Wedding Date with the Army Doc (4 page)

He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “I understand.”

She hoped her gratitude showed when their gazes met. From his reassuring nod she figured it did. She accepted a peanut-butter cookie and took a bite. “Mmm, this is really good.”

He picked his up and dipped it in his black coffee before taking a man-sized bite. His brows lifted in agreement. “So,” he said after he'd swallowed, “since we're going to change the subject, I have an observation. I'm thinking you might be dating someone?”

Her chin pulled in. “Why would you think that?” Hadn't they been making out in her office earlier?

“You put a quick stop to our...” He let her finish the sentence in her mind, rather than spell it out.

She lifted her gaze and nailed his, which was, not surprisingly, looking expectant. He was definitely interested in her, which caused thoughts to flood her mind. She'd gone through a long, tough day already, and it wasn't even two o'clock. She'd once again seen firsthand how things people took for granted, like their health, could change at any given moment. It made her think how much more out of life she longed for. Shouldn't she grab some of what it had to offer, especially when it, or rather, he, was sitting right across from her, dunking his cookie like it was the best thing on earth? Instead of day in and day out spending most of her time with the biggest relationship in her life, her microscope?

But would Jackson want her as she was? Admittedly, she'd always been proud of her figure, never flaunting herself too much but not afraid to show some cleavage if the occasion and the dress called for it. Now every day when she showered she saw her flat chest, the scars. There wasn't anything sexy about that. Yet she was a woman, lived, breathed and felt like a woman, but one who strapped on her chest the symbols of the fairer sex every day before she came to work. Pretending she was still who she'd used to be.

The decision had seemed so clear when she'd made it. Get rid of the tissue, the ticking time bomb on her chest. Never put herself in a position to hear the words that had devastated her mother's life.
You have breast cancer.

Because of lab tests and markers, she'd thought like a scientist, but now she had to deal with the feelings of a woman who was no longer comfortable in her body.

Then there was tall, masculine and sexy-as-hell Jackson sitting directly across from her, smiling like he had a secret.

She bet his secret was nowhere as big as hers. “You took me by surprise earlier.”

“I took myself by surprise.”

She liked knowing that the kiss had been totally spontaneous. “So, since you asked, I'm not seeing anyone. Today's just been hard. That's why I—”

“I understand.” His beeper went off. He checked it. “Let me know when you're leaving later and after we pop in on Jim again I'll walk you to your car.”

It wasn't a question. She liked that about him, too. “Okay.”

Except later, when Jackson walked her to her car, after visiting the hospital and finding Dr. Gordon deeply asleep and looking like he floated on air, Jackson reverted to perfect-gentleman mode. No arm around her shoulder or hand-holding as they walked. Whatever magic they'd conjured earlier had worn off. He simply smiled and wished her good night, told her to get some rest, more fatherly than future boyfriend material, and disappointingly kept a buffer zone between them as she got into her car.

As she drove off, checking her rearview mirror and seeing him watch her leave, his suit jacket on a fingertip and hanging over his shoulder, looking really sexy, she wondered if he'd had time to come to his senses, too. Something—was it her?—held him back. Then, since she knew her secret backward and forward, and how it kept her from grabbing at the good stuff in life, she further wondered what his secret was.

CHAPTER THREE

J
ACKSON
 
TOSSED
 
HIS
 
keys onto the entry table in his Westlake condo, thinking a beer would taste great about now, but knowing he'd given up using booze as an escape. It had cost what had been left of his marriage to get the point across.

A long and destructive battle with PTSD had led to him falling apart and quitting his position as lead surgeon at Savannah General Hospital just before they'd planned to fire him three years ago. The ongoing post-traumatic stress disorder had turned him into a stranger and strained his relationship with his teenage sons, frightening them away. It had also ensured his wife of twenty years had finally filed for divorce.

He'd lost his right lower leg in an IED accident in Afghanistan. It had been his second tour as an army reservist. He'd volunteered for it, and for that his wife had been unable to forgive him. She'd deemed it his fault that the improvised explosive device had caused him to lose his leg. He'd returned home physically and emotionally wounded, and, piled onto their already strained marriage from years of him choosing his high-maintenance education and career over nurturing their life together, she couldn't take it.

His fault.

Their marriage had been unraveling little by little for years anyway. High-school sweethearts, she'd then followed him on to college. His grandfather used to tease him that she was majoring in marriage. Then they'd accidentally got pregnant the summer before he'd entered medical school. With their respective families being good friends, there was no way he could have let her go through the pregnancy alone. So he'd done the honorable thing and they'd got married right before he'd entered medical school.

It hadn't been long before they'd realized they may have made a mistake, but his studies had kept him too busy to address it, and the new baby, Andrew, had taken all of her time, and, well, they'd learned how to coexist as a small family of three. In his third year of medical school she'd got pregnant again. This time he'd got angry with her for letting it happen when he'd found out she'd stopped taking birth control pills. Evaline had said she wanted kids because he was never around. And so it had gone on.

Then at the age of twenty-seven and in the second year of his surgical residency, he'd signed up for the army reserves. One weekend a month he'd trained in an army field medical unit, setting up mobile triage, learning to care for mass casualties. When he'd finished his surgical residency and had been asked to stay on at Savannah General, his wife had thought maybe things would get better. But he'd started signing on with his reserve unit for two-week humanitarian missions for victims of natural disasters at home in the States. Soon he'd branched out to other countries, and when he'd been deployed to Iraq, Evaline had threatened to leave him.

He'd made it home six weeks later in one piece, his eyes opened to the need of fellow US soldiers deployed in the Middle East, and also finally accepting the trouble his marriage was in. They seeked out marriage counseling and he'd focused on working his way up the career ladder at Savannah General, and things had seemed to get better between them. He'd stayed on in the army reserves doing his one weekend a month, catching hell from Evaline if it fell on either of his sons' sports team events, but he hadn't been able to pick and choose his times of service. They'd limped on, keeping a united front for their boys and their families, while the fabric of their love had worn thinner and thinner.

Then, after a brutal series of attacks on US military personnel, they'd needed army reserve doctors and he'd volunteered to be deployed to Afghanistan. He had been one week short of going home when the IED had changed everything.

His fault?

He'd come home, had hit rock bottom after that, then eventually had got help from the veterans hospital, and had spent the next year accepting he'd never be the man he'd once been and cleaning up his act. He'd been honorably discharged from the army, too. But the damage to Evaline and his sons and his reputation as a surgeon had already been done. She'd filed for divorce.

As time had passed his PTSD had settled down and he'd felt confident enough to go back to work. That was when he'd figured there wasn't anything for him back home in Georgia anymore. His wife had divorced him. His oldest son had wanted nothing to do with him. So since his youngest son would be attending Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, he'd sought employment in the area, hoping to at least mend that relationship. St. Francis of the Valley Hospital had been willing to give him a chance as a staff surgeon. With less responsibility, not being the head of a department but just a staff guy for a change, not having to deal with his ex-wife and her ongoing complaints anymore and enjoying the eternal spring weather of Southern California, his stress level had reached a new low.

Until today, when he'd had to tell his friend Jim Gordon some pretty rotten news—that he had metastatic cancer—and they both knew there'd be one hell of a battle ahead. Then, in a moment of weakness, seeing the distress Charlotte Johnson had been in, he'd let his gut take over and he'd moved in to comfort her. But it hadn't worked out that way, because he'd played with fire. He knew he'd thought about her far, far differently than any other colleague. That he'd been drawn into her dark and alluring beauty while sitting across from her, looking at patient slides, for the last year. Come to think of it, could he have been any slower? How long had he had a thing for her anyway? At least three-quarters of the last year, that was how long.

Could he blame himself for kissing her when she'd fit into his arms so perfectly, and she'd shown no signs of resisting him? Still, it had been completely improper and couldn't happen again because he wasn't ready to have one more woman reject him because his lower leg had been replaced with a high-tech prosthetic. Maybe it wasn't sexy, but it sure worked great, and he'd been running five miles a day to prove it for the last two years. In fact, he'd never been in better condition.

Ah, but Charlotte, she stirred forgotten feelings, that special lure of a woman that made him want to feel alive again. Something about her mix of confidence on the job and total insecurity in a social setting made him hope what they had in common might be enough to base a new relationship on. When he'd kissed her, because of her response, he'd got his hopes up that maybe she felt the same way. But she'd stopped the kiss and an invisible barrier had seemed to surround her after that. He'd pretended everything had been fine when he'd walked her to her car—he hadn't noticed her need to be left alone—but the message had got through to him. Loud and clear.

He wandered into his galley kitchen and searched the refrigerator, hoping there might be something halfway interesting in the way of leftovers. He grabbed a bottle of sparkling water and guzzled some of it, enjoying the fizzy burn in his throat. Today he'd kissed the woman who held his interest more than any other since his high-school sweetheart. That was the good news. The bad news was he knew he couldn't do anything further about it. Her invisible force field wouldn't let him through, and if that wasn't enough, his boatload of baggage held him back.

Out of curiosity, though, he did have one little—okay, monumental—test for Charlotte, one that would really determine her mettle before he totally gave up.

* * *

Saturday was the annual charity fund-raiser five-and ten-kilometer run for St. Francis of the Valley trauma unit. Charlotte had signed up a while back and had forgotten to train for it, but she showed up anyway in support of the event. What they'd neglected to tell her was that this year they'd added zombies. Someone had got the bright idea to raise more money by getting employees to pay professional makeup artists, who'd donated their time for the event, to be made up as the undead. The sole purpose, besides getting their pictures taken, was to chase down the runners and tag them with washable paint, and hopefully improve some personal best times for some participants in the process.

Being a good sport, Charlotte ran with the five-kilometer crowd, squealing and screaming whenever zombies crawled out of bushes or from behind nearby trees, heading straight for her. She checked her sports watch. Out of fright she had cut her running time—well, the last time she'd run, which had been a month ago—by a couple of minutes at the halfway point. Impressive. Go zombies!

Running always made her think, and today was no different. Since Monday, with Dr. Gordon's surgery and the amazing kiss from Jackson, the man had been missing in action. He hadn't even shown up for their usual Friday afternoon slide show. Had the fact that she'd stopped him from kissing her the way he'd wanted been the reason? Or was her hunch right about him having his own reasons for keeping distance between them? She didn't have a clue, but one thing was certain—she missed him even though she felt safer when he wasn't around. Talk about being mixed up.

Oh, man, here came another small cluster of zombies, heading right for her and the group of three runners in front of her. The rules said that if a zombie left a red mark on you, you had to subtract thirty seconds from your final time. Even though she knew they weren't real, they still freaked her out. She shot into sprint mode and caught those runners up ahead, nestling herself in the middle of them as protection. She had no pride when it came to fear. They all screamed and swerved together as the slow-moving zombies up ahead got closer. They fanned out to avoid their zombie touch, especially if they carried red spray paint. She darted around another zombie, leaving the group of nurses behind and winding up running solo again, checking every bush and tree ahead for any surprises.

Soon things calmed down, so she slowed her pace and relaxed, enjoying the early morning sunshine and mild temperature. If she kept up like this she'd actually have a shot at finishing the run.

* * *

Already having finished his ten-kilometer race and finishing in the top twenty, Jackson had doubled back, deciding to run the five-kilometer route, too. He wasn't kidding himself. He knew that doing the shorter run as well had everything to do with searching for Charlotte, because he'd heard through Dr. Gordon she'd signed up to run.

Up in the distance he saw a woman with long legs and rounded hips, wearing tight running gear, with a high ponytail swishing back and forth with each stride. Her lovely light olive-colored legs and arms helped make the call that, yes, it was undeniably Charlotte. She wasn't what he'd call a sporty type, but was fit for sure, though with full-figure curves, and in his mind she looked fantastic. Man, he'd missed her this week and really liked spying on her now.

He picked up his pace, realizing there was no hiding his big secret since he was wearing jogging shorts. He'd noticed the looks all morning from hospital employees as he'd sprinted by with his carbon graphite transtibial prosthetic, including a flex foot that looked suspiciously like the tip of a snow ski. Their interest in his running blade didn't bother him, he'd had to get used to it over the past couple of years, but that little yet monumental test he was about to give Charlotte—finally finding out what she'd think of his prosthetic and below-the-knee amputation—made his stomach tighten.

He hoped she wouldn't be like the only two women he'd dated since moving out West, neither of whom had been able to get past his missing leg. He'd once played the pity-me game and had lost his marriage and family, and since then had promised himself to never let it affect him again. So why was he so nervous now, jogging up behind Charlotte?

Well, here goes nothing.
He lunged forward and reached out then grabbed her shoulder.

* * *

A hand grabbed Charlotte's shoulder. She screamed and nearly jumped out of her highly padded sports bra. Being so close to the finish line, would she be disqualified by a fake zombie bite?

With her heart nearly exploding in her chest, she turned to see how ugly the zombie who'd taken her out was. Instead she found a face that managed to take what was left of her breath away. It was Jackson's, and she wanted to throttle him!

“You nearly gave me a heart attack,” she squeaked, soon forgiving him when she noticed those broad shoulders and the fit physique beneath the tight T-shirt, and how handsome he looked in the early morning sunshine, his hair damp and curling around his face from his workout. She smiled.

“Sorry, couldn't resist it.” He slowed down his pace to stay with her.

“Well, I'm amazed I've made it this far without being attacked.”

“I'll protect you.”

Oh, how those amazingly masculine words put new spring in her step. She couldn't resist and took a quick glance at his shorts and those strong athletic legs. And, holy cow, the man had a prosthetic limb! And he ran like an Olympic athlete, with smooth, even strides and barely any effort at all, not out of breath in the least. He looked like a wounded warrior running on that shiny high-tech blade.

Her mind worked at laser speed. He usually came to her office wearing scrubs or street clothes. Once or twice she'd noticed his masculine arms, muscles that'd come from weights at the gym, but she'd never had the opportunity to see his amazing abdomen and those runner's muscled legs. Had she mentioned, holy cow, that he had a below-the-knee amputation on the right?

That explained his slightly unusual gait.

So her crush for the better part of a year had been on a man who had more in common with her than she could have ever dreamed! They were both missing something. The next question was, why had he grabbed her just now, obviously slowing down his pace to run with her?

It had to be because he liked her, too. Hadn't he proved it Monday afternoon when they'd hugged and kissed? The fact that he'd stayed far away from her and her department ever since, so very unlike him, had made her think differently and had proved he had reservations about starting a relationship. Welcome to the club, buddy. At least now she understood why and it didn't hurt so much that he'd been avoiding her. But it scared her, and not in a zombie-chasing way but much deeper. Because it was as plain as the sun right there in the sky making her squint. This. Was. A. Test.