Pick Me (9 page)

She smiled. “No, but…”

“But what?”

One look at him and that wicked grin, and all of her worries slid away.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

Chapter Seven

The
wail of a blues band sail greeted them as they pulled into the dirt parking lot. Walking toward the crowd that surrounded the venue’s tent, Thea was pleasantly surprised to see a more diverse group of patrons than what she was expecting. Sure there were plenty of young-looking, tattooed and pierced couples milling about, but there were people her and Calder’s age too, men in polo shirts and women in Lily Pulitzer dresses.

Why had she been so afraid to come? It wasn’t her scene, it never had been. But why not?

“It’s pretty loud by the stage,” Calder said, pointing to a patch of empty benches beyond the activity. “I bet if we sit over there, we can hear the music
and
each other.”

She smiled. “Great.” As they crossed the lawn, the chime of her cell pushed through. Thea reached into her purse, wishing she’d remembered to mute it.

Seeing it was a text from Michael, one of the firm’s partners, she read it:

I know you’re on vacation, but any chance you could come in tomorrow am for a quick consult? 10? Promise to have you out in less than an hour. Huge thanks!

She frowned down at the screen and groaned.

Calder steered them to the furthest bench and took a seat. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“Just work stuff,” she said, burying her phone back in her purse and sitting beside him. “They want me to come in for a meeting tomorrow morning.”

“Damn—and here we were making so much progress on this whole no-working-on-vacation thing.”

We
. She liked the way he said that, liked even more the way his eyes flashed suggestively when he did. He had been right to direct them away from the stage; here the music was softer but still audible, and the breeze was fragrant with the smell of warm grass.

“I don’t have room to talk,” he said. “I’m back on duty tomorrow, too.”

Thea smiled, pleasure rushing through her. He had one last free night, and he was spending it with her.

Well. The start
of it, at least.

“Thanks again for being so understanding about dinner,” Calder said. “I don’t usually inflict my family on my dates unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

Thea blinked at the word—had he called her his date? Marie’s words of encouragement returned, bolstering her with hope.
“It’s nice to see Calder here with someone.”

Calder must have seen the flicker of surprise cross her face because in the next moment he added, “I didn’t mean date like...you know,
date
. I only meant…” He grinned. “Feel free to rescue me at any point, by the way.”

She smiled. “No chance, Doctor. I would never lead a witness when he’s testifying.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“And you don’t have to apologize for dinner,” she said. “I had a great time with everyone. It was nice seeing Marie again, meeting your father and your brother.”

At the mention of Pete and their father, Thea saw the teasing warmth in Calder’s eyes cool. He swung his gaze from her to the horizon and squinted into the streaked sky. “He wasn’t always so hard to be around, my dad. He used to be a hell of a lot of fun, actually. But his drinking got worse after my mom died. At least, that’s what Marie says. I wasn’t here for a lot of those months.”

“What does your brother say?”

“If you ask Pete, he’ll tell you our father doesn’t have a problem.”

“Not really?”

“My brother and I don’t always see eye-to-eye,” Calder said, turning his gaze to the tented stage in the distance. “But you probably picked up on that.”

“Marie mentioned something about a free ride from USC for football. He must have been an amazing quarterback.”

“He was.”

“So why did he lose his chance to play?”

“He got into an accident coming home from a party two weeks before graduation. He’d snuck a few celebratory beers, flipped his car and crushed his shoulder practically into dust. The doctors worked miracles to rebuild it but his career was shot.”

“Oh God…” Thea blinked down at her lap. “Calder, that’s terrible. He must have been devastated.”

“He was. We all were.”

“He seemed so angry with you at dinner,” she said carefully, “or maybe I was imagining it.”

“You didn’t imagine it. He’s mad as hell at me.”

“Why? It wasn’t your fault.”

For a long moment, Calder remained silent and Thea feared she’d pressed too much. Then he answered, “Because he was supposed to be the one to leave this place, not me. And he thinks I abandoned my responsibilities when I did.”

“But that’s so unfair. Lots of people leave Magnolia Bay—you’re not the only one who couldn’t get out of this place fast enough.” She smiled weakly. “Believe me, I know how it is to be the one who left when everyone else stayed.”

“It’s not the same. You moved thirty minutes away. I changed continents.”

“How far did you go?” she asked.

“The furthest was probably Haiti.”

“What were you doing in Haiti?”

“I worked with Doctors Without Borders for a few years after the earthquake,” he explained. “The Drouillard Trauma Hospital. Mostly in the burn center.”

“God, I can’t imagine.”

“You really can’t,” he said. “I sure as hell couldn’t before I went there. That kind of destruction, that level of need and suffering. It’s unfathomable until you’re in the middle of it.”

“How could you bear it?”

“You have to, you’re there to heal,” he said matter-of-factly. “You just pick up a chart and step in and get going. You don’t stop to look beyond the next patient.” He fell silent for a long moment, searching the horizon.

“Do you still think about it?”

“Every day,” he said. “There was one little girl—Patti—she’d been helping her mom with her little brother when the quake hit. She’d just turned seven and there she was, tending to this terrified little boy, singing calmly to him, like they were safe in their beds, like it was any other night. There she is, her mother most likely gone, and she’s asking me if the patients might like her to sing to them too, because they looked scared—“ Calder stopped, a faint sheen of tears flashing across his eyes. He cleared his throat and began again. “It changes your life.” He looked at her. “But I’m sure you have plenty of experiences in your job that have changed you; that changed the way you see the world.”

Thea searched her memory, desperate to think of even one case that might have matched his in emotional impact, but she couldn’t recall a single one. Waves of shame coursed through her. She’d imagined herself doing something important when all she really did was bail out selfish business men who wanted to keep as much of their money as possible.

Calder saved lives and changed them.

She shook her head. “Nothing that can compare to the way you’ve been touched,” she admitted.

“I don’t believe that. Everyone’s job has its moments.”

She smiled gratefully. “I’m a lawyer, remember? You’re being generous.”

“No, I’m not. We all do our part in the world. We can’t all do the same part.”

“I don’t think my part measures up to yours.”

“Who said it had to?”

She met his gaze then, the tender heat of those blue-green pools relieving her guilt.

“You became the lawyer you always wanted to be,” he said. “You stayed the course, followed your dream, your heart. Not many people get to say that.”

His reminder should have filled her with pride, instead she felt a keen sense of doubt. She couldn’t remember when she’d decided to become a lawyer, only that she’d never dared veer from that future as soon as she’d set it. The same had been true of marrying Dennis. In her efforts to remain focused on her goals, had she missed chances to do something else? She’d followed her dream, but what if she
hadn’t
followed her heart?

She felt oddly wistful again, but it was a warm sensation, a lovely one, and she smiled with it. “It’s funny…I think that night we skipped prom together was probably the only night in my whole life I did something unplanned.”

Calder leaned toward her, knocking his knee teasingly against hers. “Then I guess I
was a bad influence on you, after all.”

“I’m starting to wonder if I didn’t need
more
of your bad influence.”

He grinned. “It’s not too late.”

She stared back into his gaze, lost and found all at once. How was it possible? In high school, he’d been an enigma—unsolvable, unreachable. All these years later, she’d spent time alone with him, then this night with his family, and suddenly she felt as if she knew the innermost layers of his heart. Witnessing his care for his father, hearing him talk about his work in Haiti and his concern for its people, touched her deeply. He was strong and solid and confident in a way she’d never known a man to be. She’d thought he seemed strong on that motorcycle on prom night, whisking her away…she’d had no idea.

What would it be like to be made love to by a man with that kind of confidence and strength? Thea wanted to find out. More than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.

Above them, the sky seemed bigger and vaster than she could ever remember it looking. Thea searched it, picking out the beginnings of stars, the crescent of a vanilla moon. They could have been anywhere on the planet at that moment, unfettered by schedules or clients. A rush of promise filled her, as if she were on the edge of her future again, about to graduate, a world of possibilities spread out before her as sparkling and wide as the cosmos. She had never felt so free.

She looked back at Calder and found him smiling at her.

She blushed, startled by his study. “What?”

“Nothing. Just that this is how I remember you looking that night we ditched prom.”

“I’m pretty sure I was wearing a dress that night.”

He chuckled. “No, I mean your expression. You had this incredible look on your face as you stared up at the stars. You’d just come out of the water, bare feet, all your make-up washed off, your perfect hair soaked and rolling down your back. I sat there on that bench thinking I bet no guy ever got to see you that way. It was sexy as hell. And it’s nice to see again, that’s all.”

Thea was suddenly grateful for the fading light. The flush of pleasure stained her cheeks so quickly, she was sure he’d think she’d turned feverish. And maybe she had. Suddenly every inch of her skin burned.

“I was sure you thought I was some silly, uptight cheerleader looking to be a bad girl for one night.”

“I was too busy wondering why someone so smart and beautiful worried about being perfect for a dumb jock who was too self-absorbed to know how he lucky he was.”

Thea looked down, filled with a sharp rush of remorse. Calder was right. She had been so consumed with her need to please Patrick Hogan in those days, to be right for him—that she had never taken the time to consider whether or not he was right for her.

Had she made the same mistake with Dennis, too?

The need to explain her poor choices overwhelmed her. “I don’t know why it took me so long to see what a jerk he was.”

“Probably because you were in love.”

Was that it? Had she loved Patrick Hogan? Her thoughts drifted to Dennis; she asked herself the same of him. Maybe it wasn’t love. Maybe it was just wanting to belong to someone. To have someone to complete her.

But Thea could still feel the flutter of satisfaction she’d enjoyed after one of the partners at the firm had told her that she and Dennis made a perfect couple, that they were somehow meant to be paired simply because it made sense professionally. She couldn’t deny the observation had pleased her deeply—and still did, in a way. But sitting here with Calder, lost under a blanket of stars, she wasn’t sure that compliment equaled love.

“I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself…” Calder considered his hands, laced over his bent knees, a moment before he confessed, “You weren’t the only one looking to escape that night.”

She watched his expression darken and the urge to lighten their mood overwhelmed her. She scooted off the bench and stood in front of him, shoulders back, chin lifted, and held out her hands.

“If memory serves, Calder Frye, I believe you asked me to dance that night under the stars.”

He grinned. “I did, huh?”

“You said it was a law of the universe that a girl has to have at least one dance in her dress on prom night or she’ll have bad luck for seven years.”

He chuckled and squinted at her. “I said that?”

She smiled. “Okay, maybe it was five.”

“Five years…” He rose from the bench, took her hands, one at a time, and swept her into his arms for a dance. The feeling of his hand against the small of her back made her dizzy. She could have melted into that firm, wide palm.

She looked up at him, the light from the stage tent washing his face in remarkable shadows. They swayed to the music.