eat what you can and we’ll go from there. I understand if you’re not feeling like it, but you do need at least a little so you get your strength back.”
Rory straightened from putting the plate on her mother’s lap, and was about to sit in the only other chair that had a decent light when she heard the front door open and looked up.
Her heart stuttered, then slammed hard into her ribs.
Jacob Hunter.
She didn’t want to look at him for more than a moment, yet she found herself staring, riveted. He looked like he always had—and yet he didn’t. A little older but, impossibly, even better. He was still tall and lean, with angled features that were still startlingly beautiful: dark eyes that could see right through a person, and lips that were almost too full and yet perfect for his face. The black silky hair she’d loved to run her hands through long ago, when it had spilled to his shoulders, had been cut short enough to be respectable for the town doctor, but still it brushed his collar, not fully tamed.
He held a bag in one hand and, yeah, just as she would have expected, despite the chill in the air he was wearing a slightly shabby T-shirt that showed his shoulders and biceps were even more muscular than seven years ago, at her father’s funeral. No shorts, but the jeans he wore fit his physique perfectly, making him look more like an Alaskan cowboy than a medical professional.
Her heart beat its way up into her throat, making it hard to breathe. She’d thought she was prepared to see him—but not this soon. Not tonight. Not when she was barely ready to deal with being back in town at all.
“Hello, Aurora.”
He and her mother were the only two people who called her that. Her mom did because she’d always thought it such a romantic name for a baby born under the Northern Lights. The aurora borealis. And Jacob had often called her that because he’d known it annoyed her, and teasing had always been his way of telling someone he cared about them.
Not that he cared about her anymore. Not after all that had happened between them. Not with all the time that had passed since they’d spoken.
“Hello, Jacob.”
“I didn’t know when you were getting in, so I thought I’d check on Twinkie.”
Twinkie. It also struck Rory that he was the only person who called her mother that other than her. Until that moment she hadn’t thought about the familiarity that came with names and nicknames. None of her other friends had ever called her mom Twinkie—why had he picked that up?
Probably because he’d been around the house and participating in an awful lot of the crazy over the years. Funny how he had the kind of steady, predictable, wonderful family almost anyone would appreciate, and yet he’d enjoyed being at her zany, very unpredictable and unorthodox house just as much as his own.
“That’s nice of you, but you don’t need to worry about her now that I’m...here.” She’d almost said home, but had stopped herself, because this wasn’t her home anymore. Never could be.
“Might as well take a look while I’m here.” Jake scratched the dog’s head and it looked up at him with the same delighted expression as her mother did. “How are you feeling? Have you taken the pain medicine they gave you?”
“Oh, yes. I’m following all the directions they gave me. But I’m still in a lot of pain, so it’s not working too well.”
“Sorry you’re in pain. It’s not always easy to control the first couple days out of surgery. Let me take a listen to your heart and lungs.”
He reached back to the stethoscope he had looped into the back pocket of his jeans, then pressed his long fingers to her wrist while looking at his watch. Afterward he even pulled a portable blood pressure monitor out of his bag to check that, too.
Meanwhile Rory just stood there, feeling strangely uncomfortable, having no idea what to say or do now that he was here. The awkwardness hanging between them wasn’t surprising, even though she’d foolishly hoped that seeing him might leave them both feeling indifferent. That had clearly been a pipedream, considering their parting years ago hadn’t exactly been full of rainbows and smiling understanding between the two of them.
Her legs felt a little wobbly, and she briefly considered sitting down, but that would have left her on an uneven footing with him—looking up even more than her five feet four inches required her to.
Jacob’s gaze suddenly turned back to Rory, and she swallowed at the mix of emotions in his eyes—the same anger and hurt and confusion that she felt tangling around her own heart...that had seared her to the depths of her soul when she’d left nine years ago.
“Your mom said your Aunt Patty’s coming to take care of her after you’re gone. She still working at the army base in Anchorage?”
“Yeah. She lives with her son Owen, who’s stationed there. She scheduled next week off, so I’ll only be here for a short time.”
Those dark eyes seemed to bore right into her, and the long pause after she’d answered left her fidgeting—until he finally broke the silence with the question she didn’t want asked.
“So, how’s your life?”
“Good. Everything is great.”
God, when had she become such a liar? If there was one person who had to know that wasn’t true, it was Jacob. But there were good things about her life, right? Although her job was about the only thing that came to mind.
“I just passed my board exams, so I’m officially a doctor of pediatric orthopedic medicine. I was supposed to be interviewing today, for a permanent position at the hospital, but I had to reschedule it for next week.”
Again, he didn’t speak, and even as she squirmed under his serious gaze memories of the time they’d been apart got mixed up with all the years they’d been together. It was as if nothing had changed between them.
For a brief moment she had the shocking urge to go up on her tiptoes and give him a kiss hello on that luscious mouth. Which proved that her brain’s muscle memory was stronger than her common sense when it came to him. But of course that wasn’t surprising, was it? They’d known one another since they were kids in elementary school.
Except kissing those lips hadn’t happened until college, so that might not be the best explanation she could have come up with. Besides, all that felt like a lifetime ago.
He didn’t respond, instead handing her a business card, his expression unreadable. “I’ll be going, since you’re here to look after Twinkie. Here’s my number if you need to reach me. She’s supposed to have a follow-up appointment with her surgeon in a few days. I can take over after that.”
That uncomfortable flutter in her chest just wouldn’t go away, and she swallowed at the realization that she’d be seeing him way too much during this visit if she had to do as he suggested.
“Maybe you forgot I’m a doctor too,” she said, trying to somehow infuse some light humor into the words, even as the air felt like a heavy shroud hanging over her. “And a surgeon. Very used to dealing with post-op issues. After she sees her own surgeon I can take care of any problems she might have.”
“Just the same
