Instant Gratification (19 page)

Someone.

She thought maybe she’d found it, found him.

E
mma and her dad met at the clinic that afternoon. They went over the offers on the place, and picked the one they planned on accepting. It’d been made by a South Shore investor who owned fifteen other properties in the area. He was well-known and respected, the numbers were fantastic, and it was an easy decision to sign on the dotted line.

Relatively speaking.

Spence was giving her father a check up before Spence left for the airport so that Emma would feel better about following in a few days.

Or as okay as she could manage.

In the meantime, she was updating the records while keeping one eye on the examination door, and thinking of a certain expedition guide with a certain amazing mouth and who knew how to use it—a guy who was taking her out tonight.

On a training session to relax.

The front door opened and the cowbells jangled together. They no longer drove her crazy, Emma realized as Serena walked in with a black and white bag. “My specialty good-bye chocolates. For the doctor.”

“Wow, thanks.” Emma reached for them, but Serena held the bag up with a laugh that brought Emma back to first grade so fast her head spun.

“The
other
doctor,” Serena said with a sweet smile. “The one I want to have sex with. Not that you’re not sexy. If I swung that way, I’d totally do you.”

“Um, thanks. I think. Spencer’s busy right now.”

“No problem, I’ll just wait.” Serena looked uncharacteristically unsure of herself. “So…”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. No.” Serena leaned in. “Spencer wouldn’t sleep with me this afternoon. I mean we were having a great time. We went out to lunch and talked and laughed for hours. We played with the kittens, which certainly closed the deal for him, but then he took me home.”

“Sounds like a nice day.”

“Okay, you’re not listening. He didn’t sleep with me. Is there something wrong with him?”

“Of course not. He’s leaving is all. He was being a gentleman.”

“Him leaving is what makes it perfect. No ties.”

Emma had no business judging anyone, especially when at the moment, Serena’s philosophy seemed appealing. Casual sex; no pain or messy emotions…seemed better than her way.

“I’m going to try one more time,” Serena said, sounding determined as she applied some lip gloss while looking at herself in her own cell phone’s camera lens.

“Now?”

“No, tomorrow when he’s gone. Yes, now.”

“He’s with my dad.”

“I can wait.” She crossed her legs, and picked up a magazine.

Emma tried go to back to the books but her mind wandered
to Stone. And tonight. And whether they’d be having casual sex.

God, she hoped so. “Serena?”

“Yeah?”

“What do people in Wishful do on dates?” Not that it was a date, because it wasn’t.

“As everywhere else, City Girl. Whatever you want. With Stone?”

“Yes.”

“Well, lucky you. He’s a hot one.”

Yeah. Yeah, he was. She opened her mouth to say something, she had no idea what, but the examination door opened. Spencer came out, his nose in her father’s chart.

Emma moved around the front desk and into the hallway, pulling him with her. “Well?”

“His latest EKG is good. We need to run labs to check liver function and cholesterol levels, but you already know that. He’s taking his beta blockers, Plavix and Niacin, and following your strict dietary restrictions. He’s also exercising. He reports no chest pain.” He smiled. “I see no signs of post infarction syndrome indicating either recurrent MI or heart failure. He’s good.”

“You see him going back to work?”

“He certainly wants to. He told me he’s planning on working here as much as he can.”

Relief had her leaning back against the wall. “Okay, then.”

“Which means you could fly home with me if you want.”

“No.” She needed a few more days to help her father close up.

No, that wasn’t true.

She needed her night with Stone. “I’ll wait until Friday.”

He smiled. “Used to be you couldn’t wait to get out of here.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. Now she suddenly wasn’t in a hurry. It
didn’t take a genius to know why. It did take a genius to understand it. “Are you ready to head out in a few?”

“One thing left to do.” He waggled a brow suggestively. His favorite cue for “let’s have sex”.

“I thought we’d discussed that.”

He laughed. “I didn’t mean you, Em. We dumped each other, remember? I wanted to say good-bye to Serena is all.”

“Well then you’re in luck,” Serena purred, and with eyes only for Spencer, came close. “How about I drive you to the airport? It’ll give us extra good-bye time.”

“I don’t want you to go to any trouble.”

“It isn’t.” She turned to Emma. “Okay with you?”

“Sure. Thank you.”

Like a cat in cream, Serena smiled. “Oh, you are most welcome.”

Spencer gave Emma a kiss and a long, hard hug “Friday, babe.”

“Friday.” She went into the examination room to see her father.

Spencer watched her go, then turned to Serena. “I appreciate this. She had enough on her plate.”

“Don’t thank me yet.”

He laughed. “Should I be scared?”

“If you like.” She had a pretty black and white bag from her shop in one hand, and with her other, linked her fingers in his as she led him outside.

Spencer was very aware that she was watching him closely. “Something wrong?”

“Are you going to miss her?”

“I’ll see her soon enough. Is that really your question?”

“No. But I’ll get to it when I’m ready.”

“All right then. So what were you at the clinic for?”

She lifted the black and white bag. “Bringing you a good-bye present.”

“I hope it’s chocolate.”

“Oh, it’s better. It’s
my
chocolate.”

He dug into the bag as they got into her car, then moaned heartily at the fantastic fudge melting on his tongue. “My God.” He looked at her in a new light. A fellow foodie…” People should bow down to you in the streets.”

“Yes, they should.” She wore a skirt, longer than the other night, and pencil thin. Her top was white and fitted. She looked professional and untouchable.

And hot. So damn hot. It’d been almost impossible to resist her earlier, especially when she’d made it clear that she wanted to sleep with him, but for some reason he couldn’t have explained to save his life, he didn’t want to be just another guy she’d had.

“So you like chocolate.”

“I like good food.”

She was smiling at him, and he could have added that he especially liked her red lips, and was locked on those when she said unexpectedly, “I’m ready to ask you my question now.”

“Go for it.”

“Are you in love with Emma?”

She waited while he adjusted to the abrupt subject change, her gaze filled with a brutal, open honesty. “That’s a pretty personal question,” he finally said.

“I know. But it’s something I’d like to know before I take you home and pour chocolate all over your body, and then lick it off.”

He went from zero to sixty in less than two seconds. “I have a flight.”

“Yeah.” She looked out the windshield at the stark, blue, cloudless sky. “Not good flying weather. A storm’s moving in.”

He blinked, but the sky was still cloudless. He looked back
into her steady, heated eyes and felt his blood stir. He didn’t know a man could resist this. Her. “So…”

“I’m thinking a delay would be a smart move.”

“Are you.”

“Actually, it depends on the answer to my question. Because I screwed up love once. I don’t do that anymore.”

Yeah, she had claws, sharp ones, but she also had heart. And big eyes. Eyes that weren’t nearly as tough as she pretended to be. “I love Emma,” he said quietly. “But I’m not in love with Emma. Does that count?”

She stared at him, then smiled slowly, warmly, and he stared at her in return, a little blown away by how just that one smile—her first real one he’d bet—affected him.

“It counts,” she whispered.

He looked at her. She was beautiful, she took his breath away. He ate another piece of fudge, chewing slowly because it was so mind-boggling good he couldn’t believe it, and because he wasn’t sure what was happening. He usually went for the good girls, the ones who followed the rules and were nice to others and who didn’t challenge him.

Serena was none of that.

He liked it. He liked her, a whole hell of a lot.

“Decision time,” she murmured. “Left to the airport, or right.”

To her place.

He was a careful man. Methodical and just a bit nerdy. He knew this. He accepted this. But right now, he had a chance to be more with a woman who saw something in him that made him feel like Superman. “Right.”

She smiled and pulled up to her shop. They walked into her bakery, which had a mouthwatering scent and a décor to match. It was done up like an old-time French café; wrought iron tables and chairs, pale pink and white stripes on the walls, which were covered with charming pictures of the French countryside. It was warm and cozy and elegant.

“I have an apartment in the back,” she said. “It’s small. My own port in the storm.”

“We could go out for dinner, or a movie.”

She looked surprised. “You’re not interested in the whole licking the chocolate off our bodies thing?”

“A dinner offer isn’t a rejection. It’s like the opposite of a rejection. You know that, right? It’s my way of offering you respect and companionship.”

She just looked at him. “You’re unusual. You look like a hot guy, but on the inside you’re sort of…”

“A nerd.”

“Yes.”

“True. But trust me. Nerds? They always get their way and win the girl in the end.”

“You’re going to win the girl, Spencer.”

“Good.” He took her hand. “So how about I cook dinner?”

“You cook?”

“Oh, sweetheart.” He grinned. “Listen, we started with your most excellent dessert, but let’s finish with my main course.”

“And you don’t mean sex?”

“First things first.”

She stared at him for the longest moment. “I can’t figure you out.”

“Being figured out never works out for me.”

She stared at him some more, then smiled. “Well, then. To a night of surprises. For both of us.”

Emma and her father looked at each other over his chart. He was still sitting on the examination table, looking deceptively healthy. His hair was crazy wild but he had a nice tan and an easy smile. Spence says you’re doing good,” she said.

“I told you.”

“I wanted to be sure.”

“That’s the doctor in you.” He patted her knee. “I love that you’re a doctor. I’m so proud of you, Emma. Have I ever told you that?”

The words slid down like warm milk and honey. “No.”

“I am. Very proud, and very happy that we ended up doing the same thing with our lives.”

If he’d said that even a month ago, she’d have denied that they were doing the same thing with their lives. After all, she’d been in an ER saving multiple lives every single day, and he’d been here in a small town of several thousand, treating rashes and sprained ankles.

She’d have been wrong.

So wrong.

What her father did was just as important as what she did. More so. Because in New York, she was a dime a dozen. If she couldn’t show up for work, there was an entire staff to pick from of others exactly like her.

Just that easily, she’d be replaced.

But here in Wishful, her father was the only one. Irreplaceable.

“You feel good about the sale?” he said.

“It’s not about me.”

“I’m asking what you think.”

He’d never asked her what she thought before she’d come here to Wishful, but he was asking now.

As she knew all too well, now was all that mattered. “I think it’s a good offer,” she said carefully. “And the easiest route to take.”

He took a deep breath and nodded. “Easier because you won’t feel responsible for me or this place, if something else happens?”

He meant if he had another heart attack. The thought made her gut clench and put a lump in her throat. That they’d had a
tough time in the past finding a relationship didn’t matter. Not when he was all she had left. “It’s not about that. It’s not about me at all. It’s about you and your health and being happy.”

“I’ve always been happy here, always.”

The lump in her throat expanded. He’d paid for her college. He’d tried to see her. Wanted her. She couldn’t keep quiet. “Dad.” She shook her head. “You paid for my college education. You gave up your savings, your retirement fund. You were there for me, and I never knew it. I feel so selfish, so regretful that I—” To her surprise and horror, her voice cracked. “That we—”

“Hey. Hey…” Reaching out, he put his hand over hers. “Listen to me. A dad visits his kid. A dad gives his kid a leg up when they want to go to college. Both of those things were my job, and it’s the least of what I should have done. In any case, it’s all in the past.”

“Yes, but Mom—”

“Did the best she could.”

She stared at him, grateful beyond words that he wasn’t asking her to make a choice between him and her mom’s memory. More than that, he didn’t want her to. She’d grossly underestimated him, and that was her own shame, but like him, she wouldn’t look back.

But she could fix the now.

And the future. “I’m actually going to miss this place.”

He looked up, startled. Hopeful. “You are?”

“Dad,” she started regretfully, and he squeezed her hand.

“It’s okay, Emma. It’s all going to be okay.”

But it wasn’t. She was leaving, and she didn’t know what that would mean for them. Would they go back to being polite strangers?

Would he really be okay without his clinic?

Suddenly she didn’t think so, and she started to say some
thing but he rose to his feet, a little slow to straighten. He creaked and groaned, then shot her another little smile. “Getting old isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. I don’t recommend it.”

He was giving her a moment, letting her skip over the big elephant in the room. But if she’d learned one thing from being here, from Stone actually, it was that sweeping emotions under the carpet never worked. We both know I wasn’t exactly in my element here, that I never planned to stay.”