The Wedding Date: A Christmas Novella (8 page)

He’d get the details later. For now he said to Jess, “I’m thinking about doing the marathon. Got any advice?”

It was exactly the right thing to distract him. Jess pointed a crust at him. “Got a deal going right now—a three-month training session geared for the marathon. We’re a couple weeks into it, but I can prorate it for you.” He gave Cody a once-over. “You look fit. Free weights or machines?”

Cody humored him with some details until Julie quit fiddling with her ring and took a bite of lasagna. That broke the ice. Everyone took a breath. The salad moved around the table, the wine too. Cody filled Julie’s glass. She thanked him politely.

Ellen started talking about one of her problem students. Ray and Amelia chimed in, and the conversation flowed. Cody tuned it out, his attention all on Julie, her pale face and haunted eyes.

Taking the hand that still lay curled in her lap, he linked his fingers with hers and gave a light squeeze. For a long, quiet moment, she didn’t react. Then she took a sip of wine, swallowed like she had to push it past a sizeable lump, and offering him a tight-lipped smile, she gently but firmly extracted her hand.

He soldiered on through the meal, fielding questions about ranch life, asking some of his own, growing even fonder of Ellen and Amelia and the men they’d chosen. But all the while he was tuned to the quiet woman beside him, a ghost of the girl he’d made out with just hours before.

When it came time to clean up, he finagled his way into the kitchen with Amelia. Closing the door behind them, he cut to the chase. “What happened to David? How did he die?”

Amelia leaned a hip on the counter. “Brain cancer. A tumor the size of a lemon. Too involved to remove, too stubborn to radiate. Chemo didn’t work either, just ruined the last weeks of his life.”

Cody studied the floor tiles, played out the tragic scenario. Then, “She blames the docs, doesn’t she?”

“Oh yeah.” Amelia let out a sigh. “I know it’s not rational. On some level she probably knows that too. But Cody, it was so awful. So brutal and painful and awful.” Her throat caught. “I can’t fault her. She had to do something with her anger. So she turned it on the doctors. Blamed them for failing him. For offering hope and delivering nothing but more pain.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. She let it fall to the floor. “They were in love. Like Ray and me. They’d just bought their dream house.” She looked up at him. “Now she walks past it every day. Stares through the windows at the couple living inside.”

“You mean she can see it from her place?”

“It’s the house right out front.”

Cody’s heart turned over. “She’s torturing herself. Keeping the grief and the hate alive.”

“I begged her to get counseling, but she refused. No more doctors, she said.” Amelia huffed out a laugh. “I ended up going myself, trying to figure out how to help her.”

She shrugged sadly. “All I really learned is that nobody can help her until she’s ready to move on.”

I
T WAS SPITTING
snow when they left Amelia and Ray’s, icy little slivers that glinted in the lamplight. Cody tucked Julie’s hand under his arm. She didn’t fight it.

The truth was, she appreciated the effort he’d made with her family. Even after Jess dropped a nuke on dinner, Cody had salvaged the meal. He’d wowed her mom and Amelia. Ray wanted to be besties. And Jess had a total man-crush on him. Who could blame them? Cody was perfect in every way but one.

But that one way was a deal breaker.

Now he poked along at his usual pace, while the snow mixed with sleet, pinging off the sidewalk. “Shouldn’t Amelia be in a lather,” he asked, “what with her wedding around the corner?”

Julie shrugged. “It’s only twenty people. Just close family.” It still surprised her that Amelia hadn’t wanted a blowout. She claimed it was the marriage, not the wedding, that mattered, but more likely she was sparing Julie the pomp and circumstance so she wouldn’t dwell on the wedding David’s death had denied her.

“Your Mom said you grew up in Newton.”

“Mmm-hmm.” She knew he was trying to make conversation, but dinner had drained her.

“Why’d you move to Beacon Hill?”

She tensed up. “I like it here.”

“So do I,” he said agreeably. “But there’s nice places in Back Bay, closer to your office.”

Why was he pushing this? Annoyed, she tried to pull her hand away. He clamped it to his side. The thrill of bulging biceps only made her tug harder.

“Julie, sweetheart, these boots weren’t built for your Boston winter. I’m liable to land on my ass if you don’t hold on to me.”

“Oh.” She quit tugging, tried to ignore his biceps as they inched along the sidewalk.

They were almost to her house when she realized her mistake. “We should’ve cut down to Beacon to get you a cab.”

He kept moving down her driveway. “Not likely I’d let you walk home in the dark.”

They paused outside her door. The scene of the kiss.

She detached her hand. Rubbed her arms like she was cold. She wasn’t. She was never cold with Cody around.

What she was, was a mess. She needed time alone to wallow for a while. To dredge up her memories and nurse her grievances. Because—and she was ashamed to admit it—ever since Cody’d shown up in her life, David seemed to be slipping away. If she wasn’t careful, she might forget how he’d suffered. How both of them suffered. And she’d promised herself never to forget. Or forgive.

He smiled. “Gonna invite me in for a drink?”

“I’m out of wine.” She’d polished it off after booting him out last night.

“Actually, I was thinking about coffee.”

“Oh.” She tried to stay strong, but his smile beguiled her. “I have coffee.”

He waited. Then, “Well? Can I have some?”

She wrestled the demon. Wanted to say yes. Struggled to say no.

She dragged her eyes away from his lips. Looked down at her mittens, and summoned the strength. “Listen, Cody. I can’t get involved with you.”

“Because I’m a doctor?”

“Yes.”

“And you hate all doctors.”

“Yes.” It sounded ridiculous. But it was true. She studied the stitching on her thumb. Waited for him to say something, or leave, or be beamed up by aliens.

None of those things happened. Instead, the silence stretched until she had to look up. His smile was gone. Sleet peppered his cheek, but he looked too pissed to care. “I was in Texas when David died.”

She bristled. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Try me.”

“Why? So you can defend your species?”

“So I can figure out how to un-fuck-up your head.”

It stung like a slap. She took a step back. Then fury leapt to her rescue, put a lash in her voice. “You arrogant ass. You’re just like the rest, so sure you know best. Until it all goes to shit.”

She whipped off a mitten, mimed a phone to her ear. “Sorry,” she did a snotty secretary’s nasal, “Dr. Know-It-All’s at a conference in Vienna. He’ll be back in March. Oh, you’ll be dead by then? Sorry to hear that. I’ll tell him you called.”

Cody’s eyes narrowed dangerously. His voice dropped to a growl. “I’m goddamned sick and tired of you and everybody else judging me by the degree on my wall. Back in the day, women used to want me—or not—for
who I am
. And mostly, they wanted me. Because I know how to have a good time. How to take things in stride. And except for politicians and serial killers, I don’t dislike a person based on their job.”

He was on a roll. “I got more going on than an MD, you know. I travel. I read. I play the bass. Hell, I rode the circuit for a year and got the buckle to prove it.” He raked his hair back with both hands, vibrating frustration. “I’m wasting my time. It wouldn’t matter to you if I won the Nobel Prize. You’ll never see past your fucked-up-pig-headed-dumb-ass prejudice against doctors.”

How dare he? How dare he belittle her feelings? How dare he judge her? She spiked a finger to his chest. “I don’t need
you
, Dr. Brown, telling me what I should think or how I should feel. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know more than you think. You’re looking for someone to blame.” He throttled back his anger. His voice came out hoarse. “You want to believe the docs didn’t do everything they could, because otherwise you’re gonna look at yourself, wonder if
you
did something wrong, or didn’t do enough.”

“You think you’re so smart.” Tears put an infuriating quaver in her voice. Then rage rose up to rescue her once more. She shoved his chest with both hands. “You don’t know me! You don’t know
anything
! So take your stupid smile and your stupid drawl and your stupid arrogant psychobabble
bullshit
and go back to your hotel and leave me alone!”

She got her key in the lock and stumbled inside, slammed the door behind her, and leaned back against it, trembling. If Cody tore it off the hinges, it wouldn’t surprise her. After her last salvo, he looked pissed enough to do it one-handed.

But a minute passed and nothing happened. No thud on the door, no sound through the panel. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, made herself look out the window.

In the lamplight, the sleet sheeted down undisturbed.

Cody had taken her at her word. He was gone.

Chapter Eight

A
MELIA HAD SAVED
the best for last. Brad Ainsley, blind date number three, was definitely the class of the field.

The new history teacher at Amelia’s school, he was all of six feet, blond and blue. So blue, in fact, that Julie did a double take to check for colored contacts.

He’d picked the perfect dinner place too, a seafood joint up near Gloucester. They drove up in his hybrid, making the most of a sunny December Sunday, chatting comfortably all the way. They’d both grown up in Newton, graduated the same year from different high schools. He told her about his family, his friends, the master’s degree he was working on. He asked about her, seemed interested in her answers, and complimented her hair, her eyes, and her boots.

At a table by the window, overlooking the sea, he ordered clams, she ordered scallops, and they shared like they’d been doing it for years. She laughed at his jokes, he nodded along with her stories, and by the end of the meal they were finishing each other’s sentences.

It was nice. It was sweet. It was almost effortless.

And Julie couldn’t wait for it to end. Because the whole time, every minute of it, she wished Brad was . . . well, Cody.

It wasn’t fair. Brad should be a perfect fit. They liked the same music, the same sports teams, the same food, the same everything. They were practically the same damned person.

But Cody, he was nothing like her. He was from Texas, which might as well be a different country. He was probably a Republican, for God’s sake. If they lived together for a hundred years, she’d never be able to finish his sentences.

And then there was the matter of the MD after his name.

Still, she had to admit that when he had his hand up her shirt and his tongue in her mouth, none of that seemed to matter.

Which was why it was a good thing, a
really
good thing, that she’d melted down on him last night. Screeching hysterics, guaranteed to make any sane man run for the hills.

Yes, even though she’d cried herself to sleep, she was glad, really glad, totally glad, that she’d run him off.

It was after eight when Brad pulled onto her street. Fat flurries had begun to fall. Freezing rain was predicted. It would be a dirty night on the roadways.

“Thanks for dinner,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t ask to come in. What was the point, with her head all about Cody?

Brad smiled his perfectly nice smile. Dimpleless, but nice all the same. He angled toward her in his seat. “Your sister said you need a date for her wedding.” He lilted it into a question at the end.

Ah yes, the wedding. Here was her chance to solve that little problem. Get Amelia off her back, keep her mother from getting involved, and have a perfectly nice time with a guy who, her sister would say, was perfect marriage material.

“Actually, Brad, I already have a date.” The not-so-white lie popped out on its own.

His face fell. “Oh. I thought you weren’t seeing anyone—”

“It’s just a date,” she cut in, “nothing serious.” And the lies kept on coming. “He’s more of a friend, really. And he’s gay.” She dug herself in deeper.

“You’re dating a gay guy?” His blue eyes widened.

“Not dating. He’s just coming to the wedding with me.” She’d invite Dan. That would redeem her lie, wouldn’t it?

Brad touched her arm, all concern. “Whoever he is, Julie, he’s not going to switch teams. Gay is gay.”

She held up a hand. “Oh, I know that. He’s totally gay, no question about it. One hundred percent. And I’m fine with it.” How did she get into this?

Brad took her hand, cradled it between his. “Why don’t you call him? Tell him you’ve got a real date.”

Why indeed? Why the elaborate charade? Why not take Brad to the wedding and make everyone happy?

He stroked her palm with his fingertips. It should have felt good.

“I can’t,” she said, “it’ll hurt his feelings. He’s very sensitive.”

For the first time, impatience crept into Brad’s voice. “Listen, Julie, I really like you. I want to see you again. I don’t understand why you’re letting some gay guy get in the way of that.” His too-blue-to-be-true eyes burned too intensely.

In the back of her brain, her stalker radar beeped.

“I’m not saying I don’t want to see you again.” She’d save that news for a phone call. “But the wedding’s spoken for.”

“Julie.” As if repeating her name would bring her into line. Was it some kind of Jedi-mind-control trick? “Let’s talk about this inside.” He gave her hand a squeeze.

She pulled it away, getting annoyed. “I’m sorry, but the subject’s closed.” She got out of the car.

He got out too. Came around to her side. Not threatening. Irritating.

“Look, Brad, I’m not backing out on him.” It might have started as a lie, but now it was the principle.

“Julie.” Again with the name. “He’s gay, okay? If he’s truly your friend, he’ll be glad to step aside for a real man.”