Instant Gratification (17 page)

E
mma dreamed about Stone and woke up wishing he was in bed with her. What was up with that? She got up and showered, and thought about how it’d feel to have him soaping her up.

Okay, this Stone obsession she had? It had to stop. In fact, she wasn’t going to think about him again.

For at least five minutes.

Helping with that, Spencer made an extravagant breakfast, waiting until she took her first bite and moaned in amazed culinary pleasure before he leaned in. “Em.”

“Ohmigod.” The perfect way to put Stone out of her head—with food. “This is fantastic.”

“Of course it is. Listen, you know I’m leaving in two days. I have a little favor.”

“Anything,” she murmured, shoveling in more food. “Name it.”

“I want to ask Serena out.”

She slid her gaze to his. “Serena, bitchy Serena?”

“She’s not all bitch.”

“Don’t fool yourself. She’s purebred bitch.”

“I can handle myself. Now take me out of my misery. Yes or no?”

She set down her fork. “You’re serious.”

“Yes.”

“You won’t let her skin you and eat you alive?”

“Not on the first date,” he promised.

Emma picked her fork back up. The food was too good to let it go cold just because he wanted to get his heart kicked. “Will you still cook for me?”

He grinned. “Always.”

Later that morning, Missy Thorton came by the clinic carrying a casserole dish and Emma sighed. “What’s wrong today, Missy?”

“Nothing. Just wanted to bring you this.”

Emma peeked inside the casserole dish and went still.

“It’s
tom yum goong
. Hot and sour soup with shrimp.”

“Homemade Thai food?” she asked in disbelief.

“Stone mentioned you were lonely for it. My nephew’s niece spent a summer in Thailand. She has the most amazing recipes.” She tapped the dish. “I’ll need this back of course.”

With that, she turned and walked away.

Emma was still staring down at the dish in stunned amazement when Harley stopped by for a tetanus shot because she’d sliced her finger on a rusty nail. In return, she fixed all the squeaky doors and gave the truck a tune-up.

Emma had three other patients that morning, and not one person asked for a real doctor, or suggested she confer with her dad. As a bonus, each paid with a check or cash.

This damn town. It’d sneaked up and snatched her damn heart when she hadn’t been looking. Not good. Not good at all.

She needed out.

At lunch, she drove to see her dad. She wanted his damn
medical records and an ETA for his return to work, and the subsequent return to
her
life—a life that did not include nice but busy-body patients who knew all her business, a life that didn’t include one certain tall, sexy Wilder brother who was starting to haunt her every waking—and sleeping—moment.

She found her father in front of his cabin, tending to a fire pit and cleaning the trout he’d just caught in the lake. He still wore his vest and hat, and the distinct smell of fish.

“Perfect timing,” he said with a smile. “I’m going to barbeque these up for lunch right now. State your preference; medium or well-done?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t really have time for lunch. I was hoping to see those medical records of yours, and get an ETA for your return.”

“Ah.”

That was all he said, just “ah”. She looked at him for a long moment, finding herself asking a question she hadn’t meant to ask at all. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that you came to see me in New York?”

He froze, then looked down at his fish. “Medium. No one likes well-done fish.”

“Dad.”

“Hey, that’s good.” He poked at his low burning fire. “You do remember what to call me.” He nudged a chair in her direction. “That’s a great start. Now why don’t you take it another step and have a seat.”

She gave him a long look, walked past him and into his cabin. On his square wood kitchen table sat two thick files. She opened the top one, saw that it was indeed his medical records and grabbed them, going back outside, where she sat in the chair next to him.

He began preparing the fish to be cooked, but as she opened and flipped through the first file, his hands fell still. As she read, she felt him looking at her.

After less than a moment, she knew why. She raised her head, unable to keep the accusation out of her voice. “You said it was a minor heart attack. As in
minor
.”

“I don’t believe I ever used the word minor, no.”

“You were hiking. You called TJ for help, but he was out of town. Stone came.” Her voice shook on her next line. “By the time he got to you, you weren’t breathing. He gave you C.P.R.” Why Stone had never mentioned it, she couldn’t imagine. “You were air lifted to South Shore. They’d resuscitated you twice.”

“Yes.”

“You almost died.”

“Yes.”

She closed the file. “You’re not going back to work any time soon.”

He hesitated while she held her breath, literally and figuratively. God. God, she didn’t want to hear his answer because it was going to change her life and she knew it.

“No,” he admitted, very quietly. “I’m not going to be going back any time soon.”

She surged to her feet and paced the length of the porch, the wood creaking beneath her feet. “You should have told me.”

“Should’ve, yes.”

“Dad.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes, then dropped her hands to her sides. “What was your plan? That I’d just stay? Forever?”

“Well…” His smile was self-deprecating and pretty damn irresistible, except she couldn’t—wouldn’t—be charmed.

“A man could hope his only offspring would want to take over his business.”

Oh, no. No, no, no
…This was so much worse than she’d thought. She stared at him, stunned. “
Dad.
” At a loss for words, she turned in a slow circle. It was quiet. No traffic sounds, not
even the hum of anything electronic, nothing but a light wind and the occasional bird cry.

So different from home. “I never intended to move here.”

“I realize that now.”

He was disappointed, and sad, and pretty much ripping out her heart because she could only imagine the pain of his realization—that he wasn’t going to go back to work, at least not fulltime, not for a while anyway. “Dad, have you thought about selling?”

He didn’t say anything to that and her gut sank. “I could make sure you get a great price for it,” she assured him. “You could fish the rest of your life, or
whatever
you wanted.”

“I know. Listen, Emma, it’s okay. Don’t you worry about it. I’ll figure it out.”

“Not to rush you, but how? How will you figure it out?”

“Well, I don’t know exactly.”

“It’ll just come to you? You have to make plans, Dad, and figure it all out.”

“No,” he said very gently. “That’s you.
You
like plans,
you
like to have everything all figured out.”

“Okay, fair enough. But do you expect me to continue to stay here until you come up with something?”

He turned from her, giving himself away. “Of course not.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared out at the sparkling lake. “As you’ve mentioned a time or a thousand, you have a life. I don’t wish to keep you from it. Let’s just both cut our losses now.”

Goddammit
. “
Dad
.”

He turned and looked at her, and for the first time, he looked his age. Worse, he looked sad, which just about killed her. “It was wrong of me to bring you out here like this, and even more wrong to try to keep you. I just thought I’d try to do things differently with you this time.” He smiled, though it was a heartbreaking one. “It’ll be okay, Emma, you can stop looking at
me like that. I appreciate what you’ve done. It means so much to me that you were willing to come out here and spend so much time, but reality has set in and it’s over now. I understand, I really do. It’s time to sell.” He moved to the small fire and set a grate over it for the barbeque.

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?”