Since You've Been Gone and The Doctor Next Door
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Marta Perry
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36
Chapter One
Emily Carmichael’s twin sons raced down the soccer field, David struggling to keep up with Trey as he always did. David’s jersey had come out of his shorts, flapping around his knees like a skirt, and his glasses slid down his nose. The soccer ball rolled toward him, dazzling white against green.
“Kick it, David. Kick it!” Trey shouted.
Emily held her breath. Just this once, if David could only succeed…
He swung his leg, missed and sprawled on the turf, his glasses flying.
Emily’s nails bit into her palms. She couldn’t run to him, no matter how much her heart ached. That would violate the macho code of third-grade boys. The ball and the players surged on toward the goal, leaving him behind. Trey ran a few steps, hesitated, then turned and came back to his brother. Emily breathed again as he helped David up.
“At least you won’t have to get him a new pair of glasses. Looks like Trey found them.”
Emily turned to smile at Lorna Moore. “That would only be the fourth time this year.”
“One of the costs of sports they don’t tell you about when you sign your kids up.”
A golden leaf from the trees that fringed the field drifted into Emily’s lap. She held it for a moment, mind absently registering the soccer mom conversation taking place around her…car pools, school schedules, dancing lessons…
“Have you heard?” a breathless voice behind her asked. “You know who’s back in town? Nick O’Neill!”
Emily’s fingers tightened, crumpling the leaf. The name broke through the smooth surface of her day like a shark in a trout pond.
She struggled to keep her face impassive, her eyes on the game. Unfortunately, what she was seeing wasn’t the group of eight-year-olds. It was Nick’s face the way she’d last seen it fourteen years ago—angry, accusing, betrayed. The familiar spasm of guilt caught her.
“I don’t know how he has the nerve to show his face in Mannington again.”
The comment floated through the autumn air, pitched just loudly enough to reach Emily. Sooner or later someone would ask her directly. They were too intimidated to question her father-in-law, so they’d ask her.
James Carmichael, benevolent dictator of Carmichael Mills, major employer in this small Pennsylvania town, was enough to intimidate anyone. He ruled his mill the way he’d once ruled his son and now tried to rule his son’s widow. Only economic necessity had forced him to consider sharing his power through the merger with Ex Corp.
Emily brushed the remnants of the leaf from her tan slacks. Since Jimmy’s death four years ago, she’d taken his seat on the mill’s board of directors, not that her formidable father-in-law allowed anyone else to do much directing. At least he kept her informed about company business…in this case, that Nick O’Neill, of all people, was coming to town as Ex Corp’s representative.
“Well, Emily, aren’t you going to tell us? Is it true that Nick O’Neill is back?” Margaret Wentworth leaned forward to rest an elegant hand on Emily’s lawn chair, the slightest hint of malice glinting in her eyes.
She should have known it would be Margaret who asked. Wentworths had lived in Mannington almost as long as Carmichaels had, and Margaret had once believed Jimmy Carmichael was hers for the taking.
Emily tried to smile. “Ex Corp is sending him to manage the merger with the mill. I don’t know any more than that.”
“You mean you haven’t seen him yet?” Margaret’s arched brows lifted. “My husband saw him walking down Elm Street just this morning.”
Please don’t let her bring up the past, Lord. Please. It’s buried, isn’t it?
“We thought perhaps he was coming to see you. You’re such old friends.” Margaret planted the barb and smiled.
“I haven’t seen him.” That almost sounded as if she cared. “He’ll probably be too busy with the merger to look up old acquaintances.”
“Not just acquaintances. You and Nick were quite the item back in high school, weren’t you?” Margaret laughed lightly. “The town bad boy and sweet little Emily, the doctor’s daughter. How could anyone forget that?”
The smile felt as stiff as cardboard on Emily’s face. She could almost hear the indrawn breaths as everyone waited for her response. “I’m sure people have better things to do than worry about people I forgot a long time ago. Do you remember all your old boyfriends, Margaret?”
Anger flashed in Margaret’s eyes. Emily bit her lip. She hadn’t meant it as a reference to Jimmy. She considered apologizing, then realized that would make matters worse.
Margaret turned away with a brittle laugh, and Emily’s hands unclenched. Apparently she’d been kidding herself. Memories were long in a town like Mannington. They certainly stretched back fourteen years.
Guilt flickered again. Her past was returning to haunt her, in the shape of the man she’d never forgotten.
What was she thinking? Of course she’d forgotten Nick. And would again. He’d be here for a few weeks, and then he’d leave and everything would return to normal.
A little shiver went down her spine. She knew why Nick was supposedly coming to Mannington. But given what had happened between him and the town—between him and Emily—she couldn’t believe that was his only reason.
The whistle blew, ending the game, and the twins rushed toward her. She shoved thoughts of Nick’s return to the back of her mind and stood to meet them.
“Good game, guys.” She ruffled Trey’s hair, put a hand on David’s shoulder.
“We almost won, Mom.” Trey, ever the optimist, gave her the grin that one day would break girls’ hearts. “Next time we’ll do it.”
“Next time we have to play the Tigers,” David pointed out. “They’re a lot better than we are.” He kicked disconsolately at a clump of grass, and Emily knew he was seeing the ball he’d missed.
“Well, we just have to get better.” Trey said it as if nothing could be easier. “When we get home, we’ll practice. You’ll see. Everything’s going to be great.”
For an instant, Emily envied him his optimism. She’d like to feel that way about the changes Nick O’Neill and this merger might bring to town.
No, that was impossible. But it should be possible, even easy, to avoid the apprehension roused by the thought of seeing him. She just had to avoid seeing him at all.
Nick leaned back in his chair, stretching, and rested his hands on the papers he’d been studying. He’d been a long time putting himself in a position of power over Carmichael Mills. Now that he’d gotten here, he fully intended to savor it.
He frowned down at the file on his desk. Preliminary, and way too sketchy. When he met with James Carmichael, he’d demand a full accounting. And for once in his life, Carmichael wouldn’t be able to call the shots. Nick would enjoy that moment. He needed to prepare, but concentrating proved difficult.
Sound drifted through the window—kids’ voices, somewhere outside. He could have been isolated from that if he’d chosen to stay in a motel, but that wasn’t the way he’d wanted to come back to Mannington, staying in a cheap motel room like a traveling salesman.
For a lot of years he’d imagined returning. He’d pictured himself walking into one of the big houses on Elm or Sycamore, the kind of place where he hadn’t been welcomed fourteen years ago.
He shook his head at the ridiculous dream. But he couldn’t deny the pleasure he’d felt at leasing the old Findley house, fully furnished, for his stay.
The window he’d opened to let in some crisp autumn air was also letting in what sounded like World War III. Only two kids, by the voices, but they made enough noise for twenty. He’d have to close the window.
The curtain billowed, and a soccer ball flew through the window, bouncing twice on the Findleys’ Oriental rug.
That generated silence outside. Nick reached for the ball, rolling it across the carpet, and listened.
“You kicked it. You go get it.” The speaker was young and male.
“I’m not going in.” Equally young and male, but scared.
“Well, somebody has to. We can’t leave a brand new soccer ball in there. Besides, it has our initials on it.”
Nick flipped the ball over. A childish hand had printed a D and a T in black marker next to the logo. He grinned, half-expecting a small figure to bounce through the window next.
“Can’t we ask Mommy to do it?”
“Mom said to leave the new neighbor alone.” It sounded as if the speaker took a deep breath. “All right, David. I’ll do it. You boost me up.”
Nick reached the window just as a small figure wobbled precariously against the sill, some four feet off the ground.
“Looking for this?” He held up the ball.
A pair of brown eyes focused on him, then widened alarmingly. The boy—no, boys, one on the other’s shoulders—swayed backward, about to fall into the Findleys’ azalea bush. Nick lunged through the open window and grabbed the kid just as he fell.
“You okay?” He leaned across the sill, setting the boy onto the grass, then glanced from one to the other. And did a double take. Twins—identical twins Both looking at him with scared brown eyes. He grinned. “It’s all right. I don’t bite. Are you okay?”
“Yes, sir.” The window climber got his composure back first. “I—we’re sorry. We didn’t think anybody was home.”
“We just wanted our ball.” The other one’s voice trembled.
“This ball, you mean, David?” He ventured a guess that David wasn’t the window climber and got a scared, awestruck look in return. “How do I know it’s yours?”
“I—I—because…” He ran out of steam.
The other one grinned. “He’s kidding, David. He knows it’s ours. We’re the only ones here.”
Nick flipped the ball around. “Okay, I guess D is for David. What’s T stand for? Timmy?”
The boy shook his head. “Trey.” He straightened, holding out a small, rather dirty hand. “James Allen Carmichael the Third. Only, everybody calls me Trey.”
James Allen…These were Emily’s kids, staring at him with Emily’s golden brown, vulnerable eyes.
For an instant he couldn’t say anything at all. Then he realized the boy was still holding his hand out. He shook hands gravely, first with Trey, then with David.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Nick O’Neill.”
The name didn’t seem to mean anything to them. The old man must have told Emily he was coming, but she obviously hadn’t mentioned it to her sons. Well, why should she? He was ancient history as far as she was concerned.
Just as she was to him. He wasn’t the kid he’d been fourteen years ago, and Emily Forrest—no, Carmichael—didn’t mean a thing to him. Not one single thing. The score he’d come back to Mannington to settle was with the old man, not her.
“Are you a friend of Professor Findley?” David had apparently decided Nick wasn’t a monster waiting to eat soccer balls and unfortunate little boys.
“Not exactly. I’m just renting his house while he’s away. Do you two live around here?”
“Over there.” Trey pointed across the back lawn. “Our backyard bumps into this one. Professor Findley didn’t care if we ran in his yard sometimes.”
David nudged his twin. “Only when he wasn’t home. That’s what he said. Only when he wasn’t home.”
“Well, he isn’t home, is he?” Trey planted his hands on his hips and glared at his twin.
“N-no.” David frowned. “But Mommy said not to bother the new neighbor.”
“We’re not bothering him, exactly.” Trey smiled at Nick. “Are we bothering you?”
“The soccer ball…” David apparently served as conscience for both of them.
“That’s okay.” Nick tossed the ball out the window to them. “Tell you what. How about if I come out and kick the ball around with you? I could use a break.”
Trey’s eyes lit up. “Would you?”
“We’re not exactly good,” David added.
Actually, Nick should be planning his meeting with Carmichael. But the lure of seeing Emily’s boys a bit more was irresistible. He shoved the sweet, heart-shaped face out of his mind. She’d be a woman now, not the girl he remembered—the girl who’d let him down and broken his too-susceptible seventeen-year-old heart.
Nick swung his legs over the sill and ducked under the sash.
“Are you coming out the window?” Trey blinked at him.
“Why not?” He dropped lightly to the ground in the Findleys’ flower bed.
David eyed him. “Mostly grown-ups don’t climb out windows.”
“Why do you suppose that is?”
Trey shrugged. “’Cause people would talk about them, I guess.”
People will talk. Yes, he definitely was back in Mannington again. Emily had used that phrase to put up barriers between them more than once. It had been years since he’d felt the urge to do something just so people would talk, but he felt that way now. The town had that effect on him.
“Will people talk about me playing soccer with you?”
Trey looked doubtful. “Maybe.”
“Good. Let’s do it.” He grabbed the ball. “Bet I can dribble clear to that lilac bush before you can steal the ball.”
He started across the grass, weaving through fallen leaves no one had raked, the boys racing after him. He didn’t make it halfway before Trey, face intent, eyes narrowed, ducked in front of him and swiped the ball away. Looked like it had been too many years since he’d had time for a game of soccer.
He chased Trey and the ball, managed to steal it, lost it again when David charged into him. For several minutes they dodged each other across the grass. Crisp autumn air chilled his throat, stiff muscles came alive and a nearly forgotten exhilaration surged through him.
Kids probably felt like this all the time. They hadn’t gotten so busy that play turned into exercise, one more chore to fit into an impossible day.
Trey wasn’t skilled, but he was fast, stealing the ball and grinning. David tried valiantly, but he couldn’t seem to coordinate running and kicking. Maybe it was the glasses that kept sliding down his nose. Nick resisted the urge to push them back up for him.
“I got it, I got it!”
Trey ducked around him, shouting. David went for the ball and barreled into Nick’s legs. He tried to untangle himself, lost his balance and saw the ground coming at him. The three of them ended in a breathless heap, dry leaves rustling.
“I didn’t know tackling was part of soccer.”
He looked up at the sound of her voice. She stood between him and the sun, and light streaked her soft brown hair with gold.
His breath caught in his throat, as if he’d been hit by a three-hundred-pound tackle instead of a small boy. The depth of his astonishment stunned him. In all his plans for what would happen when he came back to Mannington, he’d left something important out of the reckoning. He hadn’t thought he’d feel anything when he saw Emily again.
Emily’s heart seemed to be beating somewhere up in her throat. It was a wonder she’d gotten the words out at all, let alone that they’d had just the right casual, unshaken tone.
She had a crazy desire to laugh. No, she could hardly convince herself she wasn’t shaken by seeing Nick O’Neill again.
Remnants—that’s all the feelings were that flooded her. Bits and pieces of memories she thought she’d forgotten had surfaced, but she could control them. She could be just as cool and detached as she’d promised herself she’d be if she ran into Nick.
Nick disentangled himself from the twins and rolled to his feet. Tall, muscular, a stranger. Not much there of the boy she’d once known. They were meeting again as old acquaintances, that was all.
He looked down at her, those incredibly dark blue eyes unsmiling. “It’s been a long time.” He held out his hand, and for the life of her, she couldn’t move. His mouth twitched. “Or were you thinking it hasn’t been long enough?”
“No, no, of course not. It’s nice to see you again, Nick.” She put her hand in his, felt his fingers curve warmly around hers. Her palm tingled for an instant.
Nick’s dark, winged brows lifted. Black Irish, that was what people had said he was, hair like black silk contrasting with the deep, deep blue of his eyes.
“Is it nice to see me? Somehow I have the feeling that Mannington doesn’t exactly welcome the returning prodigal.”
“You’re not exactly that, are you?” She drew her hand away, pulling her polite, social manner around her like a cloak. “I don’t think you can blame people for being a little apprehensive. No one understands exactly what this merger might mean to the town.” Surely he remembered how rumors flew in a one-industry town. Would the merger bring prosperity or layoffs? No one was sure, and everyone cared.
“Only natural for people to be a little distant?” Something faintly mocking showed in the curve of his mouth. “No lingering prejudice against me, for old times’ sake?”
The words she’d overheard at the soccer game flashed through her mind. People still thought of Nick as the rebellious, angry boy who’d left town under a cloud. They wouldn’t be easily convinced by the cool, composed armor he wore now.
“I’m sure no one even—” She stopped, unable to produce a polite social lie with his skeptical gaze on her and very aware of the twins watching, eyes wide.
His smile turned a shade warmer. “Some things never change. Sweet Emily still can’t say a bad word about anyone, can she?”
She felt her cheeks warm, although why it should be an insult to be called sweet she didn’t know. “You’ll find lots of things have changed,” she said, evading the personal comment.
“Not you.” His eyes swept her. “You still look about fifteen.”
She glanced down, realizing she wore her oldest jeans and a tattered sweatshirt. Why, oh why, did he have to catch her this way? She’d intended their meeting, if there had to be one, to take place at the mill, in a pleasant, professional arena where it would be easy to remind herself that she was a grown woman.
She forced a smile. “I see you’ve met my boys.” And what was he doing in her yard, anyway, playing with her sons? She stifled a ridiculous impulse to send the boys inside, as if they needed protecting.
“Yes, we’ve met.” Nick grinned at what seemed to be a warning look from Trey. The twins had been up to something, obviously. “I’m renting the Findley house while I’m here. The boys were showing me how much I’ve forgotten about soccer.”
“I thought football was your game.” The words brought a sudden vivid image of Nick, grinning and triumphant after a touchdown, searching the stands for her. She remembered meeting his gaze, almost speechless with joy that, of all the girls who’d yearned for him, he’d chosen her.
“You played football?” Trey’s face lit up. That was his dream, one she kept trying to redirect into something that seemed safer. “What position?”
“Wide receiver.” Nick shook his head. “I was a lot faster in those days.”
“Wow. Could you…”
“Trey.” She would stop that before it started. “Mr. O’Neill is here on business. He doesn’t have time for games.”
Nick’s eyebrows lifted. “How do you know what I have time for?” His eyes teased her in a way that was so familiar, it captured her breath.
He’d looked at her like that before, said something very like that the first time they’d talked, when she’d come shyly up to him after football practice, assigned to get an interview for the school paper, sure he’d brush her off, or worse, think she was like the other girls who made excuses to talk to him.
“I…well, I don’t, but I assumed Ex Corp didn’t send you here to play soccer.” Remember why he’s here. Don’t let the past interfere.
“They like their executives to stay fit. Don’t you think I can use the exercise?” His eyes, half laughing, half challenging, dared her to assess him.
“I’m sure you can get a temporary membership at the gym,” she said primly, trying not to notice the way his white sweater clung to his broad shoulders.
“But this is much more fun, Emily.” His gaze warmed and his voice lowered on her name as if they were the only ones present.
Her blood seemed to be singing through her veins, and there must be something wrong with her vision, because she couldn’t separate the man he was now from the boy she’d once loved.
The man’s emotions seemed kept under tight rein, as if they couldn’t be trusted in polite society, but she still saw signs of the boy—reckless, heedless, appealing. She didn’t think he’d changed all that much, except that appealing wasn’t the word any longer. Dangerously attractive said it better.
She took a steadying breath, then looked at her sons. All right. Nick might have awakened memories of the girl who’d once loved him, but she intended never to be that vulnerable again. And if that meant turning herself inside out to avoid him while he was here, that’s what she’d do.
“Time to get washed up for supper, boys. Thank Mr. O’Neill for playing with you.”
Trey grimaced, then held out his hand in the formal manner his grandfather insisted upon. “Thank you, sir.”
“It was fun,” David added. Then her shy son startled her by grinning at Nick as if they were old friends. “Come play with us again.”
Nick shot her a look that said he knew exactly how little that pleased her. “I’ll try.” He smiled. “If your mother says it’s okay.”
“Mommy…”
Emily shooed them toward the kitchen. “We’ll see. Go on now.”
When they’d gone inside, she turned back to Nick, to be met with a skeptical look.
“We’ll see? Was that what your father said fourteen years ago when he found out you were dating me?”
The memory of the confrontation with her father still hurt, but she had no intention of letting Nick know that.
“It was so long ago, I’m afraid I don’t remember.” She held out her hand with a formality that would have met with her father-in-law’s approval. “It was nice seeing you, Nick. Maybe we’ll meet again while you’re in town.”
The warmth of his grip made her doubt the wisdom of the gesture. He smiled, his fingers curling around hers. “Oh, I’m sure we will.”
She tugged her hand free. “You’ll be busy with the negotiations.”
“Aren’t you a member of the board of directors?” His tone suggested he wasn’t too impressed.
“That doesn’t mean much where my father-in-law is concerned. I’m sure he’s the one you’ll be dealing with.”
“Really?” His dark brows lifted. “That’s not the impression he gave me.”
She could only stare at him. “What do you mean?”
“I talked to Carmichael on the phone earlier.” Nick paused. “He said he planned to deputize you to give me the grand tour of the mill and see that I have what I need. According to him, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together.” He smiled, a hint of mockery in his eyes. “It’ll be just like old times, Emily.”
