Damn Wright (The Wrights 2)

Her father raised his glass, his face light and open with happiness. “To fresh starts and future success.”

Everyone drank and peppered Dylan with questions. But Emma felt like she slipped into a time warp, going through the motions of participating in the conversation while struggling to stay present.

This was more of a shock than she wanted to admit. This news came straight from her fantasies. For so many years, she’d hoped and prayed she and Dylan would reunite somewhere somehow. But those fantasies had never taken into account all the complications, all the emotions.

Lingering fear blossomed into irrational terror. She felt trapped. If she said yes to the Somalia mission, she’d be throwing away this second chance with Dylan. If she stayed, she risked not only her heart, but her dreams. There was one lesson that had been hammered into her time after time after time, the one that reminded her there were no guarantees in life. If she gave up on her dreams now, there was no guarantee she’d get another shot. An idea that turned on her like a cobra, reminding her that theory applied to Dylan as well.

Her mind floated back to the torture of losing him the first time. To the pain that devoured her from the inside out, leaving her a cracked, hollow shell. To how long it had taken her to put the pieces back together. But if she allowed her mind to go back even further, she remembered having her best friend as her lover and her husband. Remembered the perfection of them as a couple.

While everyone chatted excitedly around the table, sweat broke out along the back of Emma’s neck. Her heart knocked against her ribs. Her fingers started to tingle. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Her brain numbed around the edges, and she couldn’t think straight.

This was too much. All too much. She needed space. She needed safety.

Without having to think about it, Emma searched through her purse for her phone. She glanced at the face, murmured an apologetic, “Sorry, it’s the hospital.”

She extricated herself from Dylan’s arm, stood, and wandered a few feet from the table with her other hand covering her opposite ear, blocking the restaurant noise as she also pretended to take a call.

And now her mind was clouded by the lie she was about to perpetrate. Despite the fact that she’d never been particularly good at lying, she thought she did a damn fine job of pretending to talk to someone else on the other end of the dead line.

She returned to the table and lifted the strap of her purse from the back of the chair. “I’m so sorry, but there’s been a multiple-car accident, and we have several victims coming into the ER.”

Dylan pushed to his feet. “I’ll take you.”

“No, no. There were a couple of cabs out front when we came in. I’ll grab one of those. Enjoy your family. Celebrate. Congratulations, Dylan. I think this is a really amazing direction for you.”

At least that much was true. After all he’d been through, Dylan deserved to soak in the love and support of family. The same way, after all Emma had been through, she deserved to live her dreams.

18

Emma dropped her purse on the kitchen counter and pulled an open bottle of chardonnay from the fridge door.

She plucked a wineglass from the dishwasher and poured. “For an ER doc,” she told herself, “you didn’t handle that crisis well at all.”

Why was it that she could juggle anything that came through the ER doors, yet freaked out when it came to any kind of commitment?

She took a deep drink of the wine and closed her eyes, trying to corral her emotions. It was just all happening at once—Liam pushing to get married, Vanderbilt requiring a commitment, Dylan flipping a one-eighty, her dream job offered at the eleventh hour.

Emma finished the glass standing at the counter, set it down with a clip, and refilled it. This one she took to the sofa, where she tried to unravel the mess in her head and her heart. This wasn’t rocket science. She should be able to figure it out.

Pound, pound, pound. The knock on her front door made Emma jump. Her heart kicked against her ribs, and adrenaline surged through her chest. She cut a look at the cuckoo clock and realized she’d been lost in her thoughts for almost an hour.

“Emma, I know you’re in there.”

Dylan’s voice made her cringe. She closed her eyes and lowered her head. “Shit.”

“Come on, baby. Let’s talk about this.”

She hadn’t made any progress in her tug-of-war.

“Emma,” he said, his tone endlessly patient and reasonable. “Please come to the door.”

Sh

e exhaled heavily and answered the door, but stood in the doorway to keep him outside.

He wore an affectionate smirk. “You never were any good at it. I know you didn’t get called in.”

“You don’t know anything.”