He couldn’t remember ever encountering a former flame in a professional context before this. How did you handle it? How did you resolve the massive disconnect between the practical small talk and the fact that you’d had this person’s naked body entwined with yours, and her moans of release hot and breathy in your ear?
Stacey Handley wasn’t just any ex-lover, either. She’d always been different.
Because they’d been so young, he told himself quickly.
A moment later, they reached the hospital lobby and she slowed. “You’re all fixed up for Monday. You have your parking authorization.” She checked off a couple of other details, indicating the printed Portland General Hospital personnel folder she’d given him back in her office. “You’re parked in the visitors’ lot today?”
“That’s right.”
“Then you’ll want to take that elevator over there.” She gestured toward it, helpful and courteous, as if the disconnect wasn’t happening for her.
Yeah, but he wasn’t fooled.
He obeyed her unstated leave-me-alone-now-please message, said thank-you and goodbye, and headed for the elevator, knowing that there was way more awareness between them than either of them would have expected or wanted, and that she felt it every bit as strongly as he did.
Chapter Two
When Stacey reentered the day-care center, Max and Ella had already left with John.
Dumb of her, really.
She should have returned directly to her office instead of detouring this way in the hope of a final hug, or the chance to see John face-to-face. If she had seen him, she would only have repeated the kind of instructions that always made his hackles rise. Yes, of course he would encourage Ella on the potty, of course he would remember that Max was completely in love with pouring things at the moment, and he’d childproofed his house months ago, so she could give the subject a rest.
“You okay, Stacey?” Nancy Logan approached her. Although the two women didn’t see each other away from the hospital, they got on well together. Stacey considered Nancy a friend, and it showed in the other woman’s concerned question.
“I’m fine,” she answered. “I just hate to think of him driving on the interstate with the kids in this weather after dark.”
Nancy patted her arm and gave a wry smile. There was a wealth of understanding in her hazel eyes. “You’re like me. You worry too much. It’s because of working in hospitals. We never see all the kids who get home safe every night, we only see the ones who don’t.”
“Stop! Don’t even say it!”
“Yes, because I’ll scare myself, too.” Nancy shivered suddenly. “It’s crazy. Is it the dark winter days? I’ve been worried about Robbie lately, too…” She frowned and glanced over at her handsome husband, who was working in the day-care center office. She didn’t explain her reaction. Looked as if she regretted letting anything slip at all.
To change the subject, Stacey said quickly, “Tell me about Dr. Logan. He’s your husband’s cousin. We—we knew each other in high school but haven’t seen each other in almost seventeen years. I didn’t like to ask him too many questions about what he’s been doing since.”
“Mmm, I wish I had more to tell you, but it was only pretty recently that I found out he existed. He’s single, he’s traveled a lot. You’d know what a successful doctor he is because you’ve seen his résumé. My in-laws never—but never!—speak about that branch of the family, and Robbie and the other kids have learned not to, also. It gets my father-in-law too upset.”
“There’s obviously some major grievance from the past.”
“Which Jillian is determined to heal. She feels like a fraud as a social worker, I think, urging families to work together, when there’s such a rift dividing her own. She persuaded Jake to come back to Portland, and I get the impression that wasn’t easy. I think we all support her in theory, but it’s going to be an emotional business. Speaking of Jillian, here she is again.”
Just as had happened an hour ago, Jillian came briskly in Stacey’s direction. This time, she didn’t have Jake Logan with her.
“We have a child with behavior problems that she’s looking into,” Nancy explained quietly. “He’s a sweetheart but very hard to manage.” She said to Jillian as the social worker reached them, “You’re here for Aidan’s assessment?”
“Almost not late, this time!”
“I’ve been telling Stacey about what you’re trying to do to bring the Logan cousins back into the family fold. She knew Jake in high school—”
“Stacey, you didn’t mention that before,” Jillian cut in, her face showing added interest. “Were you good friends?”
“Um…”
Yes, the very best, until we got to the point where we couldn’t even be in the same room without anger and hurt overflowing in a huge mess. That’s not friendship. Only lovers work that way.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to pry,” Jillian said, apparently reading too much in her face. “It’s just that there’s a Logan family potluck dinner happening tomorrow night at his new place, and we both agreed we wanted to dilute the atmosphere by inviting some other people.”
“It’s a good idea,” Nancy agreed.
“Please come!” Jillian urged her.
“Because my last name’s not Logan?” Stacey smiled.
“Exactly!”
“Do come,” Nancy said. “You don’t have the twins this weekend. And you know Jake. It would be nice for him to see a familiar face since he’s newly back in town.”
“Give me the details,” Stacey said, and she saw from the reactions of both women that they really did want her to come. They were obviously nervous about the event, and she wondered just what had happened long ago to keep the two branches of the family so estranged from one another. “And what do you need me to bring?”
They agreed on a chicken casserole, and Jillian said again that it would be nice for Jake, nice for all of them, because the event should turn into a party, it shouldn’t be some dry, sparsely attended family confrontation.
Going back to her office at last, Stacey admitted to herself that her own thoughts about the potluck dinner were far more selfish. She never knew what to do with herself when the twins had gone to John’s.
Tonight she would relax with a glass of wine, get a spicy take-out meal that the twins wouldn’t have enjoyed, take a hot bath uninterrupted, read a book with soft music playing in the background. Tomorrow she’d run errands without the need for hauling two kids in and out of car seats. She’d do the house cleaning chores she never had time for during the week, then maybe she’d drop in to see a friend.
And by late tomorrow afternoon she’d have gotten all of that need for freedom out of her system and she’d start missing Max and Ella the way astronauts missed gravity, or cave explorers missed light. Her love for them was so powerful and fundamental, it provided the anchor point for her whole universe.
She almost had vertigo when the twins went to John’s.
She’d felt an alarming and unexpected degree of vertigo seeing Jake this afternoon, also, but since they were inevitably going to run across each other around the hospital, they both might as well bite the bullet and get used to it now. She would definitely go to the potluck dinner at his place tomorrow night.
“I did as we agreed and invited a few extra people,” Jillian told Jake on Saturday evening, at just before six.
She’d arrived at his newly rented house a little early, as she’d promised