All of You (12 page)

Kyle swallowed. Those were shrewd questions he wasn’t sure he wanted to answer. “I want to say the second kind—”

“Either you do or you don’t, kid.”

“I don’t know,” he replied as honestly as he could. “When we’re talking, when it’s just me and her, it could be…” In his mind, he thought back to their date, to her face in the dark, her unwilling compassion in the elevator. Even the tinge of confusion on her face as she’d shown him the door tonight. “But every time we get close, she pushes me away. She won’t tell me why. I know she feels something. I can see how scared she is, she just won’t let me in.”

“What if she did? What if she suddenly cracked her skull on being totally in love with you? Have you figured out what you’re going to do with her? Or is this a thrill-of-the-chase kind of thing?”

He frowned and nudged his beer away. “She wouldn’t have to crack her skull…”

“Stop pouting and answer the question. What is it exactly you want from Jessica?”

A lot of things. Sex immediately came to mind, because there were a thousand and one things he still wanted to do with her. But there was more, infinitely more. He wanted her to be with him. He wanted to spend time with her, talk with her. He wanted her to stop hiding from him. He wanted—

“Never mind, I can smell the grease burning between your ears.” Dory tsked loud enough to drag a smile out of him after all. “You have a lot to learn about love, Kyle. I can see you want her. I don’t think you know why just yet. Sure as shit don’t know the how.”

“I want a family. That kind of thing takes time. I need to find the right woman. Get started.”

“You think Jessica’s the right woman?”

Yes. And no. “I think she could be. That I want her to be.”

“Did you ask her?”

“You told me not to,” he reminded her.

“I told you not to tell her you already have the rest of her life planned out for her. Jessica’s the kind of woman who’s going to want a say. Hell, boy, every woman would want a say. You can’t go around plugging women into random marital fantasies. They get pissed.”

Jess sure as hell was.

“Maybe your problem is you’ve been putting the cart before the horse. I mean, if you want more from your life, shouldn’t you be the one changing it?”

Which might have been what Lucas had tried to tell him at the beginning of this disaster. “I’ll have to be now, won’t I?”

Dory grinned at him. “Thattaboy. Besides, you never know when things might come back around. Look at me. I’ve had a crush on Greggy Groom for forty years. I might have a chance at him, finally.”

The idea of waiting forty years for Jessica to come around was downright depressing. But Kyle found himself too shocked at Dory’s affection for possibly the most uptight, rightwing lawyer this side of the Rockies to dwell on it.

She laughed. “I met him back when he was just starting out. We both worked in the same firm. I got fired when I got caught flashing him.” She laughed while Kyle choked. “Eh, we both eventually got married to other people and, don’t get me wrong, I loved my David. But I’ll always have a soft spot for 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.”

“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…

“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 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. Since she couldn’t use her cell phone in the hospital, she let the uninterested clerk at the desk know that she’d be just outside the doors if there was any word. Then, she crossed back outside into the warm day and started dialing.

Daniel Pierson, Jessica knew, had followed his father’s footsteps, a meandering biker. There was no guarantee the number would work or that it was even from this week, but she took a chance. The number was a friend’s house upstate and he had to be awakened. Upon hearing where Dory was, he promised he’d be there in a matter of hours and hung up before Jessica could even thank him. She closed her phone, leaning her head against the stucco wall behind the bench she sat on.

Even the warmth of the sun did little to stave off the dread. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She wasn’t supposed to be scared. She shouldn’t have this overwhelming need to cry or hold anyone’s hand. Even when she’d allowed herself to care, she’d been the one others leaned on. Not the other way around. Where was her distance? Her poise? When had Dory become more than an employee?

She lifted shaking fingers to wipe away the splash of hot tears on her cheeks and tried to hold in a sob. It didn’t work. Worse, she knew what she wanted to do. The other piece of paper was burning against the hand in her pocket. She’d never had to call him before. He’d always just come along. He’d always done the reaching out.

She’d done the sending away.

She couldn’t call him. It would be too revealing in too many ways. He’d know he had a foothold in her life. He’d see it for the weakness it was. No, she might want him, might wish for his arms to give her that sense of comfort she never let herself think about, but it was wrong. Wrong for her, wrong for him. She couldn’t toy with the man. Couldn’t give him hope for his insane plans to turn her into Mommy of the Year. No. She’d have to get through this alone.

For hours. Worrying until Dory’s son arrived. And if the worst possibility occurred, she’d have to tell Daniel that his mother didn’t make it.

Her own heart constricted painfully and she struggled to bring in another breath over the choking sob.

God help her, she couldn’t do that. Not alone.

She picked up her phone again, closed her eyes and hoped she was making the right decision.

He shouldn’t speed. The last thing he needed was to end up at the hospital via an ambulance. His heart hammered all over his chest, making his ears pound and his lungs tight. She’d called him.

Cool your jets, Lonnigan, it doesn’t mean much.

But just that moment, it meant a hell of a lot.

Kyle leaned into the last turn into the hospital parking lot, wishing things were different all the way around. He’d hoped that when she called, it’d be of her own volition, that she’d decided to give him a chance. But when she said what had happened to Dory with that break in her voice, their little push-and-pull game didn’t seem very important. He just wanted to be there for them both. It was a long way to go for a feeling that wasn’t returned, but here he was.

And there she sat.

Jessica wasn’t a small woman, but she looked like one, sitting in a row of empty chairs, her knees clamped together, her feet hooking around the thin metal legs. She was looking away, down at someone else’s kids huddled in blankets while they waited.

“Jess?”

Her head snapped up, turning to him with a faint smile of relief. He crossed to her, meeting her gaze and after a few seconds of nervous blinking on her part, she cleared two purses from the seat next to her by pulling them both onto her lap.

He took the obvious clue and sat next to her.

And sat.

The silence between them seemed only emphasized by the noise of people constantly moving around them.

“It seemed like a good idea…at the time,” she mumbled, still not looking at him.

“What did?”

“Calling you. I know I probably pulled you away from your work, I’m sorry about that, I—”

“You were worried and you didn’t want to be alone,” he finished for her, studying her profile and willing her to look at him. She nodded, a staccato motion of her head that barely moved her hair.

When she turned to face him, the movement was so sudden, so sharp, he instinctively lurched back. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, okay? I didn’t know who else to call.”

He could only stare at her.

“I’m not good at this.” She gestured between them, her hand nearly blurring. “I’m not good with people. Law, law I can do. I understand the law. It’s written in black and white. It makes sense. But you…you don’t make sense to me. And when I’m with you, I don’t make sense to me.”

The more she spoke, the faster the words came. “Maybe I would have been this way anyway, maybe it was growing up in foster care. I mean, it was no picnic, but it’s not like it was Oliver Twist or anything, so I can’t say for sure, but I just don’t connect with people. It’s safer that way for everyone. No one gets hurt. No one has any expectations. I’m comfortable that way. I don’t want it to change. And you want change. You want a whole lot of things I can’t do. Things I couldn’t do in a million years. But I called you anyway. Because…because…I don’t know why. I just…I want you to be clear that calling you doesn’t change things between us. I can’t be in a relationship, Kyle. I can’t.” She bit her lips together, probably to stem the flow of words, but nothing was keeping her cheeks from turning bright red.

Except maybe a little compassion. “You haven’t had an update?”

She stared at him, clearly expecting something more. After a few seconds, she seemed to realize he was going to let it all slide. Did she understand that was a temporary decision? Probably not. And she wasn’t asking, either. She turned her eyes back to the desk, but he was glad to see a little relief in the stiff line of her shoulders. “No.”

The silence fell again. Awkwardness started to seep in too. She looked so contained, with her feet, knees and hands clamped together in ascending pairs. Her mouth was just as clamped, the corners pulling down. She looked like the hospital could fall on her and she wouldn’t even flinch.

But so fragile that if he touched her, she’d break.

As if it never occurred to her that she had broken her own cardinal rule and started caring for her secretary.

“How long have you and Dory been close?”

“I’ve only known her a year.” She took a moment to marshal her pained expression. “When I met her I thought she was matronly.” Her mouth loosened a little and she sighed as she gave him a look he could only call commiserating. “She kept up the act for about three days. She cracked when Gregory Groom came in and complimented her on her hair.”

Given Dory’s revelations just that weekend, Kyle could only imagine how that had gone. “What happened?”

“She called him sweet cheeks and winked at him.” He finally saw a little color in her face again, her moist eyes brightening. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think he actually liked it. She didn’t get fired, anyway. But she figured the gig was up and made me her pet project.”

“That explains a lot.”

Her expression turned sharp.

“Well, it explains me, anyway.” If Dory were trying to get Jessica to loosen up, dragging her into a relationship against her will was probably on the list.

“I don’t think anything explains you.” A nervous chuckle escaped as she managed to cramp herself even smaller into the chair. Did she think he was going to attack her here in the hospital?