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“Because I pushed you to let me in.”
“I don’t understand what your point is.”
“You’ve held the world at bay for the past five years, not let anyone in. That’s why you’ve not had sex until tonight.”
“Obviously letting you in was a mistake.”
Her words struck him with the force of a hot poker, slicing deep into his chest. “Do you mean that?”
She closed her eyes, then opened them slowly and shook her head. “No. I wanted you here tonight, last night, every night you’ve been here.”
“Good, because I don’t want you to regret having let me in.” He reached out, brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “I’m sorry for upsetting you.”
“I’m sorry I got upset. I… I’ve only been with one man and our relationship was nothing like mine and yours.” She took a deep breath. “This is complicated, you know. Our friendship wasn’t supposed to get complicated.”
“Sex has a tendency to do that.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“Nothing’s changed, Carly. We’re friends, good friends, remember?”
She didn’t look convinced.
Stone understood. Despite his words, he wasn’t convinced, either.
Everything had changed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE BUZZER GOING off indicating that her mother had woken up shouldn’t have been a good thing, but Carly welcomed the sound of pending escape.
“I’ve got to check on her.”
Stone nodded, but Carly knew he didn’t understand. No one did.
How could they when they didn’t live her life?
She started to suggest he go home to get some rest, but he beat her to the punch.
Which didn’t really make her feel better.
“I’ve got to be in the operating room at seven,” he told her, searching out the rest of his clothes. “I’ll bring dinner when I’m done with my day.”
“I have to take Momma to see her neurologist.”
“You’ll be back before dinner time,” he pointed out.
“You don’t have to bring dinner,” she reminded him, watching as he pulled his underwear, then jeans, on over his lean hips. Totally unfair how hot the man was in a pair of jeans and bare-chested.
What was wrong with her that she was getting hot under the collar so quickly after having been totally satisfied?
Or was that part of the issue? Now she knew what was beneath his scrubs? What he was capable of? That she was getting too attached, too dependent, too used to having him in her life?
Tony had been in love with her, or so he’d claimed for the year before her mother had gotten so ill, and he’d not stayed. She really couldn’t expect Stone to stick around when her life was so crazy.
Yes, the past week, they’d made it work, but at what price?
She’d barely slept, her mother kept getting worse, and she’d made more mistakes on her insurance claims than she’d ever made previously all combined.
Even if Stone stuck it out a while longer, she couldn’t keep this pace up.
“I know I don’t have to,” Stone interrupted her thoughts. “But I want to bring dinner and to see you.”
His eyes flashed with something she couldn’t read, something intense and that warned he wouldn’t argue the subject any more. “I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”
* * *
“I think it’s time you consider alternative options.”
Carly stared at the neurologist, hoping he was going to suggest a treatment that was highly successful.
“Have you checked into any nursing facilities?”
The skin on Carly’s face shrunk, pulling tightly across her forehead and cheeks.
“No.” She glanced toward where her mother sat in her wheelchair, hating that her specialist broached this subject in front of her, rather than in private. Audrey’s eyes were closed and her head slumped over as if she were asleep, but who knew if she was hearing their conversation? “Momma is doing great at home,” she assured him, making sure she spoke clearly so if her mother could hear, she’d know Carly had no plans to institutionalize her.
“Is she?”
Carly thought over the past few weeks, at the rapid decline in her mother’s health, that she was having so many more bad days than good. “You think she’s not?”
“You called and asked for this appointment, Carly. Why?” He leaned forward, took Carly’s hand and gave her an empathetic squeeze. “I think you’re doing the best you can, but your mother needs more than what you can do.”
He was wrong.
“As in what?” she asked, having to force herself to keep her voice calm. “She has constant attention, has had minimal bedsores, definitely a much lower statistical number than the average bedridden person in a nursing facility.” She began tossing out statistics. “She has a one-on-one nurse at her beck and call twenty-four hours a day. She isn’t going to get that at a nursing facility.”
