Chapter 8
EIGHT
Nik didn’t know what he was doing, driving down Lancaster Road at nine in the morning. It was completely out of the way of his route from the hospital to his house on Sand Hill Lane. But when he’d pulled out of the hospital parking lot after his overnight shift in the ER, his hand had wrenched the steering wheel to the left instead of right, almost like it had a mind of its own. And before he knew it, Nik was cruising toward the west end of town.
Before I knew it.
Please .
Nik knew exactly what he was doing. He was heading to the McCaffreys’ street, and when he got to their house, he was probably going to slow the car and do a shady drive-by. Because that’s what Jane had reduced him to all those years ago when she left with no warning. A creeper on her life. And not even a very good one, because he still didn’t know shit about her.
How many times had he googled her, only to come up with nothing? How many times had he trailed her mom on the sidewalk or in the grocery store, hoping for the right moment to casually ask about Jane. Mrs. McCaffrey never had much to say. “Jane is just fine.” Nik didn’t know if that’s all she knew or if it was just all she’d been willing to share. One distracted day in the checkout line, when Mrs. McCaffrey couldn’t get her credit card to work properly, she’d muttered something about Jane and California. That was it. California.
Adding the state to his Google searches hadn’t helped.
Jane had disappeared.
Luckily, it had been a slow night in the ER because Nik hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the fact that suddenly, unbelievably, Jane was only a couple of miles away. She owed him an explanation. He deserved an explanation. But what would be the point in pursuing this? Nothing she could say would ever be good enough.
So, when he’d finally handed his patient files over to his colleague on the day shift, Nik had gotten in his car, fully intending to go home and sleep. Fully intending to put her out of his mind for good.
Except now, here he was. Coasting down Jane’s street, his foot gently tapping the brake.
Halfway down the block, he spotted a figure on the sidewalk in front of the McCaffrey house, snow shovel in hand. Slowing the car even further, he squinted to get a better look. Her enormous maroon parka and plaid pajama pants practically swallowed her up, obscuring the curves he’d spotted beneath the leggings and cropped sweatshirt she’d been wearing last night. She’d shoved her feet into a pair of oversized boots that probably used to belong to her dad, and she wore a pair of thick gloves on her hands. He’d never seen a more ridiculous outfit in his life.
And still, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
Jane shuffled forward awkwardly, likely from her choice of footwear, but also because it looked like she’d never held a snow shovel in her life. Which probably tracked if she’d spent her entire adult life in California .
Nik brought the car to a stop next to the curb, rolling down the window.
Jane looked up, surprise registering on her face as her eyes swept across him. “Nik,” she finally said, a little breathlessly. “What are you doing here?”
“I was”—he gave a completely ambiguous wave that could have indicated any direction—“in the neighborhood.”
“Oh.” She reached up to tug her knit Buffalo Bills hat down on her forehead. The royal-blue band matched her eyes. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were flushed pink from the cold, full lips parted slightly from exertion.
And, just like that, Nik was seventeen years old again, and the two of them were running across the baseball field behind the high school. It had started snowing that morning, falling steadily all day long until the grounds were transformed into a magical wonderland by the time their last class of the day had let out.
Or at least it had felt magical to Nik. Everything had been magical when Jane was around.
Jane’s cheeks had glowed pink, eyes bright as she half laughed, half shrieked in mock fear, dodging the snowball Nik lobbed in her direction. She’d come to a stop and bent over, her blond hair falling around her face as she scooped up a handful of white powder and tossed it in his direction.
Snowflakes had drifted over him like frozen bits of confetti, landing in his hair, clinging to his eyelashes, and sliding down his neck. “Damn, that’s cold!” Nik had pulled at the collar of his coat, trying to shake the snow loose while Jane cackled beside him. He’d spun slowly in her direction, one eyebrow raised, a half-smile tugging at his lips. “Is this funny to you?”
“No.” Jane had stood up straight, attempting to smooth her features into a serious expression and failing miserably. She’d pressed a gloved hand to her mouth to hide the grin still lingering there. “Not at all. ”
He’d moved quickly, shifting his weight forward and wrapping his arms around her. Before Jane had been able to react, she’d tumbled backward into a thick snowbank. He’d landed part-way on top of her, their arms and legs entangled. A puff of white powder had settled around them, giving the world a misty quality. Or maybe that had been Jane again.
He’d leaned back to look her in the face. “How do you like the snow, now? A little cold?”
She’d shifted under him but hadn’t moved away. “I’m not cold at all,” she’d murmured. “You always keep me warm.”
As their eyes had met, all humor gone now, something had stirred in his chest.
Nik had never been sure of the exact moment he’d fallen for her. Their mothers had enrolled them in the same preschool when they were three and, apparently, they’d been inseparable from the very first day. NikandJane. One word. He couldn’t remember a moment from his childhood that Jane hadn’t been right next to him. He’d always loved her, and that fact had been as much of a part of him as his dark hair and sense of humor and desire to be a doctor. It just existed.
But that day in the snow, with her blue eyes shining up at him with so much trust, that was the day it had occurred to him that maybe she could feel the same way. That was the day he’d decided he was going to tell her. Before they went away to Cornell together, he was going to take the leap and bare his soul and let her know that he wanted to start their new life together as so much more than friends. That he wanted to start their new life as… everything.
It had taken him a while to work up to it, but he’d finally told her on graduation night. And for one amazing moment, he’d believed they could have it all.
Right before she’d disappeared into thin air.
And now he was idling in his car in front of her house, still unable to quite convince himself she was real .
“Are you on your way home from work?” Jane asked, her voice wary, eyes darting to his and then away, like she wasn’t quite sure where they should settle. A little part of him was glad that he’d left her feeling as off-balance as he’d been since the moment he’d spotted her in the aisle last night.
“Yeah, night shift.” He put the car in park.
Jane turned away from him and focused her attention back to the sidewalk and the snow shovel she held awkwardly in her hands. Nik watched her scoop up a small, ineffective pile of white fluff and attempt to tip it onto the grass. Before she could make it there, the snow slid off the shovel and over her boots. She huffed and tried again, with the same result.
Nik climbed out of the car. “It looks like you could use a little help.”
“I’m fine,” Jane snapped. “I just—” She gave her shoulder a couple of shrugs, like she was trying to shake off the soreness.
He eyed the mark on her cheek where she said she’d run into a cabinet. It would have been quite a feat to injure her shoulder the same way. The rage from the night before ignited in his gut. Had someone hurt her?
“It was a long drive. Days in the car,” she finally mumbled, defensively. “I’m just a little stiff.”
Nik stepped closer, so near he could reach out and pull her against him. For a wild moment, he considered it. Last night, he’d barely brushed a hand against her cheek, and it was like someone had set his palm on fire. What would it feel like to have her back in his arms after all these years?
Jane’s eyes widened, almost like she knew what he was thinking. But she didn’t step away. Her tongue flicked out to nervously wet her bottom lip, and somewhere buried beneath the surface of her unease, he saw a flash of desire that mirrored his own.
What the hell am I thinking?
Before he could do something epically stupid, Nik grabbed the shovel from Jane’s grasp and got to work on the snow drifts.
“I can do that,” she called, but he was already halfway down the sidewalk, taking out his frustration on the piles of snow, filling the shovel and heaving the contents onto the lawn, giving a stubborn piece of ice a kick with his shoe. At the edge of the neighbor’s yard, he finally stopped, breathing hard, sweat beading on his forehead and beneath his scrubs. Shifting the shovel to one hand, Nik yanked off his coat and gave a sigh of relief as the cold air seeped into the flushed skin of his bare arms and the V at the neckline of his scrub shirt.
He turned in Jane’s direction. She stood at the edge of the driveway, clutching one hand with the other, her eyes roaming over his shoulders, his chest, and down to the stomach he kept flat with his daily runs up the mountain, where he’d bought a cabin last fall.
He’d give a year of his hospital salary to know what she was thinking.
“Thank you for shoveling,” Jane finally murmured. “And for stopping by while you were in the neighborhood.” Her lips curved upward with a smile that displayed absolutely no sentiment. “It was nice to see you.” She said it with a note of finality, like they were acquaintances who’d bumped into each other on the sidewalk, and this conversation was over.
And suddenly, his anger was back.
He didn’t want her thanks, didn’t want her fake smiles and small talk. He wanted to know where the hell she’d been. And why she’d left. In ten seconds, he was in front of her again. Nik took a breath, the questions forming on his tongue, but before he could speak, Jane’s gaze darted from his toward the house and then back.
“Jane…” Nik began, but her eyes shifted away again. It reminded him of when they were teenagers, and her dad was still around. Almost like Jane was afraid they’d get caught doing so mething that would get her in trouble. And then a slight movement from the house caught his attention. A curtain moving, a figure framed by the window. But it was only Mrs. McCaffrey. Nik gave the older woman a wave. She lifted a hand in return and then disappeared back in the house.
Why was Jane so nervous? Her dad was gone, and she was an adult who could talk to whoever she wanted. Unless…
That bruise on her cheek. The soreness in her shoulder.
Was there someone else in there? Someone who might object to seeing her talking to a guy out on the sidewalk? Nik’s hands tightened on the shovel. If the person who’d hurt her was inside he’d…
He’d what?
Nik stopped, briefly closing his eyes.
Storm into the house? Beat this imaginary person with a shovel? He dropped the tool on the lawn. Seeing Jane again had thoroughly sent him off the deep end. And now he was inventing stories about her. For all he knew, she really had run into a cabinet. And if not… Well, she certainly hadn’t asked him to swoop in. In fact, she hadn’t asked him to come around at all.
Jane had returned to town after a decade and hadn’t let a single person know she was coming. When she was done helping her mom sort through her dad’s belongings, she’d head back to—wherever it was she lived. Her obligation would be over, and another decade would go by without a word or a trace of her.
Just yesterday, he’d told himself he wouldn’t spend another minute on Jane McCaffrey.
But somehow, he couldn’t let it go. She might be a stranger to him now, but she’d been more important to him than anyone… once. How could he turn and walk away without making sure that she was safe?
Jane glanced at the house again. “I really should be going. ”
“Jane,” Nik said, shifting his body into her line of sight. “Can you meet me for coffee later today?”
In a matter of seconds, an entire encyclopedia of emotions crossed her face. A surprised blink, an uncertain bite of her lip, and that apprehension again. “I don’t know…”
“Just to catch up,” he cut in. “As old friends.”
Her eyes darted over his shoulder to whatever was worrying her inside the house. “Sure. Okay. But I really need to go now.” Before he could react, she was heading up the porch steps. “Thanks for shoveling.”
“Grassroots Café at seven?” Nik called up to her.
She nodded and then slipped into the house.
Nik stood on the sidewalk, gaping at the McCaffreys’ front door. If you’d told him twenty-four hours ago that he’d be meeting Jane for coffee tonight, he never would have believed it. But the question was: would she actually show? If Jane left him sitting at a café table alone, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d disappeared without a word. But at least now he knew where to find her.