Return of the Last McKenna (Harlequin Romance) (15 page)

Then she turned on her heel and headed back into the ballroom.
The door shut, and Kate was gone.

CHAPTER TEN

B
RODY
stood beside
his brother and watched Riley and Stace pledge till death do us part,
with ridiculous, happy smiles all over their faces. Frank, Stace’s head chef,
longtime friend and business partner, watched from his seat, tears streaming
down his face. Gran sat beside Frank, dabbing at her pale blue eyes. Stace’s
sister and nephew sat on the other side of Frank, beaming like proud
parents.

The wedding had been simple, the service lasting just a few
minutes, with Brody and Finn serving as ushers. Finn had been best man, and gave
Riley a hug of congratulations when he handed the youngest McKenna the rings. As
soon as the minister pronounced them man and wife, Jiao, Finn and Ellie’s
adopted daughter who had served as flower girl, scooted out of her mother’s
arms, and scattered more rose petals on the altar. The guests laughed, and Jiao
ducked back behind her mother again. Ellie chuckled, and wrapped a protective
arm around the small dark-haired girl.

The minister introduced Mr. and Mrs. McKenna, then Riley and
Stace turned toward the small crowd of guests, hand in hand. Applause and cheers
went up, and the couple headed down the makeshift aisle in the center of the
diner, while guests showered them with rose petals and Jiao brought up the rear,
scattering flowers in their wake.

Throughout the wedding, Brody had forced himself to keep his
attention on the front of the room. Not to turn back and see if Kate was one of
the guests seated in the diner. But now, as Riley and Stace walked away, his
gaze scanned the crowd, searching for long brown hair, deep green eyes.

Disappointment sunk like a stone in his gut. She wasn’t
here.

He’d hoped, even though he had heard the finality in her voice,
but still he’d hoped that she would change her mind. His heart kept looking for
her, kept hoping to see her when there was a flash of dark brown hair or the
sound of laughter.

The band began playing, and several waitstaff hurried in to
move the seating around to accommodate a dance floor in the center of the diner.
The cupcakes had been delivered early this morning, probably part of Kate’s plan
to avoid him. Before Brody arrived, she’d stacked them on a towering stack of
circular plates, decorated with fresh flowers and strands of iridescent pearls,
like a real wedding cake. As always, Kate had surpassed expectations. The guests
oohed and aahed, and Riley pointed to Brody. “Don’t tell us, tell my brother
over there. I believe he made each one himself.”

“It wasn’t me,” Brody said, “it was all the work of—”

The door opened. Kate strode inside. She had her hair up in a
loose bun, with tendrils tickling along her jaw. She wore a pale blue dress that
floated above her knees in a swishy bell, and floral heels that accented her
legs, curved her calves. Brody reminded himself to breathe.

He couldn’t dare to hope for forgiveness for lying to her for
so long, regardless of how many times he’d apologized. But a part of him was
damned glad to see her, and wishing anyway.

“Thank that beautiful woman there.” He pointed at Kate. “Kate
Spencer, the owner of Nora’s Sweet Shop, which makes amazing cupcakes and
chocolates.”

Several guests swarmed Kate, singing her praises over the
floral decorated cupcakes. She thanked them, the admiration causing her to
blush. After a while, she broke away from the group, accepting a glass of
champagne from a passing waiter. She chatted with Ellie while Brody watched and
wished she was talking to him.

Riley strode over to Brody. “I see your baker is here. You
going to ask her to dance?”

“She’s not my anything.” She never had been, really. The
relationship he’d built with her had been built on a lie, and everyone knew a
castle constructed on sand would never last.

Riley arched a brow. “What happened?”

“I told her about Afghanistan. That I was the doctor with her
brother when he died. And that her brother had asked me to watch out for
her.”

“How’d that go?”

Brody scowled at his little brother. “How do you think?”

“I’m glad you finally talked about it, Brody.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not. Now I’ve lost her, and all because I was
trying to do the right thing.”

Riley clapped a hand on Brody’s shoulder. “Remember when you
and me tricked Finn into seeing Ellie, with that old bait and switch we did with
the bagels?”

“Yeah.” Brody watched Kate across the room. Stace had moved on
to greet other guests and now Kate stood away from the crowd, sipping her
champagne, and watching the guests. Avoiding all eye contact with him.

“You need to do the same thing, and find a way to get that
pretty girl to talk to you again.”

“She doesn’t want to see me.”

“Did you ask her?”

“Of course not. I just assumed—”

Riley let out a gust. “Geez, Brody, now I’m the expert in
relationships in this family? If that’s the case, then you’d better check the
sky, because I think pigs are flying. You don’t assume, brother, you go find
out. You have to get in there and take a shot before you can score.”

Brody arched a brow. “Did you just tell me to score?”

“Hey, I may be grown up and responsible and married now,” he
sent a wave over to Stace, “but I’m not perfect.” Riley gave Brody a nudge. “Now
go over there and take a chance. The woman really likes you. Lord only knows
why, but she does.” He grinned. “So don’t let her get away, or Finn and I will
have to take charge.”

Riley joined his wife. Brody waved off the waiter’s offer of
champagne and threaded his way through the tables and chairs until he reached
Kate. Up close, she looked a hundred times more beautiful. With her hair up, he
could see the delicate curve of her neck, the tiny diamond earrings in her
lobes. He caught the scent of vanilla and cinnamon, and a bone deep ache to hold
her rushed through his veins.

Brody headed over to her. “Can we talk?”

“I think we’ve talked all we need to,” Kate said, her tone
short, cold. “Our business is concluded, and I’ve found out who you really are.
What else is there to discuss?” She raised her eyes to him. Hurt and
disappointment pooled in those emerald depths.

“Kate, let me explain.”

“Why? What are you going to tell me that’s going to change
anything?”

“Just hear me out. Please. Five minutes, that’s all I ask.”

She bit her lip, considering. “Fine. Five minutes.”

A start. Right now, Brody would take any start he could
get.

“Let’s get out of here, okay?” He led her through the diner,
into the kitchen, then out the back door and into the alley that ran behind the
Morning Glory. He propped the back door open with a rock, then turned to Kate.
The sun danced off her hair, shining on those tempting curls, and it was all he
could do not to take her in his arms. “I’m sorry for not telling you who I was
right off the bat. I was wrong.”

She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. “You should have
told me.”

“I know. You’re right.” If he could have done it differently,
he would have. All this time, he’d thought he was doing the right thing, but he
hadn’t been. Looking at Kate now, at the hurt in her face, he wished he could
start over. “That last conversation I had with Andrew, when he knew he was
dying, he asked only one thing of me.”

She raised her gaze to his. “What?”

“That I make sure you were okay. That you were moving forward
with your life. He said he was afraid you’d be stuck in your grief. He begged me
not to tell you the truth because he was afraid it would make things worse for
you.”

“Worse? How can knowing the truth make it worse?”

Brody wanted to reach for Kate, but he held back. “He was
afraid you would blame yourself all over again. He said you told him that if
anything ever happened to him, you’d feel responsible.”

She nodded. “I did say that. And he was right. If I
hadn’t—”

“The last thing he wanted was for you to think you were the
reason he was over there.” Brody reached for Kate’s hand. “Andrew loved his job,
and he loved you. He didn’t join the military because of you, he joined because
he was doing what he does best.”

“What’s that?”

“Protecting the people he loves. He was doing it then, and he’s
been doing it ever since he died, through me.” Brody let go of Kate’s hand and
dropped onto the concrete stoop to face a few self truths. “I can relate,
because that’s what I’ve done all my life. I’ve protected my family. Protected
myself. I nag my grandmother about getting checkups, harass my brothers about
annual physicals. I take care of those around me, because if I do, I can…”

“Prevent another tragedy.”

“Yeah. Or at least that was my plan. I thought I went into
medicine to change people’s lives,” he said, “but in reality, I did it to change
my own. When my parents died, I remember thinking how powerless I felt. One
minute they were here, the next they were gone. I didn’t have any say in it. I
didn’t have any control over it.”

“You were eight, Brody. There was nothing you could do.”

“Try telling that to an eight-year-old whose world just turned
inside out. I became a doctor, I think partly as a way to change that history.
You know, save someone else’s loved ones and do it often enough, and it would
make up for my loss. But it never did. I kept thinking if I could find the right
prescription, make the right diagnosis, it would be enough. Change a life, in
some small way. And most of all, control the risks, as best I could.”

“And thus control the outcome.”

He nodded. “But then I went to Afghanistan and realized that
sometimes you have to let people take risks. If your brother hadn’t been the one
in the lead, if he and his team hadn’t hit that bomb, it would have hit us. And
those villagers would have died. He gave his life for us, because that was his
job. He protected us, by risking himself.”

She bit her lip. “That was Andrew. He did it all his life.”

“You once called him a true hero, and I agree. He was an
example for the rest of us to live up to,” Brody said. “When that patient of
mine at Mass General died, I had to go and tell the family. It was my first
notification and the attending thought it would be a good idea for me to learn
how. The whole thing was…agonizing. Horrible. The patient’s sister was there,
and his mother and father, and all I remember seeing was the grief in their
eyes. I knew I was causing it, by my words, and I couldn’t stop it, because it
was the truth. There was no going back and bringing that man back to life. Or
bringing him back to his family.”

“But you’re a doctor. You deal with life and death every day.
Why was this any different?” She took two steps closer and bent her knees until
they were eye level. “I
deserved
to know, Brody. You
lied to me, over and over again. Why would you do that? To me? Why couldn’t
you—”

“Because he was my
friend,
damn
it!” The last words ripped from Brody’s throat, leaving him hoarse. All those
weeks he’d spent overseas with Andrew by his side, he’d imagined the two of them
meeting up again in Newton, sitting down to watch the game, have a few beers,
trading stories about their time in the Middle East. He’d never expected that a
bright, sunny morning in the middle of fall would be the day Andrew Spencer,
that vibrant, strong young man, would breathe his last breath. “I watched my
friend die and it tore me apart. It was like I was losing a brother. I kicked
myself for every decision, every moment. I wanted to go back and undo it, to
change the course of destiny, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it, Kate, no matter
how much I wanted to.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I thought it was hard
losing that first patient, but at least there, I had all the tools I needed, all
the medical staff I could want. The best hospital, the best tests. When he died,
I knew I had done everything I could. But when Andrew died—” Brody cursed and
turned away.

“What about when Andrew died?”

Brody was back there again. The heat of the Middle East a
powerful, shimmering wall. At every turn, the smell of poverty, desperation,
lost hope. “We were in this tiny little dirt floor hut in the middle of nowhere.
Hours from a hospital. There was me and one other inexperienced doctor, and that
was it. No X-ray machines. No operating rooms. No specialists on call. We’d just
come from a village that had a lot of sick and wounded people, and our supplies
were low. If I’d been in a hospital, I could have hooked him up to a machine. I
could have bought him some time. I could have…” He cursed again. The ground
blurred before him.

“Changed the ending?”

Brody closed his eyes and drew in a long, deep breath. All
these weeks, the what ifs had plagued him. He’d replayed the entire day a
hundred times in his mind, but in the end, always came to the same conclusion.
The one ending that in his heart he couldn’t accept, even though he knew it was
the only one. No matter how many hospitals or experts had been on the scene of
that explosion, the outcome would have been the same. Sometimes, people just
died. And it sucked, plain and simple. “No. He had deep internal injuries from
that bomb. The best hospital in the world would have only been able to do one
thing.” He lifted his gaze to Kate’s. “Buy him more time.”

“To do what?” Kate asked. “To suffer?”

“To say goodbye.”

And there, Brody realized, lay the crux of what had dogged him
all these weeks. What had kept him from sleeping. What had laid guilt on his
shoulders like a two-ton wall. “I wanted him to have time to talk to you. The
cell service where we were was non-existent, and I kept hoping he’d get well
enough that we could transport or that a signal would magically appear. I just
wanted Andrew to have time to tell his family he loved them. I didn’t want to be
his messenger, damn it, I wanted him to talk to his family himself. He tried to
hold on, he really did, I could hear the helicopters in the distance and I kept
hoping, and praying, and trying to keep him alive.” Brody’s voice broke, and he
raised his gaze to her. “But I couldn’t fix this, Kate. I…couldn’t. I failed and
I’m sorry, Kate. I’m so, so sorry.”