Chapter 18
Eighteen
Tess descended the stairs with an odd sense of having interrupted something. But what? Georgie, as far as she knew, was somewhere with Nathan. Cat was out with Ian.
Unless . . .
What if they hadn’t gone out? Well, wouldn’t that be something? Tess giggled. And after the way Cat had teased Georgie! Tess left the house and headed for her car. Normally she would walk the short distance to Ben’s house, but if they decided to go out, she knew he wouldn’t be able to walk far.
She had thought of him often during the long day at the hospital and was looking forward to seeing him. After she parked on Extension Street, she flipped down the mirror to touch up her lip-gloss. With a deep breath to calm nerves of excitement, she set off down the hill.
Ben stood in the doorway waiting for her.
“Hi,” she said as she dashed up the stairs, thrilled to see him.
“I thought you’d never get here.”
Because he looked so cute and happy to see her, she went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Sorry I’m late. We had a two-car accident come in right at shift change. How was your day?”
“Long and boring. Until now.”
Tess felt his eyes on her as she stretched out the kinks of the day. “What do you feel like doing?”
“Anything you want.”
“How about we get some food, rent a movie, and take it back to my house where there’s actual furniture and even a TV?”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said, gesturing to the door.
As she watched him struggle down the short flight of stairs to the street, Tess ached for him.
“Sorry,” he said, his mouth tight with pain. “The simplest things take forever.”
“Please don’t apologize, Ben.”
“I hate being a crip.”
They walked slowly up the hill to her car.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Why didn’t they amputate?”
“I wouldn’t let them.”
“You might’ve been better off.”
“Maybe.” He paused before he added, “I’ve never said that out loud before.”
Tess stayed quiet, hoping he would say more.
“I was out of it for days. When I came to, I heard them talking about taking my leg, how every bone was shattered, my knee was a mess. I went nuts. They ended up sedating me, and when I woke up again, I still had a leg.”
She opened the passenger door for him but didn’t hover, sensing he wouldn’t want her to.
“When they weaned me off the morphine, the pain was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” he said when they were in the car. “I knew almost right away that I’d made a big mistake by not letting them take it.”
“It’s not too late.”
“I’ve actually been thinking about it lately,” he confessed.
“Really?”
He nodded. “The physical therapists say my mobility is as good as it’s probably going to get, and the pain has been horrible, almost as bad as it was when it first happened. It makes me sick.”
“Are you on anything?”
“It screws me up. I can’t do another damned thing all day if I take it.”
“Ben,” she sighed, reaching for his hand. “You don’t have to live in constant pain. That’s no quality of life.”
He raised her hand to his lips. “The quality of my life has taken a huge upswing in the last twenty-four hours.”
Charmed by him, she smiled and squeezed his hand. Being with him made it easy to forget she had sworn off men forever. “What do you think of Thai food?”
He never took his eyes off her. “Love it.”
“Ben?”
“Hmm?”
“I need my hand to drive.”
“Oh, right,” he said, releasing her.
“Just to get going. Then you can have it back.”
Nathan parked in front of Georgie’s house and went around to open the door for her.
She smothered a yawn as she took the hand he offered.
“Did I keep you out too late?” he asked with a smile.
“No. It was fun—more fun than I’ve had in a long time.”
“For me, too.” He stopped her on the first step. “What did you like best?”
She turned, and her eyes were level with his. “I’d have to say it’s between the windmill and flying the kite at Brenton Point.”
He smiled. “I liked the nap on the beach.”
“It was all good.”
“It is all good, Georgie. It’s good between us. Do you feel it, too? Even just a little?”
Raising her hands to his face, she answered him with a kiss that made his legs weak.
If only she knew that his heart was firmly in her hands, to do with whatever she wanted.
No matter how many times he told himself that getting involved with a woman who wanted to be somewhere else and who was clearly keeping things from him wasn’t in his best interest, he couldn’t seem to stay away.
Her lips moved from his mouth to his jaw.
Nathan was frozen with surprise and desire and so many other emotions he couldn’t begin to identify.
“Does that answer your question?” she asked in a sexy whisper.
“Yeah. That ought to do it. Does this mean we’re involved, Georgie?”
With a resigned sigh, she said, “I guess it does.”
“But you still don’t want to be?”
“I want to go home to Atlanta, and your whole life is here. We’re going to have a fairly significant geography problem before much longer.”
“How about we see each other as much as we can until you have to go, and then we’ll see.”
Her face twisted into a grin that brought out the dimples. “What will we see?”
“What happens?”
“Can we keep it light and fun and not get too serious?”
“I can only promise to try,” he said, even though he knew it was far too late—at least for him—to be promising light.
“You look much better than you did this morning.” Running her hands over his face, she added, “The fever seems to be gone.”
“It’s because my nurse took such good care of me today.”
Her arms encircled his neck, and she kissed him again, this time with seduction on her mind. Her tongue traced the outline of his mouth as her fingers combed through his hair.
He trembled and slipped an arm around her waist to bring her closer.
“Mmm,” she sighed. “Now that’s what I call fun.”
“For whom?” he asked, his voice tight with restraint.
When she tossed her head back to laugh, he sank his teeth into the soft skin of her neck. Her laughter faded into a moan. “Nathan?”
“Yes?”
“Do you want to spend the night?”
More than life itself. “I can’t, sweetheart.”
She looked at him with a combination of hurt and surprise on her face. “Why?”
“You want to keep it light. Isn’t that what you said?”
She nodded.
“I can’t do that if I make love with you again.
I just can’t, and I suspect you might not be able to, either.
” He forced a smile. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t make out until our lips are numb.
” Tightening his good arm around her, he lifted her to him and walked them up the stairs.
As they came down on the wicker sofa, he molded his lips to hers.
The kiss was hot and deep and endless. Georgie’s fingertips dug into his shoulders, pulling him tighter against her.
What the hell is wrong with you, man? You could’ve had her naked and willing! Sure, but what happens when she leaves? Then what? Isn’t some better than none? No, because with Georgie, some will never be enough.
The ringing of Georgie’s cell phone interrupted their passionate embrace.
Nathan shifted so she could retrieve it from the pocket of her shorts and then helped her sit up.
“Joe? What’s wrong? Is it Ali?”
Nathan felt her go tense.
“I talked to her earlier in the week. She seemed so certain that it was what she wanted. Has she changed her mind?”
Reaching for her free hand, Nathan held it between both of his.
“What can I do? Should I come there?” She listened for a minute.
“All right. If you’re sure. Are you okay?
” She paused, listening. “I’m so sorry, Joe.
I know this is hard on both of you—on all of us.
Will you have her call me in the morning?
Okay. Thanks. Tell Ali I love her.” She ended the call and stared off into the darkness, a sad expression on her face.
“What’s wrong?” Nathan asked.
“My sister is having some problems right now. No one really knows about it, so my brother-in-law was just looking for someone to talk to.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“She’s…having surgery this week, and it’s sort of a difficult situation.”
“Nothing serious, I hope.”
Georgie looked down at their joined hands and then raised shattered eyes to meet his. “It’s a double mastectomy.”
The pain he saw on her face hit him like a fist to the gut. “I’m so sorry, Georgie. Isn’t that what your mother had, too?”
She nodded. “Maybe me, too,” she said in a voice so small he almost didn’t hear her.
Almost.
“What do you mean?” he forced himself to ask.
“That blood test you heard me talking about with Gus?”
He nodded, not at all sure he wanted to hear this now that she had decided to tell him.
“It’s to find out if, like my mother and sister, I’m as much as seven times more likely to get breast cancer than the general population.”
Nathan fought to keep the dismay off his face, sensing that was the last thing she needed from him just then. “And you don’t want to have the test?”
“No! I want to go back in time three months to before I knew it was even possible that I could have the altered gene that my mother and sister have—and probably my aunt and grandmother, too. Three women in my mother’s family have died of breast cancer in the last four years.
So far only our cousin Bonnie has tested negative. ”
Reeling, Nathan tried desperately to process it all. “So your sister doesn’t actually have cancer?”
Georgie shook her head. “Not yet anyway. But she has kids who are three and five, so she didn’t want to wait around for it to find her.”
“And you do?”
“It’s not the same for me! She’s happily married, has been for years, and her husband doesn’t care if she has breasts or not. He just wants her alive.”
“I would feel exactly the same way if it was the woman I loved,,” Nathan said, trying to keep his voice calm. For the first time since the Dumpster, he felt his control slipping.
“That’s good of you to say,” she said, sounding utterly defeated. “But it’s the last thing you need to be dealing with, especially after what happened with Ellen.”