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“Emmett, we don’t have to.” If we talk about everything, learn what we’ve missed, everything that happened after that fateful phone call, would it change anything? Maybe it would bring him the closure he needs, maybe he would want to rekindle our friendship. But for me, it would open icky wounds that are barely holding together.
“Please, Jenna. Will you come over sometime? Have dinner with us? Please?”
I look down at his daughter, who, over the course of the conversation, has turned more toward me, chewing on her thumb behind a coy little smile. Emmett has hurt me, but I can already see this cutie will have me wrapped around her little finger.
“Please?” he prompts again, a longing in his voice.
“Pease.” A small voice whispers, and it nearly knocks me to my knees how cute it is. I can tell Emmett no, I think, but his daughter hasn’t done anything to wrong me, and the fact that she’s asking so sweetly does me in.
“What do you think?” I ask her, shrugging my shoulders and letting my hands fall to my sides. “Can I come over and hang out with you?”
Her smile widens and she nods, surprising me with how quickly she is warming up.
I look up at Emmett, who’s watching the interaction between us two girls with a smile. “I guess that’s a yes, then. I can’t say no to that face.”
On a whim, I offer a palm to his daughter. “Good to meet you, cutie. High five?”
The little girl smiles and gives my palm a soft hand tap.
Emmett husks out a laugh, and it takes me by surprise. It’s been so long since I’ve heard that deep belly, head-thrown-back laugh he has, and God, how I’ve missed it.
“She’s normally a little slow to warm; she must sense something about you,” he tells me, eyes glistening.
“Maybe she senses I’m still a kid at heart.”
“Maybe.”
He stares at me for a while, the air between us crackling with embers far from being extinguished.
I look back to his daughter before realization hits me.
“Jeez, Emmett,” I say, slapping my forehead, “I’m a terrible person. I haven’t asked what her name is.”
He bounces the little girl once in his arms, pulling a giggle from her lips. “This is Allie.”
“Allie.” I repeat. Allie Owens. “I love it. Short for something? Allison, Alexis?”
His gaze drops to the floor, and he responds so quietly that if someone sneezed as they walked by, I wouldn’t have heard his answer, but it’s a resounding smack across the face.
“Allie is short for Alissandria.”
Chapter Eleven
Three Years Earlier
“J
enna, come on,” Meg pleads, “I have dates secured with two of the hottest surgeons at Chicago General, and you’re holding out on me?”
I shrug. “Sorry, not really interested in going on an awkward double date with some self-absorbed surgeons we don’t know.”
She pulls a pile of bedding from the cabinet we’ve been stocking, and hands me a top sheet, cueing me to re-fold. “Possibly self-absorbed, yes. But also incredibly sexy, and probably wild. They’d show us a hell of a time.”
I never thought that after all these years I'd be back in Chicago. When I took a last-minute critical staffing assignment, I also didn't plan to meet Meg, who luckily shares my sarcasm and general annoyance for the human race. Within the first week, she became the best friend I have ever had. Besides Emmett.
Emmett . . . who, in a few months, will be done with his apprenticeship and able to stop traveling for work. And after our conversation last month, he's still ready to move wherever I want to settle. If you would have asked me two months ago, I wouldn't have known, but once I stepped through the doors onto the fourth floor of Grace General, back in the windy city of Chicago, something compelled me to want to stay.
I purse my lips together to temper a smile at the thought of Emmett and me back in the city together.
