Jim walked them out to the parking lot.
Darby hugged her brother goodbye. “I’ll keep my phone on me at all times. If anything changes, anything at all, you’ll call?”
He nodded. “I don’t know why you’re asking me. If something changes you’ll know before I do. I saw you give the doctor and nurses specific instructions on calling you.”
“I don’t feel right about leaving,” she said for the dozenth time.
“I know.” Jim put his arm around her. “But the doctor says she’s going to be fine.”
Her brother was right, of course.
She turned to Blake, found him watching her, and battled her conflicting desire to pound him with her fists and to lean against his broad shoulders.
They’d barely said two words to each other all day. He’d been with her all the time, but in the background, on the periphery of her life. Was he foreshadowing what to expect when they returned to Knoxville?
When she’d said her goodbyes to her brother, Darby rested her throbbing head against Blake’s passenger seat.
“Hungry?”
She shook her head. Food was the last thing she wanted.
“You’ve not eaten anything since what little you nibbled at breakfast,” he pointed out. “I’m starved.”
“You can stop somewhere, but I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat, too.”
Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that Blake was right. “Fine. I’ll eat.”
He pulled into a sandwich shop. They went in and ordered sandwiches, fruit, and drinks. Darby ate more than she’d thought she would, and felt better than she had when they’d arrived at the shop. Her headache had even eased.
If only her heartache would.
Blake stared straight ahead, as if the oncoming interstate traffic was the most fascinating view in the world.
As if he wasn’t aware that Darby had given up trying to make conversation, had given up pretending to be asleep and instead had been intently watching him for the past thirty minutes. Her gaze hadn’t budged.
Although he was acutely aware of her, he made no acknowledgement of her stare. To do that would open up more conversation attempts, and at the moment talking with Darby was the last thing he wanted.
What he wanted was to punch something.
He couldn’t look at Darby and not want her.
He couldn’t want her because then he’d want to act upon that want. And to do that would confuse things even more.
Which was why he’d gotten them separate hotel rooms the night before. Darby was vulnerable because of what had happened with her mother, what had happened between them. He’d had no right to take advantage of that vulnerability a second night.
He liked Knoxville. Having moved so many times during his youth, he hadn’t really known what he was
missing, but now, having been in the same place for several years, he liked the sense of belonging he’d found. Liked the feeling enough to want to protect the life he’d made for himself.
A home, a job, a partner he depended upon. The good life he’d made for himself had evolved around Darby. They shared the same friends from medical school, shared colleagues, shared a clinic.
If he pursued her sexually, when it ended that life would fall down around him.
His best plan of action was to do as he’d done since yesterday. Act as if their making love had been no big deal, and hope that with time their relationship would smooth back out, that he and Darby could be friends again.
All he had to do was convince himself that sex with Darby had been no big deal.