She stared at him, torn. She’d been given her freedom. And yet…and yet she wasn’t running for her suitcases. “You’re really okay with that, with selling?”
“I think that’s best, yes.”
“Let me at least help you find a buyer.”
He stabbed at the flames with a poker and sparks rose, cutting into the still air. “You have the second file? The one beneath my medical records?”
She opened it, and stared down in astonishment. “You have a stack of offers on the Urgent Care.”
“The vultures began picking at me once the word got out that I was out of commission for a while. I know it’s hard for you to imagine, but there are doctors who would sell their soul to work out here. I’ll take one of those offers. It’ll free you up to go home.”
She was released from her ties here. Free. She should be jumping over the moon. Instead she set the file aside and crouched at his side. “I’m not running out of here. I’m not going anywhere until you’re settled.”
“It won’t take but a few days.”
“Dad. I want you to have a full physical.”
“Will that make you feel better about going?”
Not even close. “Is it so weird that I worry about you?”
His smile warmed and he reached out to squeeze her hand. “Same goes.”
“So will you?”
“If I say yes, will you sit and have lunch?”
She gave him a half smile. “We don’t do lunch.”
“We don’t do a lot of things. Many of them my fault. But it turns out an old dog can learn new tricks. Question is…” His eyes sparkled with a dare. “Can a new dog accept them and give more as well?”
She blew out a low breath. “People keep telling me I’m falling short in the giving more department.”
He raised a brow. “I hit a nerve.”
“Apparently so.” She looked at the fish and her stomach rumbled hungrily. “Can you really cook?”
“Of course. Can’t you?”
She had to laugh. “Not even a little.”
“Ah,” he said, looking amused. “So maybe this old dog can teach you something after all.”
Stone spent the next two days working his ass off. He took a group rock climbing at Mile High Lakes, and then that night led another group on a moonlight hike along Thigh-Breaker trail, named Thigh-Breaker for a damn good reason. The next day he taught wake boarding to a group of local kids, then looked at a property for sale in town. It was boarded up, and he managed to get a handful of splinters getting back out, which pissed him off, especially as the place was so overpriced he couldn’t even seriously consider it. Halfway back to the lodge, he got called in to volunteer at Search and Rescue to help locate a missing hiker. After a very long night of searching, they found the guy sleeping off his twelve-pack on the north shore of Jackson Lake.
Idiot.
Irritated, tired, hungry, hand hurting from the last splinter he hadn’t been able to get out, Stone once again headed for home. “I have a massive splinter and a headache,” he told TJ on the phone.
“Hey, you’re the one working yourself to the bone.”
“Well, someone has to.”
“You don’t have to do it all, Stone. No one ever asked you to. In fact, you need to do as you’re always telling everyone else, you need to relax. Go get laid. Call the pretty doctor. I promise not to show up this time.”
Stone opened his mouth, then shut it, and at his silence, TJ gleefully pounced. “So you closed the deal, nice. Why didn’t it relax you? You doing it right?”
Stone shut his phone, cutting his brother off.
He’d done it right.
They’d done it so right that it was pretty much all he could think about. He wanted to do it again.
And again. But he wanted something deeper than just sex this time.
And he didn’t care that that made him sound like a cheesy movie.
When he stepped into the lodge kitchen, he found Annie and Nick entwined together, kissing as if they hadn’t been together for twenty years already. “Isn’t that getting old yet?”
Annie separated her lips from Nick’s and smiled. “Nope.”
“Definitely not,” Nick said.
With a grin, Annie pulled on an apron that read: DOES NOT COOK WELL WITH OTHERS, and made breakfast burritos.
Starving and exhausted, Stone sat to stuff one in his mouth. Annie poured him some orange juice, then pushed back his hair to look at the healing cut on his forehead.
See, he didn’t need love. He had his family. He didn’t need more than what he had right here. Except…except he did. Catching her hand, he looked into her eyes. “I’m okay.”
“Are you really?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you’re working too hard around here. We all know there’s other things you’d rather be working hard at.”
“You too? Jesus, my entire life isn’t about Emma.”
Annie looked at Nick, then carefully stuck her tongue in her cheek and turned back to Stone. “Honey, I was talking about the renovating.”
Ah, shit. He downed the juice.
“So…” Annie sat at his side. “Do you want to talk about Emma?”
“Hell, no. As far as the renovating, I’m looking at properties to buy, but I still want to be here. Okay?”
“Okay. Good. Just go after your heart, Stone.” She smiled at Nick over her shoulder. “No matter what it is. Or who.”
“Annie.”
“It’s just everyone needs someone once in awhile, Stone. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Thanks for the newsflash.” Stone stood up to go, but Nick stopped him by gently nudging Annie. “Tell him.”
“Oh.” Annie’s hands went to her belly as she once again looked at her husband. “I haven’t said it out loud yet. I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“You have nine months to get ready,” Nick said, eyes bright, mouth curved. “I’m just thinking that Stone’s going to need that long as well.”
“Oh my God.” Stone divided a look between the two of them, Nick nearly bursting with pride, Annie seeming torn between sheer joy and sheer terror. “He knocked you up.”
“Hey.” She smacked Stone upside the back of the head. “True, but hey.” She spread her fingers over her belly, her eyes going misty. “It’s weird, right?”
“Yeah.” Feeling suddenly a little misty himself, he pulled her in for a hug. “But good weird.”
Annie’s breath caught as she pulled back to cup his face, her smile soft and warm and happy, so happy it almost hurt to look at her. “Yeah?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he whispered back. “Now you’ll have someone new to boss around. No one does that as good as you.”
“Aw, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me. Now.” She moved to the kitchen window. “Back to you.”
“I don’t want to talk about me.”
“Even if the woman you think you don’t want to talk about, the one who’s leaving soon, just drove up?
He stood up, watching as Emma parked her father’s truck out front. “What do you mean, leaving soon?”
“They found a buyer for the clinic,” Nick said.
Goddammit.
He walked outside as she got out of the truck, and though he’d just eaten and satisfied his belly, his gut still took one hard kick at just the sight of her.
Chapter 21
Stone watched Emma stride toward him, her legs eating up the ground. He wondered if she was going to mention that she was leaving.
He’d have guessed that the thought of leaving would make her happy. Yeah, he’d really thought that, except the look on her face didn’t say happy. It said frustration.
It said tension.
It said unhappiness. “Dr. Sinclair,” he said with mock formality, hoping to coax out a smile.
It didn’t. She stopped before him on the steps of the lodge, and when he reached for her, she jabbed him in
the chest with a finger. “You should have told me.”
Okay, he’d play. He grabbed her finger. “Told you what?” That when she looked a little hot under the collar like she did right now, he got hot?
She yanked her hand free. “I know you saved my dad.”
Ah, shit. That.
She let out a breath and lost some of her tension as she met his gaze, her own shiny, deep, and real. Very real. “Thank you for that, by the way,” she whispered. “I’m really glad you were able to get there as fast as you did.”
“I’d have done it for anyone, Emma,” he said, watching her turn and walk away a few steps. “And so would you. Thanks aren’t necessary.”
“You saved his life, Stone.”
“Yes. How many lives have you saved?”
She shrugged in acknowledgment of that. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think his heart attack was minor?”
He sighed. “If you’d known, would you have agreed to stay?”
She turned back. Her eyes were cool now. “That question bites.”
“Yeah, it does.” But he needed the answer.
Shaking her head, she took in the sharp, craggy mountains behind her. “I’m scared to death for him,” she whispered, hugging herself.
At that, he let out the breath he’d been holding. Okay, he hadn’t been wrong about her. She cared, deeply. Question was, did she care for him as deeply? “Of course you’re scared for him. We all are. But he’s doing great.”
“I just wish I’d known. If we’d had the relationship he wanted,” she said quietly, “he’d have told me sooner. That’s my fault.”
“No, Emma, it’s not.” He pulled her around to face him. “He’s stubborn as a mule. A trait, I’m beginning to see is a family thing.
She shook her head as a small smile escaped. “You have this way of cutting right to the chase.”
“Saves time.”
“I just wish someone would have told me, that you would have told me. I thought—” She broke off, then shrugged. “I thought we might have had something.”
“Yeah?” He tried to get past the stab of the past tense of that statement. “I thought so too. You’re leaving.”
“I was always leaving.”
“Sooner than later.”
“Yes. Spence is leaving today and I’ll be a few days after him.”
“A few days?”
“By next week, certainly.”
While he tried to adjust to that, she said, “We have offers on the clinic.”
He closed his eyes. “He’s actually going to sell?”
“With the option of a contract for his services part-time so he doesn’t have to retire.”
“You’re worried about him, but you’re still going to leave?”
With a sigh, she started walking. “You don’t understand. After this week, he won’t need me full time.” She didn’t turn back to the truck, but walked across the wild grass in front of the lodge, and he followed.
“So you’re on the part-time daughter plan, is that it?”
“Yes, actually. I am.” She stopped and faced him. “That’s what our relationship’s always been, Stone. Part-time. If I could figure out how to do it differently, I would. But the truth is, the clinic is beyond him right now, and unlike what you seem to be implying, I’m not just walking away. I’m going to have him all set up before I go. I just wish I’d known about his condition sooner.”
Yeah. No way around it, he felt like a jerk for that. “Emma—”
“No, don’t.” There was a light breeze ruffling her hair and she shoved it out of her face. “You care about him. It’s good. It’s good that I know your loyalties are with him. It makes you trustworthy.”
He stared at her, not liking where this was going either. “But not trustworthy for you?”
“Honestly? I don’t know.”
Damn, if that one didn’t hit home. “You know what I think? That you’re using this as an excuse to run scared from whatever the hell it is we’re doing.”
“First of all, we’re not doing anything. We’re both geographically unavailable, remember? And second, you really think I’d use my father’s health as an excuse?”
“I think you’d do anything to get out of here. Away from the emotional roller coaster this place has presented. Compared to us, New York must feel like a dead zone. No personal emotions required.”
“Don’t,” she said tightly. “Don’t get me started. I came here for him. God, don’t you understand that? He needed me and I came.”
“And in return, you don’t need him at all? Is that what you’re saying?”
She let out a frustrated breath and then turned to walk again. “I’m a lot of things, Stone. Anal, obsessive, obnoxiously competitive…”
“Obstinate…”
Her lips quirked. “That, too.” She stopped and let out a breath. Closed her eyes. “You’re right. I’m looking for an excuse to blame you when the truth is, I’m so grateful that you were there that day that I don’t even care why you didn’t tell me. I’m picking a fight because…because I’m a coward.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Leaving you.”
He let out a breath and stepped closer. “So don’t go.”
“I have to. I am leaving, Stone. I am. I want us both to know that.”
Feeling like he’d swallowed sand paper, he nodded. “I know it, and I want you to know that I didn’t tell you because it was his story to tell, not mine. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I care about him, and I care about you. Very much.”
“Even though I’m going.”
“Even though you’re going.” He forced a smile. “You think if you say it enough times we’ll get used to it?”
“Yes.”
Fair enough. He reached for her, so over fighting with her. They didn’t have enough time left to fight. “Let’s be done rumbling in the parking lot.”
She tried to remain stoic and utterly failed as a small smile crossed her face. “I don’t know. I like to rumble.”
God, he loved her smile. “Let’s kiss and make up instead.” Reaching up, he set his palm on her jaw, then winced.
She pulled his hand down and looked at it. “You have a splinter.”
“It’s no big deal”
“It’s already getting infected.”
“Later.” He tried to lean and kiss her but she slapped a hand to his chest. “Wait here.” She grabbed her bag out of the truck. “Come here. Unless,” she said with a raised brow. “You just want to use a Band-aid or super glue on this too?”
“Ha ha. I’m fine.”
“You will be. I have everything I need right here.” She patted