Instant Gratification Read online

  “I didn’t really come back for the dish.”

  Emma looked up. “No?”

  “No. Well, yes. But mostly, I wanted to tell you something before you leave.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your momma came back here once. Did you know that?”

  Emma looked up from the sink. “What?”

  “About ten years ago now. The rumors were she came back to reunite with your daddy, but that’s not what she wanted. She wanted one hundred thousand dollars. It wiped him out, but he took out a second mortgage on this place and gave it to her.”

  Emma set the bowl down and stared at her.

  Missy nodded and her blue hair bounced. “It’s why he doesn’t have any large retirement funds. He never built them back up. We all figured your mom wanted a trip around the world or something like that, but she had a fancy husband to pay for such a thing, so that didn’t make sense.”

  Ten years ago, Emma had been turned down for financial aid for medical school because her stepfather had been making a fortune. But he hadn’t offered to help her. Emma had looked into student loans. Four years of pre-med at twenty-five grand each would have put her at her BS degree with a hundred grand in debt and four more years of medical school still to get through.

  At the time, Emma had panicked. She’d thought maybe she should do something other than become a doctor. Taco Bell was always hiring, and she did love their food. Or Target. She could get good clothing discounts, plus she looked good in red and khaki.

  Her mother hadn’t been amused. She’d bossed, yelled, cajoled, and demanded Emma not give up, so Emma had tried for grants, but she’d been denied.

  Then her mother had shown up with a check, written from Sandy’s own personal account. She said it was a gift, one Emma wasn’t to question or ponder or give another thought to.

  Emma had never been so grateful or felt more love in her life.

  Her mother had never brought it up again, though Emma had. Plenty of times, including the day she’d gotten her first job in the ER, when she’d begun paying her mother back from each paycheck.

  Her mother had always taken the checks with a sweet, grateful smile, and never once, not one single time in all these past ten years, had Sandy let on that the money hadn’t been hers to begin with.

  Sick, Emma turned her back on Missy and closed her eyes. Her father had paid for her education.

  “Dr. Sinclair? You okay?”

  Emma drew a deep breath. He’d never once asked for a thank you, or thrown it in her face, or even so much as mentioned it.

  In return, what had she done?

  She’d griped about being here, thrown it in his face at every turn, and had mentioned, oh a million or so times, how much she wanted to get back to her own life.

  She’d thought Serena was the bitch. Ha! Serena had nothing on her.

  “Dr. Sinclair?”

  Emma closed her eyes. Dr. Sinclair. All those weeks she’d been wanting a sign of respect, some sort of verification that the people in Wishful knew how important she was, and she’d just gotten it.

  Yet it was she who owed the respect. “I’m okay, yes.”

  “I debated about telling you the truth.”

  “Why did you?”

  “For him. So that before you leave you know what kind of a man he is.”

  “You know I’m leaving?”

  “When will you learn? I know everything.”

  Emma could do nothing but laugh. After she gave Missy the dish, they walked out to the reception area together, where Missy pulled out her checkbook and asked for a pen. “For my last two visits. I know how you like your money.”

  Emma gently pushed the woman’s checkbook away and offered a smile she hadn’t known she had. “I’d rather have another Thai dish if you don’t mind.”

  Later Emma walked upstairs, took a good long look at her mom’s picture on the mantel and sighed. “You should have told me.”

  What does it matter where the money came from?

  “It matters to me.” She knew it mattered to her father as well—oh not that he’d given the money to her, but that she’d followed in his footsteps. That she’d become a doctor like him. “You should have told me,” she said again to Sandy’s face, and then lifted her gaze to the mirror and looked at her own reflection. She had one foot out the door now, the freedom in sight.

  For the first time, she hesitated. She’d come for her father. This is what she’d been telling herself for two and a half months now. She was in Wishful for him.

  Except she’d just realized that it wasn’t one hundred percent true.

  She’d also come here for herself. For her lonely restlessness. For the part of her that said she was missing something.

  Someone.

  She thought maybe she’d found it, found him.

  Chapter 23

  Emma and her dad met at the clinic that afternoon. They went over the offers on the place, and picked the one they planned on accepting. It’d been made by a South Shore investor who owned fifteen other properties in the area. He was well-known and respected, the numbers were fantastic, and it was an easy decision to sign on the dotted line.

  Relatively speaking.

  Spence was giving her father a check up before Spence left for the airport so that Emma would feel better about following in a few days.

  Or as okay as she could manage.

  In the meantime, she was updating the records while keeping one eye on the examination door, and thinking of a certain expedition guide with a certain amazing mouth and who knew how to use it—a guy who was taking her out tonight.

  On a training session to relax.

  The front door opened and the cowbells jangled together. They no longer drove her crazy, Emma realized as Serena walked in with a black and white bag. “My specialty good-bye chocolates. For the doctor.”

  “Wow, thanks.” Emma reached for them, but Serena held the bag up with a laugh that brought Emma back to first grade so fast her head spun.

  “The other doctor,” Serena said with a sweet smile. “The one I want to have sex with. Not that you’re not sexy. If I swung that way, I’d totally do you.”

  “Um, thanks. I think. Spencer’s busy right now.”

  “No problem, I’ll just wait.” Serena looked uncharacteristically unsure of herself. “So…”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah. No.” Serena leaned in. “Spencer wouldn’t sleep with me this afternoon. I mean we were having a great time. We went out to lunch and talked and laughed for hours. We played with the kittens, which certainly closed the deal for him, but then he took me home.”

  “Sounds like a nice day.”

  “Okay, you’re not listening. He didn’t sleep with me. Is there something wrong with him?”

  “Of course not. He’s leaving is all. He was being a gentleman.”

  “Him leaving is what makes it perfect. No ties.”

  Emma had no business judging anyone, especially when at the moment, Serena’s philosophy seemed appealing. Casual sex; no pain or messy emotions…seemed better than her way.

  “I’m going to try one more time,” Serena said, sounding determined as she applied some lip gloss while looking at herself in her own cell phone’s camera lens.

  “Now?”

  “No, tomorrow when he’s gone. Yes, now.”

  “He’s with my dad.”

  “I can wait.” She crossed her legs, and picked up a magazine.

  Emma tried go to back to the books but her mind wandered to Stone. And tonight. And whether they’d be having casual sex.

  God, she hoped so. “Serena?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What do people in Wishful do on dates?” Not that it was a date, because it wasn’t.

  “As everywhere else, City Girl. Whatever you want. With Stone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, lucky you. He’s a hot one.”

  Yeah. Yeah, he was. She opened her mouth to say something, she had no id