Instant Gratification

“Okay. Good. Just go after your heart, Stone.” She smiled at Nick over her shoulder. “No matter what it is. Or who.”

“Annie.”

“It’s just everyone needs someone once in awhile, Stone. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Thanks for the newsflash.” Stone stood up to go, but Nick stopped him by gently nudging Annie. “Tell him.”

“Oh.” Annie’s hands went to her belly as she once again looked at her husband. “I haven’t said it out loud yet. I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“You have nine months to get ready,” Nick said, eyes bright, mouth curved. “I’m just thinking that Stone’s going to need that long as well.”

“Oh my God.” Stone divided a look between the two of them, Nick nearly bursting with pride, Annie seeming torn between sheer joy and sheer terror. “He knocked you up.”

“Hey.” She smacked Stone upside the back of the head. “True, but hey.” She spread her fingers over her belly, her eyes going misty. “It’s weird, right?”

“Yeah.” Feeling suddenly a little misty himself, he pulled her in for a hug. “But good weird.”

Annie’s breath caught as she pulled back to cup his face, her smile soft and warm and happy, so happy it almost hurt to look at her. “Yeah?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he whispered back. “Now you’ll have someone new to boss around. No one does that as good as you.”

“Aw, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me. Now.” She moved to the kitchen window. “Back to you.”

“I don’t want to talk about me.”

“Even if the woman you think you don’t want to talk about, the one who’s leaving soon, just drove up?

He stood up, watching as Emma parked her father’s truck out front. “What do you mean, leaving soon?”

“They found a buyer for the clinic,” Nick said.

Goddammit.

He walked outside as she got out of the truck, and though he’d just eaten and satisfied his belly, his gut still took one hard kick at just the sight of her.

Chapter 21

Stone watched Emma stride toward him, her legs eating up the ground. He wondered if she was going to mention that she was leaving.

He’d have guessed that the thought of leaving would make her happy. Yeah, he’d really thought that, except the look on her face didn’t say happy. It said frustration.

It said tension.

It said unhappiness. “Dr. Sinclair,” he said with mock formality, hoping to coax out a smile.

It didn’t. She stopped before him on the steps of the lodge, and when he reached for her, she jabbed him in the chest with a finger. “You should have told me.”

Okay, he’d play. He grabbed her finger. “Told you what?” That when she looked a little hot under the collar like she did right now, he got hot?

She yanked her hand free. “I know you saved my dad.”

Ah, shit. That.

She let out a breath and lost some of her tension as she met his gaze, her own shiny, deep, and real. Very real. “Thank you for that, by the way,” she whispered. “I’m really glad you were able to get there as fast as you did.”

“I’d have done it for anyone, Emma,” he said, watching her turn and walk away a few steps. “And so would you. Thanks aren’t necessary.”

“You saved his life, Stone.”

“Yes. How many lives have you saved?”

She shrugged in acknowledgment of that. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think his heart attack was minor?”

He sighed. “If you’d known, would you have agreed to stay?”

She turned back. Her eyes were cool now. “That question bites.”

“Yeah, it does.” But he needed the answer.

Shaking her head, she took in the sharp, craggy mountains behind her. “I’m scared to death for him,” she whispered, hugging herself.

At that, he let out the breath he’d been holding. Okay, he hadn’t been wrong about her. She cared, deeply. Question was, did she care for him as deeply? “Of course you’re scared for him. We all are. But he’s doing great.”

“I just wish I’d known. If we’d had the relationship he wanted,” she said quietly, “he’d have told me sooner. That’s my fault.”

“No, Emma, it’s not.” He pulled her around to face him. “He’s stubborn as a mule. A trait, I’m beginning to see is a family thing.

She shook her head as a small smile escaped. “You have this way of cutting right to the chase.”

“Saves time.”

“I just wish someone would have told me, that you would have told me. I thought-” She broke off, then shrugged. “I thought we might have had something.”

“Yeah?” He tried to get past the stab of the past tense of that statement. “I thought so too. You’re leaving.”

“I was always leaving.”

“Sooner than later.”

“Yes. Spence is leaving today and I’ll be a few days after him.”

“A few days?”

“By next week, certainly.”

While he tried to adjust to that, she said, “We have offers on the clinic.”

He closed his eyes. “He’s actually going to sell?”

“With the option of a contract for his services part-time so he doesn’t have to retire.”

“You’re worried about him, but you’re still going to leave?”

With a sigh, she started walking. “You don’t understand. After this week, he won’t need me full time.” She didn’t turn back to the truck, but walked across the wild grass in front of the lodge, and he followed.

“So you’re on the part-time daughter plan, is that it?”

“Yes, actually. I am.” She stopped and faced him. “That’s what our relationship’s always been, Stone. Part- time. If I could figure out how to do it differently, I would. But the truth is, the clinic is beyond him right now, and unlike what you seem to be implying, I’m not just walking away. I’m going to have him all set up before I go. I just wish I’d known about his condition sooner.”

Yeah. No way around it, he felt like a jerk for that. “Emma-”

“No, don’t.” There was a light breeze ruffling her hair and she shoved it out of her face. “You care about him. It’s good. It’s good that I know your loyalties are with him. It makes you trustworthy.”

He stared at her, not liking where this was going either. “But not trustworthy for you?”

“Honestly? I don’t know.”

Damn, if that one didn’t hit home. “You know what I think? That you’re using this as an excuse to run scared from whatever the hell it is we’re doing.”

“First of all, we’re not doing anything. We’re both geographically unavailable, remember? And second, you really think I’d use my father’s health as an excuse?”

“I think you’d do anything to get out of here. Away from the emotional roller coaster this place has presented. Compared to us, New York must feel like a dead zone. No personal emotions required.”