smart woman is going to have herself a treasure when she lands that man.”
Cara’s eyes widened. Surely her friend wasn’t hinting… not at her father’s funeral visitation… not when she knew Cara would never get serious with a mini-me of her father? But when she met her friend’s gaze, Julie nodded and grinned from ear to ear.
“He’s a good man, Cara.” Julie eyed him as if he were Mr. Perfection. “A woman could do a lot worse than coming home to Sloan every night. Just look at him. I love my Rex, but men don’t come any hotter than that one.”
Any moment Cara expected Julie to fan her face. Then she did.
Cara resisted an eye roll. Barely.
“As hard as it is to believe, his insides are even better than that yummy exterior. The man has a heart of gold.”
“I have a boyfriend, you know.” Not to mention that Julie had a husband and child and shouldn’t be calling another man yummy and looking at him as if he were chocolate-dipped, right?
“That fancy trauma surgeon you’ve been dating since your residency? I’ve seen the pictures of you two and your travels online.” Julie gave a low whistle. “He’s a looker all right, but something is missing there. He’s a little plastic, don’t you think?”
Plastic? Not hardly.
“John is a wonderful man.” Nothing was missing between her and John. She planned to marry him. Their relationship was wonderful. Wasn’t that what she’d told her father repeatedly? What she told herself repeatedly?
“Wonderful is okay.” Julie wasn’t going to be swayed. “But Sloan is the total package. I’m pretty sure your father handpicked him for you to come home to.”
Julie thought… Was that why her father…? No, she’d been with John years before her father had recruited Sloan. He’d liked John. He’d told her he did.
Had the words come from someone other than her father, she might have thought they’d been said only for her benefit. Preston hadn’t been known for holding back his true thoughts. He’d have told her if he hadn’t approved of the brilliant trauma surgeon she’d taken a liking to when she’d been in residency.
Her father hadn’t picked Sloan for her because she’d already picked the man she’d be sharing her future with. She’d told Preston as much, that when John asked her to marry him, she planned to say yes.
That had been last month when her father had flown to New York for a medical conference and spent a few days with her. Of course, John hadn’t asked her yet and had been acting a little weird lately, but that was probably only due to how busy his hospital schedule had been the past few months.
“Besides, where is this boyfriend? He should be here with you,” Julie pointed out in a tone unflattering to John. Her lips pursed with disapproval. “A man should be with his woman at her father’s funeral. No excuses.”
“He’s a trauma surgeon. He can’t just walk away from his job at the drop of a hat. Not unless it was an emergency. There was nothing John could do to help.” Or so he’d bluntly told her when she’d mentioned him coming with her. Logically, even if his crassness had hurt, he’d been right. She hadn’t pushed for him to drop everything to come with her. But she’d wanted him to do just that, even though, goodness knew, the emergency room would be crazy enough with her unexpectedly gone, much less her and one of the trauma surgeons.
But they would have gotten by… No, she wasn’t going to let those thoughts in. John would be here if there had been anything he could do. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to spend time in Bloomberg when he didn’t absolutely have to. He loved city life even more than she did.
“Yeah,” Julie tsked. “Nothing he could do, except hold your hand, comfort you and keep you from being alone during your father’s funeral.”
Well, there was that.
Cara didn’t want to be having this conversation. Not right now. Not ever. Because as much as she told herself she understood, she also acknowledged that she would have gone with John had their roles been reversed. That he hadn’t even considered it hurt more than a smidge.
Ready to end their conversation, Cara managed a tight smile toward her friend and was grateful to see another familiar face waiting to give her sympathy. “Um, okay, I’ll keep that in mind, Julie. Thanks for your condolences. Good to see you.”
“You do that, and, yes, Cara, it’s so good to see you home, but I hate that it’s under these circumstances.” Her friend squeezed her tightly, filling Cara’s nostrils yet again with honeysuckle and another wave of memories. “Your dad will be missed by everyone in Bloomberg. For that matter, so are you.”
She chose to ignore Julie’s mention of her being missed. Yes, her father would be missed by Bloomberg, but even more so by his daughter. She may not live in Bloomberg, but she did talk to her father several times a week. Usually their conversations had consisted of what new restaurant or show she had gone to that week or she’d recount some odd case that had come into the emergency room. On her father’s end, he’d talked about Bloomberg and Sloan.
She’d gotten to where she’d dreaded their next Sloan the Wonder Boy session. Now, she’d listen to her father read the phone book just to hear his voice.
A fresh wave of moisture stung Cara’s eyes and she squeezed them shut. She would make it through the next couple of days and then truly leave Bloomberg, better known to her as Gloomberg, the name she’d given the town during high school.
Eventually, the funeral-home crowd began to thin.
Thank God. Sloan felt exhausted. As if being at Preston’s visitation wasn’t trying enough, Mrs. Goines’s fall and Cara’s words had zapped what little adrenaline he’d still been operating on.
As the last visitor, who’d just finished talking with Cara, gave their condolences to Sloan, the funeral director came to him to clarify the next day’s arrangements.
“I’ll check with Cara to see what she prefers,” he told Irving Greenwood, the pudgy, balding third-generation funeral-home director. The Greenwood’s Funeral Parlor had been serving Bloomberg for more than a hundred years. Lots of Bloomberg’s businesses could boast such a rich heritage. That deep sense of family and belonging was what had drawn Sloan to Bloomberg.
That and Dr. Preston Conner.
Bracing himself for whatever Cara threw at him, Sloan’s heart picked up pace. Every breath he took sounded loud, forced as he crossed the room to where she sat, hands in her lap, eyes cast downward. She looked lost, alone, elegantly fragile.
Her emotions were everywhere. Understandably so. After all, she’d lost her father unexpectedly. No wonder she was upset. Although he seemed to be the only target of her negative emotions.
“Hey.” Sloan gently called her attention to where he stood in front of her. He wasn’t sure if she’d been lost in her own thoughts or if she’d purposely been ignoring him. “Mr. Greenwood asked how you wanted the flowers and such handled. I told him I would discuss the matter with you and let him know.”
Complexion pale, she blinked up at him as if she’d forgotten he existed, as if their encounter with Mrs. Goines had never happened. “I don’t understand. What about the flowers?”
