CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Chase paused inside the living room, Sami still in his arms.
“I think I should carry you to your bed,” he said, sounding more practical than amorous.
Sami sighed and agreed. It was easier to agree than to explain. She’d insisted she was fine to walk up the stairs on her own, but he’d overruled her. He moved down the hall and she pointed to the lavender bedroom, where he set her down on top of the covers.
“I was hoping for a different end to our evening,” he said, “but the most important thing is for you to feel better.”
Sami felt another twinge of guilt.
He sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “Promise you’ll call me if you feel worse?”
She nodded.
He brushed a kiss across her forehead, lifted her left hand and kissed her ring finger.
And in that moment Sami knew she had to tell him how she felt. She couldn’t let him go forward. She couldn’t risk him proposing. What if she gave in and said yes, knowing she didn’t feel the way she should—the way she knew in her heart and mind she should feel about the man she would marry?
Even if it meant she never achieved her goal, she had to be herself with Chase, in all her flaws and faults. She couldn’t let Chase go on thinking she felt exactly the way about him that he said he did about her.
She took a deep breath. “There’s something I need to say.”
“Sure,” he said. “I hope you can tell me anything that’s on your mind, at any time.”
“Oh, Chase,” she said, pulling away from his arm and sitting sideways on the bed so she faced him. Then she leaned over and switched on the bedside lamp. She wanted him to be able to see her face clearly. “I understand that these several sentences may come as a bit of a surprise to you and may in fact be not at all welcome, but within the depths of my being I know—“
“Sami, just spit it out.” He said it gently, to her relief.
“You and I are not perfect for each other.” She watched his expression. She could sense he was about to object, so she held up a hand. “Let me talk first.”
He nodded.
“I live and work in New Orleans. You seem to assume the only option for us would be for me to give that up and move here.”
“My practice is here,” he said.
“That’s a statement of your priorities, Chase, not a discussion,” Sami took a deep breath. “Tonight at dinner I realized you feel much more strongly about me than I do about you. I do not want to hurt you or lead you on, but the hints about the family heirloom and the way you keep touching my ring finger, it’s not fair for me not to say something.”
“But we are perfect.” He looked annoyed and hurt. “You’re the woman I’ve been waiting for all my life. All my buddies are married. I’ve been a best man more times than I can count. Then Vonnie tells me about you and bam.” He reached for her hands. “I’m a goner. All I want is to make you happy because you make me very, very happy.”
Sami sighed. What she wouldn’t give to be able to return his feelings. But she couldn’t. And it wasn’t Chase’s fault.
If she hadn’t met Flynn before Vonnie set her up with Chase, she might be sporting Chase’s heirloom ring by the end of the week.
But she had.
And dammit, whether she wanted to admit it or not, Flynn had worked his way into her heart and made it impossible for her to fall in love with Chase.
And if it hadn’t been for Flynn and his cute girl coaching, Chase might not have gone out with her more than once.
And she’d still be Samantha Pepper, queen of the one-date-only franchise.
“Sami?”
“Sorry,” she said. She put her hands over his and turned them palms up. “I think we both had a checklist in our heads, of traits for our perfect mate. I check all the boxes on your list and you check all the boxes on mine.”
“Like I said—" Chase began.
She placed a kiss on one of his palms. “Remember that first night we went to dinner?”
“Of course.”
“And you couldn’t get away fast enough?”
“That’s not true,” he said.
“You may as well admit it,” Sami said with a soft smile. “I almost always scare my dates off. I talk too much. I get tangled up in my sentences and my insecurities and the drilled-in necessity to appear perfect, and it makes me a mess on the outside. You liked me a lot better the other times because I pretended to be cute and bubbly and perfect.”
“I like you period.” He sounded stubborn. Then he pulled his hands free. “There’s someone else, isn’t there?”
“No,” Sami said. She had to be honest with herself. No matter how she felt about Flynn, he wasn’t in her life.
“Then there’s hope for me,” Chase said. He got up from the bed, kissed her cheek and straightened. “I’ll put Mam off. Push back our next dinner with your parents. Give you time to relax into the idea of how perfect we are together.”
Before she could protest, he strode out of the room. She heard the outer door open and close.
And no Corgi barked.
She jumped off the bed. Sure enough, only Rusty and Shelby were in the living room. It wasn’t like Ruby to lag behind the pack, unless, of course, she was with Flynn inside the pool house. Sami drew a determined breath. This wasn’t about her; it was about making sure Ruby was safe. Feeling vaguely duplicitous, she waited until she heard Chase’s car start and drive off, then grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen and marched down the steps, across the yard, over the pool decking, to the pool house. She knocked on the closed door.
No bark.
No answer.
A sense of danger hit her then. Something was wrong. She called Ruby’s name and paused to listen. She ran up the stairs two at a time, found her phone and texted Flynn, and then headed for the path to the woods. They’d probably gone for a walk. One would have to be blind not to have noticed Flynn had bonded with the bark-happy Corgi.
No bark. No return text from Flynn. Sami hurried along the path, continuing to call Ruby for a short way, and then realized she should go back and get Shelby to track the Corgi. As she ran back into the apartment, she realized, despite her concerns for Ruby, how much better she felt that she’d told Chase the truth of her feelings.
When Flynn came to, something wet and sticky was running a determined route over his face, from chin to forehead. He slowly opened his eyes.
Ruby was standing on his chest and licking his face.
“Thank God,” Flynn said. He lifted his head. And immediately put it down again.
“He’s awake,” a strange voice said.
“Jesus, have mercy,” another unknown voice said.
Wherever he was, the bed was damn hard. Flynn felt around. Not a bed. Blacktop. “Am I lying in the road?”
“Don’t worry; we’ve got our blinkers on. What made you run out like a deer being chased by a coyote?”
“Looking for this lost dog,” Flynn said. He lifted his arms, which thankfully worked normally, and hugged the Corgi.
“Yeah, well, it almost cost you your life,” the first voice said. “Make a pretty good commercial for these Michelins.”
“Not to mention your brakes,” Flynn said. “Look, I’ll just sit up and get out of the road.”
“Not till the ambulance comes,” said the second voice.
“I don’t need a stinking ambulance.” Flynn wiggled the toes of both feet, raised his head again and flexed his fingers. “Your car is a good inch short of my body. So why’d I hit the ground?”
“I reckon you tripped over the dog.”
Ruby barked and licked Flynn’s face again.
“Did you see the dog?”
“Nope. Saw you. So I reckon you saved the little mutt’s life.”
Flynn rubbed Ruby’s head. “Guess that’s good karma,” he murmured, thinking of the irony of Sean’s death caused by trying not to hit a dog.
Flynn heard a car screech to a halt. A car door opened and slammed shut. A man’s voice called, “I’m a doctor.”
Flynn peered into the darkness. That voice was familiar. Damn familiar. That Guy?
He could swear that was his voice. But why was he here? He was in Sami’s apartment, in Sami’s bed, in Sami’s arms.
“How long have I been lying here?” Flynn asked, blinking against a sudden light as That Guy leaned over him, shining a beam into his eyes.
“Just a few minutes,” the first voice said. “It all happened real fast.”
A few minutes? Flynn frowned. “You didn’t stay with Sami?”
The light switched off. “Oh, it’s you,” That Guy said.
Despite the pain moving his head caused, Flynn struggled to a seated position, keeping one hand tight on Ruby’s collar. “’fraid so,” he said. “Can you answer my question?”
A siren wailed, closer and closer.
“If I do, will you get in the ambulance?”
“After I take Ruby home,” Flynn said.
That Guy kicked at a pebble on the road. “She wasn’t feeling well and needed her rest. Concussions do that, in case you didn’t know.”
“Know more about those than I want to,” Flynn said. But at least That Guy wasn’t with Sami. That thought gave him the strength to start to get up.
Chase put a hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy.”
The ambulance pulled up, lights flashing. The EMTs jumped out.
“Take me back there?” Flynn asked Chase.
“She will appreciate knowing her dog is fine. But I’m happy to take the pooch. You can go straight to the hospital.”
Flynn shook his head and winced. He reached a hand toward Chase. “Help me up.”
“Against my medical advice,” Chase said, but gave him his hand. “And for your information, she told me there’s no one else.”
“I may be crazy,” Flynn said, “but I think the field is tilted in my direction.”
Ruby barked.
“I’m not stepping aside,” Chase said. “She’s perfect for me.”
“I’ve got to be going,” the first voice said. “No harm, no foul, right?”
“Dog’s good. I’m good,” Flynn said. “Thanks for stopping.”
The EMTs were looking from Flynn to Chase. “You two through yakking?”
“I’m Dr. Carpenter,” Chase said. “Follow me in that ambulance and I’ll turn your patient over to you.”
“That’s highly irregular.”
Chase shrugged. “Nothing’s been normal this entire evening.”
Flynn managed to get the Corgi into Chase’s car. Other than a bump on the back of his head that felt about the size of a soccer ball, and a line of blood oozing from where he’d run into the fence nail, he didn’t feel so bad.
Ruby barked as Chase turned the car around.
As a matter of fact, Flynn felt pretty damn good. Sami might never forgive him for running away after they’d made love. Or she might give him a second chance. One could hope. After all, he was still alive. And he wasn’t going down without a fight.