Hotblooded (26 page)

He didn’t affirm her statement, but he didn’t deny it either. He just watched her.

“You seemed so determined,” she said, watching his face for any tiny indication of what he was thinking or feeling.

He still stood just looking at her, as if he knew she was figuring it out.

A coldness settled near her heart. “Edward Movey killed Mike,” she said softly. “Drunk driving. You said it yourself.”

“He was my uncle.”

She digested that for a moment, but it didn’t make things much clearer. “He was alone,” she said. “You weren’t there.”

“No, not when he got in the car I wasn’t,” he said bitterly.

She bit her bottom lip, seriously considering letting it go. Did it matter? She wasn’t sure.

But in the end, she couldn’t. “Why do you feel responsible?”

“He’d been drinking. I knew it. I tried to talk him into letting me give him a ride. But when he got stubborn and refused, I got frustrated. And walked out.”

The coldness now encased her heart and lungs, making it hard to breathe. But she shook her head. “So? That doesn’t mean you’re responsible. Things like that happen.”

“He’d done it before. I knew it. But I still left.”

She was still shaking her head. Jack stepped close and his hands went to either side of her head to stop the movement. He looked deeply into her eyes.

“I would have saved his life if I’d stayed with him. I would have saved Mike’s life.”

“And you feel obligated to
me
somehow?” she managed to ask when all she really wanted to do was throw herself into his arms as he released her. Though she wasn’t sure if she would be seeking comfort or giving it. The pain in his eyes tore at her heart.

“You were the one left to pick up the most pieces.”

“You thought the money would help me pick up the pieces?”

“I’d hoped it would.”

She took a long shaky breath. “It’s pretty hard to put a price on something like that, isn’t it?”

“Extremely.”

“Especially when the person won’t take the money.”

“Yes.”

She hated how her stomach kept drawing tighter and tighter and the coldness in her chest spread outward.

“In lieu of the money, you thought you could give me
things
.”

He nodded.

“No one needs that many cappuccino machines though”

“I would have thought of more.”

“And when I wouldn’t take stuff, you thought you could substitute service.”

He nodded.

“You thought you would work off what you believed you owed me?”

He didn’t say or do anything.

“I know you’re a good doctor, Jack, but that’s a year’s salary. Not something you can earn in a few weeks or months.”

“No.”

His voice was flat, his expression suddenly neutral and the sick, cold feeling now filled her completely.

“So you thought throwing in a couple of orgasms could help even things up a bit.”

“
No.
Brooke—”

Now she stepped back from him, shaking her head quickly. “No wonder you thought you’d stay for a while. I mean, the sex was good, but it would take some time to work off that kind of price tag. Even my mother didn’t get that kind of money for just one night.”

She turned on her heel quickly, feeling her skin scrape against the rough cement, but she kept moving as she prayed that Jack wouldn’t follow her.

He didn’t.

“I got a replacement.” Jack settled himself on the corner of Amy’s desk as he spoke to Carla.

Carla looked up from the computer monitor with wide eyes. “Already? You were only on the phone twenty minutes.”

“Alex, a past medical student of mine. He owed me a couple of favors.” Thank God. Jack was definitely not above cashing those in. The blow up with Brooke had happened just yesterday but he already knew he couldn’t stay. It was too hard.

Carla whistled. “He must have.”

“That and I offered him a lot of money.”

Carla gave him a smile as she rose and went to the file cabinet. “So if it was that easy why didn’t you just call him in the first place?” she asked as she opened the second drawer.

Jack frowned. “The first place?”

She pulled two folders from the drawer. “When you first found out we needed a new doctor.”

He started to reply. Then realized he didn’t have an answer.

“He wouldn’t have…” He stopped. Alex would have come. Jack had proved that just a few minutes ago. “I mean, he couldn’t have…” But Alex could have handled everything just fine. He was a great physician, a friendly, warm, natural people person. He would have done well in Honey Creek.

“You okay?” Carla’s expression turned worried and curious as he fumbled with his thoughts. “You look…weird.”

He felt weird. Why the hell
hadn’t
he called Alex right away? It would have been a perfect fit. He knew Alex was looking for something new, a change of pace. He had been staring the perfect opportunity for Alex right in the face. And he’d taken that opportunity for himself. In spite of the fact that it turned his life upside down, upset Brooke and put tension between him and his brother. He’d completely ignored what would have been great for Alex, and Brooke.

When the truth hit a moment later, it was like a hard jab to the chin.

“You know,” he said slowly. “You’ve got a point.”

“Yeah?” Carla asked.

“Bringing Alex in, introducing him to Brooke and Honey Creek, covering his salary for a year or so, would have been very charitable, wouldn’t it?” he asked, his speech gaining speed as he put thoughts and words together.

“Charitable?” Carla repeated, obviously puzzled by his choice of words.

“I mean, if my intention was only to help Brooke, to ease my guilty conscience, I could have called Alex right away.”

Carla tipped her head to one side. “Seems that way,” she said slowly. “But
you
stayed instead.”

“And why did I do that?” he asked her, coming off the corner of the desk, the realization full in his mind and a thrill humming in his veins. “If my original intention was to just drop off a bunch of money and then beat it out of town, why didn’t I do the same thing with Alex when I had the chance? Dump a replacement physician on Brooke’s doorstep and then get going before I could get too involved?
That
would have been the perfect, charitable thing to do.”

Carla was watching him with a look than swung between worried and amused. “I don’t know why you didn’t do that.”

“I do.” He felt the huge grin stretch his mouth. “I know exactly why.”

He stood grinning at her like an idiot for several seconds, until Carla prompted, “Why?”

“Because by that time, I
wanted
to be involved.”

“You did?”

“I didn’t just want to make things a little better for Brooke. I wanted to be
involved
with her.”

It was a relief to feel the understanding wash over him. He’d let David’s nagging questions about his motivations get into his head and overpower his emotions. But his relationship with Brooke wasn’t, and hadn’t been, about his guilt. Guilt brought him to Honey Creek, but it hadn’t kept him here.

Happier than he’d been in a long, long time, he crossed the space to where Carla stood and gently gripped her upper arms in his enthusiasm.

“Don’t you see?” he said, his eyes intent on Carla’s. He had to practice making a woman understand all of this. “I was fascinated with her from the moment she refused my check.” He knew he was grinning stupidly but he couldn’t seem to stop. “After that, I wanted to get to know her. As I got to know her, I started to care about her. And then…” He stopped and took a deep, cleansing breath.

“Then?” Carla asked, smiling.

“I fell in love with her.” He let go of Carla and stepped back, spreading his arms wide. “I’m in love with Brooke Donovan,” he proclaimed. He dropped his arms, “
That’s
why I stayed.”

Carla grinned back at him. “I know.”

“I can’t leave,” he added as that realization also hit.

Carla sighed and turned her eyes toward the ceiling. “Thank God.”

Jack’s thoughts were coming almost too quickly to keep up with now. He began pacing. “I can’t leave. But I also can’t just stay. I can’t force her to put up with me.”

“You’ve been forcing her to do that since you first set foot in this town,” Carla reminded him.

He acknowledged her comment with a slight inclination of his head. “Okay, but that was different. My motivation was different. I just wanted her to take my help, in some form, some way. Now she has to want
me
, not just what I can give her or do for her.”

“She never did want what you could give her or do for her,” Carla said with a small laugh.

He shook his head. “She didn’t want to
admit
it, but I think she did want my help. So I found something she couldn’t say no to. She
had
to agree to let me be her supervising physician. She didn’t have a choice.”

“So now she gets to choose between you or Alex?”

Something tightened in the pit of Jack’s stomach at the thought of Brooke being faced with a choice between him and…anything else. What if she didn’t choose him? What if she was that angry? That hurt? How could he convince her that it
wasn’t
charity that kept him in town and in her life?

He couldn’t stay here and continually try to make things better for her and fix things and help her if she didn’t want it. Maybe even if she did. Both of them needed to realize that Brooke could be in charge of her own life…and her own choices.

She missed her fountain. And the cappuccino.

Brooke was hiding out at home because her house was the only place in Honey Creek she went where Jack had never been. It was supposed to be a haven from memories and desires.

But it didn’t have a fountain or good coffee. Or any coffee. She hadn’t bought new coffee grounds since the machine had come to the clinic.

Ironically, the noticeable lack of some of her favorite things was as much a reminder of Jack as anything.

Passing the mirror over the dresser in the bedroom also made her think of him. She was dressed in boring colors—gray sweat pants with a gray hoodie over a black T-shirt—with her hair pulled up the way he hated.

She stopped in the middle of the room and looked around, suddenly aware that it wasn’t just her clothes that lacked color. Her bedroom was decorated in mostly cream. There were a couple of pale blue throw pillows and some blue flowers on the valances, but everything else was neutral, from the carpet to the paint on the walls to the bedspread.

The living room was decorated in tan and brown. The kitchen was white.

Was this really what she chose to surround herself with?

Brooke leaned back against the living room wall and numbly stared at her belongings. What belongings there were. She owned the furniture, but had gone for practical, rather than expressive. She had surfaces to sit on, eat at and sleep in. Beyond that, there was nothing special or unique about her furniture, house or décor. She didn’t have photographs displayed, no knick-knacks, no keepsakes. She hadn’t invested anything physically or emotionally in this place because she hadn’t planned on staying.

Much like the clinic.

Until recently.

Suddenly she wanted to be there sipping a cappuccino and sitting next to her fountain. She wanted to talk to Carla, even Amy. And yes, of course she wanted to see Jack. She even wanted to see patients.

Yes, her house was the one place where Jack hadn’t been. But it wasn’t better for it. It certainly didn’t give her the peace she wanted. In fact, it made her crazy. The blandness of her environment, and her life, was obvious here and it made the changes Jack had brought all the more obvious and appealing.

She headed into the kitchen, feeling a thickness her throat that could easily give way at any moment to sobs. She yanked the freezer door open and sighed, instead, in relief.

There was a small tub of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream right in the front.

At least
that
had some color to it.

The cappuccino didn’t taste as good as she remembered.

Brooke stirred the cup, frowning at the contents. She hadn’t come to the clinic yesterday. One day. How could anything actually be different already?

She pushed the cup away, disgusted—with herself. Coffee didn’t taste bad because Jack wasn’t in love with her. That was stupid. The cloudy sky, running out of shaving cream and her headache also weren’t because he didn’t love her.

Well, the headache probably was. But not the other stuff.

She had to get a grip. So Jack didn’t love her. So what? He’d just felt guilty. Really, really guilty. Big deal.

The shock of his confession had definitely faded. It actually all made sense now. She had wondered why he’d stayed, why he’d been so persistent about being there and making changes. Now she knew. Guilt was a powerful emotion, especially for a self-proclaimed hero. Jack wasn’t used to making mistakes. And he did tend to overreact. So he’d overcompensated for this one.

Fine.

Now her life could go back to where it had been.

Boring, lonely, depressing and frustrating.

Great.

A knock at the door jolted her from her thoughts.

“Yes?”

Brooke expected Carla, but instead Jack strode through the doorway. It was the first time she could remember him actually waiting for an answer before coming in.

She’d missed him.

It was such a strange thing to feel with him standing right in front of her. She stubbornly denied herself the sob that wanted to escape.

He came to her desk and handed her a folder. “I got a replacement,” he told her simply. “He’ll be here Monday.”

“Monday?” she repeated in surprise. “As in three days from now?”

“Yes.”

“A replacement for…”

“Me.”

Her heart banged against her ribs. “I see.” As if anyone could replace him.

“You have a choice now. Me or him.”

You
. But she held back. She still wanted him, but she was angry he’d kept the truth from her for so long. She was hurt that she didn’t know what he’d done for her because of guilt and what he’d done because of more, if anything. But she still wanted him.