DR. LAUREN PETERSON’S feet pounded the New York City sidewalk with the same force as her heartbeat. The point of no return was still ahead. She should turn around, dash down the steps to the subway and go back to the Brooklyn brownstone she was giving up at the end of the month. She still had time. No one would know. No one would be hurt. Disappointed, maybe, but not hurt.
She could almost feel herself doing it, reversing course and heading home, the ghost of her skirt plastered to her legs in the wind as she made her attempt to run away from what she was hurtling toward. The traffic, pedestrians all seemed to crowd around her, slowing her footsteps.
“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” Lauren said out loud. Since her decision was dumb and foolish, she had no problem having people on the street thinking the same about her.
Maybe she should care.
Why had she allowed Caleb Masters to go on interviewing her for that job, especially when she realized Jake Masters wasn’t there? She stopped abruptly and looked at the sky. Two people careened into her and she backed up against a building, accepting their angry looks as she let them pass.
“What was I thinking?” This time her voice was barely above a whisper, since she knew the answer could come from only her own mind.
People around her moved aside, giving her plenty of room. Many looked curiously at her. She was talking to herself without a phone near her mouth or earbud cords streaming down to some concealed electronic device. Thankfully, she was clean, well dressed and carrying shopping bags, but that wasn’t proof that she had all her faculties.
Resuming her steps, Lauren thought of the recent interview with Caleb, only two days ago. She’d gone to it hoping Jake would be there, as well. It was her way of reconnecting with him. They hadn’t met in years. She was going to explain who she was, but that approach changed when the only person in the room was Caleb. She should have left before she made the mistake of asking about Jake, explaining that they went to college together. Caleb’s interest piqued when she said that. Of course, she was Lauren Graves back then. Everyone called her Lori. Caleb then offered her the position. She accepted it and walked away.
And that was the stupid thing.
She objected to his argument that she was perfect for the job after she’d told him she wasn’t a therapist. She was a pediatrician, dealing with children and overanxious mothers.
“He’s seen too many doctors and refuses to see another one,” Caleb said. That’s when he told her he didn’t want Jake to find out her profession.
She should have refused, left the room as fast as her spiked heels would carry her. Lauren didn’t really want a job. Not now. She’d sold her practice. Her plans were to leave New York, move to a small town near the ocean or out west and reestablish her pediatric office. How could she let herself be talked into a job as a nonmedical aide for a man she hadn’t seen in decades and conceal who she was? She was a doctor and proud of it.
And he was a broken man at that.
The schoolgirl crush she’d had on Jake Masters was preoccupying at the time, but she was an adult now, thankful that Jake was ignorant of her prior feelings. As a junior to her freshman in college, Jake didn’t even know who she was. She was sure he wouldn’t recognize her. But she wanted to see him anyway. She couldn’t explain it other than to say she wanted to know if he was still as good-looking as he’d been in college and if that foolish crush she’d had on him was still there.
In the years since she finished school, she’d thought of him in passing, usually when she was online with a school chum, or if she went to a social event with college friends. In medical school, she wondered what he was doing. Once, she’d looked him up on the internet and found a reference that he was entered in a tennis tournament. He’d been good at athletics and she was surprised that he hadn’t pursued that as a line of work.
Until Caleb told her Jake was a trauma surgeon, she wouldn’t have thought the two of them had medicine as a common denominator. Now she was about to find out what else they had in common.
Lauren had reached that imaginary line.
HER HEART THUMPED the moment Jake came out of the office building. Caleb had said he was in. Looking down at the ground, seeing the imaginary line, she hesitated for a long moment, and then watched him moving toward her. Taking a deep breath, she rushed forward, the bags and packages in her hands swinging back and forth as she sped toward some pretend engagement. There were plenty of people on the street. Not only was it the end of the lunch hour, but also the tourists in this section of the city were thick and unpredictable.
Jake’s head was down as he dodged the human traffic coming in all directions. Intentionally, Lauren bumped into him and like an actor on a stage, she bounced back, falling to the ground, her packages scattering everywhere.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, offering his left hand to help her up.
Lauren pulled her belongings close to her as other pedestrians pushed her things back