Never Let Go (12 page)

She watched him struggling with the unfamiliar emotions and squeezed his hand. “You don’t have to say any more. I understand.”

“No. I have to say this. I still don’t know what to do about it, but I love you. I want you to know that. I’m not sure I can give you everything
you deserve, but I know now that I have to try.”

He was staring at the comforter, but finally he lifted his head and met her gaze evenly. “Maybe, when I finish my residency this summer, we should think about getting married.”

Mallory had had one proposal in her life before, and it had been delivered with ardent affection at the blazing height of a glorious desert sunset. This one, tentatively spoken as she lay pale and wan in her bed, was every bit as romantic, perhaps simply because it had cost Justin so much to make it.

For that very reason, she knew she couldn’t accept it.

She searched for a way to explain it to him. “Justin, you know how much I love you,” she said gently. “And what you just said means more to me than you can possibly realize, but I don’t think we’re ready to start talking about marriage.”

His expression grew puzzled, then indignant. “Why not? You just said you love me. I love you. What more do you want?”

“I want you to be ready to make a commitment, not just afraid of losing me. I want you to see marriage as the next logical step for us, the only choice, because it feels right and good.”

“But it does. Maybe I didn’t say it right. Hell, I never thought I’d be saying it at all. Don’t hold it against me just because I didn’t get all flowery and sentimental.”

“Oh, Justin, don’t you see? I don’t want you to get all flowery and sentimental. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the words you used or the way you said them. Maybe it’s just the timing. You had a scare today. Apparently it startled you into making some
sort of a grand gesture, but it wasn’t necessary. I love you enough to wait for as long as it takes. We can go on the way we have been, until you’re really ready for a commitment.”

“I am ready. I asked you to marry me, didn’t I?”

“Can you look me in the eye and honestly tell me that the idea of marriage doesn’t terrify you?”

Stubbornly, he met her gaze, opened his mouth to speak, then looked away and sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I believe with all my heart that the day will come when it’s right for us to be together.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “If I couldn’t even get you to marry me when you’re lying here in this weakened condition, what makes you think I’ll be able to convince you later?”

She grinned back at him. “I’m not the one who has to be convinced,” she reminded him. “Now go on home and get some rest. There’s no point in your hanging around here and catching this bug I’ve got.”

“I’m not going off and leaving you here alone. You might need something during the night.” He reached out and gently stroked a tendril of hair away from her face. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be around if you need me.”

She wanted to protest, but suddenly she was much too tired to argue. She drifted asleep, content in the knowledge that once again Justin hadn’t run away when she’d given him the chance.

It was morning before she awoke again. While she still felt as though a truck had run a wheel back and forth across her middle, she also thought that she might survive the ordeal. To her disappointment there was no sign of Justin, but then she heard the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen. Several minutes later he appeared in the doorway proudly bearing a breakfast tray. He’d taken one of the
fresh flowers she’d picked up at the grocery store on Sunday and put it into a glass.

“Think you’re up to a little food?”

The thought made her stomach flip over, and she was sure her complexion had turned green, but she tried for an enthusiastic nod. He brought the tray to her.

“Flu is a little out of my area of expertise, but I seem to remember something about tea and dry toast,” he said, staring at the plate worriedly. “It doesn’t look very appetizing.”

“It does to me,” she reassured him. “I was dreading the prospect of finding an egg staring back at me.”

“I have to get to the hospital. Want me to come back at lunchtime or will you be able to manage until I can get here later?”

“I’ll manage. I may not do any sprints around the house today, but I should be able to get to the kitchen if starvation sets in. Besides, you need to spend some time with Davey. Neither one of us saw him yesterday. Stop in and give him my love, too.”

Justin nodded. “I’ll bring you a full report tonight, and I’ll try to call you later to see if there’s anything special you’d like for dinner. Can you get to the phone?”

“Justin, stop fussing. It is less than a foot away. I can reach it without budging from the bed. Now, go. If you’re late for another surgery, Dr. Hendricks will have your hide.”

“I’ve already talked to him this morning. He knows I’m with you. He told me to take as much time as I needed.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Take care of yourself today.”

After he’d gone Mallory sank back against the pillows in amazement. Justin had actually told his boss about her, had gotten permission to stay with her.
If he was willing to share his feelings so openly with Dr. Hendricks, maybe she’d been wrong to turn down that proposal so hastily. Maybe he was more ready to make a commitment than she’d realized, even though he hadn’t fought very hard when she’d said no.

Before she could make herself crazy trying to analyze what all of that meant, the phone rang.

“Hey, girl, how’re you feeling?” Rachel asked cheerfully. “Still have your own personal physician in residence?”

“Nope. I just sent him off to the hospital.”

“You must be feeling better then.”

“I’ll live.”

“How’d it go last night?”

“How did what go?”

The question was met with silence.

“Rachel, you answer me this instant. How did what go?”

“Maybe I should have kept my big mouth shut for a change.”

“Well, you didn’t, so you might as well spill the rest of it.”

“I just had the feeling when I left there that Justin was going to tell you how he felt about you.”

Mallory had a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, and this time it had nothing to do with any virus. “He told you that?”

“Not exactly. I mean he told me how he felt—or rather I guessed, since he was acting like a lunatic—and I said he ought to tell you and I thought he was going to. Oh, dear, I’ve really put my foot into it this time.”

“No,” Mallory said with a sigh. “I’m the one who’s a fool. The man
asked me to marry him, and I turned him down.”

“You what!” The screech nearly shattered Mallory’s eardrum. “Are you crazy?”

“I thought he was just caught up in the moment. I knew he’d been scared when I keeled over. I figured his feelings had just gotten a little out of hand temporarily. I was sure when he had time to think about it, he’d regret being so impulsive.”

“You don’t give the man much credit for knowing his own mind. Did you ever stop to think that maybe it just took a jolt like that to wake him up to his real feelings?”

“That’s more or less what he said.”

“Then I suggest you figure out a way to retract your refusal in a hurry. Justin may not be the type to get up his nerve more than once.”

It was hard for Mallory to envision Justin being nervous about anything. He was the strongest, most self-confident man she’d ever known.

Except when it comes to love, you idiot,
she chided herself. That’s the one
area in which he hasn’t had any practice, and Rachel was right: it could take him forever to get up the courage to broach the subject again.

She wondered if candles on the table, roses and a negligee trimmed in lace would be enough to get him back in the right frame of mind.

M
idway through the afternoon, Mallory realized that her plan was probably sheer folly. It was certainly badly timed. She could barely stay on her feet long enough to set the table. She’d called the florist and a nearby restaurant from bed, and they’d promised to deliver the flowers and the meal by three. It took every ounce of strength she possessed to answer the door when they came.

After a two-minute shower that first revived, then weakened her, she took her makeup to bed, and tried to apply it while leaning back against the pillows. Her hands were so shaky that she gave up after putting a streak of blush on each cheek and a touch of lipstick on her mouth. The effort
required a thirty minute nap.

She was still asleep when Justin came into the bedroom. Her eyes snapped open when she felt the mattress dip down beside her.

“Hi, sleepyhead. What’s all this?” he asked, gesturing at the array of makeup scattered across the covers.

“I was trying to get all spruced up for you.”

“And the feast in the kitchen?”

“I thought you deserved a nice dinner for taking care of me last night.” She gave him a wobbly grin. “I had to order it, though.”

“Are you feeling any better?”

“Some. I was doing pretty well until I had to set the table. If you give me a few more minutes, I should be able to get dinner in the oven.”

Justin shook his head in exasperation. “Will you stop this nonsense? I will get dinner in the oven and I’ll bring a table in here. You’re obviously not ready to bounce around the house. Mack said you should probably stay in bed for the rest of the week.”

“Are you sure you didn’t put that idea into his head?” she asked suspiciously.

“No, but now that you mention it, I certainly am all in favor of it. Now, give me this junk and go back to sleep.” He began gathering up the cosmetics.

“But I wanted tonight to be special.”

His eyes glittered at her wickedly. “You don’t think I consider being in a bedroom with you special?”

“Not when we’re in here because I’m sick.”

“You’d be just as sick in the dining room,” he pointed out reasonably.

Mallory sighed and gave up the
fight. If he’d proposed in the bedroom once, the setting was probably good enough for a repeat performance.

Justin brought a small table into the bedroom, set it with the silver and crystal and put the arrangement of roses on her bedside nightstand. An hour later he had dinner ready as well, but Mallory couldn’t eat a bite of the delicious meal. Even if she hadn’t been sick, nervousness would have prevented her from keeping down a morsel of food.

Justin cast suspicious looks at her as he ate. When he’d finally finished, he sat back and said, “Okay, what’s the real story here?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He grinned at her. “Don’t give me that. You’re clearly up to something. No woman who’s as sick as you’ve been takes time out to plan an intimate little dinner, especially when she knows perfectly well that she’s not going to feel like eating a bite of it. Maybe if you’d prepared broth, I’d buy it, but you ordered Italian, my favorite.”

“I like Italian, too.”

“Maybe so, but it’s hardly the right meal for a woman with the flu. You’re the great believer in directness. Talk. What’s this all about?”

Mallory hadn’t quite expected this turn of events. She’d been hoping in some sort of irrational way, no doubt brought on by her fever, that the setting would simply lead Justin around to making his proposal again. Now she saw how absurd that was, which left her with two choices—she could dream up some fantastic tale to explain this evening or she could propose herself. She wasn’t wild about either option. And her head was starting to pound again, too.

She tried clearing her throat,
and Justin’s waiting expression changed to one of concern. “Want some water?”

“No, really. I’m fine.” She wondered if she could manage to faint again, since it seemed to have brought out the best in Justin before. Finally, she realized there was no point in delaying the inevitable. There were times when Justin could manage to display astonishing patience, and this appeared to be one of them. “Actually…” She cleared her throat again. “Umm, what I wanted to talk to you about is…umm, I thought maybe we should discuss…”

“Mallory, you’re not being particularly coherent. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

“Fine. More or less, anyway. I’m just having a little trouble figuring out how to get into this.”

“Into what? If you have something to say, say it. That’s what you’re always telling me.”

She took a deep breath and blurted quickly, “I was thinking maybe I was a little hasty in turning down your marriage proposal last night, and I wondered if we could talk about it again, I mean, if you still want to. Do you?” She ran out of breath and peeked to see how Justin was taking her announcement. He didn’t look like a man who was feeling trapped or even particularly stunned. In fact, he was actually grinning at her.

“What changed your mind?”

“Dr. Hendricks.”

“The head of neurosurgery? You don’t know the man, do you?”

“Not personally.”

“Then what on earth does he have to do with this?”

“It’s a little hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“Well, you mentioned that
you’d told him about me being sick, and it made me realize that you must really care about me, if you actually talked to him about me. Then Rachel called…”

“And what did Rachel have to say on this subject?” His voice seemed to be rising dangerously. Mallory met his gaze with a mutinous expression.

“Don’t go getting all huffy. She just said you’d been acting like a lunatic yesterday and that you were going to tell me how you felt. Then I realized I’d gone and spoiled it by analyzing you and making assumptions about how you really felt, so I thought I’d better try to make things right before I lost you. I mean you might not be the type to bring this up a second time.”

He shook his head and moved to the side of the bed. He reached over and touched her cheek. Heat swirled through her and this time it most definitely was not flu-related. “Are you going to stop babbling now and give me a chance?”

“Sure,” she said and sank back on the pillows. “I’m a little worn out anyway.”

“Try to stay awake for this part.”

“I’ll try,” she said demurely and waited, trying not to notice that his fingers were drifting along her neck and down to the lace-trimmed edge of her nightgown. She was very glad she’d managed to get out of the Mickey Mouse T-shirt she’d worn during the day and into something a little sexier.

“I meant everything I said last night,” he began slowly. “I nearly went crazy yesterday when I thought you might really be sick.”

“I was really sick.”

“You know what I mean. Don’t interrupt,” he said, putting a finger to her
lips. She wanted his hand back where it had been, just a tantalizing inch or so from the aching peak of her breast. “I’ll finish my residency this summer. If you want to, it might be a good time to get married. I’ll be going into private practice with a guy who finished up at Fairview last year, and it might be a little rough at first, but I think we could manage.”

Mallory had a puzzled frown on her face. “Now I remember what it was that stopped me last night. It was all this
might
stuff. You’re the one who doesn’t sound convinced. Are you really sure this is what you want?”

“Here we go again,” he said with a resigned sigh. “I know I love you. I know that the idea of living without you hurts deep inside. I’ll admit that I’m afraid. I don’t have a lot of experience with commitment. I can’t be sure I can give you the sort of marriage you deserve. You’ll be taking a risk, if you say yes. I may never be able to change.”

“What does marriage mean to you? Explain it in terms of you and me.”

“The two of us together, sharing our lives, being there for each other, laughing together, making love—just the way we have been the past couple of months.”

Words, Mallory thought. He was saying all the right words. He was even saying them with conviction, but there was something wrong.

“What about a family, Justin? Do you want children?”

The caress of his fingers stilled, and a shadow darkened the light that had been shining in his eyes. He shook his head. “I never really thought about it,” he said evasively. “What about you?”

“I do, Justin. I want kids, who’ll be a part of you and me. Can you see
yourself ever wanting that?”

He stood up and began to pace. He raked his fingers through his thick brown hair until it was thoroughly mussed. “I can’t do it, Mallory,” he said finally. “I can’t have kids. Not ever.”

“You can’t.”

“All right, I won’t, damn it,” he said savagely. The words seemed to be wrenched from some anguished place deep inside him. “I’ll never be a father. Never.”

There was such finality in his tone that it shook her. “Why not?”

“You know my past. You know why I don’t dare be around kids. How can you even ask that? I’ll be damned if I’m going to wind up some day beating my kids the way my mother did, or neglecting them the way my father did.”

“Justin, you know the risk. That’s three-fourths of the battle. There’s no reason to believe you can’t stop the cycle. Your children would be safe and you’d probably be the most attentive father in the world, just to make up for what you missed.”

“The issue isn’t open for discussion.” He was adamant, and her heart sank. “If you want marriage, fine, but there won’t be any kids.” He sat down next to her again, but he wouldn’t look at her.

“If I want marriage?”
Her temper was beginning to flare. She waved a finger indignantly under his nose just to be sure she had his attention. “You started this discussion last night, Justin Whitmore, not me. Maybe we ought to just forget the whole thing. We were doing fine with things the way they were.”

“No, we weren’t. We were kidding ourselves. Or at least I was. I thought that
what we had would be enough for you. At least I wanted it to be. Then I honestly thought marriage might be okay. We love each other, that should be enough. Now I see how foolish I was. You have every right to want children. I just can’t be the one to give them to you.”

Damn, Mallory thought, near tears and furious. They had come so close and now it was all falling apart. She couldn’t bear to see it all wind up in ashes. Damn it, she wouldn’t let it. “There’s more to it than that, isn’t there? There’s something you haven’t told me. You’re far too intelligent to allow your childhood to ruin your future—our future—this way. Tell me now. I have to understand why you’re doing this. One minute you want to get married, then I bring up kids, and all of a sudden all bets are off. What is it with you? Tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Don’t lie to me, Justin. I know you too well.” She forced him to meet her gaze, challenging him. She’d sit here all night if she had to until he talked. Apparently he realized it because he finally gave a sigh of resignation.

“Okay. I’ll tell you, and then you’ll hate me and that will put the whole thing to rest once and for all.”

Justin stood up, his hands clenched at his sides. He started to pace again, then finally sank down in a chair beside her. But he couldn’t look her in the eyes. He couldn’t bear the thought of what he would see there, the contempt, the betrayal. How could he tell her this?

Mallory waited, gazing at him expectantly, and finally, knowing it was useless to put it off, he began.

“Years ago, when I was still in medical school, I met a woman. She was a nurse at the hospital affiliated with the school, and she was a couple
of years older than I was. Like you, she made me believe in possibilities. She’d been married before and had a little girl.” He shut his eyes against the images, but they were all in his head and they wouldn’t go away. “Amy. That was her name. She was such a pretty little kid. She had all these blond curls and these blue eyes. She was like someone you’d see in a painting.”

“What was her mother’s name?”

“Linda.” Just saying the name still brought a smile to his lips. She had been a lovely, gentle woman and she’d begun a healing process inside him.

“What happened? What happened with Linda and Amy to convince you that you should never have a family?”

“To understand, you have to know what it was like in medical school. I was always so tired back then. In some ways it was even worse than it is now. The schedule was crazy, and there was a tremendous amount of pressure. Maybe I just felt it more, because I wanted so badly to be the best at something. I suppose I was still trying to be the perfect son, the one who didn’t deserve those beatings.”

A shudder ran through him as the memories flooded back. “There’s no excuse for what happened. Amy was just a kid. She couldn’t possibly know that she was driving me crazy. Every time I went over there she seemed to throw some sort of a tantrum. I couldn’t study. I couldn’t relax. I didn’t feel I had any
right to discipline her and Linda was lenient, the way mothers are after a divorce. The tension just built and built until one day I finally exploded. The next thing I knew Amy was screaming and crying, and Linda was taking her to her room. I hated myself at that moment, more than I’d ever thought was possible. I don’t know if you can even comprehend that kind of self-loathing. I’ll never forget the look on that child’s face or the way it made me feel.”

“Did you and Linda talk about what happened?”

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t even look at her. All I could see was that I was going to be just like my parents. It made me sick. Before she could come back into the living room, I left. I avoided her at the hospital, hung up on her when she called. I know it was cowardly, but I simply couldn’t face her.”

“Did she know about your childhood?”

Justin nodded.

“Then don’t you think she might have understood what you were going through? Certainly she would have understood about the pressure. Nurses see it all the time.”

He was on his feet again, a restless energy unleashed in him. “Don’t you see, it didn’t matter. I’m the one who doesn’t understand. I was an adult. I’m the one who should have known how to handle the pressure and I didn’t. I just blew up and hurt an innocent little girl.”