The Wish List (19 page)

Somehow she had to move on.

The answer came bright and early next morning.

“Mom?” Cory wandered from his room, bleary-eyed and barefoot, dragging his teddy bear behind him.

Faith looked up from the place at the kitchen table where she had finally landed early in the morning. She hadn’t slept, and it felt like a heavy stone had lodged in her chest. Somehow she dredged up a pitifully small smile. “What, love? Are you ready for breakfast?”

Cory, ignoring her question, kept walking until he was standing close by her side.

Faith pushed his sleep-tangled hair away from his forehead, and looked down into his worried eyes.

“Mom, could we maybe, you know, invite Nathan to my birthday party? He said he wouldn’t forget it.”

Taking a deep breath, Faith shook her head. “I’m sorry, Cory, but that wasn’t what Nathan meant when he said he wouldn’t forget. He can’t be here that day. Besides, I thought you were only inviting kids.”

Cory nodded, his eyes silently pleading, his toes wiggling against the linoleum. “I know, but Nathan—”

“No, Cory, no,” Faith repeated gently, tipping his chin up so that he would pay attention. “Nathan won’t be here.”

The mention of Cory’s birthday party struck a faint, but welcome chord within Faith. She wasn’t ready to begin dating yet, couldn’t even think of it. But maybe she could ease into things somehow. It had been so long since she’d been socially involved at all. Maybe if she started slowly, in a nonthreatening situation where she wasn’t forced into face-to-face contact with one man...maybe it would be a start. A tiny start, but all that she could handle right now.

Faith looked down into Cory’s waiting eyes again. “What if I invited all your friends’ families and really make it into a big, special party?” she asked. “Would you like that? It might be fun, don’t you think?”

Cory shrugged and sucked in his lip.

Well, what had she expected? He was hurting. Really hurting. Nothing was going to change that overnight.

“Cory?” she whispered, pulling him closer to her.

“That would be okay, Mom,” he said dully as he pulled away. “And maybe if we told Nathan there wouldn’t just be kids—”

Framing her son’s face with her hands, Faith gazed into his eyes. “We have to forget Nathan, Cory. We have to.”

The furious look Cory gave her lanced through her like a sharp sword, making her gasp. “I don’t want to forget Nathan,” he said, wrenching himself away and running back to the safety of his room. “I don’t want to forget Nathan
ever
.”

Faith wanted to go comfort him, but she didn’t. He needed to be alone right now, and besides, what could she say? She knew how he was feeling, because she didn’t want to forget Nathan, either. Still, she had to. She was at least wise enough to know that, and to know how difficult it was going to be.

Her only hope was that the pain would ease a bit by the time Cory’s birthday had arrived. She prayed that her son would find some small amount of happiness in a day that ought to bring only joy.

In the meantime, she had to keep going, somehow. She had a party to plan, a life to plan. One that didn’t include Nathan Murphy.

Chapter Nine

A week and more had passed, but Nathan had not made the kind of progress he’d anticipated, at least where forgetting Faith was concerned. He was back working at the hospital and had seen Faith several times from a distance. Each time he looked her way his system short-circuited.

Now here she was again. He could see her at the far end of the hospital corridor he and Dan Anderson had just entered. Faith was talking to Bill Neely, a tall, blond orthopedic surgeon. It was business, of course, Nathan told himself. Neely was a wild one, not the kind of man Faith would want. She was probably consulting with the man about one of his patients.

But that damn list kept floating before Nathan’s eyes.
Big. Yellow hair. A doctor
.

Maybe she
was
consulting about a patient—or maybe not. By now she would be searching for Mr. Right, and he couldn’t blame her. She wanted a man to share her life and be a father to Cory, and that was the way it should be.

“Nathan? You there, Nathan?”

Dan Anderson’s voice slowly sank in, and Nathan turned to him, frowning. “Did I miss something?”

“Yeah, only everything I’ve said...for about the tenth time in two days. Look, Nathan, why don’t you go talk to her? It’s obvious you want to and that you’re worried about her.”

“About Faith? Get real, Anderson. Faith’s a good, strong woman. I have it on the best of authorities. You told me that yourself when you sent her to me.”

“Sicced her on you, you mean. And yes, she is strong. And capable...and a thousand other wonderful things. But if you’re not worried about her, then how come your hands clench like vise grips every time another man walks near her?”

Nathan felt his jaw tighten, knowing he’d been too transparent. “They don’t.”

“Right, you just normally go around brandishing iron fists. And don’t try to blame that on a problem with your hands. I know better. I also know that we’re going to have a problem if you don’t get your mind off your beautiful therapist and back on Mrs. Wyndham’s surgery.”

“Ex-therapist,” Nathan mumbled. “She’s my ex-therapist. And I’m not worried about her. I’m just...grateful. I’m just thinking about how grateful I am to her.”

Dan looked at Nathan as if he’d gone insane, which was pretty damn near to the truth. In spite of the fact that he was back on the professional track again, Nathan felt as if he
had
lost it at times these days...every time he saw some man sidle up next to Faith and every time he even thought of her, which was sure as hell too often.

This had to stop.
He
had to stop. After all, she had a right to a life that didn’t include him. Because he had nothing to offer her. He was a man whose emotions were still in pieces, who was chained to his past.

Nathan stared hard at Faith, knowing his thoughts were pointless. She had been his therapist, and that was all she ever would be. He wouldn’t be doing her any favors by trying to hold on to her, and if he dimmed the light in those lovely eyes even slightly—no, he wouldn’t do that. At least he wouldn’t if he could just stay away.

Sucking in a breath, he turned to Dan, and held out his hand for Mrs. Wyndham’s charts. “All right, Dan, tell me again about the patient. I’m listening this time. You’ve got my complete attention.”

Dan stared at him, shaking his head in disbelief. “Even if I tell you that Dr. Lowden is stopping to talk to her and Neely?”

Nathan’s gut tightened, but he forced himself to hold his hands still, managing not to clench them into fists. Joe Lowden was the newest doctor on staff, a talented, caring and all-around nice guy. He was also ridiculously handsome...and he loved children. He was the perfect man for someone like Faith.

“Give me the file, Dan,” Nathan said, too quietly, ignoring his friend’s incredulous look. “And stop staring at me like that. I’m only interested in three things right now. Work, work and work.”

But it wasn’t work he was thinking about two days later when he saw Faith coming toward him down a hospital corridor flanked by Joe Lowden again. Hell, it wasn’t work he’d thought about for days, for almost two weeks. He should be diving in headfirst, rediscovering that supreme commitment that had won him the respect of his peers...and wounded his family. But all he’d been able to think about was Faith. Faith and Cory.

Now, seeing her with Lowden, watching the way the man leaned close to her, Nathan started to seethe. Trying to control his thoughts, he forced himself to remember that Lowden would be good for Faith, that he himself should have every reason for wanting her to find such a kind, caring man.

Instead, he stopped dead in his tracks. She did, too.

Looking him full in the face for the first time in two weeks, Faith turned all her attention from Dr. Lowden to Nathan. She was a good twenty feet away, but he saw her open her mouth as if to speak, then close it again.

It didn’t matter. Nathan’s gaze was riveted to her face. He saw her eyes widen, and felt the moment the connection was made between them.

Faith stared at him, the mask that had kept him from seeing what he’d been afraid of dropping completely. Her lips trembled. Her eyes, those beautiful, haunting blue-green pools that had darkened with anger when he’d fought her, softened now, turned liquid with longing, with...

Nathan took a step back and away. Closing his eyes, he felt the shudder go through him as he forced himself to breathe, to come to grips with what he was seeing. Her heart, her soul, laid out for his inspection. His to have—or to harm. Nathan sucked in air at the enormity of what Faith had revealed, knowingly or otherwise. And deep inside, he felt something else. Relief.

But when he opened his eyes, Faith’s face was shuttered, closed to him. Her shoulders were rigid. She stood taller. The softness in her had flown, and her eyes—it was as if he’d turned to glass and she could look through and beyond him.

Slowly, she turned to Dr. Lowden, giving him all her attention as they continued down the hall toward Nathan.

Only five steps away, Joe nodded, an acknowledgment of a fellow colleague, but Faith’s gaze was fixed squarely on her companion.

“Faith.” Nathan called her name softly as she neared him.

She looked up and nodded her head in greeting. “Dr. Murphy, I’m—pleased to see you back on staff,” she said, not pausing long enough to stop.

It was the politest of responses, professional in every sense...and it made Nathan’s blood start to heat with frustration, especially when Faith walked away with Lowden.

Turning, Nathan forced himself to watch them move down the hall into the distance. He saw the way Lowden flattened his hand on the small of her back to turn her toward an open doorway. It was a touch a husband—or a potential lover—might use. Nathan saw Faith stiffen, though she didn’t move away.

Nathan gripped his fists tight, not caring who saw the action this time.

Faith wasn’t in love with Joe Lowden—at least not yet. No, she cared for
him
, Nathan. He’d seen it in her eyes, on her lips. But...it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to let it go any further.

As the sounds of the hospital flowed around him, as people came and went, slipping past him in the hallway, Nathan stood there and faced reality. He realized what he’d been hiding from all this time, since the day she’d first pushed him to the edge. Faith Reynolds held his heart, every shredded bit of it.

Faith was the woman he loved...and he couldn’t have her. He’d lost her, bullied her, turned from her, told her he didn’t want a family. And no matter what she felt, she wasn’t going to come to him, not when he was still haunted by his private ghosts. She wouldn’t ask a man like him for tomorrow when she knew that he was still buried in yesterday.

Instead, she was going to take that damn list and go looking for the perfect husband and father—a man who was heart-whole and steady. It could be Joe Lowden or someone else who wanted her and Cory so badly he’d do whatever he had to just to hold them and keep them.

That was the kind of man Faith should have, someone who would battle any obstacles to be with her and make her happy, a man who would stand up to anything for her. A man who loved her more than he feared facing his own demons.

In that moment, Nathan knew without question that he wanted to be that kind of a man. He just wasn’t sure if it was possible. The past had a strong hold on him, and he’d have to fight for all he was worth if he ever intended to be free of his yesterdays, if he ever hoped to have anything to offer Faith.

~ ~ ~

Standing at the table, Faith surveyed the pile of decorations she’d been sorting through—streamers, banners, balloons in eye-popping shades of marigold and electric blue. This should have been a time of excitement, she should have been gearing up for tomorrow’s party. So why was it so hard to smile?

A small shadow flitted through the room behind her.

“Hey, tiger,” she called, to Cory. “Want to help me pick out the things that we need to really jazz up this place?”

He sidled up to her slowly, the same way he’d been behaving for the past couple of weeks. Obedient, but without enthusiasm, he’d trudged along, pretending at play.

And he hadn’t mentioned the wish list. Not once in all that time.

“So, what do you think?” she asked, smiling a bit too brightly. “Is this pizzazz in a box or what?” She held up a sparkly Happy Birthday banner for Cory to see.

Cory managed the smallest of smiles, touched the dangling banner with one finger. “It’s nice, Mom.”

Faith stifled the frown she felt forming. She wasn’t going to ask him what was wrong. There was no need. Cory had the same problem that she did. He missed Nathan. But there was nothing to be done about that. The situation was unfixable and hopeless, and she’d only made things worse today.

How could she possibly have done something so stupid as to let down her guard and allow Nathan to look into her heart? It only made things so much worse, so much harder to bear. Especially knowing that he’d seen what she was feeling and had chosen to step away from her, closing his eyes to shut out her love. Faith had to bite her lip even now to keep back the gasp of pain. She’d risked what she’d promised she would never risk again, risked it all—and come up empty. The past was repeating itself. Only this time the pain was ten times sharper, a hundred times deeper. This time the man was Nathan.