houses here.’
‘This is my father’s world, not my world,’ he said, and suddenly he sounded more sure of his ground. He sounded forceful, determined, even a little angry that she could make such a suggestion. ‘I’m an anaesthetist in a large teaching hospital. I’m good at what I do. I’ve worked hard to get there. But you and I…’
‘You and I.’ She said the words slowly. ‘You and I? There’s a “we”? Jake, you don’t have room in your life for a puppy. Yet you ask me…’
‘Plenty of doctors have wives.’
Was he asking her to marry him? What a thought. What a way to bring it up if he was.
‘So…these doctor’s wives…they don’t need big yards?’
His brow snapped downwards. ‘What the… That’s not what I’m saying.’
‘So what are you saying? You’re asking me to marry you?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said explosively. ‘I hadn’t even thought of marriage. But the way you make me feel… You just do something to me.’
‘You’re saying it’s my fault?’
‘I’m not talking about fault.’
‘No,’ she said bleakly. ‘But you don’t want this. To feel like this.’
‘I can’t pretend. I never intended to…’
‘Of course you didn’t, and I won’t be proposed to against your better judgement,’ she said, suddenly angry. ‘To be slotted into your life in the few minutes you’re home between work and sleep? In a place where there’s no one I love? How can you ask that of me?’
‘We could take Itsy and Rusty back with us. We could get a larger apartment.’ He raked his hair and she thought, He really hasn’t thought this through. He hadn’t even known he was going to ask her to join him until the words were out of his mouth. Now he was trying to figure out how he could make it work. ‘We could make arrangements,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to make arrangements,’ she snapped. Anger had arrived now, coming to her aid in a red hot mist. He thought he was attracted to her, so he’d take her home, like a puppy from a pet shop, without even doing the groundwork.
‘I’d take up space in your life, Jake Hunter, and you don’t have space to give,’ she told him, knowing she was right, even if it hurt like crazy to say it. ‘My community is here. My work is here. My life is here. It’s not sitting in some drab New York apartment waiting for you to get home at night.’
‘It’s not drab.’
‘What colour is it?’
‘Grey, but-’
‘I rest my case.’
‘Tori, this is stupid.’
‘It is, isn’t it,’ she said, and suddenly, inexplicably, the anger died. For somehow she knew where he was coming from. He was as confused as she was, and as blown away by the unexpectedness of it. ‘I know,’ she said, much more mildly. ‘You’re feeling about me the way I’m feeling about you, like we have something special. But honestly, we don’t. We had a…a frisson. Like a lightning bolt or something that shocked us and made us think we were special. Only you know what happens after lightning hits? You run in case it hits again. You don’t want to be a part of my life, Jake, and I can’t think I could possibly be part of yours. So let’s just get over it.’
There was a long silence while anger dissipated. While sense prevailed.
‘If that’s what you want…’ he said at last.
It’s not what I want, she thought. But what did she want?
She wanted him to sweep her into his arms and carry her off into some magical happy ever after-only he didn’t even have a yard for a dog. Where was the happy ever after in that?
‘We need to say goodbye,’ she said, struggling with her dignity, and Jake looked down into her eyes for a long, long moment and then finally he nodded.
‘We do.’
Her anger was completely gone now. This was Jake, the man she’d loved last night. The man she could still love. The man she might even learn to trust. Anger was gone, but sadness took its place. Regret that a different time, a different place, could have worked.
‘Goodbye,’ he said softly, and she thought, I will not cry, I will not.
But then he smiled down at her and suddenly she didn’t want to cry. She tilted her chin and met his gaze square on. This wasn’t about loss. This wasn’t about grief. It couldn’t be.
Jake had been a watershed, a magical, romantic way to start her new life. He’d been her knight in shining armour, she thought mistily, and while the thought remained she stood on tiptoes and kissed him, lightly this time, and gently.
‘My Lancelot.’
‘Lancelot?’ He sounded confused.
‘You were my white knight, right when I needed you most.’
‘A white knight,’ he said, sounding revolted, and she grinned.
‘Only for two days,’ she said. ‘While I played damsel in distress. Only now I’m not. So thank you, Jake. Off you go, then-back to New York, to your medicine. I wonder if there’re more damsels in distress in Manhattan.’
‘I suspect most women where I come from know how to rescue themselves.’
She didn’t like that. It sounded as though she needed to get a bit of spine. She straightened and she pulled her hands away and she put as much spine in her voice as she could.’
‘I’ll remember you for ever,’ she said, firmly and surely. ‘I’m sure I could have rescued myself, but it was much more fun being rescued by you. Thank you very much, Dr. Hunter. I’m sorry I can’t follow you to Manhattan. I’m sorry I couldn’t buy Bitsy as well as Itsy, and I’m sorry you don’t have a yard. Meanwhile we need to move on. We both have our careers to get back to.’
And somehow she smiled-and he mustn’t know just how hard that smile was-and she climbed into the car and started the engine.
‘Goodbye, Tori,’ Jake said, but her car was already moving.
He felt sick. He stood in the car park of his father’s lodge and watched until he could no longer see her car.
He’d let her go.
He had to. He’d asked her to come with him and she’d refused. What did she expect? That he stay here?
He thought back to the little scene back at Shoebox Mansions, to her impromptu clinic. People needing her. People expecting her to help at any time.
He compartmentalised his life. He’d go nuts if he accepted that kind of need.
But then… He turned and Glenda was on the verandah, watching him watch Tori leave. ‘Oh, my dear,’ she said and he thought, She understands.
How could she understand? She didn’t know him.
She’d known his father.
Community.
No, he thought savagely. What had his mother said? It was insidious. It sucked you in.
His life was in Manhattan and he had no place here.
‘Dinner’s ready,’ Glenda said but her message was much deeper.
‘You go in,’ he told her.
‘We’re waiting for you.’
It’d be a long wait, he thought. He had limits.
‘We’re waiting,’ Glenda said again, gently, and he gave up and walked inside with her.
He could do dinner. He just couldn’t do the rest of his life.
