Читать книгу Christmas Kisses Collection - Джанис Мейнард, Louise Allen - Страница 23

“YOU SURE ABOUT THIS?” McKenzie asked the man stretching out beside her. He wore dark running pants that emphasized his calf and thigh muscles and a bright-colored long-sleeved running shirt that outlined a chest McKenzie had taken great pleasure in exploring the night before as they’d lain in bed and “rung in” the New Year.

Lance glanced at her and grinned. “I’ll be waiting for you at the finish line.”

She hoped so. She hoped Lance hadn’t been teasing about being a runner. He was in great shape, had phenomenal endurance, but she’d still never known him to run. But the truth was he hadn’t stayed the whole night at her place ever, so he could do the same as her and run in the early morning before work. They had sex, often lay in bed talking and touching lightly afterward, then he went home. Just as he had the night before. She hadn’t asked him to stay. He hadn’t asked to. Just, each night, whenever he got ready to go, he kissed her good-night and left.

Truth was, she’d have let him stay Christmas night after they’d got back from his parents’. He’d insisted on following her back to her place. Despite the late hour, he’d come in, held her close, then left. She hadn’t wanted him to go. She’d have let him stay every night since. He just hadn’t wanted to. Or, if he had wanted to, he’d chosen to go home anyway.

Why was that? Did it have to do with Shelby? Should she tell him that she knew about his first love? That his family had told her about his loss? They just hadn’t told her any of the details surrounding the mysterious woman Lance had loved.

Maybe the details didn’t matter. They shouldn’t matter.

Only McKenzie admitted they did. Perhaps it was just curiosity. Perhaps it was jealousy. Perhaps it was something more she couldn’t put her finger on.

She’d almost asked him about Shelby a dozen times, but always changed her mind. If he wanted her to know, he’d tell her.

Today was the first day of a new year. A new beginning.

Who knew, maybe tonight he’d stay.

If not, she was okay with that, too. He might be right in going, in not adding sleeping together to their relationship, because she didn’t count the light dozing they sometimes did after their still phenomenal comings together as sleep. Sleeping together until morning would be another whole level of intimacy.

“You don’t have to try to run next to me,” she advised, thinking they were intimate enough already. Too intimate because imagining life without him was already becoming difficult. Maybe they could stay close friends after their two months were up. Maybe. “Just keep your own steady pace and I’ll keep mine. We’ll meet up at the end.”

Grinning, he nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll keep that in mind.”

They continued to stretch their muscles as the announcer talked, telling them about the cause they were running for, about the rules, etc. Soon they were off.

McKenzie never tried to take the lead early on. In some races she never took the lead. Not that she didn’t always do her best, but sometimes there were just faster runners for that particular distance. Today she expected to do well, but perhaps not win as she was much more of an endurance runner than a speed one.

Lance ran beside her and to her pleased surprise he didn’t try to talk. In the past when she’d convinced friends to run with her, they’d wanted to have a gab session. That was until they became so breathless they stopped to walk, and then they often expected her to stop and walk with them.

McKenzie ran.

Lance easily kept pace with her. Halfway in she began to wonder if she was slowing him down rather than the other way around. She picked up her pace, pushing herself, suddenly wanting distance between them. Without any huffing or puffing he ran along beside her as if she hadn’t just upped their pace. That annoyed her.

“You’ve been holding out on me,” she accused a little breathily, thinking it was bad when she was the one reverting to talking. Next thing you knew she’d be stopping to walk.

“Me?” His gaze cut to her. “I told you that I ran.”

“I’ve never seen you at any of the local runs and yet clearly you do run.”

“I don’t do organized runs or competitions.”

Didn’t do organized runs or competitions? McKenzie frowned. What kind of an answer was that when he clearly enjoyed running as much as she did? Well, maybe almost as much.

“That’s hard to believe with the way you’re into every charity in the region,” she said. “Why wouldn’t you participate in these fund-raisers when they’re an easy way to raise money for great causes? For that matter, why aren’t you organizing races to raise money for all your special causes?”

McKenzie was a little too smart for her own good. Lance was involved with a large number of charities and helped support many others, but never those that had to do with running.

He did run several times a week, but always alone, always to clear his head, always with someone else at his side, mentally if not physically.

High school cross-country had been where he’d first met Shelby. She’d been a year older than him and had had a different set of friends, so although he’d seen the pretty brunette around school he hadn’t known her. She’d have been better off if he never had.

“No one can do everything,” he answered McKenzie.

“I’m beginning to think you do.”

“Not even close. You and I just happen to have a lot in common. We enjoy the same things.”

She shook her head. “Nope. I don’t enjoy singing.”

“I think you would if you’d relax.”

“Standing onstage, with people looking at me?” She cut her gaze to him. “Never going to happen.”

Keeping his pace matched to hers, he glanced at her. “You don’t like things that make people look at you, do you, McKenzie?”

“Nope.”

“Because of your parents?”

“I may not have mentioned this before, but I don’t like talking while I run. I’m a silent runner.”

He chuckled. “That a hint for me to be quiet?”

“You catch on quick.”

They kept up the more intense pace until they crossed the finish line. The last few minutes of the race Lance debated on whether or not to let McKenzie cross the finish line first. Ultimately, he decided she wasn’t the kind of woman who’d appreciate a man letting her win.

In the last stretch he increased his speed. So did McKenzie. If he hadn’t been a bit winded, he’d have laughed at her competitive spirit. Instead, he ran.

So did she.

They crossed the finish line together. The judge declared Lance the winner by a fraction of a second, but Lance would have just as easily have believed that McKenzie had crossed first.

She was doubled over, gasping for air. His own lungs couldn’t suck in enough air either. He walked around, slowly catching his breath. When he turned back, she was glaring.

“You were holding out on me,” she accused breathlessly, her eyes narrowed.

“Huh?”

“You were considering letting me win.” Her words came out a little choppy between gasps for air.

“In case you didn’t notice…” he sucked in a deep gulp of air “…I was trying to cross that finish line first.”

“You were sandbagging.”

He laughed. “Sandbagging?”

“How long have you been running?”

“Since high school.” Not that he wanted to talk about it. He didn’t. Talking about this particular subject might lead to questions he didn’t want to answer.

“You competed?”

He nodded.

“Me, too.” She straightened, fully expanding her lungs with air. “I did my undergraduate studies on a track scholarship.”

Despite the memories assailing him, the corners of Lance’s mouth tugged upward. “Something else we have in common.”

McKenzie just looked at him, then rolled her eyes. “We don’t have that much in common.”

“More than you seem to want to acknowledge.”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “Let’s go congratulate the guy who beat us both. He lives about thirty minutes from here. His time is usually about twenty to thirty seconds better than mine. He usually only competes in the five-kilometer races, though. Nothing shorter, nothing longer.”

They congratulated the winner, hung out around the tent, rehydrating, got their second and third place medals, then headed toward McKenzie’s house.

They showered together then, a long time later, got ready to go and eat.

The first day of the New Year turned into the first week, then the first month.

McKenzie began to feel panicky, knowing her time with Lance was coming to an end as the one-month mark came and went. Each day following passed like sand swiftly falling through an hourglass.

Then she realized that the day before Valentine’s Day marked the end of the two months she’d promised him. Seriously, the day before Valentine’s?

Why did that even matter? She’d never cared if she had a significant other on that hyped-up holiday in the past. Most years she’d been in a casual relationship and she’d gotten a box of chocolates and flowers and had given a funny card to her date for the evening. Why should this year feel different? Why did the idea of chocolates and flowers from Lance seem as if it would be different from gifts she’d received in the past? Why did the idea of giving him a card seem to fall short?

She’d be ending things with Lance the day before every other couple would be celebrating their love.

She and Lance weren’t in love. She wasn’t sure love even truly existed.

A vision of Lance’s grandparents, married for sixty years, his parents, married for forty years, ran through her mind and she had to reconsider. Maybe love did exist, but not for anyone with her genetic makeup. Already her dad was complaining about his new wife and had flirted outrageously with their waitress when they’d had their usual belated Christmas dinner a few weeks back. Hearing that his new marriage would be ending soon wouldn’t surprise McKenzie in the slightest. Her mother, well, her mother had taken up the vegan life because Beau was history and her new “‘love” was all about living green. Her mother was even planning to plant out her own garden this spring and wanted to know if McKenzie had any requests.

McKenzie had no issue with her mother trying to live more healthily. She was glad of it, even. But the woman enjoyed nothing more than a big juicy steak, which was what she ordered on the rare occasions she met McKenzie for a meal—usually in between boyfriends or at Christmas or birthdays.

McKenzie had managed both meals with her parents this year without Lance joining them. Fortunately, his volunteer work oftentimes had him busy immediately following work and she had scheduled both meals with her parents on evenings he had Celebration Graduation meetings.

“You’ve been staring at your screen for the past ten minutes,” Lance pointed out, gesturing to her idle laptop. “Problem patient?”

He’d come over, brought their dinner with him, and they’d been sitting on her sofa, remotely logged in to their work laptops and charting their day’s patients while watching a reality television program.

McKenzie hit a button, saving her work, then turned to him. “My mind just isn’t on this tonight.”

“I noticed.” He saved his own work, set his laptop down on her coffee table and turned to her. “What’s up?”

“I was just thinking about Valentine’s Day.”

His smile spread across his face and lit up his eyes. “Making plans for how you’re going to surprise me with a lacy red number and high heels?” He waggled his brows suggestively.

Despite knowing he was mostly teasing, she shook her head. “We won’t be together on Valentine’s Day. Our two months is up the day before. The end is near.”

His smile faded and his forehead wrinkled. “There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to spend Valentine’s Day together. I have the Celebration Graduation Valentine’s Day dance at the high school that I’ll be helping to chaperone. It ends at ten and it’ll take me another twenty to thirty minutes to help clean up. But we can still do something, then we’ll call it quits after that.”

She shook her head. “You already had plans for that evening. That’s good.”

She, however, did not and would be acutely aware of his absence from her life, and not just because of the holiday.

“I hadn’t really thought about it being the end of our two months. You could volunteer at the dance with me.”

She shook her head again. “Not a good idea.”

“Think you’d be a bad influence on those high schoolers?” Even though his tone was teasing, his eyes searched hers.

“I probably would,” she agreed, just to avoid a discussion of the truth. They would be finished the night before. There would be no more charting together, dining together, going to dances or parties together, no more running together, as they’d started doing every morning at four. Lance would be gone, would meet someone else, would date them, and, despite what he claimed, he would very likely eventually find whatever he was looking for in a woman and marry her.

Was he looking for someone like Shelby?

What was Shelby like?

Why had he still not mentioned the woman to her?

Then again, why would he mention her? He and McKenzie were temporary. He owed her nothing, no explanation of his past relationships, no explanation of his future plans.

Yet there were things about him she wanted to know. Suddenly needed to know.

“Do you want kids?” Why she asked the question she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t as if the answer mattered to her or was even applicable. She and Lance had no future together.

To her surprise, he shook his head. “I have no plans to ever have children.”

Recalling how great he was with his cousins’ kids, that shocked her. Then again, had she asked him the question because she’d expected a different answer? That she’d expected him to say he planned to have an entire houseful, and that way she could have used that information as one more thing to put between them because, with her genetics, no way could she ever have children.

“You’d make a fantastic dad.”

His brow lifted and he regarded her for a few long moments before asking, “You pregnant, McKenzie?”

Her mouth fell open and she squished up her nose. “Absolutely not.”

“You sure? You’ve not had a menstrual cycle since we’ve been together. I hadn’t really thought about it until just now, but I should have.”

Her face heated at his comment. They were doctors, so it was ridiculous that she was blushing. But at this moment she was a woman and he was a man. Medicine had nothing to do with their conversation. This was personal. Too personal.

“I rarely have my cycle. My gynecologist says it’s because I run so much and don’t retain enough body fat for proper estrogen storage. It’s highly unlikely that I’d get pregnant. But even if that weren’t an issue,” she reminded him, “you’ve used a condom every single time we’ve had sex. I can’t be pregnant.”

Not once had she even considered that as a possibility. Truth was, she questioned if her body would even allow her to get pregnant if she wanted to, which she didn’t. No way would she want to bring a baby in to the world the way her parents had.

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Than my getting pregnant?” She shook her head in denial. “That would be the strangest ever. I’m not meant to have children.”

His curiosity was obviously piqued as he studied her. “Why not?”

“Bad genetics.”

“Your parents are ill?”

How was she supposed to answer that one? With the truth, probably. She took a deep breath.

“Physically, they are as healthy as can be. Mentally and emotionally, they are messed up.”

“Depression?”

“My mother suffers from depression. Maybe my dad, too, really. They both have made horrible life choices that they are now stuck living with.”

“Your dad is a lawyer?”

She nodded.

“What does your mom do?”

“Whatever the man currently in her life tells her to do.”

Lance seemed to let that sink in for a few moments. “She’s remarried?”

McKenzie shook her head. “She’s never remarried. I think she purposely stays single because my father has to pay her alimony until she remarries or dies.”

“Your father is remarried, though?”

“At the moment, but ask me again in a month and who knows what the answer will be.”

“How many times has he remarried?”

She didn’t want to answer, shouldn’t have let this conversation even start. She should have finished her charts, not opened up an emotional can of worms that led to conversations about her menstrual cycle, pregnancy and her parents. What had she been thinking?

“McKenzie?”

“He’s on his fifth marriage.”

Lance winced. “Hard to find the one, eh?”

“Oh, he finds them all right. In all the wrong places. He’s not known for his faithfulness. My guess is that he’s to blame for all his failed marriages. Definitely he was with his and my mother’s.”

“There’s always two sides to every story.”

“My mother and I walked in on him in his office with his secretary.”

“As in…”

Feeling sick at her stomach, McKenzie nodded. She’d never said those words out loud. Not ever. Cecilia knew, but not because McKenzie had told her the details, just that she’d figured it out from overheard arguments between McKenzie’s parents.

“How old were you?”

“Four.”