Dan put a possessive arm around Brenda, who leaned into him with the loving look that Jack forever associated with his parents.
Situation normal. It didn’t take a medical degree to see everything was as it had always been. Whatever point Callie had been trying to make in her e-mails, she was wrong.
Jack moved around the room, greeting his relatives, being introduced to the fiancé, accepting congratulations for the TV documentary that had recently aired on his pioneering surgical techniques. He’d completed his circuit, said his fourth “No, I’m not back for good” and accepted a beer, when through the picture window, he saw a white Honda coupe pull up across the end of his parents’ driveway, blocking his car in.
Jack tugged at the collar of his shirt. He reminded himself he could leave town anytime he liked; it was crazy to feel as if his escape route had been cut off.
A woman got out of the car. Huh, the florist. Jack patted his back pocket. Nope, he hadn’t left his wallet in the store.
She walked up the path, her stride purposeful, her hips swinging. From this distance, he got perspective on her figure, which really was great.
“Uh, Mom…” He gestured toward the window.
“There she is,” Brenda said, pleased.
The florist hadn’t been kidding when she said she knew his mom well. So well that she walked in the front door without knocking or waiting to be admitted. Everyone in the room greeted her with familiarity, a ragged succession of heys and hellos.
“Sweetie, you did a wonderful job with these flowers.” It took Jack a second to realize that his mom was talking to the woman, not him. Her use of the family endearment “sweetie” niggled, no matter that in his younger years he’d derided it.
“I was looking at some old photos the other day,” Brenda said to Jack, “and I couldn’t believe how Callie has changed. I’m amazed you recognized her.”
Who would have guessed Jack had a degree from Harvard Medical School and postgraduate qualifications from Oxford University, when it took him five long seconds to realize what should have been glaringly obvious the moment he’d stepped into that damn shop?
The woman standing six feet away from him, lips curved in a smile but blue eyes sparking with an emotion that was far from friendly, was Callie. Callista Jane Summers. The woman he’d married.
“Actually, Brenda, he didn’t recognize me,” she said. “And I’m afraid I was naughty. I didn’t tell him.”
Jack knew from that flash in her eyes there’d been more than mischief behind her omission. What the heck was going on?
Brenda laughed, delighted. “That’s just gorgeous. Jack, did you really have no idea?”
Without taking his eyes off Callie, he said to his mom, “You never told me she’s a florist. I thought she renovates houses.”
“I buy houses and do them up in my spare time so I can sell them again.” Callie met his gaze full on. She didn’t need to tell him that, dammit; she’d been using his money to fund her little DIY venture. “But I trained as a florist, and I’ve had my own store nearly a year.”
“Now that you know who she is—” Brenda patted his arm “—you can greet her properly.”
His head snapped around. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Callie’s do the same. Surely Mom didn’t mean…
“Give her a kiss,” Brenda urged, just as she used to make him kiss his sister, Lucy, on her birthday.
He looked at Callie, saw in her eyes the acknowledgment that any refusal would cause more trouble than either of them needed. He moved toward her, just as she took a halting step in his direction.
She offered him her right cheek. He brushed it with his lips, and though the contact lasted only a fraction of a second, it was long enough to feel the contrast between the satiny smoothness of her skin and the dry hardness of his lips. Long enough to pick up the scent of jasmine and roses and something else uniquely floral. She’s a florist, so of course she smells like a garden.
She pulled away fast, leaving Jack feeling as if his lips were stranded on a street corner. Brenda murmured her approval.
Callie clasped her hands behind her back so she wouldn’t rub her cheek where Jack had kissed it. Her brain faltered and she found herself saying, “So, how long are you in town?”
She knew, of course. She was the one who’d told him he needed to be resident in the county for thirty days before they could file for a no-fault divorce. The quizzical furrow in his brow confirmed that not only did he distrust her thanks to her “joke,” he now doubted her mental capacity.
“He’s here for a month,” Brenda said happily. “Such a treat for us that he was able to convince the hospital to let him go that long.”
“Lucky us,” Callie said.
“I can’t wait to reintroduce him around town,” his mother said. “I’m thinking a walk in the park on Monday, the school board meeting on Tuesday—”
“Just leave him some time to come by the store,” Dan interrupted.
“I hope to also get up to Memphis to visit the neurological team at Northcross Hospital,” Jack said. He glanced at his watch, as if counting the hours and minutes until he could board a 747 and raise a champagne glass in a toast to his escape.
You’re not going anywhere, Callie told him silently. “If you’re looking for a medical fix, you can always check out the new geriatric ward at Parkvale Hospital,” she said. “They say it’s state-of-the-art for a facility of its size.”
Brenda had asked Callie to make the suggestion. “You do it, sweetie. I wouldn’t want him to think I’m pressuring him to move back here,” she’d said, as she polished the silverware for today’s lunch for the third time.
Jack’s shoulders were rigid, but his expression neutral, as he said, “I’m a pediatric neurosurgeon, specializing in vascular malformations of the brain. I have no interest in geriatrics.” He’d reverted to that calm tone he’d used in her shop. He definitely thought Callie wasn’t the sharpest thorn on the rose.
“You mean, other than your parents.” Callie grinned at Brenda to show she didn’t seriously consider the woman a geriatric. Then she directed a squinty-eyed glare at Jack, a warning that she wasn’t about to tolerate his lack of interest in his family.
“If you have something in your eye, I could take a look,” he said helpfully.
Any thought that he’d misunderstood vanished when Callie read the return message in his hard gaze: my relationship with my parents is none of your business.
You made it my business, Dr. Selfish. There was one good thing about the way he was living down to her expectations; she no longer felt bad about that little lie she’d told him. She composed her features, declined his offer of medical assistance and removed the kid gloves. “If you want to know what’s been happening the past eight years, I’ll be happy to fill you in.”
Surprise flickered across his face, as if he wasn’t used to people disobeying even his unspoken orders.
“Thanks, but Mom sends me regular updates. You’re still living with my folks?”
Only Callie heard the slight emphasis on the my. Only she recognized his question for what it was: a reminder that she’d benefited from their marriage, too. It had extricated her from an unpleasant custody battle and allowed her to continue living with Brenda and Dan.
“Not at the moment.” Callie grabbed a flowershaped bowl of peanuts from the sideboard. If she didn’t have something to do with her hands, she might slug Jack. “I move in and out, depending on the stage of my latest renovation project.”