Save the Last Dance (4 page)

“I was just heading back to the Twin Cities from Stillwater.” Sylvia’s voice shook. “I’ll turn around at the next exit.”

“You’re almost three hours away. It’s late. Is there anyone you can call to come with you?”

“I—I don’t think so. But I can get there just a little after midnight if I push the speed limit. Call me if
anything
changes…And if you hear any news at all about his condition, I want to know it.”

“Sylvia—”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” The connection ended.

Kate stared at her phone for a moment, Sylvia’s tense voice still ringing in her ear, then she pocketed the phone and resumed her pacing.

“Dr. Mathers?” A deep baritone voice reverberated down the hall.

“That’s me.” She spun around to find a man in surgical scrubs, a mask dangling from his neck, standing just outside the double doors of the operating room. She hurried over to him. “Tell me—how is Jared doing?”

“We’re still trying to repair the damage to Jared’s chest and liver. There’s far more than we could see on the MRI, and we haven’t been able
to stop the internal bleeding thus far.” The man’s deeply lined face revealed no glimmer of optimism. “He’s coded twice already, and the situation is grave. I’m so sorry.”

Kate felt herself go cold, clammy. The room grew dim as she focused desperately on the surgeon’s face. “B-but there’s still a chance. Once the surgery is over.”

“He’s on life support, and he’s in God’s hands, Dr. Mathers. I can’t rule out another crisis that could seriously affect his quality of life—or end it.” He took a deep breath. “But right now, decisions need to be made and they need to be made fast. Just how well do you know your husband’s wishes?”

She closed her eyes as a wave of memories assaulted her. Oh, once she’d known his wishes very well—he’d been closer to her than the beat of her own heart. But their troubles, so many, these past few years, had created a chasm that neither had been able to cross.

So how well did she know him now?

The Past

“I
SAW YOUR BOYFRIEND
at the library last night,” Deanna teased. “I think he was looking for you.”

Kate’s heart fluttered, and she exhaled slowly, trying to keep her expression blank. “I’m not sure who you mean.”

Deanna rolled her eyes. “Right. A guy like Jared Mathers is certainly forgettable—if you’re ninety and have serious dementia.”

“He isn’t my boyfriend. I barely know the guy.” Kate turned another page of her radiology textbook and uncapped her yellow highlighter, trying to ignore the image of him that had been sliding into her thoughts all day.

The sexy gleam of straight white teeth when he flashed a smile that warmed her clear to her toes.

The lazy grin that deepened the dimples bracketing his sensual mouth. The sensual slide of his silver-
eyed gaze, shaded by long, thick eyelashes any girl would kill for. Money. Status. Looks that ought to grace some glossy advertisement in an outdoorsman’s magazine, though he had none of the self-absorption of some of the rich pretty boys on campus.

So totally out of her league that she really,
really
needed to forget she’d ever met him. “I talked to him for a few minutes at a party. Then I ran into him by accident at the library, and…well…we had that pizza…”

“Sounds like a good start to me.”

“And the end. That was two weeks ago and I haven’t seen him since.”

Deanna shrugged. “Well, I’d swear he was looking for you. In a casual, offhand sort of way.”

“Maybe he was just lost.”

“A couple girls went up and talked to him—all that coy, flirtatious stuff, you know?” Deanna snorted. “He certainly could’ve asked them for directions, but he didn’t give ’em a second glance.”

Hope and longing warred in Kate’s chest, coupled with a healthy dose of reality. She slapped her textbook shut. “Look, there’s no point in talking about this, okay? Have you
seen
his family on the front page of the newspaper? Do you know who his dad was? Who his uncles are? Maybe he
goes out slumming now and then, but I won’t be some rich boy’s amusement, and he sure as heck wouldn’t
really
be interested in me. Like I said, end of story.”

“Only if you want to throw away a once-in-a-lifetime chance. I don’t mean the money—I just mean he seems like a really nice dude. You’re crazy not to see that.”

The incredulity in Deanna’s eyes nearly made Kate laugh. “Does ‘worlds apart’ mean anything to you?”

“What are we in, the dark ages? You’re not exactly some peasant.”

“I would never fit in his world, and I have no illusions about that.” Turning away to hide her emotions, Kate closed her eyes briefly, remembering the mocking glances of the sorority girls when she’d tried to console Jared the night his girlfriend jilted him. “Can you see me on his arm at some governor’s ball? Making conversation with political types or discussing my exhausting yoga, golf and tennis schedule with a gaggle of women who live for that sort of thing?”

Deanna shrugged. “I’m just saying that you ought to give the guy a chance.”

Kate bit back her rising frustration. “I’m sure he really doesn’t want one. And even if he did, nothing
matters more to me than school right now. I barely have time to eat, much less have a social life.”

“I already told him you’d say that.”

Kate whirled around to look at her. “You talked to him? I thought you said you saw him from across the room, or something.”

An unrepentant grin lit Deanna’s eyes. “I know how much you love my interference, so I was trying to skip over that minor detail. Here, he gave me something for you.” She pulled a scrap of paper from her pocket and slid it across the table. “I guess we should get an answering machine. He told me he’s tried to call several times, but there’s never an answer. So if you’d like to meet him for coffee sometime, here’s his number.”

Suppressing the urge to snatch it up, Kate gave the piece of paper an offhand glance. “Someday, maybe.”

“You could borrow something to wear, if you want.” Deanna studied her for a long moment. “My mauve gauzy top and black silk slacks would look great on you.”

“Deanna.”

Her friend held up both hands, palms up. “Okay, okay. I’m done with being fairy godmother, I promise.” Shouldering her backpack, she started for the door. “I’m heading over to
check on how my surgery dog’s doing. Want to come along? We could stop at Bill’s Pizza.”

Kate’s stomach rumbled at the suggestion but she shook her head. “Can’t.”

Deanna hesitated in the open doorway of the kitchen, resting one hand on the frame to look back. “I think you’ll regret not taking a chance, Katy. When something really wonderful comes along, you’ve got to be brave enough to go for it.”

Long after her friend was gone, Kate stared at the closed door. Brave…or just plain foolish?

Like always, she would follow her head and not her heart, because she knew which way would lead to the ruin of her dreams. Her future. Everything she had worked for since that fateful day in eighth grade when her future had changed forever.

She only had to remember her mother’s tragic life to keep things in perspective.

S
OLID PLANS
and absolute focus melted into a puddle beneath her feet when Kate walked into the corner grocery at Elm and Sixth the next day and found Jared kneeling in front of a little boy with tear-streaked cheeks not more than three or four years old.

Behind them, a middle-aged man in a white
apron bent over a broom and dustpan, sweeping up shards of broken glass.

A surly woman with a tangle of long, brassy hair gripped the boy’s hand and fixed Jared with a challenging glare. “So what are you gonna do about it, college boy? You got thirty dollars?”

The little boy twisted within her iron grasp to look up at her, his cheeks streaked with tears and his mouth trembling. The fear in his eyes made Kate want to gather him up in her arms and run for the nearest child protection agency.

“It was my fault, not the boy’s,” Jared said evenly. Only his white-knuckled grip on his car keys betrayed his tension. “I’ll be responsible for the cost.” His gaze flicked to the boldly lettered sign above an open display case of horse and dog figurines that read, YOU BREAK IT, IT’S YOURS!

“You heard the college kid,” the woman snarled, yanking on the child’s arm as she started for the door. “He’s the one who broke it, and he’s the one paying.”

Kate stepped aside so the woman could sweep past her. “Just take it easy on your son, ma’am,” Jared said. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

The woman glanced back over her shoulder, her expression stormy and her mouth opening for another retort. When her eyes met Jared’s, she
snapped her mouth shut and her stride faltered, then she disappeared out into the night.

Kate did a double take at the lethal expression in Jared’s eyes. He was
angry
on behalf of the defenseless child, and she suddenly knew that it had been curious small hands that had dropped the figurine. Jared had jumped to the boy’s defense to save him from his mother’s wrath.

And right there, in the doorway of Mel’s Grocery, Kate felt her heart tumble out and land at her feet.

Jared stood up in one fluid motion, nodded to acknowledge her and turned to the storekeeper. “I’ve got ten on me right now. Can I sign an I.O.U. for the balance?”

“And I’d see you again when?” The older man gave him a knowing look. “I’ll take a credit card for the rest.”

“Can I work it off? Just tell me what to do, and I’ll be here.”

If he’d said that he had purple elephants waiting outside, Kate couldn’t have been more surprised. Surely he carried a handful of credit cards with sky-high limits and had an endless flow of family money.

Jared’s cheeks turned ruddy. He stepped closer to the man and lowered his voice to say something, then he slipped off his watch and
handed it over. “I’ll be back, just as I said. Tomorrow evening and the night after that. This is for security.”

He gave Kate a quick, embarrassed glance as he turned on his heel and headed for the door. Only after he was gone did she remember to snap her mouth shut. Jared Mathers, son of a state senator, was going to work off his debt in a dreary little corner grocery?

She grabbed a frozen pizza from the case and took it to the front of the store, fished a five-dollar bill from her pocket, and cleared her throat to catch the attention of the clerk.

He set aside his broom and rounded the counter wearing the watch Jared had given him, a smirk on his beefy face. “Dumb kid,” he muttered, glancing at his wrist. “You know him?”

“A—a little.”

“He thinks I fell for it, but what would some college kid be doing with a Rolex? It’s gotta be a street corner knockoff. If he doesn’t come back I’ll call the cops. I
never
forget a face and name.”

She stared at the gleaming watch. Expensive watches had never been a part of her world, but if this was a knockoff, it had to be an incredible copy. “Jared is an honorable guy. He’ll do whatever he promised to do.”

The man snorted as he rang up the pizza. “Well,
you tell pretty boy that he’d better, if he knows what’s good for him. I won’t hesitate to press charges. Hear?”

A shiver of worry crawled through her. What would that do to Jared’s goal to enter law?

She’d misplaced the small scrap of paper with his phone number, and he was probably unlisted. He likely had a private condo in some exclusive area near the campus…unreachable by the likes of her.

“I—I don’t know where he lives, honest.” Scooping up her change and the pizza, she hurried to the door. “I’ll tell him if I see him, though.”

Outside, she scanned the darkened street. Could he still be close by? Her heart lifted at the possibility. She’d have a chance to relay the message, then maybe they’d talk awhile. Though a small, inner voice reminded her that they couldn’t be more different, the thought of his smoky silver gaze and deep laughter warmed her clear to her toes despite the crisp October chill in the air.

A half-dozen college girls ambled down the sidewalk together, each with a backpack slung over one shoulder, laughing. Across the street, a young couple walked hand in hand through a drift of autumn leaves.

But Jared was nowhere to be seen.

K
ATE LOOKED FOR HIM
on campus the following day, then asked Deanna and several friends if they knew where he lived. No one seemed to know anything about him, the college refused to release contact information, and there were no phone book listings that were even close.

Finally—as a last resort—she crossed the commons in front of the Student Union and intercepted two of the girls she’d seen at the party where she’d first met him. Oblivious, they swept past her, deep in conversation over some gaffe by a fellow sorority member.

“Wait—please,” Kate called after them.

They turned as one and stared at her faded jeans and medical pullover smock emblazoned with the vet school logo, each with a single eyebrow raised in elegant disbelief at the intrusion.

If Kate hadn’t needed to talk to them, she would’ve rolled her eyes at their clonelike supercilious air and gone on her way.

“You…
need
something?” the tall blonde asked, glancing at her watch.

“I saw you. At the fraternity party a few weeks ago. And…um…Jared Mathers was there.”

“
You’re
the one who was chasing him after Hilary dumped him!” She gave her friend a trium
phant look. “See? I told you. Hilary was livid when she heard about it.”

“Why would she care if she dumped him?” Kate felt her face warm. “He looked upset. I just went over to talk to him.”

The two girls exchanged glances, then the shorter one snickered. “R-i-i-ght. Not like he’d be a target for every last gold digger on campus, or anything.”

The temptation to fire back a sharp retort nearly consumed Kate. “I just need to tell him something,” she said evenly. “Today. Would you know where I can find him?”

“Believe me, sugar, you don’t stand a chance, so don’t waste your time.” She glanced above Kate’s shoulder, and her eyes lit with amusement. “The Mathers family would see to that. Right, Jared?”

Laughing, the two girls strolled away.

Kate felt the warmth in her cheeks turn to fire as she slowly turned and found Jared dismounting from a sleek ten-speed not more than three feet away. He’d probably heard every last word.

She froze, unable to speak, wishing she could simply die right on the spot.

But instead of finding disgust or mockery in his eyes, she only found sympathy, and embarrassment that nearly matched her own. “I…wasn’t
trying to find you so I could hit on you or anything,” she managed after an awkward pause.

“I know,” he said wryly. “You’ve made that pretty clear.”

“I mean, you seem like a great guy and everything. I’m just not really looking right now, with school and my job and homework and all. I—”
Babbling. I’m totally babbling here. Really cool, Kate.

She took a deep breath to steady herself, then caught a glimmer of a smile tilting his mouth. “I’m sorry. I don’t usually run on like that. What I needed to tell you was that guy at the store plans to press charges if you don’t show up tonight to pay for the merchandise or work it off.”

His smile faded. “I plan to be there, just as I said.”

“He sure doesn’t think so.”

“Then I guess he’ll be surprised.” Jared’s gaze slid away, toward the Walker Chemistry Building. “He’s got a brand-new employee for the next two nights. I gave him my word, along with my watch.”

Surprised, Kate studied his profile. The set of his strong jaw suggested that he possessed a lot more backbone than she’d expected in a pampered rich boy, though the tick of a small muscle in his cheek betrayed his stress.

“Um…do you, like, need a loan or anything?”
It was probably a foolish question, yet something wasn’t right here. Maybe he’d blown his fancy allowance from home.