White Christmas with Her Millionaire Doc, page 5
Yet he’d been a master at hiding his issues, sweeping them under the carpet, till she’d been certain her worries had all been for nothing. ‘I’m just living my life, Fia! One drink...that’s all! Have a gin and tonic with me?’
Jax was looking at her sideways, seemingly trying to read her thoughts. ‘How did your brother die, if you don’t mind me asking?’
Suddenly she was too cold. She rubbed her palms together through her gloves, feeling his eyes searching her face. ‘It was a heroin overdose,’ she said quietly. ‘Dad was the one who found him.’
Jax shook his head and she felt another twinge of guilt for being such an ignorant sister. She’d had no clue that things had got so bad for Ant. A bar fight had been alarming enough, but doctors didn’t mess around with drugs, did they? Then again, he’d complained of being bored more than once, feeling trapped. Maybe Ant hadn’t particularly wanted the life their father had planned for them either, though he’d never said it out loud.
‘I still remember Dad walking through the door and falling apart on the kitchen floor. He’d found Ant alone in his apartment, sprawled across the bed still wearing his shirt and his shoes. Dr Marvin Lavelle, the happiest physician in the Heights, had to pull that needle from his son’s veins, hand Ant’s stash to the cops then wait around for the coroner. He and my mom are still in the thick of grief... Sometimes I don’t even know why I took this time out here when they need me so badly.’
Jax exhaled long and hard through his nose. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that, Ophelia. Your family must be devastated.’
His face blurred through her tears. She hadn’t meant to get emotional but now she couldn’t help it. She had desperately needed some time out, but her mom and dad still needed her. Her father needed her to take the position she’d been training for her entire life, so he could retire with peace of mind that his legacy would live on, with or without her brother. And here she was, running away and having second thoughts. Was she being selfish, hiding out here?
Jax was linking and unlinking his fingers as if he was looking for something to do with his hands. ‘Like I said to you before, it doesn’t matter where you go. This stuff follows you,’ he said gruffly.
She squeezed her eyes closed, swallowing her emotions. ‘I know.’
‘It changes something in your DNA, I think, when you’re dragged through hell and back,’ he said. ‘But I’m pretty sure your parents would be rooting for you to make the best life you can for yourself after what you’ve been through.’
She dabbed her eyes with a finger—her mascara must be a mess. She almost mentioned her responsibility to take the partnership at Health Dimensions, but she didn’t want Jax thinking she already had one eye on leaving. She’d only just got here. ‘Jax, I’m sorry if all my questions brought up anything you don’t want to be thinking about...’
‘You were only trying to do your job.’
‘I know, but I also know what it’s like to avoid the things and places that remind you of people you’ve lost.’
His lips were a thin line before he spoke. ‘I’m moving on from Juno,’ he said, though his tone implied to Ophelia that he was saying it more to convince himself than her. ‘In fact I’ve already moved on... I had no choice. People here need me. They need my full attention. Cody only gets the best of me. I made that promise to myself a long time ago.’
He glanced her way, putting his cup down in the snow. ‘But, yeah. I think about the accident every time I ride past that run. Like you seeing that bar and the farmers’ market. I think about it every time I look at Cody.’
‘I know, I mean, I understand.’
She held his eyes. She was opening up so much, and so was he, when they barely knew each other, but they’d experienced so much grief between them, it was impossible not to acknowledge it, not to feel comforted that someone else knew how they felt.
Still, she shouldn’t have said that—how could she really understand what that was like? That, specifically. To lose your spouse and the mother of your child? To see her resembled every day in a living, breathing human being you’d both created?
Poor, sweet Cody. He’d been so young when he’d learned his mother would never hug him after school again, never whip him up a sandwich in the kitchen or call him for a bath. He would always be different after losing her like that. ‘You’ve both been through so much,’ she heard herself saying.
‘I keep my wedding ring on for Cody, so he knows I won’t forget his mom.’
Suddenly, she couldn’t say a word past the lump in her throat. Otherwise, maybe she would’ve said something about Little Bean. She would have done anything for her baby, even when he’d been too small to see. Feeling him blossoming inside her like a flower, then watching him wilt away in a pool of blood in a shower stall at work, still regularly haunted her dreams.
Motherhood was a terrifying prospect to her now. Even hoping for it set the fear in motion: What if she fell pregnant and dared to feel excited, and safe, and then had another late miscarriage? She would never recover from the loss a second time. She’d probably never be a parent, let alone a good one as Jax was to Cody.
Jax must have seen the look on her face again. He took her cup, then her hand, and she stopped thinking. It was slow motion and lightning bolts at the same time. ‘You know, we don’t have to talk,’ he said calmly.
She watched his big fingers curl around her palm even tighter, then link with hers. ‘Isn’t all this silence why you came here, really? I can’t imagine you get a lot of it in New York.’
For one...two...three long seconds the world seemed to crumble into fragments and reassemble itself. They stood there together quietly, hand in hand, until the sun dripped below the mountain peak and disappeared.
CHAPTER SIX
‘WHERE DOES IT HURT?’
‘Obviously, my nose,’ Nils from Norway snapped at Ophelia. Jax put a firm hand on the writhing sixteen-year-old boy’s arm.
‘Answer her questions, son. She’s trying to help you.’
‘I didn’t want to come here... Wherever we are...’
‘The ski patrol follows strict procedures in these cases,’ Jax said. ‘Dr Lavelle needs to take a look at you.’
Ophelia shot him a thankful glance from under her eyelashes that Jax felt like an ocean wave washing over him. ‘So, what happened exactly?’ she asked.
‘He was knocked unconscious,’ he said, noticing her pale pink lipstick in the morning sun, which she’d worn in the medical centre every day this week. Ever the glamorous New Yorker, ever more impossible to look away from. ‘Had a bad landing after a jump. His father was first on the scene.’
He led her eyes to the stocky, short man in a heavyweight snow jacket loitering ten feet away by the Christmas tree. Carson’s questions would soon clarify, but Jax suspected the guy had enjoyed a little too many après-ski shots before hitting the slopes and taken his son along for the ride.
Bringing his mouth to Ophelia’s ear, Jax lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘The guy smells like he had a case of tequila for lunch.’
He heard her sharp intake of breath. They both seemed to freeze for a fraction of a second before she stepped away from him, as if they’d got a whisper too close. ‘Nils doesn’t smell like he’s had too many beers,’ she said with her voice still lowered. ‘I know what that smells like.’
Ophelia seemed to fumble slightly getting her antiseptics and cloths from the cupboard, and Jax watched her work, wishing her presence weren’t so all-consuming. ‘His heart rate’s been about eighty to one hundred, a little variable, but respirations are good...’
Over the past week or so since Ophelia’s arrival, he’d processed many things they’d touched on up on the lookout. He was glad he’d suggested silence to appreciate the view, but only because Ophelia had seemed to need it. If she was anything like him, talking with someone new about her brother’s death wouldn’t have been easy. He suspected that she’d opened up the way she had as a way of comforting him for his loss, confirming that she understood the agony he’d experienced first-hand. Her transparency, and the common ground, had cemented a brand-new respect for her, but with it had bloomed an even stronger attraction.
‘Where am I, again?’ Nils sounded panicked. His eyes darted around at the newly decorated medical centre with its silver-tinsel drapes and snowman-shaped lights.
‘You’re at Sunset Slopes Medical Centre, Nils. Do you remember how you got here?’
Jax placed a hand to his shoulder reassuringly as the teenager tried to wriggle free. Ophelia took off her gloves, asked him to tell her how many fingers she was holding up. She still had painted fingernails the colour of blueberries, and Nils failed the task spectacularly.
‘Tell me, Nils, what’s your home address?’
‘I can’t... I don’t know.’
Ophelia’s voice was patience personified. ‘Do you know what year it is?’
Nils spouted a series of completely inaccurate dates before deciding on the year 2005, and Ophelia started a series of quick neurological tests to try and rule out serious brain injury.
Their eyes locked throughout several of the youth’s answers and Jax lost his train of thought every time, damn her. What was he supposed to do with this woman?
He’d managed Team Christmas Lights after hours all week and the delivery crew had been late bringing the flame torches for the hot-tub area, which came new every Christmas season. All that had ruled out any free evenings after patrol. He’d had to help Cody with his homework too, and finish preparing the coursework for the students. He’d also created all those excuses to stay away from Ophelia and now he was reconfirming to himself why.
She’s going back to New York in a few weeks. Forget about this attraction to her. What is it you always tell people about focus, man?
The last five nights without talking to her, he’d gone about his duties imagining what she might be doing in her cabin, or out in Bozeman with the other staff. It wasn’t like him at all. Why was he feeling like this? Maybe it was because she was leaving. He couldn’t have her, because he didn’t do flings. He’d never insult Juno’s memory with a casual affair that might hurt Cody—the kid had been through enough. But Jax wanted something for himself, for the first time in a long time, and damn if denying it wasn’t frustrating as hell.
‘We need a transfer to Willow Crest Trauma,’ she murmured to him.
‘I’ll call Dan to send the ride.’ He headed for the desk just as his radio demanded attention from run one. The call was urgent. He took Ophelia’s arm gently as they crossed paths on his way out. ‘I’ll take care of the transfer. Are you coming tonight?’
‘Tonight?’ Her eyes lowered to his hand, still gripping her sleeve.
‘The welcome dinner for the rescue patrol, at the lodge?’ He scanned her eyes for recognition. He knew she’d seen the invite. They could talk again properly with people around. Because then he wouldn’t be tempted to kiss her.
‘Oh, I think Carson mentioned that. I’ll try and make it,’ she told him casually as she was called away by Carson. ‘No promises.’
* * *
Christmas was a while away still, but they’d gone to town with it all in the lodge already. The season to be jolly was extended in Montana, apparently. Ophelia’s eyes went straight to Jax. He cut an even more handsome figure than ever, standing by the roaring fire, surrounded by five or six of the rescue patrol, volunteers he’d be training out in the field. She noticed his almond eyes appraising her, lingering on her tight velvet dress just as she was noticing him and the way he was stealing the room.
Of course, she’d said no promises, but that was probably the worst attempt at being cool she’d ever displayed in front of a man.
He looked different tonight. She took a steaming glass of mulled wine from Hunter on her way past the holly-laced bar and watched Jax straighten up slightly as she approached him. Was she making him nervous too, after she’d been careful to keep her distance the last few days?
The strange connection between them had brought a dormant part of her soul back to life since she’d arrived, but she had to be realistic. She wasn’t here to have an affair, and even a mild crush could distract her from her responsibilities. What would happen then? Distractions could prove fatal in a place like this. Besides she wasn’t staying here long, she had responsibilities back in New York. Again, the thought of setting up her office at Health Dimensions without Ant made her queasy.
‘Ophelia, I’m glad you could make it. You look...great.’ Jax was scanning her outfit now in a way that made her feel empowered. His eyes went from her heeled black boots, up to the maroon fabric widely scooped at her neck, leaving bare shoulders. She felt the cool zing of the swooping gold earrings on her cheek as she tilted her head to meet his eyes again up close.
Boom.
She had wanted to test herself tonight, she realised now, to see if the spark with Jax was still there. A kind of mental torture, she supposed. The spark was definitely still there, she thought wryly, struggling to suppress a shiver. He was introducing her to the students now.
‘These guys have flown in from as far as Florida and Iowa...and Michelle here has come all the way from the UK...’
She contributed as articulately as she could to the conversation that flowed, overly aware of Jax, his every laugh, the glimmer of his Rolex watch from the sleeve of his pine-needle-green sweater. It looked soft and expensive, in a heavy knitted wool that conjured thoughts of safety, snuggling on a firelit couch, talking about wolves and chopping wood and...
Is this what happens if you stay away from New York too long?
Jax’s exterior was showing off his wealth in a way that, thus far, he’d seemed to keep pretty much hidden. Tonight there was no beanie hat. His dark hair was the kind that you could lose your fingers in, along with all track of time, she thought with an internal groan.
He placed a hand to the base of her spine, shooting her pulse straight up. ‘Hey, Ted, it’s good of you to come tonight. Have you met Dr Lavelle?’
She tried her best to be social. Working at altitude was already proving an energy drain, and with all this... Jax...on top, she wasn’t used to it. Jax was being the front man, she noted, mirroring his manners in front of strangers.
He was being the man everyone loved, who wouldn’t burden the world with his worries. She respected that, but the Jax she’d seen at the lookout was a different Jax. That was the one she most wanted to know.
* * *
‘What do you think of the rescue group so far?’ he asked her, when they’d inched their way together under the guise of getting pre-dinner snacks from the dining table. The three-course meal ahead was a surprise. Jax would be giving a speech after it to formally welcome the students.
‘Well...’ She looked around the group, who were chatting excitedly amongst themselves. A girl called Marni kept watching them. ‘They seem like a very smart, very considerate crew to me. I’m looking forward to joining you out there in the field sometime.’ She stopped short of plucking a cheese cube on a cocktail stick to add to her plate. ‘If you’ll have me, one day?’
‘I’ll have you one day...out in the field.’ Jax’s mouth twitched with a contagious smile. He studied her lips as a guy might study a textbook about sex for the first time, as if he wanted it, badly, and she met his smile, embarrassed suddenly. The moment lasted less than a second. She swore he could have kissed her then, in front of a room full of people who would certainly all have disappeared, but after that it felt as if everyone in the room conspired to keep them apart.
Every time she felt Jax’s eyes on her she was thankful for her choice of dress, but less thankful that she was starting to care too much about what Jax Clayborn was thinking, and what he thought of her.
They hadn’t had the chance to speak away from the medical centre, not since their tour. He’d been busy and she’d been glad—it had given her some time to soak up the silence and drown out the noise...until she realised there was a new noise. Him. Jax was like some catchy new Christmas jingle, driving her crazy. He would not leave her head.
She diverted her eyes from his again, annoyed with herself. To him she was probably just another doctor passing through, nothing more. He had hundreds of women passing through here, all the skiers, the students and locums. She was hardly any different.
At least, that was what she’d thought, until this morning, when he’d pulled her in close and whispered about Nils’s drunk dad.
She should have been thinking about Nils, she thought now, watching Jax talking to Marni. But she’d been swallowed whole in that thing he did, when it felt as if he’d reassembled her soul just by placing a hand on her elbow. Ridiculous. She had simply been starved of affection and attention so long that the slightest bit now made her giddy.
Half an hour later, Jax had cornered her under the guise of finding out about their disoriented skier, Nils. She watched him watching her, over her mulled wine. ‘A broken nose wouldn’t stop Nils,’ she commented, noticing his cologne again, realising that in spite of its pleasant woody tones she still preferred his natural scent. ‘Luckily, he has no neurological damage. But we told his father not to let him ski and Carson told him not to drink.’
Jax snorted. ‘Sounds like Carson. People do stupid things out there sometimes.’ He drummed the side of his near-empty glass with neat fingernails, and she sensed he was thinking about Juno again.
‘Accidents can happen anywhere,’ she reminded him quietly. She hoped whenever he thought about his late wife, it was mostly good memories, and not whatever happened on the last day he saw her alive. She wouldn’t wish those thoughts on anyone. She could still see Ant the last time she’d left his apartment. He’d waved her off from his fire escape while she’d carried his bag of beer bottles down to recycling.
