Jill Shalvis - Instant Gratification

“And stay here,” Serena finished for him, nodding.

“My life is in New York.”

“Yeah.” Serena took back her envelope. “Well, if Stone hands you an envelope that says DON’T OPEN UNTIL YOU’RE READY, don’t open it, cuz you’re not ready.” Without giving Emma a chance to respond to that, she turned to Doc. “So it’s a done deal?”

He took another brownie. “Done deal.”

“Too bad Stone couldn’t talk her out of it, huh?”

Emma looked at her dad in disbelief. “What?”

Serena winced in Doc’s direction. “Sorry. That slipped out. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Her father stuffed a brownie in his mouth.

Emma didn’t blink. “You wanted Stone to talk me out of selling?” she pressed.

Her father grimaced. “Not exactly.”

Oh, boy. She set down her second brownie, her heart kicking hard. “Then what exactly?”

With a sigh, he set down his brownie and faced her. “It’s not a big deal. I just thought maybe, if things worked out between the two of you, that you’d want to stick around.”

“So you wouldn’t have to sell.”

“So I wouldn’t have to sell.”

Oh, God. “Dad, I asked you a hundred times if you really wanted this. A thousand. I asked and asked, and you never-”

“I wanted you to want to stay. To want to not sell. To want to run the clinic.” His smile was solemn and heartbreaking. “I wasn’t going to ever ask it of you.”

Oh, no. He didn’t get to pull the martyr card. “You weren’t going to ask it of me directly, you mean. Instead, you were going to have Stone talk me out of it, a nonmember of the family, a virtual stranger-”

“Is he?” her father interrupted softly. “A stranger?”

He hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her the truth. “I can’t believe this. You sold your own business, and you didn’t want to. Do you have any idea how…frustrating this is?”

“Really? You want to know frustrating?” Her father stood up. “Frustrating is your livelihood being taken away from you by the turning of time and bad genes. Or watching your child choose a world that is slowly sucking the life and joy and heart and soul right out of her, three thousand miles away so that you can’t help. That’s frustrating.”

She shook her head, devastated for him, wracked with guilt. “I’ve got to go.”

“Emma, wait.”

She turned back, unable to keep the tears out of her voice. “I’m sorry, Dad. So damned sorry you sold when you didn’t want to. I’m sorry you felt you could tell Stone the truth when you couldn’t tell me.”

“Don’t leave, Emma. Not like this.”

“That’s my point. I always was going to leave, always. I thought you knew that.”

“Yeah. I knew it.” He sighed. “I just didn’t want to.”

Stone and TJ took a group up Rockbound Summit. When they got back, dirty and exhausted, Stone headed straight to his cabin, planning to shower, then head straight to Emma and get her naked.

And somehow make her want to stay.

Instead, he stopped short on the trail in front of his cabin, surprised to find her on his porch, waiting for him. His entire body reacted at the sight of her, even his knees went weak. A dead giveaway, in his book, about how he truly felt about her. “Emma.” He moved in to touch her but she stood up and held him off with a hand.

Okaaaay. “Something wrong?”

“My dad didn’t want to sell and you knew it. In fact, he asked you to talk me out of selling the clinic.”

He blinked at the last thing he expected to hear come out of her mouth. “What?”

“You heard me. So when did he ask you? Before or after we’d slept together?”

Okay, this wasn’t going to go well, he could tell, and he stepped toward her. “Emma-”

“Don’t.” She pointed at him, her own voice a little shaky. “Don’t ‘Emma’ me in that soft, sexy voice of yours, the one that can talk me into or out of anything.”

“Out of?”

“You know damn well you’ve talked me out of my clothes on several occasions now. When, Stone. When did he ask you?”

He looked into her eyes and found not temper, but hurt. And it killed him. “In the very beginning, but it’s not like you think-”

She made a soft sound that might as well have been a knife to his gut. “In the very beginning,” he repeated, “he told me he wasn’t going to tell you about the severity of his heart attack because he didn’t want to guilt you into coming. I told him that was a bad plan, that no matter what he should be honest with you.”

“Which he wasn’t. And neither were you.”

“I told you, it wasn’t my story to tell. When it became clear he wasn’t going to bounce right back, and when you were still so unhappy here, he knew you weren’t going to stay.”

She stared up at him, so many things in her eyes it hurt to look at her.

Or maybe that was his own hurt.

“He couldn’t ask you to stay,” he said quietly. “Whatever you think you know about this, I’d never ask that of you. Never. I know what your life in New York means to you. The sale of his place just came…quick. Quicker than he thought it would.”

She stared at him, and then deflated, sank back to the porch bench. “Dammit.” She covered her face. “Dammit.”

With a sigh, Stone sat next to her. “This isn’t your fault, Emma. You know that. Just as you know that if you want something, you have to go out and get it. If things haven’t worked out the way you hoped, then change them. You of all people know you can do or get anything you damn well want if you want it bad enough.”

She lifted her face and studied his. “Except that I don’t know what I want,” she whispered.

“Well, then, that’s a problem.”

“Do you know what you want?”

“Yes. I want to keep running Wilder, leading treks, volunteering with Search and Rescue, hanging out with my brothers, and until very recently, that list also included whatever sweet smiling woman came my way. Until a not-so-sweet smiling woman came my way, one who threw everything in my life upside down, proving that life isn’t easy at all, and shouldn’t necessarily be.”

She sighed. “Oh, Stone.”

He smiled solemnly. “Is this good-bye, Emma?”

She paused, not taking her eyes off him. “I once told you that we’d be a mistake.”

His heart took a good hard knock. “Yes.”

She surprised him by cupping his face and kissing him, a warm, heart-wrenching kiss, because he knew what it meant.

It was good-bye.

“I was wrong,” she whispered against his lips, holding still for a heartbeat, breathing him in.

Destroying him.

“Being with you was the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” she murmured, and with one last touch of her lips to his, walked away.

He watched her go, rubbing his aching chest, knowing she was the best thing that had ever happened to him as well, given that he was head over heels crazy in love with her.

It took her a lot longer to pack up than it had to unpack, Emma thought putting her clothes into her bags. First, she had to keep stopping to blow her nose because her eyes kept watering.

Damn allergies.

Except she didn’t have allergies. What she had was a broken heart. A fact she had to hide every time the stupid cowbells jangled, which they did often. Not by patients needing treatment, but by the people stopping by to say good-bye. Missy came by with handmade tea bags.

“For stress,” she’d said genuinely.

Yes, that would come in handy. Tucker came by with a small, perfectly constructed wooden box. “For some of your doctor stuff, Dr. Sinclair. I made it in wood shop.”

It was so beautiful, and just looking at it made her ache. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“You hate it.”

“No, I love it.” She hugged him hard. “Thank you.”

He awkwardly patted her back. “Dr. Sinclair?”

“Yes?”

“If you love it, why are you crying?”

She let out a watery laugh. “Because I’m female. Thank you for the box, Tucker. I’ll treasure it.”

He nodded and escaped, and she sank to the stairs. When she’d first got here, she’d resented being called Dr. Sinclair in that formal, almost awed tone, but it wasn’t irreverent anymore. They meant it.

It was then, when she was all packed to go, that she realized. She wasn’t just Doc’s daughter.

Or that woman that Stone was seeing.

Or that fancy city woman with all the airs.

She was Emma Sinclair, and she fit in.

Hell of a time to realize it.

New York, two weeks later

Emma jumped right back into work and everything was just fine.

Except it wasn’t.

She picked up extra shifts at the hospital so she didn’t have to go home and be alone. She ran herself ragged so that she didn’t have to think outside of medicine.

Yet every single moment of every single day for fourteen days she felt alone. The city was noisy, crowded. Everyone was in a hurry.

And it didn’t smell like Christmas trees.

She’d told Stone that nothing was ever easy and that everything came at a price. She hadn’t been kidding.

As unbelievable as it seemed, she missed Wishful and its slow pace. She missed the people, even Missy Thorton and her shockingly delicious homemade Thai food. She missed her father. Hell, she even missed Serena.

But most of all, she missed Stone, a man who’d shown her the fine art of smelling the roses, of being happy in the moment, a man who kissed like heaven and looked at her like she was his world.

After her shift, she went to Spencer’s, hoping a home-cooked meal would take her mind off Wishful. It certainly smelled delicious when she walked into his place. How he found the time or the energy to cook after a long day at the hospital, she never understood, but she was grateful.

But this scent was different, not a main course, but a baking scent.

Chocolate.

Her mouth watered. “I’ll take two of whatever that is,” she said, entering his kitchen, where her smile gave way to shock when she found Serena stirring something on the stove.

“Hey,” Serena said. “Just in time.” She lifted a wooden spoon dripping in chocolate. “Taste this. Too sugary?”

“Can chocolate ever be too sugary?”

“Hell, yes. If you go right into a diabetic coma, I took it too far.” She waited while Emma took a taste. “Good?”

“Amazing. What the hell are you doing here?”

“She opened the envelope.” Spencer joined them, clearly fresh from a shower. He looked happy and relaxed.

Very relaxed.

She took a closer look at Serena. Yep, they both have afterglow all over their faces. “So you used the one way ticket,” Emma said to Serena.

“Yep, I took the plunge.” Serena pulled out a fresh spoon from a drawer and resumed stirring. “I’m selling my place. Going big city.” She beamed at Spencer. “Opening a pastry shop not too far from the hospital. You can come on your breaks and I’ll take care of your sugar rush for you, any time.”

Spencer pulled Serena in close and Serena closed her eyes and hugged him tight.

The two of them seemed so happy it almost hurt to look at them. “You’re selling your place,” Emma said. “Uprooting your entire life. For a guy.”

“Hey,” Spence said, insulted.

“A guy you hardly know,” Emma went on.

Serena ran her fingers through Spence’s hair, her eyes on his as she smiled. “I’m not uprooting anything. I wanted a change. New York is it. Spence is just the bonus.”

He smiled at her. “Admit it, I’m a fairly big bonus.”

“The biggest, baby.”

Gobsmacked, Emma sank to a chair. “You’re selling your business.”

“Well that’s just good sense. It won’t run without me. Your father did the same thing. No one could run that place like him. Well, you could have, but it wasn’t your thing. Sometimes it’s just time to move on.”

“Yes, but he’s still going to work there.”

Serena shot her a funny look. “No, he’s not. You guys sold.”

“To a group of doctors.”

“Yes, who are turning the clinic into a hoity-toity vacation B &B for other doctors.”

“No. My dad’s going to work there. He-” She broke off as Serena slowly shook her head.

“Sorry,” she said. “But it’s a done deal. They were demoing when I left yesterday.”

Emma whipped toward Spencer, who gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t know. But it’s what he wanted, so-”

“No.” She shook her head, grabbed her purse, and headed toward the door. “It’s not. It’s not what he wanted at all. It’s what he thinks I wanted. And I was wrong.”

“So let me get this straight,” TJ said, standing in the middle of an empty Wishful Delights. “We live in the boondocks, and yet Serena sold this place off in one day, and now the new owner has already hired you, sight unseen. You’re okay with that?”