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Greggy. You think he s a pious stick now, you should have seen him back when he had to work at it. I can t help it. I m a sucker for the uptight. It s just too tempting to yank their chains. I m starting to feel bad for Mr. Groom. Dory winked. You just work on figuring out why you think you want a wife and kids so bad. If you figure out how to be happy on your own, you might figure out how to get Jessica to be happy with you until the wife and kids show up on their own. Kyle lifted his beer and Dory obligingly clinked it with hers, trying to sound jovial when he was anything but. Here s to strategic retreats. No, honey. This is to opportunities coming around again. www.samhainpublishing.com 79 Chapter Ten And that should be that, Jessica said to herself as she filed Lucas s corrected contract four days after the debacle in her apartment. She d let him stew a few days before she finally sent him the correct one to sign. It came back with typical speed, but she noticed he d initialed each and every paragraph to let her know he d read it. Well, good. A lesson learned. Too bad she hadn t learned hers. She d like to blame Kyle, but it wasn t his fault. In the end, he d left when she asked him to. He had nothing to do with the empty feeling inside her that had hollowed her out since the door snicked closed behind him. She was the one having trouble letting him go. Which made no logical sense. After all her experience at watching people she d been stupid enough to care about walk away, she d have to be an idiot to still be thinking about him or anything he d said. But she was thinking about him and that had to stop. What she really needed to do was rid her brain of Lonnigans altogether. Lucas was handily back to work and in a few months they d be just as clinical around each other as a nurse and her latex gloves. Kyle had already proven infinitely harder to shake but it could be done. It would be done. First, she d have to stop having dreams about letting him in her bed again. She d have to stop looking for his handwriting in her mail. She d definitely have to throw away all the plants he d sent. Her office had turned into a rainforest refugee camp in a matter of days. Most importantly, she d have to stop remembering his face in the park, so damned happy to see her, even though she was ready to throw him under the fastest moving vehicle she could find. I did the right thing, she said astutely to absolutely no one. The depressing thing was she was pretty sure that even she wasn t listening to herself anymore. Jessica? Dory s voice came over the intercom softly, which had Jessica turning her head curiously. Dory didn t do anything softly. She reached out for the button. Yes? Could you come out here& a moment? I I think I need some help. Jessica didn t bother responding, but snapped up from her desk and crossed the yards to her door. Dory sagged in her seat, her usual ruddy color a strange gray. Her lips were vaguely bluish, her eyes dazed when they slowly met her gaze. She flashed on Dory s ever-present bottle, the one she claimed was full of candy& All of You Where are your pills, Dory? She rushed to the desk, seeing that Dory already had the bottle in her hand. Her grip was viselike, but Jessica pulled it free. Pills real, little white pills scattered across the desk, some flaking, looking tiny and melty on the blotter. I took them already. Dory sounded strained and breathless. They aren t working. Jessica grabbed the phone and immediately dialed 911. She took Dory s hand, following the instructions of the woman on the other end. Dory had aspirin in her purse, and she took two of those. Jessica s hand shook so much that she probably spilled half the cup of water between the dispenser and Dory s desk. Don t look so scared honey, this is just what happens when your life is as surprising as mine. Yeah? Jessica heard herself laugh, but it was a nervous twitter. You think this isn t a surprise? I had plans with this sexy little mechanic for my lunch hour, Dory said dryly, then she sighed painfully. God, I m gonna get wheeled through this building like Godiva getting dragged by her goddamned horse. She groaned. Greggy s never gonna forgive me for this. Oh, bring your cell phone, will ya? I need you to call Daniel. Jessica raced back into her office, grabbed her purse from under the desk and ran back outside. Dory was all set with her woven wicker bag on her lap and her ankles crossed. For all their hurry, they still had interminable minutes to wait. Finally, the doors whooshed open. The next thing she knew, the paramedics came, flanked by firefighters for some reason. Jessica waved them over and they had Dory up on the gurney, strapped in and under oxygen in no time. Jessica ran to keep up as they asked questions about medications, times, pain, babbled numbers to each other during the elevator ride and loaded Dory into the red-and-white ambulance with a jolt. Jessica climbed in alongside, holding Dory s hand and taking her purse when asked. It was all painfully slow and blurringly fast. The only constant was Dory s cold hand in her own and the frigid fear building in her belly. They took her immediately into the ER s curtained areas, gesturing Jessica to the waiting seats. Which was when things really got slow. People came and went, some serious emergencies, some minor. Kids were in extreme abundance, coughing, wrapped in blankets of all colors despite the summer heat, some crying, some sleeping. Some people looked as scared as she felt, some looked like they d been there a thousand times. Twenty minutes felt like hours. In the midst of it all, Jessica felt sorely out of her depth and alone. Completely alone. When she was young, being alone used to bother her. Like the other kids in her foster homes, she d wanted a family of her own. The mother, the father, the siblings in a gingerbread house where everyone smiled and no one ever died. By the time the Hansons came and went, with their promises of an adoption that ultimately fell through, she d decided that her family would be what she made it because it was clear she wasn t getting out of the system. Time and again, she d taken the role of mother hen. Guiding the www.samhainpublishing.com 81 Dee Tenorio scared kids. Nursing the sick ones. Loving the lost ones. Her siblings came and went, as did she. Even if they d wanted to stay close to her, most of them would have lost her in the shuffle if any of them even bothered to try. In the end, after losing so many of them to one thing or another, being alone just seemed the better choice. Family wasn t meant for her, a fact she accepted. Embraced. Right now, being alone seemed the most foolish choice in her life. And fate was laughing at her for being so stupid. But Dory wasn t alone. Remembering she d promised to call her son, Jessica opened the wicker purse, looking inside for an address book or something. Unfortunately, Dory wasn t as anal retentive as Jessica and the purse was a disaster. No address book, just a jumble of candies, makeup, notes, wrappers, perfume, car keys and business cards. With nothing else to do while she waited, Jessica unwadded the notes. A grocery list& unpleasant drawings of Greggy Groom with donkey ears and buck teeth& and two phone numbers on separate papers. One said Daniel: til Friday. The other wasn t in Dory s flowing script. It was in a flat, masculine print Jessica recognized with a jolt of her heartbeat: Kyle. She swallowed, tucking the other notes into the purse and putting the two numbers in her coat pocket. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |