Heart Like Mine (26 page)

“No worries.” He waved a hand. “They know you work in the finance office. I already told them I was abjectly bribing you for more funding. They're good with it. That's why they've been on their best behavior.”

She shook her head, smiling. Then she frowned, remembering Kevin darting around the executive suite this morning, reeking of aftershave and panic as he tried to corral the budgets he'd been assigned. She had no idea whether he'd stoop so low as to throw her under the financial bus if he got wind of her and Joshua having more than a professional relationship, but it was something she really, really didn't want to find out.

“It's just dinner, Delaney.” Joshua's eyebrows were still raised.

“All right.” She sighed, hating herself for capitulating so easily. “Just dinner.”

*   *   *

At eight o'clock that evening, she was seated in the huge farmhouse-style kitchen in Ethan and Josie's section of Avery's House, her stomach aching from laughing so hard. For an hour now, Ethan and Joshua had been going back and forth about their high school antics, with Josie throwing in quips that painted them in a much-less-generous light than they were going for.

“I still can't believe you tried to sell old Mrs. Quimby's house right out from under her,” Josie said, laughing.

Joshua lifted his eyebrows. “Mrs. Quimby deserved it. That woman would be outside raking her leaves on Halloween night, and if anyone dared to walk up her driveway, she'd point that rake and growl, ‘Nobody's home.'”

“Still, though. Putting up a real estate sign when the leaf peepers were here was—”

“Inspired?” Ethan blurted. “Brilliant? The best part was when that couple from Manhattan knocked on her door and tried to offer her cash.”'

Joshua hit the table with his hand, laughing. “And then she came roaring down to Bellinis, sure that Molly had put that stolen sign on her lawn. I thought Mols was going to shoot us. She got grounded for a week because Mama B wouldn't believe she hadn't been part of it.”

“It's okay.” Josie scooped more spaghetti onto her plate. “She made you pay eventually.”

As one, Joshua and Ethan held their stomachs. Then Joshua turned to Delaney. “Just a quick piece of advice. If you ever piss off a Bellini, do
not
accept a dinner invitation within the next month.”

“Oh, no.” Delaney's eyes widened. “What happened?”

Ethan shook his head. “Let's just say she fed us chili for dinner and chocolate cake for dessert. I'm sure you can imagine what she added to both of those to make our lives miserable for the next forty-eight hours.”

Delaney spread butter on a roll as she laughed. “I have a new respect for Molly.”

“See that you maintain it,” Joshua advised. “That woman is not someone you want on the
other
side of a battle.”

“Good to know.” She nodded and took a bite of spaghetti, content to listen to the three of them as they laughed and talked over one another for the next hour. The windows were open to the backyard, and she could hear crickets warming up for nightfall. The deep yellow walls of the kitchen were warmly lit by old-fashioned gas lamps and the setting sun, and as time passed, she sat back in her chair and sipped her wine, letting the conversation flow around her.

Being here helped lessen the sting of her abject failure at the fund-raiser last night. Faced with a room full of possible donors, she'd frozen as she'd walked around. Her well-practiced spiel had caught in her throat, and she hadn't even managed to find three of the five donors she and Megan had targeted. Dismal, absolute failure.

But her mood was improving dramatically, sitting here in the back kitchen at Avery's House. Again, she'd expected to feel a little bit left out among these forever-friends, but to her surprise, once again, she didn't. They easily brought her into the conversation, curious about her life before Echo Lake.

When she recounted the tale of her ill-fated ski vacation at Smugglers' Notch ski resort, where first she'd met the three college guys who'd plucked her out of a snowbank—and then had met the ski patrol who had ferried her and her broken ankle to the lodge, all four of them were laughing.

“This is why I'll never feel like a real Vermonter. You people are on skis before you know how to walk.”

Josie patted her arm. “Not all of us.”

“Exactly.” Ethan nodded. “Some of us are born on snowshoes.”

Delaney shivered. “I can't even imagine how much damage I could do in
those
. I think I'll stick to my skates.”

“I always wanted to learn how to skate.” Josie held up her wineglass. “Maybe you could teach me this winter?”

Delaney smiled. She asked it so easily, like she expected Delaney might still be a part of their little crew next winter. It gave her the proverbial warm-fuzzies, and she found herself lifting her glass to tap Josie's.

“I'd be happy to.”

Just then a beeper sounded, and when she realized it was coming from Joshua's waist, the warm feeling evaporated.

He sighed, checking the readout, then frowning apologetically. “Excuse me for a minute. I need to call the hospital.”

He pushed through the screen door to the backyard, and Delaney watched him put his phone to his ear, talking and shaking his head. She pulled her eyes away to find Josie looking at her intently while Ethan brought their plates to the huge white farmhouse sink under the window.

“So,” Josie finally said, putting her glass to her lips. “I'm sensing that you have more than a passing business interest in our dear Joshua.”

“God, Josie.” Ethan shook his head as he grabbed the spaghetti bowl.

“Has he by any chance taken you to the lake?”

Ethan rolled his eyes as Delaney gulped. “Josie, seriously. Stop interrogating her.”

“I'm just asking! As a friend!”

“You're asking because Molly told you to get the scoop.”

“She did not.” Josie pouted playfully.

“Josie?” He put his hands on his hips, eyebrows hiked, which made Delaney laugh. She couldn't help it.

“Okay, fine. She totally did.” She turned back to Delaney. “So what's the scoop?”

“I—I don't know. No scoop, really?”

Oh, holy awkwardness.

“You remember I'm a therapist, right?” Josie tipped her head, smiling invitingly.

Delaney nodded. “Yes, and that scares me more than a little bit right now.”

“Good girl.” Ethan laughed. “Don't let her get her tentacles into you. You might never survive it.”

“Shut up, Ethan. Even
you
can see there's something going on here.”

“Whether I do or don't is none of my business.” He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. “And it's not yours, either. Leave the poor girl alone, or Josh will never dare to bring her here again.”

“Okay.” She sat back, playfully defeated. “But just one question.
Has
he taken you to the lake?”

Delaney sat back, matching her pose. “One question back at you—why is that question so important?”

Ethan chuckled at the sink, but didn't say anything.

Josie eyed her carefully, then picked up her glass and stood up. “Don't break his heart, okay? That's all.”

As she went to the sink, Delaney shook her head. Break his heart? Seriously? Like she had the power to even
do
that?

“I have no intention of breaking anybody's heart, just to be clear.”

“Good”—Josie smiled—“because if you did, you'd never be able to step foot inside Bellinis again without Molly doing you in, and I'd be kind of bummed if that happened. I like you.”

As Delaney laughed, Joshua came back through the screen door, and she could see from his face that he was going to announce that he had to leave.

“You have to go?” She tried to keep even a slight tone of hurt out of her voice. After all, he didn't owe her anything. This wasn't a date, really. He'd invited her to a casual dinner with friends. She had no claim on his evening. And he didn't have backup at the hospital right now because they were so short-staffed. It wasn't his fault he kept getting pulled away.

But it
was
his life.

And as they pulled out of the Avery's House driveway and headed back to the hospital, where he dropped her off beside her car in the parking lot, she tried to keep that firmly in mind.

If she got in any deeper, this would be
her
life, too—aborted evenings, broken promises, lonely nights.

*   *   *

“I'm sorry to drag you away from dinner.” Millie was shaking her head as he strode down the hallway toward the nurses' station. “But she's a mess. Doesn't want to go home tomorrow, won't do her therapies tonight, won't even talk to anybody.”

Josh stopped to lean on the counter, thinking. Poor Charlotte. The girl was headed home to a double-wide trailer where the water got turned off monthly, along with the electricity. She shared a tiny bedroom with four other siblings, and he knew that during the school year, the family's weekend food came mostly by way of charity backpacks sent home from school.

He didn't fault her parents. They were doing their best. They both worked more than full-time, both worked more than one job. But none of those jobs came with benefits, and all of them came with minimum wage. Raising a seven-person family on that kind of money just wasn't possible.

While she was here at Mercy, Charlotte almost always had her own room, she had good, hot meals, and she got lots of attention she sorely needed. Once she was home, she'd fade into the cheap paneling again until she got sick enough to need hospitalization.

Because she would. She'd be back here in a matter of months, and every time she came, she was a little bit sicker than the time before. Every time, it was a little bit harder to get her back to her previous baseline. One of these times, they weren't going to be able to at all.

By the time her parents got home late at night, she was asleep. They left before daybreak, leaving the kids to find breakfast and get themselves on the school bus. Charlotte might get a couple of chest PT sessions over the weekend, but not always, and she desperately needed them at least daily. She had a vest that mimicked the PT, but it only worked when there was actual electricity to fuel it.

He sighed. “Ever wish you could adopt a couple of these kids, Millie?”

“Daily.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I did notice her cough has increased over the past twenty-four hours.” Millie looked to her left, not meeting his eyes.

“Truly?”

Millie shrugged, not answering. “You and I both know that girl's not going to get a whit of therapy once she leaves here. Maybe a few more days would set her up for a better discharge? I could get Kenderly involved a little more, maybe?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe even Delaney? Charlotte has taken to her like nobody else.”

Joshua smiled, picturing Delaney sitting on Charlotte's bed braiding her hair while they discussed—well, whatever they discussed. Then his smile faded as he pictured Delaney's face this evening when his beeper had gone off. Again.

She'd tried to hide it, but he'd seen a defeated expression erase her easygoing smile before she had a chance to tamp it down and pretend his leaving didn't bother her. He knew the look. He'd seen that same expression on other women he'd dated—hell, he'd sure seen it enough on Nicole. Before tonight, it had irritated him. He was a doctor, after all. Carrying a beeper and being called away from casual events happened. It was part of the drill.

But this time, he hadn't felt irritated. Instead, he'd felt bad. Seeing the fleeting disappointment on her face had cut him like never before, and the strangest feeling had come over him.

Because as it turned out, he didn't
want
to disappoint her. He didn't want her to feel like anything was more important than her, in that moment. In any moment, really.

And holy hell, that was a revelation that scared him right down to his size tens.

 

Chapter 23

“Squee! Did you see it yet?” Megan barged into Delaney's office Friday morning, waving the day's copy of the
Boston Globe
.

Delaney blinked hard, tearing her eyes away from her in-box, which had somehow accumulated one hundred new e-mails since yesterday. Her heart was currently at war with her brain, and she was so distracted that she hadn't managed to knock off any of them.

“Look! It's Amanda's second article!” Megan flopped the paper on top of Delaney's keyboard, opened to the headline. “E-mail can wait!”

Delaney picked up the paper, feeling her smile grow as she read each paragraph. Holy cow. Amanda had gone gangbusters here, somehow managing to squeeze in some information about every single one of the programs Delaney had listed for her.

“Wow,” she said, putting the paper down. “We couldn't have paid for better PR.”

“Exactly.” Megan sat down, handing Delaney half of her croissant. “I think we should send her flowers.”

Just then, Kevin poked his head in. “What are you gals so excited about?”

Megan turned toward him, picking up the paper. “Did you see this article?”

“What article?” He stepped in, eyebrows pulling together.

“On pediatrics.” Megan shared a wink with Delaney while he took the newspaper. “It's so great! The reporter was here last week, and she put together this great Friday edition profile. It's going to be read by”—she turned to Delaney—“what do you think—thousands of people?”

“Oh, at least. And she has colleagues doing their own local features, so I think this is the first of many.” Delaney shrugged carelessly, biting her cheek so she wouldn't smile triumphantly. There was a serious flush gathering on Kevin's neck, creeping toward his ears as he read the article.