Jill Shalvis - Instant Gratification

“A man could hope his only offspring would want to take over his business.”

Oh, no. No, no, no…This was so much worse than she’d thought. She stared at him, stunned. “Dad.” At a loss for words, she turned in a slow circle. It was quiet. No traffic sounds, not even the hum of anything electronic, nothing but a light wind and the occasional bird cry.

So different from home. “I never intended to move here.”

“I realize that now.”

He was disappointed, and sad, and pretty much ripping out her heart because she could only imagine the pain of his realization-that he wasn’t going to go back to work, at least not fulltime, not for a while anyway. “Dad, have you thought about selling?”

He didn’t say anything to that and her gut sank. “I could make sure you get a great price for it,” she assured him. “You could fish the rest of your life, or whatever you wanted.”

“I know. Listen, Emma, it’s okay. Don’t you worry about it. I’ll figure it out.”

“Not to rush you, but how? How will you figure it out?”

“Well, I don’t know exactly.”

“It’ll just come to you? You have to make plans, Dad, and figure it all out.”

“No,” he said very gently. “That’s you. You like plans, you like to have everything all figured out.”

“Okay, fair enough. But do you expect me to continue to stay here until you come up with something?”

He turned from her, giving himself away. “Of course not.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared out at the sparkling lake. “As you’ve mentioned a time or a thousand, you have a life. I don’t wish to keep you from it. Let’s just both cut our losses now.”

Goddammit. “Dad.”

He turned and looked at her, and for the first time, he looked his age. Worse, he looked sad, which just about killed her. “It was wrong of me to bring you out here like this, and even more wrong to try to keep you. I just thought I’d try to do things differently with you this time.” He smiled, though it was a heartbreaking one. “It’ll be okay, Emma, you can stop looking at me like that. I appreciate what you’ve done. It means so much to me that you were willing to come out here and spend so much time, but reality has set in and it’s over now. I understand, I really do. It’s time to sell.” He moved to the small fire and set a grate over it for the barbeque.

She stared at him, torn. She’d been given her freedom. And yet…and yet she wasn’t running for her suitcases. “You’re really okay with that, with selling?”

“I think that’s best, yes.”

“Let me at least help you find a buyer.”

He stabbed at the flames with a poker and sparks rose, cutting into the still air. “You have the second file? The one beneath my medical records?”

She opened it, and stared down in astonishment. “You have a stack of offers on the Urgent Care.”

“The vultures began picking at me once the word got out that I was out of commission for a while. I know it’s hard for you to imagine, but there are doctors who would sell their soul to work out here. I’ll take one of those offers. It’ll free you up to go home.”

She was released from her ties here. Free. She should be jumping over the moon. Instead she set the file aside and crouched at his side. “I’m not running out of here. I’m not going anywhere until you’re settled.”

“It won’t take but a few days.”

“Dad. I want you to have a full physical.”

“Will that make you feel better about going?”

Not even close. “Is it so weird that I worry about you?”

His smile warmed and he reached out to squeeze her hand. “Same goes.”

“So will you?”

“If I say yes, will you sit and have lunch?”

She gave him a half smile. “We don’t do lunch.”

“We don’t do a lot of things. Many of them my fault. But it turns out an old dog can learn new tricks. Question is…” His eyes sparkled with a dare. “Can a new dog accept them and give more as well?”

She blew out a low breath. “People keep telling me I’m falling short in the giving more department.”

He raised a brow. “I hit a nerve.”

“Apparently so.” She looked at the fish and her stomach rumbled hungrily. “Can you really cook?”

“Of course. Can’t you?”

She had to laugh. “Not even a little.”

“Ah,” he said, looking amused. “So maybe this old dog can teach you something after all.”

Stone spent the next two days working his ass off. He took a group rock climbing at Mile High Lakes, and then that night led another group on a moonlight hike along Thigh-Breaker trail, named Thigh-Breaker for a damn good reason. The next day he taught wake boarding to a group of local kids, then looked at a property for sale in town. It was boarded up, and he managed to get a handful of splinters getting back out, which pissed him off, especially as the place was so overpriced he couldn’t even seriously consider it. Halfway back to the lodge, he got called in to volunteer at Search and Rescue to help locate a missing hiker. After a very long night of searching, they found the guy sleeping off his twelve-pack on the north shore of Jackson Lake.

Idiot.

Irritated, tired, hungry, hand hurting from the last splinter he hadn’t been able to get out, Stone once again headed for home. “I have a massive splinter and a headache,” he told TJ on the phone.

“Hey, you’re the one working yourself to the bone.”

“Well, someone has to.”

“You don’t have to do it all, Stone. No one ever asked you to. In fact, you need to do as you’re always telling everyone else, you need to relax. Go get laid. Call the pretty doctor. I promise not to show up this time.”

Stone opened his mouth, then shut it, and at his silence, TJ gleefully pounced. “So you closed the deal, nice. Why didn’t it relax you? You doing it right?”

Stone shut his phone, cutting his brother off.

He’d done it right.

They’d done it so right that it was pretty much all he could think about. He wanted to do it again.

And again. But he wanted something deeper than just sex this time.

And he didn’t care that that made him sound like a cheesy movie.

When he stepped into the lodge kitchen, he found Annie and Nick entwined together, kissing as if they hadn’t been together for twenty years already. “Isn’t that getting old yet?”

Annie separated her lips from Nick’s and smiled. “Nope.”

“Definitely not,” Nick said.

With a grin, Annie pulled on an apron that read: DOES NOT COOK WELL WITH OTHERS, and made breakfast burritos.

Starving and exhausted, Stone sat to stuff one in his mouth. Annie poured him some orange juice, then pushed back his hair to look at the healing cut on his forehead.

See, he didn’t need love. He had his family. He didn’t need more than what he had right here. Except…except he did. Catching her hand, he looked into her eyes. “I’m okay.”

“Are you really?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you’re working too hard around here. We all know there’s other things you’d rather be working hard at.”

“You too? Jesus, my entire life isn’t about Emma.”

Annie looked at Nick, then carefully stuck her tongue in her cheek and turned back to Stone. “Honey, I was talking about the renovating.”

Ah, shit. He downed the juice.

“So…” Annie sat at his side. “Do you want to talk about Emma?”

“Hell, no. As far as the renovating, I’m looking at properties to buy, but I still want to be here. Okay?”

“Okay. Good. Just go after your heart, Stone.” She smiled at Nick over her shoulder. “No matter what it is. Or who.”

“Annie.”

“It’s just everyone needs someone once in awhile, Stone. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Thanks for the newsflash.” Stone stood up to go, but Nick stopped him by gently nudging Annie. “Tell him.”

“Oh.” Annie’s hands went to her belly as she once again looked at her husband. “I haven’t said it out loud yet. I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“You have nine months to get ready,” Nick said, eyes bright, mouth curved. “I’m just thinking that Stone’s going to need that long as well.”

“Oh my God.” Stone divided a look between the two of them, Nick nearly bursting with pride, Annie seeming torn between sheer joy and sheer terror. “He knocked you up.”

“Hey.” She smacked Stone upside the back of the head. “True, but hey.” She spread her fingers over her belly, her eyes going misty. “It’s weird, right?”

“Yeah.” Feeling suddenly a little misty himself, he pulled her in for a hug. “But good weird.”

Annie’s breath caught as she pulled back to cup his face, her smile soft and warm and happy, so happy it almost hurt to look at her. “Yeah?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he whispered back. “Now you’ll have someone new to boss around. No one does that as good as you.”

“Aw, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me. Now.” She moved to the kitchen window. “Back to you.”

“I don’t want to talk about me.”

“Even if the woman you think you don’t want to talk about, the one who’s leaving soon, just drove up?

He stood up, watching as Emma parked her father’s truck out front. “What do you mean, leaving soon?”

“They found a buyer for the clinic,” Nick said.

Goddammit.

He walked outside as she got out of the truck, and though he’d just eaten and satisfied his belly, his gut still took one hard kick at just the sight of her.

Stone watched Emma stride toward him, her legs eating up the ground. He wondered if she was going to mention that she was leaving.

He’d have guessed that the thought of leaving would make her happy. Yeah, he’d really thought that, except the look on her face didn’t say happy. It said frustration.