratched cheek. “I know it hurts to move your arm around. Thanks for letting me examine you. I’ve got one more thing to do that you’ll have to be extra brave for, but I’ll bet you can handle it.” He pointed to a room down the hall. “We’re going to take a quick x-ray of your arm, okay?”
The kid nodded.
“Good.” Will signaled a nurse and one of the technicians to take over this part, but the kid looked up at him with such a terrified expression that he found himself asking, “Want me to go along?”
Lang shot Will a surprised look, but Charlie and Jane seemed grateful.
“Yes, please,” Charlie whispered.
Jeez, the boy was only six and already he was the model of politeness and decorum. In this, too, Will could see Charlie’s mom in him. He turned toward Jane. “I’ll get a nurse to clean up the blood and the scrapes on his face. Most look like topical wounds. He didn’t fall on his head did he?”
She shook her head. “Only on his arm. He got the head gashes from the poles and bars on his way down.”
“All right.” They walked down to x-ray. He thought about what he really wanted to ask, but saying it was hard. It carried more significance than this routine question normally would. Still, medically, he had to know. “Did you contact his mother?” he asked the woman.
“Yes. I called her a few minutes ago.” She gave him an odd look that there was no way he could interpret. “She left immediately and should be here soon. Really soon.”
Cripes. “That’s good,” he said. Maybe he’d be able to slip away before she got in. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with all the emotions she brought out in him. And yet, the thought of her being in the hospital, within a few yards of him, and not getting to see her…this tore at his icy soul. Running away was pointless. He couldn’t turn down an opportunity to look into her thoughtful eyes again.
When they got to the x-ray room, the boy snaked out his little fingers and tugged on Will’s coat cuff. Will opened his palm and, a moment later, found Charlie’s warm hand in his. Something in Will’s chest began to heat up for no good reason.
They snapped the image and returned to a small exam room. Will told Lang to pull the privacy curtain shut. The nurse began wiping off the dried blood on Charlie’s face while they all waited for the film to come back.
Will used the time to check in on a few other patients, though things in the ER had slowed down quite a bit, but Charlie kept drawing him back. Will found himself sneaking by, waving a little at the kid, trying to make him smile. He brought him a surgical glove that he’d blown into a balloon and was rewarded with a beamer of a grin.
Charlie was a sweet kid, but so what? This didn’t change anything. Well, not mu
ch.
Okay, maybe it influenced him a little. Or a lot. If he did ever date Charlie’s mother again, at least he didn’t think the kid would kick up a big fuss about it. He might even be…excited, or something. Maybe.
When the x-ray technician got the film back to him, they took a look at it. Not a full break, but a thin fracture of the upper part of the ulna. Charlie would need a cast from elbow to wrist.
“Alrighty, Charlie. I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” he said. “Which do you want to hear first?”
The boy squinted and Beth’s friend looked all worried again. “The bad news,” he said.
“Well, you’re gonna need to stay brave a while longer. You have a tiny break in this part of your forearm.” Will ran a finger along the length of his own ulna to demonstrate.
“Do I get to wear a cast? Is that the good news?”
Will laughed and even Jane broke a grin finally. “That’s not what I was going to say but, yeah, you get to wear a cast.”
“Will you sign it?” the boy asked him.
“Sure thing, kid.”
“What’s the other good news then?”
Will pulled out three Tootsie Pops from his doctor’s coat. “You get all of these because you’re doubly—no, triply brave. I’m really proud of you, Charlie.”
“Me, too,” Jane chimed in, brushing a tear away with her sleeve.
Charlie gave him a hero-worship grin so radiant Will felt his own face glow warm.
After the cast was put on Charlie’s arm, Jane stepped out into the hall to look for Beth, Lang left to follow another attending for rounds, the nurse went to refill a few supplies and Will was left alone with the boy.
What did a guy talk about with a six year old? Will rarely had problems making small talk with his young patients, but this time he was struggling. He exhaled slowly and thought of three subjects: school, television and sports. He’d hit them one at a time.
“So, how do you like school?” he asked, going for the most obvious, clichéd question ever created by adults. The kid should have rolled his eyes, but he didn’t.
Pride, Prejudice and the Perfect Match Page 14
