“I’m not paying you to find problems,” he told someone. “I’m paying you to make them go away. Call me when you have.”
She was struggling to sit up when he passed the living room doorway. Seeing her, he slid his phone into the pocket of his University of Chicago hoodie. He was still unshaven.
With effort, she smiled and pushed her hair back from her face.
“Why aren’t you driving the kids?” he asked.
“I have a little bit of a headache, so I asked Galenia to do it.”
Stretching, she swung her legs onto the floor, feeling a throb and noticing that her right pant leg was almost painfully tight. Her thigh was swelling. Her head was no longer pounding, but something told her not to move her neck too quickly. She felt fragile.
“Holly, what’s wrong?”
“Wags,” she told him, resigning herself to the truth. “I startled him in the stable, and he kicked me.”
The look on his face was blink-and-miss-it, a small cloud sailing past the sun. Irritation, not concern.
“Where?”
She touched her temple.
He sat down and pulled his chair close. “Jesus, Holly. You weren’t wearing your helmet? Look at me.”
“I wore my helmet while I was riding,” she said weakly.
“Well, that’s fucking awesome,” he muttered.
They locked eyes, and she knew he was staring at her pupils, checking to see if they were dilated or one was larger than the other.
“Did you black out or lose consciousness?” he asked, working through the concussion protocol.
“No,” she answered.
“Do you remember everything that happened before and after he kicked you? Tell me.”
She did remember and thought she did an excellent job of re-creating the scene for Jack, right down to the unreality of staring at her hands on the stable floor.
“Your speech isn’t slurred,” he said, nodding in satisfaction. “Any sensitivity to light or noise?”
“A little,” she admitted.
“Did you throw up?”
She shook her head and realized she shouldn’t have.
“Your head hurts,” he said gently, touching her head with his fingertips and circling until he located the point of contact. “You’re going to have one hell of a bump.”
He stood and strode briskly out of the room. The freezer door snapped open, and she heard the rattle of ice cubes. Despite the reason, she enjoyed having his full attention. It was so rare these days.
He came back, screwing the cap onto an ice bag and handing it to her. He sat down, settled back in his chair, and studied her while she held the ice to her temple and felt the cool relief.
“You could get a CT scan, except I don’t think there’s a fracture, and bleeding seems unlikely. But we need to keep a close eye on your symptoms. Are you seeing patients today?”
“Just a few,” she said.
“Cancel them. Take it easy.”
“I will,” she told him, knowing she wouldn’t but liking that he wanted her to.
“He didn’t kick you anywhere else, did he?” asked Jack suddenly.
“My leg, but it’s fine.”
He rolled his eyes. “You should have gone into mixed martial arts. You’d have been great at taking a beating.”
He noted the swelling but was polite enough not to point out the obvious: she needed to ice that, too. Holly felt a warmth in her leg that could have been the injury but could also have been a wish that he would put his hand on her thigh and touch her tenderly.
“How was Buffalo?” she asked instead.
“A two-day trip that ended up being four? Remind me not to work with family foundations in the future. One of the brothers was having way too much fun dangling two-point-five mil over my head,” he said. “And I still don’t know if he’s on board.”
“Sounds like a pissing contest. Don’t you usually win those?”
He grinned, and something stirred inside her, more than just fleeting arousal. Longing? Regret? After twenty-one years of knowing him, nineteen of those married, sometimes it was difficult to separate the two. Sometimes when she was riding, she liked to engage in a thought experiment. If she had known then what she knew now, would she still have made the same decisions—still put Jack’s career first, still stayed married?
“Sometimes the way to win a battle isn’t with a full-frontal assault,” said Jack, laughing.
“You mean a charm offensive.”
“Charm is never offensive, but once that fails, it’s time for a strategic retreat. The fact that I acted like I don’t need their money is the very thing that will make him insist I take it. You know, if I had realized I’d have to spend so much time in places like Buffalo, Scranton, and Phoenix, I might never have set out to cure cancer.”
Which was a joke he’d made dozens of times before.
“I thought you said you wouldn’t have to go to Phoenix every month anymore.”
“No, that’s right. I’m bringing some of that business in-house,” he said.
“The kids will enjoy having you around more often,” she said, idly wondering whether it was a business relationship that had ended or the other kind.
“And I’ll enjoy that, too. But it’s not like I’m suddenly off the road. I’m considering partnering with a West Coast lab to run some of our testing, and I’m going to spend some time at their facilities.”
Remembering a previous West Coast project, Holly recalled the longer flights and hotel nights that had kept Jack away for additional weeks every year.
“So it’s a wash,” she said.
“It’s an attractive proposition, but we’re still in the courtship phase,” he told her. “I have no idea if this one’s going to work out or not.”
Chapter Four
LARK
If you want something badly enough, you have to be in control of the process.
—“How I Lied about My Name and Discovered My Truth,” a TED Talk by Jon M. Wright
Back home in LA, Lark knew she should have been over the moon to receive an offer from Hunter-Cash. And had that offer arrived before her encounter with Trip, she probably would have answered with an enthusiastic yes and signed the contract the same day—succumbing to the pressure of rent, credit card bills, student loans, and Callie. Especially Callie.
Callie had been completely on board and supportive of Lark’s fling with the handsome older man. After all, she’d practically been pushing Lark into hot guys’ laps ever since Lark broke things off with Dylan. But Callie stopped cold when Lark admitted she’d told Hunter-Cash she needed time to decide—hoping Trip would come through in the meantime and allow her to keep Activate! for herself.
“You spent money you don’t even have to fly out there, they offered you money on the spot, and you told them you’d think about it?” groaned Callie as she drove Lark home from the airport that day. “Thirty thousand bucks goes a long way when you’re living on credit.”
“But thirty thousand bucks is all I’d ever get. Hunter-Cash wants to own the game, but Trip said he’d invest in me. What if it’s my million-dollar idea?” countered Lark, ignoring a sick feeling and the scary thought: What if I’m wrong?