A horn honked and he realized the light had changed, but he hadn’t moved. He let off the brake, hit the accelerator. Just a few more minutes and he’d be home.
Fatigue swept over him. He’d go to the house he’d bought the year after arriving in Madison to signify the permanence of his life there, take a hot shower, and go to bed. Tomorrow, when he’d rested, he’d sort through his reaction to Connie’s death, sort through his guilt.
Yet another woman he’d cared about that he’d let down.
Only when he pulled into a driveway, it wasn’t the long, winding one to the refurbished house where he lived.
The drive belonged to Will Majors’s beach house.
Will, who planned to stay the night at Leslie’s place to take care of anything she might need. Will, who’d waited for him while he’d told Rose the news about her mother. Will, who’d stood by him through all the stuff with Laura, encouraged him to come to Madison and buy into the practice. Will, who was his good friend and partner.
Will, who wasn’t at home.
But his little sister was.
So what the hell was he doing here?
And why couldn’t he bring himself to shift his car into reverse because all the reasons he hadn’t been willing to much more than leave his car last week still applied and then some?
Chelsea cradled the cordless phone between her shoulder and right ear while she pulled a deli pizza from the oven. She inhaled deeply and sighed with pleasure. Not the healthiest choice but, as far as taste went, she considered pizza to be manna from heaven.
“Hey, Will, how’s Leslie?” she asked, sliding the pan onto a heat pad.
Will called to check on her every night he worked in the emergency room and, although he wasn’t working tonight and was likely at Leslie’s house, he apparently still thought he should do so. Sometimes she wondered how he thought she’d managed while in college when they’d occasionally gone weeks without talking.
“She’s doing great and goes for her first OB appointment in the morning.”
“You’re still planning to go with her?”
“Yes.” She could hear the hesitation in his voice and became uneasy. Surely, he wasn’t having second thoughts about his role in Leslie’s and the baby’s lives? Although he hadn’t told her many details yet, he had admitted to having feelings for Leslie.
“Will, you’re sure Leslie’s OK?” Her friend had looked OK, better than OK really, when she’d visited her earlier in the day.
“Chels, Connie Black died today.”
All thoughts of her brother and Leslie came to a screeching halt. Connie Black. The sweet little lady with the striking eyes she’d met at the office. The lady who’d asked her point-blank if she loved Jared. The lady who’d told her she should go after what she wanted because life was too short to sit around, waiting for love to happen.
Even now the feisty woman’s words rang hauntingly in her ears.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She’d wondered why Jared had hightailed it out of the office so quickly. Kayla had said he’d gotten a call just as he’d finished his last appointment, and he’d taken off. The call must have been about Connie. “She was to start her chemotherapy today.”
“She had a reaction to her chemotherapy, threw a clot, and died instantly.”
Chelsea cringed at the thoughts that must have been in Jared’s head when he’d gotten the call, at the overwhelming frustration and loss he must feel at Connie’s death.
“I met her once, in the office,” she mused. “She seemed like a wonderful lady.”
“She was.”
Chelsea went to close the oven door.
“Look, Chels…” Stress deepened Will’s voice. “Jared’s taking her death pretty hard. I’m worried about him.”
“Ouch.” Chelsea jerked her hand away from the hot metal, dropping the phone in the process. Sucking on the burned finger, she picked up the phone before her brother had the rescue department on the way.
“Chels? What happened?”
“No biggie.” She situated the phone back between her shoulder and ear. “I made pizza and burned my finger on the oven door.”