Pride, Prejudice and the Perfect Match

by Marilyn Brant

  “Fine,” Charlie said, still astoundingly polite. “I’m almost done with kindergarten. Next year I get to stay all day and have lunch there and go out for two recesses and everything.”

  “Wow. That’ll be cool.” Lunch? Two recesses? This was a kid’s view of education, all right. Will sped ahead to the next topic. “What are your favorite TV shows?”

  “Mommy doesn’t let me watch a lot of TV…”

  Smart Mommy.

  “…but she lets me see some good DVDs and PBS Kids if it’s too dark or too cold to play outside.”

  Will watched as Charlie poked at his hardened cast then, when he thought Will’s back was turned, he sniffed at it. His little nose wrinkled and the face he made was downright comical. Will, who was studying Charlie’s reflection in one of the high reflective windows, almost laughed out loud. He couldn’t remember—were all kids this unintentionally funny, or was he just kind of partial to this boy?

  Somebody had better come in soon, though, because he was down to his last topic. “What kinds of sports do you play, Charlie?”

  The kid’s face brightened. “All kinds! We do soccer and football and floor hockey in gym. That’s fun. And I play basketball with Robby—”

  Who the hell is Robby?

  “—when I’m with Mommy at work.”

  Oh, that guy. Married with children. Okay. “Yeah? What else?” Will prompted, swiveling his head to see out into the hallway. When would that nurse get back?

  “I love running and climbing…and playing baseball. That’s my all-time favorite.”

  “Really? That’s my all-time favorite, too.” Will stopped looking for the nurse. “I loved being pitcher. What about you? What position do you like to play?”

  Charlie grinned. “Catcher. But I gotta practice more. Mikey says so, too.”

  What was with all these other guys? “Who’s Mikey?”

  “My best friend at school.”

  Will shook his head at his own stupidity. He was getting jealous of kindergarteners. He picked up a marker and scrawled “Don’t break a leg,” on Charlie’s cast before signing it.

  “Cool,” Charlie said, looking down.

  “So, tell me more about Mikey.”

  “Mikey’s got a dad, two big uncles and a bunch of cousins to play ball with. I don’t have anybody,” the kid said, looking a little depressed. His face wore an expression of longing Will knew only too well.

  Damn. This wasn’t the direction he’d wanted the discussion to go. “How about your mom? I’ll bet she plays with you sometimes.”

  Charlie nodded. “Yeah, but she hates baseball.”

  “What? No, that can’t be true. We even went…” Then he remembered it was “Charlotte Lucas” he’d taken to the Cubs game that day. Not Beth. Never Beth. He felt a surge of anger at her, at himself and at Bingley all over again. Beth’s son gave him a strange look, and he realized he’d just broken off his thought mid-sentence. “You’re sure your mom doesn’t like baseball? Not even a tiny bit?”

  “Yep,” the kid said. “She never told it to me, but I heard her say so to Auntie Jane. Twice.”

  “You mean, she doesn’t even like the Cubs? Our Cubs?” Will said for emphasis. “She doesn’t care whether or not they make it to the World Series this year? She doesn’t get into watching even their games?”

  The kid raised his palms up and shrugged dramatically, but he didn’t have a chance to answer. The privacy curtain flew back and Beth rushed in toward her son.

  ***

  “How are you, baby?” Beth said, throwing her arms around her little boy’s shoulders, but taking care not to squeeze too hard. All the bandages on his head. And the cast. She couldn’t believe something like this had happened, but she knew she couldn’t blame Jane. Charlie had always been accident-prone.

  “I’m okay.” Her darling looked up at her with his huge brown eyes. He no doubt noticed the tears she couldn’t prevent from slipping down her cheeks. “Mommy, I’m sorry I fell.”

  She kissed his face, trying to ignore Will’s penetrating gaze across the room and Jane’s concerned silence behind her. “That’s okay, sweetheart. I’m only upset because I was worried about you. Does your arm hurt a lot?”

  He lifted his shoulders and winced a little. “Kinda.”

  Finally, she raised her eyes to meet Will’s. “I—um—” she started to say, but he broke in.

  “Hello, Ms. Bennet. It’s nice to see you again.” Will’s voice sounded very formal and forced. He was all doctor. All business. “Your son has a hairline fracture of the upper ulna, but the x-ray showed all other bones to be intact.” He pointed to Charlie’s face. “We’ve cleaned and bandaged the head abrasions, most of which are surface scratches and contusions. There’s one wound, however, that went deeper. It’s above his left eyebrow.”

  Beth stepped back as Will removed some rolled gauze attached with surgical tape to the spot. “Oh, honey,” she whispered to Charlie as she looked at the deep gash. She grabbed her baby’s hand and squeezed.

  “I thought I’d give you a choice on this one. All the others should heal normally. This one will probably leave a scar unless I put in a few stitches. Three or four ought to do it, but if you’d rather not, I can try a butterfly bandage instead. That’ll minimize the scarring, but not as much as the stitches would.” Will looked at Charlie with a slight smile. Beth saw him wink at her son. When Charlie smiled back at him, her heart almost stopped pumping.

  She swallowed. “Charlie, do you think you could let Dr. Darcy stitch up the big cut on your forehead?” Her little boy looked nervous at the mention of stitches, but he nodded anyway. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “He promises to do a very good job.”

  “Your confidence in me is inspiring,” Will remarked dryly, pulling out sterilized gloves and a couple of tiny instruments.

  “Well, I’ve seen your mother’s work,” she said softly. “If you’re half as good as she is, Charlie’ll be just fine.”

  A glint of something—anger, probably—flickered across Will’s face. He lifted a brow and visibly clenched his jaw. “And I’m sure you’re an excellent judge of character,” he said, dabbing Charlie’s forehead with fresh antiseptic. “With me. With my mother. Even with Bingley. You seemed to have all of our abilities and temperaments pegged.”

  Well, she hadn’t been trying to start a fight, but he seemed to be asking for one. His sarcasm wasn’t lowering her blood pressure after today’s shock, and she’d bet anything he knew that. She felt her temper rising.

  “No more than you, Doctor,” she said, tightly. “And, by the way, did you find anyone to get engaged to yet, or was that plan so last Wednesday?”

  Will stopped prepping and glared at her.

  “Holy shmoly,” Jane muttered.

  But, instead of answering, Will applied a topical anesthetic and, when the area was ready, began to gently stitch up Charlie’s cut. He was finished in a matter of minutes.

  “You’re good to go,” he said to Charlie, lifting him with great care off the exam table. Then, turning briefly to Beth, he added, “I’ll send a nurse in here to run through everything you need to know about taking care of Charlie’s cast and stitches. Someone else can do the removals, so I doubt I’ll be seeing—”

  “I think Charlie needs M&Ms and a soda,” Jane broke in. “Why don’t we go get that, and we’ll find the nurse, too.” She tapped Charlie’s unhurt arm. “C’mon, munchkin. Let me get you a treat.”

  Beth watched them slip past the privacy curtain and out the door. She, too, took a step toward the hallway, but Will’s voice called her back.

  “So, I hear you hate baseball,” he said. A touch of anger still lingered in his tone, but this time she identified something else alongside it. Hurt? Resignation? Wistfulness?

  “I don’t actually hate it,” she admitted. “It’s just…I guess I really don’t understand it. All the rules and terms confuse me, and no one ever took the time to explain the game.” She paused and collected her tho
ughts. “Look, Will, thank you for taking such good care of Charlie. I—I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your being so gentle with him.”

  He shrugged and tossed away his plastic gloves. “It’s my job.”

  “No, not all of it was. You were kind to him in spite of our…our history. He might’ve been scared to be in the hospital, but he wasn’t afraid of you. That means a lot to me.”

  A nurse poked her head in. “Dr. Darcy? We’ve got trauma victims from an MVC on the Edens Expressway coming in. ETA is seven minutes.”

  He nodded. “Thanks. I’ll be ready.”

  Beth glanced at the door, wishing this could have been easier. Wishing she knew what to say to this man who, under different circumstances, she’d love to throw her arms around right this second. She took a deep breath and pulled her shoulders up before facing him. “I should let you go,” she said. “You’ll be really busy in here soon.”

  “True.” He paused, pinning her in place with his intense blue eyes. “Motor vehicle collisions are tough.”

  She’d probably never see him again unless, heaven forbid, there was another medical emergency. She’d better tell him what she wanted him to know. The censored version, anyway.

  “Will, I wish you all the best. I wish I could’ve helped you more with your clinic, but Bingley seemed adamant that…” She hesitated. How could she explain? Tell him that Bingley didn’t think Will had a prayer of choosing to love someone like her? “…that, um, you should be the one in charge of choosing what you want or don’t want. I’m just sorry for my part in our…well, you know.”

  A jumble of emotions flashed across his face too quickly for her to read them. He opened his mouth to speak, but a new figure appeared in the doorway. Beth’s jaw dropped as she saw Bingley stride into the room. Well, speak of the devil.

  “Hey, Cuz,” Bingley said, raising his arm for a quick wave but keeping a healthy distance from his glowering doctor-cousin. Bingley did a double take when he recognized her, but he recovered in an instant and shot her a hasty grin. “And hello to you, too, Beth Ann Bennet. Nice seein’ you again.”

  “Likewise,” she whispered. Will still hadn’t uttered a sound. He just stood there, looking between them both, his expression growing darker.

  “So,” Bingley said to Will, “my housekeeper said you wanted to see me?”

  Will’s silence was earsplitting. A tiny smile played at his lips, though, as he took a couple of steps in Bingley’s direction. “You’re clever,” he said at last. “Maybe too clever, Bingley. It was a well-thought-out strategy to aim me in Mom’s direction and then skip town for a few days. Figured I’d cool off, right?”

  Bingley’s eyebrows rose to his hairline and he backtracked a few paces toward the door.

  Will followed him like a lion stalking his dinner. “Then showing up here, a place where you know I need to remain professional—that was also smart.” He tapped his own forehead with a curved index finger and he thinned his lips. “Very, very bright dude, aren’t you?”

  Beth held her breath.

  Bingley, meanwhile, sucked in some air. “Look, Will, like I’ve always told you, I had only your best—”

  “Interests in mind,” Will finished for him. “Yes, yes, I remember. I also remember what it feels like to be manipulated by someone who swears he loves me.” He pointed at Bingley. “You have a few things to answer for.”

  “Ambulances pulling up,” a nurse in the hallway shouted.

  Bingley waved his hands in front of his chest and tried to scoot around Will. “W-we can talk later, okay? Maybe I’d, um, better get going now if you’ve got—”

  “Thought it would be safe coming into a busy ER, eh?” Will said. “Well, think again.”

  Beth gasped as Will swung a fast right hook at Bingley’s chin, sending the guy spinning across the exam room. Bingley slammed into a table, his arms flinging out to the sides with a crash. A large tray of medical instruments clattered onto the tiles and a worried-looking med student came rushing in.

  “Is everything okay in here, Doctor?” the young man asked as he eyed the disaster on the floor and took in the sight of Bingley clutching his jaw in the corner.

  “Everything is just fine, Lang.” Will massaged his fist and scowled. “I’ll meet you in the hall in a second.”

  The med student scrambled into the hallway at the sound of the gurneys rolling toward them, and Will pointed at Bingley. “You’re right. We can talk later.” His cousin had the intelligence to merely nod. Then Will turned to her. “Take care of yourself, Beth. I’ve got to go.” His tone was strained with words left unspoken. He walked out the door and, in another moment, the frantic swim of trauma swallowed him up.

  Beth held Bingley’s gaze for an instant before looking down at her worn loafers. “Are you okay?”

  “Yep,” he said. “Kinda hoped I’d be able to avoid that particular response from him.” He gave a half laugh. “Guess not.”

  “Do you think he’ll stay mad at you for long?”

  Bingley shook his head. “Will is a good guy. A great one. He’s more like my kid brother than a cousin.” He sighed. “And I was tampering in his life…a bit.”

  She grinned. “Just a bit.”

  “Yeah, well. He might not have liked my method, but he’s not the type to hold a grudge. Even after something like this. He ever tell you about the time I rescued him from the lizard trapped in his sleeping bag?”

  She thought back to when she and Will were at the baseball game. She remembered how he’d joked about Bingley and a lizard. “This was the night you two were camping out in his backyard, right?”

  “Right.” Bingley traced his bruised jaw with his thumb. “What he probably didn’t mention was that I was the one who’d put Mr. Lizard in his sleeping bag.”

  She covered her mouth with her hand to trap a giggle. “What?”

  He nodded. “It’s true. I put it in there to scare him, but then I also wanted to be the one to come to his rescue. Will guessed right away what I was doing, but he let me pretend to be heroic for a while.” He gave her arm a quick and friendly squeeze. “It’s a type of pattern we’ve established. See, up until that night, he was afraid of reptiles. I showed him they’re not so scary.”

  Beth was starting to understand. “And what did he do to you in response?”

  He tapped his stomach. “I was justly rewarded with a major slug to the gut.” He winked. “But, then again, I was still his cousin and his best friend. And I was the only kid he invited to his eleventh birthday party a few weeks later.” He glanced around at the mess they’d created then righted a box of bandages on the table nearby. He tossed her a handful of cotton balls and a wry smile. “It’s not easy being Will’s Catalyst for Change, but somebody’s gotta do it, eh?”

  He ambled out of the exam room with a parting wave, while she stood in place, squishing one of the cotton balls between her fingers. It had been a day that inspired questions. Mrs. Hammond’s. Charlie’s. Bingley’s. Will’s, too. And her own most pressing point of curiosity: Did Will consider women with children more or less frightening than panicky reptiles?

  All in all, she’d put what little money she had on the lizard being the preferred companion.

  THIRTEEN

  The crash victim Will was working on, a young husband and father, stabilized within minutes, so he had a spare second to glance through the window and watch Beth walking away. Her friend was by her side. Her son was clutching her hand. It was all he could do not to throw his sterilized mask on the ground and sprint after her.

  But of course he didn’t.

  Hypocritical of him, wasn’t it, implying that Bingley was a coward? That Beth was a liar? That his own anger was justifiable and totally logical?

  He thought of his mom. In her own way, she’d been trying to manipulate him into a relationship for years. Just like Bingley. Why wouldn’t he blame her for some of this? Rationally he knew she was just as much—if not more—at fault than Bingley. But he knew somethi
ng else about her, too. He knew there was a passion in her. One directed at protecting him and loving him like no one else in the world ever would or could.

  There was something about the power of a mother’s love. He knew she’d never purposely do anything to hurt him. That his real and true best interests were in each beat of her heart, in every breath she took and in any action she initiated.

  He’d seen that same kind of fierce love in Beth’s eyes when she held and comforted her son. He could sense it through the glass windows and across the courtyard as they left the hospital.

  He had been acting like a coward because he was afraid to feel emotions of that intensity toward anyone. And then acting like a liar because he’d spent several weeks denying his need for that very thing.

  He leaned out into the hallway, peering down the length of it in search of Lang. Will spotted him with his back up against a support beam and his fingers steepled together.

  Fresh grief washed over the guy’s face. Lang’s patient, the wife and mother, must not have fared as well as Will’s patient. But Lang seemed to be working hard to keep his sentiments in check. A part of Will was proud of him. Another part ached for the loss. The loss of Lang’s full range of emotion and natural compassion… before the job forcibly tempered it.

  And where had his full range of emotion gone?

  Will looked at the unconscious man on the bed in front of him. His vitals were normal. The injuries he incurred would most likely heal. But what would happen to this man’s young family? How would he and his two children recover from the loss of the central woman in their lives?

  To his horror, Will felt tears prick his eyes. He jabbed at them with his cuff as he might if he were wiping sweat from his face. It didn’t work. They kept returning, the damned things. He had to get out of this room.

  At the first opportunity, Will slipped away. He hid in his office, locked the door and let all the pain he’d been holding back crash over him. Then, for a long while, he thought about what his mom said. Did the important things line up between him and Beth? Were the rest just details that could be worked through? In his opinion, yes.