Jill Shalvis - Instant Gratification

She laughed and pushed him away. “Stop it. You don’t need me tonight. We both know it.”

He cocked his head, studying her in the dimly lit hallway. “Actually, I think that’s in reverse. You don’t need me.”

“Not in my bed, no.” She took his roaming hands in hers and then hugged him. “But I needed you here, and you came.”

With a sigh, he hugged her back. “I’ll always come for you, Emma. Always.”

The next day, Emma woke up to dark, wet skies, which fit her mood. She called to check on her dad, who was in the middle of fishing. She treated three thirteen-year-old boys, brought in by their scolding mothers. Seemed that the boys had been pretending to be the Wilder brothers, and had gone hiking in a gully near a river to catch crawdads, and instead had caught poison ivy.

One of the mothers paid with a chicken cheese casserole. Another paid with a check that couldn’t be cashed until the first of the month. The third had a credit card and enough gossip to leave Emma’s head spinning. She learned a whole host of things she didn’t care about, but the one bit of supposed news that stuck with her was that Big Foot had made another sighting-Big Foot?!-but everyone was pretty sure it was just Old Man Pete terrorizing the tourists again.

Good to know.

When the stupid cow bell jangled midday, a woman came in and shook off her wet, lightweight jacket. Emma recognized her as the woman she’d seen in the frozen aisle of the grocery store, the one who’d told Stone she hoped that Cam got dumped by his new fiancé. She wore black jeans and a black t-shirt, with a white and black checkered apron that said Wishful Delights. She was carrying a matching black and white bag that smelled like heaven as she limped to the front desk. “I hope to God you and your big city airs can handle a toe infection.”

Emma did her best to hide her irritation at the “big city airs” comment. “Toe infections welcome.”

The woman, dark brunette, exotic and beautiful, laughed, a low husky sound that probably drew men like moths to a flame. “So it’s true then, you did actually find yourself a sharp wit. Thank God.”

When Emma just stared at her, her patient let out a breath. “You don’t remember me.”

“I remember you from the grocery store. You have a dislike for the Wilder brothers.”

“Ha! No, that’s actually not quite accurate. I had the great misfortune of loving one. But that’s another story altogether. I’m Serena Salvo, from your first grade class. Class bitch,” she clarified.

“The teacher’s pet,” Emma said, remembering now. “You were the one who always got to go out to recess first.”

“Ah, now it’s coming back to you.” She grimaced. “Remember, it was all a long time ago, right?”

A rush of childhood memories hit her. Emma had been the quiet bookworm, a nerd in-the-making, in a town that prized athletics over brains. Her school life had been hell. “You sat behind me and cut my ponytail off.”

“Okay now that was an accident,” Serena said over her shoulder as she limped toward the exam rooms.

“You lifted it up like a trophy and laughed.”

“Hello, first class bitch, remember? But if it helps, I’m extremely remorseful.”

“Only because you got caught.”

“Well that,” Serena agreed, preceding Emma into the first room. “And because I lost dance lessons for a month.”

“I looked like a boy for three months.” Emma sat on the doctor’s stool and began a new chart.

“Yeah.” Serena winced as she sat on the table. “Jeez, I was thinking you’d be over it by now, but just in case, I brought incentive.” She held up that delicious smelling bag. Wriggled it. “See? I’ve turned over a new leaf.”

“What is it with people bringing food instead of cash?”

“Oh, I have a checkbook, too. Now aren’t you glad to see me?”

Emma studied her face. She had been a beautiful little girl and that hadn’t changed. She’d been mean-spirited, and Emma hoped like hell that had changed. “You once ratted me out for copying, when it was you who copied. I lost hall monitor privileges.”

“Ah, so you still have the memory of an elephant. Excellent. Do you by any chance remember what happened to the pearl necklace I stole from my mother and lost right before Christmas vacation that year? She’s never forgiven me.”

Emma sighed again and guided Serena’s foot up to the table. “Your father was mayor. He was a nice man.”

“He had a heart attack and died when I was in fifth grade.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“He was screwing my teacher in the lunch room and the custodian found them. On second thought, that might be what my mother hasn’t forgiven me for.”

“How was that your fault?” Emma asked, horrified.

“My teacher.” Emma shrugged. “Who knows. Listen, make this toe thing painless, and I’ll keep you in brownies for the rest of the month.”

Emma blinked. “No promises about being nice?”

“Trust me, you’d rather have my brownies.”

“I don’t intend to be here that long, but I’ll do my best on the painless part.”

Spencer stuck his head in the exam room door. “Hey, Em. I’m going into town, need anything?”

“Yes. More patients.”

Spencer smiled, and looked at Serena. Predictably, he got that look in his eyes that all guys got in the presence of a gorgeous female who knew how gorgeous she was.

Serena waggled her fingers in his direction and he smiled. “See you later, Em.”

When he was gone, Serena waggled a brow. “Who’s the hottie?”

Emma looked at the closed door. “A friend.”

“He looks like Jack from Lost, which is to say hot as hell.”

“He’s not your type.”

“All men are my type. Is he yours?”

“That’s really none of your business.”

Serena grinned. “You know, I remember you being a sweet kid. You’ve grown claws. I like that.”

Emma examined Serena’s big toe. Classic ingrown toenail. “Yeah, well, you’re not going to like this.”

“Oh, shit. Okay, just do what you have to. I’ll do what I always do when I’m nervous. I’ll ramble. So. Did you miss this place? Is that why you’re back?”

“I came to help out my father.”

Serena hissed out a breath as Emma disinfected the toe and surrounding area. “So you didn’t miss us then.”

Actually, she had at first. Until her mother had given her all the things she hadn’t been able to have here; ballet lessons, science camp…

See, darling. Getting out of here was a good thing. You can thank me later.

Emma sighed. Sandy had worked hard, so hard, for years. Eventually she’d remarried though; a brain surgeon, one on the way up to Places That Were Important, and they’d been happy, though he’d been gone so much-working-that Emma hadn’t spent a lot of time with him. Or her real dad, for that matter.

“You were sweet to me,” Serena said through her teeth as Emma worked. “One of the few. Which is why I’m not going to yell and scream but holy shit-”

“Done.” Emma wrapped up the toe, gave Serena her instructions for care, and then was pleased to accept actual money.

And the brownies.

Yeah, she might have once been a sweet kid, but she’d changed. She’d changed greatly. Sweet didn’t get the good jobs and sweet didn’t always help her patients. And sweet would not help her father’s practice.

That’s why she was here, to help him. To run his business. She’d have liked to do more but he’d made it fairly clear that this was enough.

Fine.

She could understand and appreciate that. Sure they were blood related, but that was about it. Besides, she had a life, a great life.

A busy life that didn’t include screwball romantic comedies and a different casserole every single night.

Her life.

Which she couldn’t get back to until he was better. Dammit. At five o’clock she peered out the window, relieved that the rain had stopped and closed the Urgent Care. Spencer had come back with the truck and was happily cooking away in the kitchen. She went to the freezer and grabbed a stack of casseroles, the healthy ones she’d been saving over the past two days.

She got into the truck, eyed the sky, and gave herself a pep talk as she began driving. She knew in winter that these ten miles would be impassable without a snowmobile, and it boggled her mind, but her father actually liked it that way. Her great grandfather had built the cabin with his own two hands, her mother had told her so. It was how her father had talked her into living in it.

For a week, darling. For one week.

Right. At the one week mark, her mother had found a lone wolf spider in her bed the size of a man’s fist, and she’d packed up and moved them into the upstairs of the Urgent Care. That had lasted until Emma had turned six.

Then Sandy had moved them to New York.

Emma was getting a little taste of how it’d gone down as she attempted to navigate the road, muddy from all the rains. She had to stop twice, once to let a group of deer finish crossing in front of her, and another to gather her courage to drive through a low running creek that was of questionable height.

She made it, barely. With a sigh of relief she finally pulled up to the cabin thirty minutes later.

And sat there in disbelief.

Just to the side of the cabin was a three-story tall rock that had been shoved here courtesy of the last ice age. Free-climbing the face was a group of teenagers, and her father. Not taking it easy. Not resting.

Climbing.

At his side, doing the leading was one soon-to-be-very-dead Stone Wilder.

With that inexplicable and annoying awareness tickling up her spine, Emma got out of the truck and strode to the rock. Up close, it wasn’t as tall as she’d first thought, maybe only twenty feet, and the kids were only about halfway, which meant that their feet were just about head level. Her father was slightly below the kids, Stone above them.

“Are you kidding me?” she asked, eyeing the kids on the rock and thinking of cracked skulls and broken bones, all of which would be utterly needless injuries. “Where are the safety ropes?”

Stone twisted around to look down at her, his jeans going taut across his butt.

It was quite the impressive butt.

In fact, everything about him was impressive. Arms and legs stretched out, muscles tight and strained, he was spread-eagle, holding onto what appeared to be nothing more than tiny crevices in the rock.

“We use ropes on the higher climbs,” he said.

“It doesn’t look safe.” Not the rock, and certainly not you.

Her father began to work his way down toward her while Stone stayed with the kids. Stone’s faded gray t-shirt was snug across his broad shoulders, loose around his waist, gaping out enough to reveal a tanned, sleek back. He was no longer wearing bandages over all the road rash, and she could see his injuries were healing quite fast and well as he moved along with easy grace.

Yeah, that’s why she was staring at him, to make sure he’d healed properly.

Her father hopped to the ground. “Emma.” He smiled at her, light and welcoming. “Nice surprise. Nobody needing you at the Urgent Care then?”

“No.” With baited breath, she watched the group of five kids work the rock safely with Stone’s quiet reassurances. “Who are they?”

“A group of local foster kids. Stone takes them out of their element and on mini-expeditions.”

She’d already heard from Missy that he did this but it became real when she saw it firsthand. It was yet another layer of Stone revealed. Hard to keep picturing him as nothing but a mountain bum when he kept unraveling like a damn onion.

“He’s big on making sure the kids don’t fall through the cracks,” her dad said. “Like he and his brothers did.”

Tilting her head up, she watched Stone give each kid a fist bump as they got to the top. Hard to imagine him as a little boy, much less a vulnerable one.

“Anyway.” Her father slid off his baseball cap. His gray hair was wild as always. “Today is rock climbing day, as you can see. We’re rafting next week.”

“We.”

“I help with the kids when I can, which is more often now.”

Ironic, she thought. He was there for those kids, when he’d never been there for his own.

The kids were preparing for their descent. She wanted to point out how dangerous this sort of thing was, but hell, the teens in New York faced their own daily dangers, and if there was someone to steer them through surviving out here, so much the better.

But that it was Stone…Yeah, it really put a dent in the whole ski bum rep.

“You’re doing okay at the clinic?”

She looked at her father. “I accepted three more casseroles and two gossip sessions today. I had a case of poison ivy, a wicked toe infection, and…nothing. Nothing else. I’m not sure how I managed to handle it all.”