“Sure,” Lucy said, with little eagerness. Before she left the table she looked at him. He smiled encouragingly.
Ryan liked Alexis and Sam but couldn’t they see how hard this was on Lucy? If Alexis wasn’t so caught up in being a new mother she would notice Lucy was less than excited about being here. Lucy put on the same determined face he’d seen her wear when she was fighting for a patient as she followed Alexis and a drowsy Emily into another room.
He’d never been prouder of anyone. She was fighting an emotional battle like a champion. Heaven help him. He’d fallen in love.
It was a wonderful, scary and totally bewildering feeling. Yet somehow so right.
* * *
Lucy stood motionless in the doorway of the bedroom. Alexis would be destroyed if she ever found out her twin wanted to run.
Why couldn’t she handle this better? Her job was to help people through tough situations and she couldn’t even be rational about her own problems. Known for her calming and forthright encouragement with patients’ families, she was completely irrational where her own issues were concerned. She was such a fraud.
“Would you mind taking her dress off while I get her nightclothes together?” Alexis asked over her shoulder as she laid Emily in a crib. “I had no idea it took so much stuff to travel with someone so small.”
Lucy took a breath. Just knowing Ryan was close had gotten her this far. She stepped to the bed and began to undress Emily. The sleepy-eyed baby looked up at her with complete trust. Unable to stop herself, Lucy leaned down and gave Emily a kiss on her forehead.
She wanted what Alexis had. Not this child, but her own. A family.
Alexis’s bright sunny world was in complete contrast to the dark, lonely one Lucy lived in. Jealousy was a nasty emotion and Lucy wanted it to go away.
“I hate to wake a sleeping baby to change her clothes but I wanted her to look cute when you got here.” Alexis came up beside Lucy, who gave the job of dressing Emily over to her.
Minutes later, as Alexis finished tucking Emily into her crib, Sam entered and came to stand beside the crib. Lucy stepped back, giving him room. He kissed Emily then, putting an arm around Alexis’s shoulders, he kissed her temple. Together they looked down at their sleeping child. It was a poignant family moment.
A moment that Lucy wasn’t a part of. She and Alexis had only had each other for so long, and now Alexis had her own family. Lucy had been pushed out.
Panic, fiery and foul, bubbled in her. Disgust rose in her throat. She had to get out of here. If she didn’t she might burst. I can’t let her know. It might cut that thin thread of a relationship she still had with her sister.
With blurry eyes, she rushed out of the room. Ryan met her, his forehead wrinkled, and his look penetrated her. Why couldn’t she hide anything from him? “We have to go,” she said tightly, reaching for her coat. “I have to go.”
“You can’t just leave,” he whispered. “It’ll hurt your sister’s feelings.” He took hold of her shoulders, stopping her frantic movements.
“If I stay I’ll hurt her more,” she responded in quiet desperation.
Alexis and Sam joined them.
Lucy kept her back to them as she gathered her and Ryan’s coat from the chair. “We have to go. Ryan’s been paged. He has a patient he needs to check on.”
“Can’t you stay, Lucy?” Alexis said. The disappointment in her voice grabbed at Lucy’s heart.
“I have to go with him. We’re part of a special program. We have to see all the patients at the same time. Co-ordinated patient care.” She needed to slow down. Her words were running together.
“Surely you don’t have to make every visit,” Alexis insisted. “We haven’t really gotten to talk. I wanted us to have a real visit.”
“This is a patient in the ER.” Lucy slid her arm inside the sleeve of her coat as Ryan held it. She glanced at Alexis and came undone. The disappointment in her sister’s eyes made her heart clench. She was hurting Alexis, and she couldn’t stop herself. Her feelings were a huge monster rising up to consume her.
“Oh, well, I guess I understand.” Alexis didn’t sound as if she did. “We’ll see you tomorrow, won’t we?”
Ryan shrugged into his jacket and joined Lucy at the door. She looked at him and the worry in his eyes said he was only going along with her lies in order not to upset her sister further. The thin line of his lips said clearly he wasn’t pleased.
As Lucy opened the door she said, “I’ll have to see how it goes at work. I’ll give you a call.” She reached out and managed to give Alexis as brief and soothing a hug as she could manage.
Ryan waited until they were out of the apartment and in the dim light of the street before he asked, “Lucy, what happened?”
“I just couldn’t stay there any longer.”
She started down the street at a quick pace. Even with his long strides he had to work to keep up with her. “Come on, Lucy. Talk to me. I thought you were doing great.”
Releasing a huff of indignation loud enough to draw the attention of others passing by, she said, “No, I wasn’t. That...” she waved a hand in the direction they’d come from “...was my sister. She defended me. Took care of me. Supported and encouraged me all our lives. And me, I can’t even be happy for her.” The last few words came out almost as a sob.
Ryan grabbed her arm, stopping her in the middle of the sidewalk. “Lucy, listen.”
She jerked her arm away and continued walking. “I don’t want to talk about it any more.”
He followed a few steps behind her, letting her work off her anger and frustration. When she’d cooled down he’d hail them a cab. Three blocks later she paused at the cross streets. She looked up at the buildings as if searching for a landmark, then at the street signs, before her head went down and her shoulders slumped. She had no idea which direction to turn. His heart broke for her. She was lost, both emotionally and physically.
The innate need to protect and support this proud woman who gave to and cared for others so wholeheartedly welled up in him. She’d given her sister the supreme gift of a child but couldn’t see that because of the all-consuming dislike she felt for herself for desiring the same things out of life. Being around her had forced him to open up emotionally again. In that way, she’d even given him a gift.
He needed her. He didn’t know how it had happened but it had.
Catching up to her, he pulled her securely against him and wrapped his arms around her. She didn’t struggle. He held her a minute then raised a hand to get the attention of a passing cab driver. She said nothing as they waited for the yellow car to pull to the curb. “Come on, honey. It’s time to go home.”
* * *
Lucy used a determined voice to correct Ryan when he gave his address to the cab driver. “No, I want to go home.” She told the driver her street. He looked at Ryan for confirmation. Ryan nodded.
She allowed him to hold her close, appreciating his strength. How could he possibly stand to be around someone who resented her own sister’s happiness? She didn’t like herself and she couldn’t comprehend how he could either. Ryan was far too fine a man to have anything to do with a person who didn’t have the capacity to love unconditionally.
The drive to her apartment was too short because she didn’t want to lose the feel of being in Ryan’s arms but too long because all she wanted to do was crawl into bed, curl up in a ball and pretend she didn’t exist. As the driver pulled onto her street she said, “Ryan, keep the cab. I’ll be fine going up myself.”
“I’m