“Luke, you’re crazy,” she said with certainty. “Our relationship is every man’s dream, an undemanding woman with no expectations. Seth seems happy enough to me. You’re worrying about nothing.”
“He thinks he’s giving you what you want,” Luke argued. “Is he? I never thought you’d be satisfied with some crazy no-strings fling. Am I wrong about that?”
“What we have is more than that,” she corrected. “Just because we’re not rushing into a major commitment doesn’t mean we’re not heading in that direction. And you’re out of line for butting into this. It’s between Seth and me.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll back off, but before I do, I’ll tell you what scares me. I’m convinced the two of you are going to ruin a good thing because neither one of you has the guts to ask for what you really want.”
He leveled a look into her eyes. “That’s all I’m saying, Abby. Don’t wait too long to be honest. Universities are jam-packed with young women who’d be eager to get serious with a man like Seth.”
Shaken by what he’d said, she watched him go, then reached for her cell phone.
“How fast can you get over here?” she asked Seth. When he’d replied that he ought to be able to make it there in a half hour, she said, “Make it five minutes, okay?”
It wasn’t the first time one or the other of them had communicated a sense of urgency, but if Luke was right about any of this, it might be the last time such a call was necessary. Maybe it was time to take her foot off the brakes and go for what she wanted full-throttle.
Of course, if Luke had gotten it all wrong, then she was about to wind up with a very large portion of egg on her face.
23
Seth’s blood was pumping as he drove over to Abby’s. Though there’d been other calls like this one, he’d sensed something different in her voice this morning. He cut the ten-minute drive down to four minutes.
Even so, she’d apparently had enough time to set out wine and light candles, even though it was the middle of the morning. Something was definitely up, he concluded.
“Special occasion?” he asked, eyeing the romantic ambiance with confusion.
“That depends,” she said. “We need to talk.”
He picked up a glass of wine and took a long sip. “That’s never good.”
She chuckled. “Talking hasn’t been our first priority for a while, has it? Maybe that’s been a mistake.”
Seth took another gulp of the wine. If it was one of those expensive bottles, it was definitely wasted on him. Thank goodness he wasn’t on duty this morning, because it appeared he wouldn’t be in any condition to take a call if she didn’t get to the point soon.
“I thought we were doing okay these days,” he said. “So why are you suddenly talking about mistakes?” Before she could reply, the answer dawned on him. “You’ve been talking to Luke, haven’t you?”
She nodded. “He was here a little while ago. I thought he was way off the mark for the most part, but he did get me to thinking about something.”
Seth regarded her worriedly. He knew Luke had reservations about the two of them. Had he somehow convinced Abby to end it?
“Are you breaking up with me?” he asked her.
A smile tugged at her lips, her very alluring lips.
“To the contrary,” she said, holding his gaze. “I’m thinking I should tell you how I really feel for a change.”
“I thought you were being honest with me all along,” he said. “Didn’t we have a heart-to-heart on Christmas, and again the other day after the fish fry?”
“I was definitely being honest on both occasions,” she agreed, then amended, “Up to a point.”
Seth frowned. “How does that work?”
“I told you how I felt, or at least what I thought you wanted to hear, and then I got scared.”
“Of what?”
“Losing you if I got too serious. I mean, we were all about easy, right? No complications. No demands. Moving forward, maybe, but at a snail’s pace?”
“That is what we agreed,” Seth said. “But we’ve also acknowledged that it’s starting to get serious. Is that the part that’s bothering you? Isn’t it true?”
“Oh, it’s true,” she said. “The serious part, anyway. But I’m not just getting there. I am there. Pretending otherwise isn’t working for me anymore. I want complications, Seth. I want a commitment. I might even want forever.” She gazed directly into his eyes. There was a hint of fear in hers. “I hope you can deal with that.”
For the first time since he’d arrived, Seth released the breath that had seemed caught in his throat. “So, if I were to go for broke right here and now and propose, if I were to ask you to marry me, you might say yes? Even though there’s medical school to get through?”
“That’s just one of those complications I was talking about. It’s not a deal breaker,” she said, smiling.
She leveled a lingering look into his eyes that had his hand shaking so badly he had to set the wineglass on the table to keep from spilling the wine all over the place.
“Seth,” she said quietly. “Maybe you ought to try that proposal on me. If you really want to, that is.”
He swallowed hard and tried to wrap his mind around what she was saying. For so long now he’d been so sure he’d never take another chance on love, but the irony was, without even realizing it, he already had. The risky part was in the past. All he had to do was utter the words and he could have everything he’d thought was lost to him.
“I love you,” he said, his gaze locked with hers. “I didn’t go looking for love. I didn’t expect it. But here you are.”
“Here I am,” she echoed, moving closer and placing a hand against his cheek.
“Want to make it for a lifetime?” he asked.
Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down
