Just Perfect (32 page)

Sometimes winning means knowing when to throw in the towel.

—
How to Have a Perfect Life

Alec heard Christine getting ready for work before dawn, moving quietly around the bedroom as she had on other mornings when she’d had a shift. Sometimes he woke enough to visit with her while she dressed. He’d sit up in bed while they talked about the coming day and what they’d do that evening.

This morning, he kept his back toward the closet and bathroom, feigning sleep while everything inside him ached. Last night’s fight kept going though his mind. He had no idea what to say to make things right. Or if things could be right.

The light in the bathroom clicked off, and he sensed her standing near the door to the main room, looking at him. Would she tiptoe around to his side and kiss his forehead as she sometimes did? Whisper for him to go back to sleep, that she’d see him later?

He wanted her to. Even more, he wanted the chance to hold her close and kiss her without saying anything more than “I love you. Have a good day. See you when you get home.”

He rolled onto his back to let her know he was awake, to call her over to the bed, to say something. Anything.

She’d already turned away, though. He caught only a glimpse of her retreating back, then heard the closing of the front door.

Lying in the dark, he stared at the ceiling as the emptiness of the apartment descended around him. Buddy came over to nudge his hand with his wet nose.

“Yeah, I know.” Alec hauled himself upright, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and scrubbed his face. Apparently some things in life didn’t care if you’d just been kicked in the heart. “Time for a visit with nature, eh, boy?”

The dog danced with glee as Alec pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. When the morning ritual was done, Alec dragged himself to the kitchen. Christine had left half a pot of coffee in a thermos on the bar as she’d done before. No note this morning, though. No silly or sentimental words to make him smile. Just the coffee.

He poured a cup and sat on the sofa, slumped forward with his forearms braced on his thighs. Buddy came to sit before him, whining as he sensed something was wrong. Rubbing the dog’s head, his heart ached even more as he remembered his plan to give this guy up. Buddy had been a constant part of his life for three years. How was he going to explain to him he’d have to be someone else’s dog now?

He’d have to, though, if he stayed in Austin, gave up search and rescue, married Christine.

If
he stayed.

Yesterday that hadn’t even been a question. Well, perhaps it had been a small nagging one in the back of his mind he’d been trying to ignore.

Last night, he’d asked Christine when she was going to give up chasing the impossible. Maybe he needed to ask himself that same question. He’d willingly sacrifice anything for her, but did he have the right to make her sacrifice the one thing she cared about most: her father’s pride and approval? He wanted her to be happy, but if she married him, she wouldn’t be, not for long.

He could see them a few short years from now at some country club party, Christine introducing him to friends of the family, all of them thinking: So this is the hick who’s living off his wife. As for that,
where
would they live? A house in Tarrytown where he’d have more in common with the yard workers than his neighbors?

Why hadn’t he seen up-front how impossible this was?

Because in Silver Mountain, they’d fit together. His friends couldn’t care less that she was rich. In Silver Mountain, they could be happy. But not here.

A tearing pain ripped down his chest and settled in his gut.

He looked into Buddy’s brown eyes and had to swallow hard to speak. “So, boy, what do you think? Is it time to go home?”

Hearing the word home, Buddy dashed for the door, twirling and barking with joy.

Alec gave up fighting and let himself cry.

“You wanted to see me?” Christine asked from the doorway of the doctors’ lounge. The room was outfitted with a narrow bed, small table, and one chair. Her father had just come from surgery and stood in his scrubs, pouring coffee.

“Yes, come in.” Her father took the chair, crossing his legs as he sipped from the Styrofoam cup. A patient file lay open on the table before him. “Close the door.”

A familiar dread settled in her stomach as she closed the door, then went to perch, back straight, on the bed. Exhausted from a twelve-hour shift and emotionally frayed from last night’s fight, all she wanted was to get home and make things right with Alec.

Her father studied her a long time. “So you and Alec met during our recent ski trip.”

“Yes.” She smoothed the legs of her scrubs over her knees as her palms started to sweat. “I know that doesn’t sound like much time to get to know each other, but I’m very much in love with him. He’s honest, hardworking, dependable. And he makes me very happy.”

“I see.” Her father picked up a silver pen and turned it end over end, tapping it on the file he’d been reading. “What do you know of his family?”

“I—” She hesitated, sensing a trap, but not sure which way to step to avoid it. “They’re very down-to-earth people.”

He tapped and turned the pen a few more times. “Did you know his brother has been on probation for DWI? His sister is on welfare, and his parents have drawn unemployment and workmen’s comp several times over the last twenty years?”

Shock punched the breath from her lungs. “You ran a check on them?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“Before you even met Alec?” Her voice rose as her mind spun at the notion. “My God! He didn’t stand a chance last night, did he? You’d decided he wasn’t suitable before he even walked through the door.”

Her father set the pen aside. “I’ll be honest with you, Christine. He’s not the type of man I’d hoped you’d marry. But then, you’ve always been a willful child.”

“A willful child?” She stared blindly about. “When was I ever willful?”

He frowned at her as if confused. “You never behaved properly for a girl. You were always tagging along after your brother and his friends, getting in their way.”

“Robbie never minded having me around.”
Unlike you. Robbie knew how starved I was for love, and he didn’t mind giving it
. Tears threatened, but she battled them back.

“Even your choice of specialty was a puzzlement,” her father went on. “I’m pleased that you decided to go into medicine, but I expected you to choose something more appropriate, like a private OB-GYN practice.”

“ ‘More appropriate’? How is that more appropriate? Because I’m a woman?” Something deep inside her that had been pulled taut all her life, snapped. “That’s what it all boils down to, doesn’t it? My lack of a dick.”

“Christine!” He straightened with shock at her language.

The dam broke, and years of anguish came gushing out. “Alec is right. You’re never going to love me the way you love Robbie because I don’t have a penis. What do I have to do, grow one? Have a sex-change operation? Dress like a man so your friends won’t know your sperm produced a girl?”

“You will not talk to me in that manner.”

“Or is it because he was planned and I was an accident? If Mother was so against having another baby, why couldn’t you have kept your pants zipped?”

“That’s enough!” He set his cup down so hard coffee sloshed out.

“No, it’s not enough!” Her whole body started shaking as if electrical currents flowed through it. “I have a right to know. Why can’t you love me?”

“You’re being absurd. Of course we love you.”

“You tolerate me. But only if I do what I’m told. Only if I behave properly.” She remembered everything Alec had said last night. “Well, I’m God-dammed tired of being proper. Yes, that’s right, I said Goddammed. I’m Goddammed tired of worrying that if I do something wrong, if I displease you, if I’m less than perfect, you’ll send me back.”

The last words stunned her—a fear that had never been voiced. The shaking intensified as tears streamed down her face. “I thought if I wasn’t perfect, you’d send me away. Well, guess what, Dr. Ash-ton, your daughter isn’t perfect. She drinks beer and cusses and sleeps with ‘inappropriate’ men. She even has a tattoo on her ass. And you know what? Alec Hunter loves me in spite of—or maybe because of— my flaws. He doesn’t expect me to be perfect. He only expects me to be me. So if you want to tell me you’ll disown me if I marry him, fine. Maybe it’s time you did disown me, since I’m such a disappointment to you.”

“You are not a disappointment. And if you would simply calm down, I’ll tell you why I called you in here.”

“To tell me not to marry Alec. Yeah, I got that already.”

“No. Granted I’d prefer it if you didn’t make such an abominable mistake. But since you seem bent on marrying someone so utterly beneath you, your mother and I think you should talk to a lawyer about a prenuptial agreement.”

She laughed bitterly as a strange calmness descended over her. Rising, she crossed to the door. “You know, Dad, there’s something I’ve always wanted to say but never had the guts.”

“And that is?”

“Fuck. You.”

She sailed through the door, slamming it behind her so hard, the wall shook. Staff members stared as she marched past the nurses’ station onto the elevator and punched the button for the parking garage.

Thank God she’d already finished for the day. It was time to go home.

Power sang in her veins during the drive. Even as her body still shook and her stomach burned, she felt… triumphant.

Tomorrow she would talk to Ken Hutchens about getting out of her contract. She’d call her head hunter and tell him to find her a position near Silver Mountain.

For now, though, she only wanted to reach her apartment and tell Alec she loved him. No, more than that. She wanted to thank him for giving her the courage to set herself free.

Reaching her parking slot, she found it empty, which surprised her. Maybe Alec was out buying groceries for a makeup dinner. Pleased for the chance to spruce herself up, she strode to her apartment and breezed through the door.

A sense of foreboding niggled her mind when Buddy didn’t bound forward to greet her. Could Alec have taken Buddy to the park for a workout this late in the day?

Moving into the room, she noticed the envelope on the bar. Her name was written on the outside. Too many emotions were already coursing through her body for her to feel anything other than curiosity as she opened it and unfolded the handwritten letter from Alec.

A numbness grew inside her as she read every line, until, by the end, she couldn’t even feel the fingers holding the paper. She couldn’t feel anything.

He’d left her.

She scanned back over the words in disbelief, catching snatches and phrases.

…
decided to give up pursuing the impossible… no right to ask you to sacrifice… your happiness is what matters to me… I will always love you… wish you well
… a
clean break… too painful… don’t… call
…

Don’t call?
Don’t call
? Through the numbness, anger began to build. After everything they’d been through, after agonizing all day about their fight, after standing up to her father so she could have a life with Alec, she comes home to a Dear Jane letter that ends with “I don’t think we should call each other anymore”?

“Oh no, you don’t, Alec Hunter.” She pulled out her mobile phone and hit speed dial for his mobile number. His voice mail answered. She was about to leave a scathing, tear-filled message, but hung up instead.

This was not the time for rash words. With her emotions ping-ponging all over the place, Lord alone knew what might fly out of her mouth. She needed to think this through. Pacing off adrenaline, she began to form a plan.

So, you don’t want me to call, huh? Okay, I won’t!