Instant Gratification

  “I didn’t really come back for the dish.”

  Emma looked up. “No?”

  “No. Well, yes. But mostly, I wanted to tell you something before you leave.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your momma came back here once. Did you know that?”

  Emma looked up from the sink. “What?”

  “About ten years ago now. The rumors were she came back to reunite with your daddy, but that’s not what she wanted. She wanted one hundred thousand dollars. It wiped him out, but he took out a second mortgage on this place and gave it to her.”

  Emma set the bowl down and stared at her.

  Missy nodded and her blue hair bounced. “It’s why he doesn’t have any large retirement funds. He never built them back up. We all figured your mom wanted a trip around the world or something like that, but she had a fancy husband to pay for such a thing, so that didn’t make sense.”

  Ten years ago, Emma had been turned down for financial aid for medical school because her stepfather had been making a fortune. But he hadn’t offered to help her. Emma had looked into student loans. Four years of pre-med at twenty-five grand each would have put her at her BS degree with a hundred grand in debt and four more years of medical school still to get through.

  At the time, Emma had panicked. She’d thought maybe she should do something other than become a doctor. Taco Bell was always hiring, and she did love their food. Or Target. She could get good clothing discounts, plus she looked good in red and khaki.

  Her mother hadn’t been amused. She’d bossed, yelled, cajoled, and demanded Emma not give up, so Emma had tried for grants, but she’d been denied.

  Then her mother had shown up with a check, written from Sandy’s own personal account. She said it was a gift, one Emma wasn’t to question or ponder or give another thought to.

  Emma had never been so grateful or felt more love in her life.

  Her mother had never brought it up again, though Emma had. Plenty of times, including the day she’d gotten her first job in the ER, when she’d begun paying her mother back from each paycheck.

  Her mother had always taken the checks with a sweet, grateful smile, and never once, not one single time in all these past ten years, had Sandy let on that the money hadn’t been hers to begin with.

  Sick, Emma turned her back on Missy and closed her eyes. Her father had paid for her education.

  “Dr. Sinclair? You okay?”

  Emma drew a deep breath. He’d never once asked for a thank you, or thrown it in her face, or even so much as mentioned it.

  In return, what had she done?

  She’d griped about being here, thrown it in his face at every turn, and had mentioned, oh a million or so times, how much she wanted to get back to her own life.

  She’d thought Serena was the bitch. Ha! Serena had nothing on her.

  “Dr. Sinclair?”

  Emma closed her eyes. Dr. Sinclair. All those weeks she’d been wanting a sign of respect, some sort of verification that the people in Wishful knew how important she was, and she’d just gotten it.

  Yet it was she who owed the respect. “I’m okay, yes.”

  “I debated about telling you the truth.”

  “Why did you?”

  “For him. So that before you leave you know what kind of a man he is.”

  “You know I’m leaving?”

  “When will you learn? I know everything.”

  Emma could do nothing but laugh. After she gave Missy the dish, they walked out to the reception area together, where Missy pulled out her checkbook and asked for a pen. “For my last two visits. I know how you like your money.”

  Emma gently pushed the woman’s checkbook away and offered a smile she hadn’t known she had. “I’d rather have another Thai dish if you don’t mind.”

  Later Emma walked upstairs, took a good long look at her mom’s picture on the mantel and sighed. “You should have told me.”

  What does it matter where the money came from?

  “It matters to me.” She knew it mattered to her father as well—oh not that he’d given the money to her, but that she’d followed in his footsteps. That she’d become a doctor like him. “You should have told me,” she said again to Sandy’s face, and then lifted her gaze to the mirror and looked at her own reflection. She had one foot out the door now, the freedom in sight.

  For the first time, she hesitated. She’d come for her father. This is what she’d been telling herself for two and a half months now. She was in Wishful for him.

  Except she’d just realized that it wasn’t one hundred percent true.

  She’d also come here for herself. For her lonely restlessness. For the part of her that said she was missing something.

  Someone.

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

  Chapter 23

  Emma 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 id
ea 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.”