Midnight Kiss (3 page)

Then she turned and caught a couple of good shots of the bar porch, the snow drifting on the rails and steps and roof. Then of the street with all the houses lit for holiday cheer. Then the bar porch with a man leaning against the rail, arms crossed over his chest—a very handsome man.

She lowered the camera and walked toward Drew. There was no getting around the fact that he was handsome—tall and built, light brown hair, twinkling brown eyes, and if she remembered right, a very sexy smile. He stood on the porch and she looked up at him.

“Okay, look, I apologize,” she said. “It’s not like me to be so rude, so ‘unapproachable’ as you call it. I got dumped, okay? I’m still licking my wounds, as my uncle Nathaniel puts it. Not a good time for me to
respond to a come-on from a guy. I’m scared to death to meet a guy and end up actually liking him, so I avoid all males. That’s it in a nutshell,” she added with a shrug. “I used to be very friendly and outgoing—now I’m on guard a lot.”

“Apology accepted. And I had a bad breakup, too, but it was a while ago. Water under the bridge, as they say.”

“You got dumped?”

He gave a nod. “And I understand how you feel. So let’s start over. What do you say? I’m Drew Foley,” he said.

She took another step toward the porch, looking up at him. “Sunny Archer. But when? I mean, how long ago did you get dumped?”

“About nine months, I guess.”

“About?” she asked. It must not have impacted him in quite the same way if he couldn’t remember the date. “I mean—was it traumatic?”

“Sort of,” he said. “We were engaged, lived together, but we were arguing all the time. She finally told me she wasn’t willing to have a life like that and we had to go our separate ways. It wasn’t my idea to break up.” He shrugged. “I thought we could fix it and wanted to try, but she didn’t.”

“Did you know?” she asked. “Were you expecting it?”

He shook his head. “I should have expected it, but it broadsided me.”

“How can that be? If you should have expected it, how could it possibly have taken you by surprise?”

He took a deep breath, looked skyward into the softly falling flakes, then back at her. “We were pretty
miserable, but before we lived together we did great. I’m a medical resident and my hours were…still are hideous. Sometimes I’m on for thirty-six hours and just get enough time off to sleep. She needed more from me than that. She…” He looked down. “I don’t like calling her
she
or
her. Penny
had a hard time changing her life in order to move in with me. She had to get a new job, make new friends, and I was never there for her. I should have seen it coming but I didn’t. It was all my fault but I couldn’t have done anything to change it.”

“Where are you from?” she asked him.

“Chico. About four hours south of here.”

“Wow,” she said. “We actually do have some things in common.”

“Do we?” he asked.

“But you’re over it. How’d you get over it?”

He put his hands in his front pants pockets. “She invited me to her engagement party three months ago. To another surgical resident. Last time I looked, he was on the same treadmill I was on. Guess he manages better with no sleep.”

“No way,” she said, backing away from the bar’s porch a little bit.

“Way.”

“You don’t suppose…?”

“That she was doing him when she was supposed to be doing me?” he asked for her. “It crossed my mind. But I’m not going there. I don’t even want to know. All that aside, she obviously wasn’t the one. I know that now. Which means it really
was
my fault. I was hooking up with someone out of inertia, not because I was insanely in love with her. Bottom line, Sunny, me and
Penny? We both dodged a bullet. We were not meant to be.”

She was speechless. Her mouth formed a perfect O. Her eyes were round. She wished she’d been able to take her own situation in such stride. “Holy crap,” she finally said. Then she shook her head. “I guess you have to be confident to be in medicine and all.”

“Aw, come on, don’t give the study all the credit. I might actually have some common sense.” He took a step down from the bar porch to approach her, his heel slid on the step and he went airborne. While he was in the air, there were rapid flashes from her camera. Then he landed, flat on his back, and there were more flashes.

Sunny stood over him, camera in hand. She looked down at him. “Are you all right?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. It took him a moment to catch his breath. “I could be paralyzed, you know. I hope I was hallucinating, but were you actually taking my picture as I fell?”

“Well, I couldn’t catch you,” she said. Then she smiled.

“You are sick and twisted.”

“Maybe you should lie still. I could go in the bar and get the pediatrician and the midwife to have a look at you. I met them earlier, before you got here.”

He looked up at her; she was still smiling. Apparently it didn’t take much to cheer her up—the near death of a man seemed to put her in a better mood. “Maybe you could just show them the pictures….”

She fell onto her knees beside him and laughed, her camera still in hand. It was a bright and happy sound
and those beautiful blue eyes glittered. “Seriously, you’re the doctor—do you think you’re all right?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t moved yet. One wrong move and I could be paralyzed from the neck down.”

“Are you playing me?”

“Might be,” he admitted with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Hah! You moved! You’re fine. Get up.”

“Are you going to have a drink with me?” he asked.

“Why should I? Seriously, we’re a couple of wounded birds—we probably shouldn’t drink, and we certainly shouldn’t drink together!”

“Get over it,” he said, rising a bit, holding himself up on his elbows. “We have nothing to lose. It’s a New Year’s Eve party. We’ll have a couple of drinks, toast the New Year, move on. But give it a try not so pissed off. See if you can have some fun.” He smiled. “Just for the heck of it?”

She sat back on her heels and eyed him warily. “Is this just more inertia?”

His grin widened. “No, Sunny. This is part chivalry and part animal attraction.”

“Oh, God…. I just got dumped by an animal. So not looking for another one.”

He gave her a gentle punch in the arm. “Buck up. Be a big girl. I bet you haven’t let an interested guy buy you a drink in a long time. Take a chance. Practice on me. I’m harmless.”

She lifted one light brown brow. “How do I know you’re harmless?”

“I’m going back to sacrifice myself to the gods of
residency in two days. They’ll chew me up and spit me out. Those chief residents are ruthless and they want revenge for what was done to them when they were the little guys. There won’t even be a body left. No one will ever know you succumbed to having a beer with me.” And then he smiled with all his teeth.

She tsked and rolled her eyes at him.

He sat up. “See how much you like me? You’re putty in my hands.”

“You’re a dork!”

He got to his feet and held out a hand to her, helping her up. “I’ve heard that, but I’m not buying it yet. I think if you dig deep enough, I might be cool.”

She brushed off the knees of her jeans. “I’m not sure I have that kind of time.”

O
NCE
D
REW GOT UP AND MOVED
,
he limped. He claimed a wounded hip and leaned on Sunny. Since she couldn’t be sure if he was faking, she allowed this. But just as they neared the steps, the doors to the bar flew open and people began to spill out, laughing, shouting, waving goodbye.

“Careful there,” he yelled, straightening up. “I just slipped on the steps. They’re iced over. I’ll get Jack to throw some salt on them, but take it slow and easy.”

“Sure,” someone said. “Thanks, Drew.”

“Be careful driving back to Chico,” someone else said.

“Say hello to your sisters,” a woman said. “Tell them to come up before too long, we miss them.”

“Pinch that cute baby!”

“Will do,” Drew said in response, and he pulled Sunny to the side to make way for the grand exodus. The laughing, joking, talking people, some carrying their plates and pots from the buffet table, headed for their cars.

“What the heck,” Sunny said. “It’s not even nine o’clock!”

Drew laughed and put his arm back over her shoulder to lean on her. “This is a little town, Sunny. These folks have farms, ranches, orchards, vineyards, small
businesses and stuff like that. The ones who don’t have to get up early for work—even on holidays—might stay later. And some of the folks who are staying are on call—the midwife, the cop, the doctor.” He grinned. “Probably the bartender. If anyone has a flat on the way home, five gets you ten either Jack or Preacher will help out.”

“Do you know all these people?”

“A lot of them, yeah. I’ll give you the short version of the story—my sister Marcie was married to a marine who was disabled in action and then later died. She came up here to find his best friend and sergeant—Ian Buchanan. She found him in a run-down old cabin up on the ridge, just over the county line, but the nearest town was Virgin River. So—she married him and they have a baby now. My oldest sister, Erin, wanted a retreat up here, but she couldn’t handle a cabin with no indoor bathroom or where you’d have to boil your bath water and chop your wood for heat, so she got a local builder to renovate one into something up to her standards with electricity, indoor plumbing and a whirlpool tub.” He laughed. “Really, Marcie’s pretty tough, but if Erin risked breaking a nail, that would make her very cranky.” He looked at Sunny and smiled. “It used to be a lean-to, now it should be in
Architectural Digest.
Anyway, I’ve been up here several times in the past couple of years, and Jack’s is the only game in town. You don’t have to drop into Jack’s very many times before you know half the town. I’m hiding out in the cabin for a few days to get some studying done, away from my sisters and the baby. I have to go back on the second. I just swung through town for a beer—I had no idea there was a party.”

They just stood there, in front of the porch, his arm draped across her shoulder. It was kind of silly—she was only five foot four and he was easily six feet, plus muscular. He didn’t lean on her too heavily.

“Is it very hard, what you do? Residency?”

“It doesn’t have to be. It could be a learning experience, but the senior residents pile as much on you as they can. It’s like a dare—who can take it all and keep standing. That’s the part that makes it hard.” Then he sobered for a second. “And kids. I love working with the kids, making them laugh, helping them get better, but it’s so tough to see them broken. Being the surgeon who puts a kid back together again—it’s like the best and worst part of what I do. Know what I mean?”

She couldn’t help but imagine him taking a little soccer player into surgery, or wrapping casting material around the arm of a young violinist. “Your sister was married to a soldier who was killed…?”

“She was married to a marine. Bobby was permanently disabled by a bomb in Iraq. He was in a nursing home for a few years before he died, but he never really came back, you know? No conscious recognition—the light was on but no one was home. They were very young.”

“Were you close to him?”

“Yeah, sure. He was two years older and we all went to high school together. Bobby went in right after graduation. Ian was a little older, so I didn’t know him until Marcie brought him home.” He laughed sentimentally. “She’s something, Marcie. She came up here to find Ian, make sure he was all right after the war and to give him Bobby’s baseball card collection. She brought him home on Christmas eve and said, ‘This is
Ian and I’m going to marry him as soon as he can get used to the idea.’”

“This is why,” she said softly. “This is why you can move on after getting dumped by your fiancée. You’ve seen some rough stuff and you know how to count your blessings. I bet that’s it.”

He turned Sunny so she faced him. Of course he couldn’t lean on her then, but he got close. “Sunny, my family’s been through some stuff… Mostly my sisters, really—they had it toughest. But the thing that keeps me looking up instead of down—it’s what I see at work everyday. I’m called on to treat people with problems lots bigger than mine—people who will never walk again, never use their arms or hands, and sometimes worse. Orthopedic pain can be terrible, rehab can be extended and dreary…. Tell you what, Sunshine—I’m upright, walking around, healthy, have a brain to think with and the option to enjoy my life. Well, I’m not going to take that for granted.” He lifted a brow, tilted his head, smiled. “Maybe you should spend a little time in my trauma center, see if it fixes up all those things you think you should worry about?”

“What about your chief residents?” she asked, showing him her smile.

“Oh, them. Well, I pretty much wish them dead. No remorse, either. God, they’re mean. Mean and spiteful and impossible to please.”

“Will you be a chief resident someday?”

His smile took on an evil slant. “Yes. But not soon enough. Watch yourself on these stairs, honey.” Before opening the door for Sunny, he stopped her. “So—want to find a cozy spot by the fire and tell me about the breakup that left you so sad and unapproachable?”

She didn’t even have to think about it. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Fair enough. Want to tell me how you got into photography?”

She smiled at him. “I could do that.”

“Good. I’ll have Jack pour you a glass of wine and while he’s doing that I’ll scatter some salt on those icy steps.” He touched her pink nose. “Your mission is to find us a spot in that bar where we can talk. If I’m not mistaken, we’re the only two singles at this party.”

S
UNNY WENT BACK TO THE PLACE
near the fire where she had left her camera bag and put her camera away. She glanced over at Drew. He stood at the bar talking with Jack; Jack handed him a large canister of salt.

And suddenly it was someone else standing at the bar, and it wasn’t this bar. Her mind drifted and took her back in time. It was Glen and it was the bar at their rehearsal dinner. Glen was leaning on the bar, staring morosely into his drink, one foot lifted up on the rail. His best man, Russ, had a hand on his back, leaning close and talking in Glen’s ear. Glen wasn’t responding.

Why hadn’t she been more worried? she asked herself in retrospect. Maybe because everyone around her had been so reassuring? Or was it because she
refused
to be concerned?

Sunny wasn’t very old-fashioned, but there were a few traditional wedding customs she had wanted to uphold—one was not seeing her groom the day of her wedding. So she and her cousin Mary, who was also her matron of honor, would spend the night at Sunny’s parents’ house after the rehearsal dinner. Even still, she
remembered thinking it was a little early when Glen kissed her goodnight that evening.

“I’m going out with the boys for a nightcap, then home,” he said.

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

“Sure. Fine.” His smile was flat, she knew things were not fine.

“You’re not driving, are you?”

“Russ has the keys. It’s fine.”

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” She remembered so vividly that she laid her palm against his handsome cheek. “I can’t wait for tomorrow.”

He didn’t move his head, but his eyes had darted briefly away. “Me, too.”

When Russ came over to her to say good-night, she had asked, “What’s bothering Glen?”

“Oh, he’ll be fine.”

“But what is it?”

Russ had laughed a bit uncomfortably. “Y’know, even though you two have been together a long time, lived together and everything, it’s still a pretty big step for a guy. For both of you, I realize. But guys… I don’t know what it is about us—I was a little jittery the day before my wedding. And it was absolutely what I wanted, no doubt, but I was still nervous. I don’t know if it’s the responsibility, the lifestyle change…”

“What changes?” she asked. “Besides that we’re going to take a nice trip and write a lot of thank-you notes?”

“I’m just saying… I’ve been in a bunch of weddings, including my own, and every groom I’ve ever known gets a little jumpy right before. Don’t worry about it. I’ll buy him a drink on the way home, make sure he gets
all tucked in. You’ll be on your way to Aruba before you know it.” Then he had smiled reassuringly.

“Will you ask him to call me to say good-night?” she asked.

“Sure. But if he’s slurring by then, don’t hold it against me!”

She’d been up late talking to Mary; they’d opened another bottle of wine. By the time they fell asleep it was the wee hours and they’d slept soundly. In the morning when she checked her cell phone, she found a text from Glen that had come in at three in the morning.
Going to bed. Talk to you tomorrow.

She wanted to talk to him, but she thought it would probably be better if he slept till noon, especially if there was anything to sleep off, so he’d be in good shape for the ceremony. All she wanted was for the wedding to be perfect! She had many bridely things to do and was kept busy from brunch getting a manicure and pedicure, surrounded by the women in her family and her girlfriends.

The New Year’s Eve wedding had been Sunny’s idea. It had been born of a conversation with the girls about how they’d never had a memorable New Year’s Eve—even when they had steady guys, were engaged or even married. Oh, there’d been a few parties, but they hadn’t been special in any way. Sunny thought it would be fantastic—a classy party to accompany her wedding, something for everyone to remember. An unforgettable event.

Little did she know.

She’d been so busy all day, she hadn’t worried that she never heard from Glen. She assumed he was as occupied with his guys as she was with her girls. In fact, it
hadn’t really bothered her until about five, still a couple of hours till the wedding. She called him and when he didn’t pick up, she left him a voice mail that she loved him, that she was so happy, that soon they would be married and off on a wonderful honeymoon.

It’s very hard for a photographer to choose a photographer; almost no one was going to measure up to Sunny’s expectations. But the very well known Lin Hui was trying her best, and started snapping shots as soon as the girls showed up at the church with hairdressers and professional makeup artists in tow. Her camera flashed at almost every phase of preparation and in addition captured special memories—shiny, strappy heels against flowers, female hands clutching white satin, mothers of the bride and groom embracing and dabbing each other’s eyes. But the poor thing seemed very nervous. Sunny assumed it was because of the challenge of shooting another professional. She had no idea it was because Lin couldn’t find the groom for a photo shoot of the men in the wedding party.

It happened at six forty-five, fifteen minutes before the ceremony was to start. Sunny’s father came into the wedding prep room with Russ. Both of them looked as if someone had died and she immediately gasped and ran to her father. “Is Glen all right?”

“He’s fine, honey.” Then he sent everyone out of the room including Sunny’s mom and the mother of the groom. He turned to Russ and said, “Tell her.”

Russ hung his head. He shook it. “Don’t ask me what’s got into him, I really can’t explain. There’s no good reason for this. He said he’s sorry, he just isn’t ready for this. He froze up, can’t go through with it.”

She had never before realized how fast denial can
set in or how long it can last. “Impossible. The wedding is in fifteen minutes,” she said.

“I know. I’m sorry—I spent all day trying to get through this with him. I even suggested he just show up, do it, and if he still feels the same way in a few months, he can get a divorce. Honest to God, it made more sense to me than this.”

She shook her head and then, inexplicably, laughed. “Aw, you guys. This is not funny. You got me, okay? But this isn’t funny!”

“It’s not a joke, baby,” her father said. “I’ve tried calling him—he won’t pick up.”

“He’ll pick up for me,” she said. “He always picks up for me!”

But he didn’t. Her call was sent to voice mail. Her message was, “Please call me and tell me I’m just dreaming this! Please! You can’t really be ditching me at the church fifteen minutes before the wedding! Not you! You’re better than this!”

Russ grabbed her wrist. “Sunny—he left his tux in my car to return. He’s not coming.”

Sunny looked at her father. “What am I supposed to do?” she asked in a whisper.

Her father’s face was dark with anger, stony with fury. “We’ll give him till seven-fifteen to call or do something honorable, then we make an announcement to the guests, invite them to go to the party and eat the food that will otherwise be given away or thrown out, and we’ll return the gifts with apologies. And then I’m going to kill him.”

“He said he’ll pay back the cost of the reception if it takes his whole life. But there’s no way he can pay
me back for what he asked me to do today,” Russ said. “Sunny, I’m so sorry.”

“But
why?
”

“Like I said, he doesn’t have a logical reason. He can’t, he said.” Russ shook his head. “I don’t understand, so I know you can’t possibly.”

Sunny grabbed Russ’s arm. “Go tell his mother to call him! Give her your cell phone so he’ll think it’s you and pick up!”