Chapter 12 #2
After spending another half hour with his parents and grandparents, Ted walked back to the guesthouse like a condemned man heading for the gallows.
He couldn’t bear the idea of having to hide all he felt for Caroline, even for two short days.
For the first time in his career, he wished for an emergency at the hospital that would demand his immediate attention.
Anything to get him out of here. But that wasn’t going to happen.
He was signed out for the weekend, and Roger wouldn’t think of calling him back to work.
Besides it would take him hours to get there anyway, and he wouldn’t do that to his parents and grandparents on their big day.
Marooned.
The word took on a whole new meaning as he trudged up the back stairs of the guesthouse where Elise and Caroline sat at the dining room table doing their nails.
Caroline looked up at him, and he was instantly held captive by her green-gold eyes. In that one endless, silent second she managed to use those magnificent eyes to remind him of the magnitude of the emotions ricocheting back and forth between them. Then he remembered they weren’t alone.
“How’s it going?” he asked. His voice sounded all wrong to him, and he wondered if they would notice.
But Elise just held up her hand to show off her manicure. “What do you think?”
Ted tried to act like he cared. “Looks good.”
“Smitty left some breakfast for you,” Caroline said. “It’s in the oven.”
“Thanks,” Ted said. “Where are they?”
“They went into town.” Elise blew on her nails. “They said they’d be back in an hour.”
Absorbing a stab of guilt that was almost painful, Ted retrieved the plate of omelet and bacon Smitty had made for him.
As he stood in the kitchen and took the first bite of crispy bacon, he was swamped with an overwhelming sense of foreboding and couldn’t get anything past the huge lump that formed in his throat.
Tipping the plate over the sink, he dumped the food into the garbage disposal.
He watched his breakfast go down the drain and wondered if his friendship with Smitty would end up there too.
“Ted?”
He straightened his hunched shoulders and turned to Caroline. “Where’s Elise?”
“Outside. Did you eat?”
“Couldn’t. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep.”
She gazed up at him with those potent eyes. “Me either.”
They startled when the whack of the screen door warned them that Elise was coming back inside.
“We have to go to the beach today,” Elise said, oblivious to the tension in the room. “It’s a perfect day for it. I’m going to start getting ready so we can go when the guys get back.”
“I’ll help you,” Caroline said.
“I’m going to grab a quick shower,” Ted said, anxious to get out of there so he could be alone with his thoughts and away from temptation.
After a long and tedious afternoon at the beach that included the torture of Caroline’s bikini, Ted stood under his second shower of the day.
This time he also ran a razor over his face in preparation for the party.
He stayed under the beating pulse of the water for much longer than necessary as he thought about the conversation he’d had with Chip at the beach.
Chip had told him about a patient of his who had been coming to him for acne treatment for years.
“Then, the other day, she says, ‘Dr. Taggert, can you look at this mole on my shoulder?’ So she pulls her shirt down and shows me a melanoma. I didn’t have to even biopsy it to know what I was looking at.
She’s sixteen years old!” Chip had shaken his head with dismay.
“Don’t get me wrong, I see my share of melanoma, but it’s usually on people who’ve been sun worshipers for years.
This was my first kid. All I could think about was you and how you deal with that and so much worse every day. I just can’t imagine how you stand it.”
Ted had shrugged. “I hate to say it because it sounds so callous, but you do get used to it after a while. The first year was the worst. I can still remember that feeling of being totally numb, but after a while you start to build up some defenses.”
“Still, it has to do a number on you.”
“I guess it does. That’s why I keep up my gig in the pediatrics clinic once a month, just so I can see kids with hair to remind myself they’re not all sick.”
“I admire you so much, Duff. We’re both doctors, but what you do is so much more important.”
I wonder if he would still admire me if he knew I had fallen for Smitty’s girlfriend, Ted thought, as he stepped out of the shower.
He used his towel to wipe the steam off the mirror and studied his reflection.
She’s not going to be Smitty’s girlfriend for much longer.
Even so, you can’t start something with her the minute they break up.
But what if no one knew? What if we kept it quiet for a few months?
“Duff!” Elise hollered as she knocked on the bathroom door. “What’s taking so long?”
Ted gave his weary face one last long look before he wrapped the towel around his waist and pulled open the door. “Sorry. I had to shave.”
“You know I count on you to be quick,” she said as she brushed past him into the bathroom. “Chip and Parker are the metrosexuals. I expect better from you.”
Ted chuckled. “It isn’t easy being the only girl in this group, is it?”
“You have no idea,” she said as she closed the door in his face.
Ted loved Elise. She was perfect for his friend because she let Chip be Chip, even if at times he drove her nuts.
The top photographer at New York Style magazine, Elise was tall and leggy with long dark hair and big gray eyes.
Ted had no doubt she could have been on the other side of the camera if she’d had that urge.
But she loved taking the pictures, and her work had won her wide acclaim in the fashion industry.
She had met Chip six years earlier, and from the very beginning, she had fit in effortlessly with their gang of four confirmed bachelors.
Ted shrugged into his tuxedo jacket and thanked the heavens for the ocean breeze that was keeping the humidity to a minimum.
Without it, the jacket wouldn’t have lasted long.
He took one last look in the mirror to make sure his bow tie was straight, dabbed on a hint of cologne, and headed for the stairs.
He was halfway down when he spotted Caroline on the back porch. She wore a floor-length red halter dress that left her back and arms bare. A half-dozen glittering clips had captured her long blond hair into a casual, sexy style that stopped his heart.
As if she sensed him, she turned and their eyes met. The front of her dress hugged her full breasts, and the hand she rested over her heart told him what she thought of him in a tuxedo.
Smitty broke the spell when he burst out of the master bedroom. “Sweetheart, can you help me with these cufflinks?”
Caroline cleared her throat. “Out here.”
“Looking good, Duff,” Smitty said as Ted reached the bottom of the stairs. “Are you going over now?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re right behind you.”