Heart and Soul by Carrie Elks

20

After checking on Gloria, who’d been released from the hospital the day before, Rich walked over to Meghan’s door and rapped his knuckles on the wood, grinning when Isla opened it, her eyes wide with delight.

“Come in,” she said, pulling his hand until he was inside their apartment. “Do you like ketchup? I’m only allowed one squeeze, but when you have tater tots and nuggets you really need two.”

“I’m a big fan of ketchup.” He grinned down at the little girl. “But your mom’s right. There’s a lot of sugar in there, so you need to eat it in moderation.”

“My dentist says I have great teeth,” Isla said, her hand still in his. It felt so tiny against his warm palm. “Mommy says that’s because I brush my teeth so good. She’s in the bedroom. I heard her huffing and puffing and pulling drawers like she was looking for something.”

As if on cue, Meghan’s bedroom door opened, and she walked out, a smile curling her lips as she saw him standing there. Through the crack in the door he could see her bed, and he had to push away the memories of the night he’d spent in there.

“Hey. Dinner’s in the oven. I’ve been slaving all day.” She looked pretty in a pale yellow dress that ended at the knee, cinched in at the waist with a thick black belt. It contrasted perfectly with her russet waves.

“Hey.” He leaned in to kiss her cheek. Isla was already distracted by something on the television. “How are you?”

“I’m good.” She smiled up at him. He’d forgotten how green her eyes were, and how much he loved it when she looked at him like that. “And you? Is it your day off today? I lose count.”

“Yeah. I’ve taken on a few extra shifts next week for a friend, so he swapped for this week.”

“It must be hard for your body, getting used to all the time changes.” She gave him a sympathetic smile.

“You get used to it. I’ve been doing it for a long time.” He shrugged. “And I guess I don’t have anybody to answer to except myself. And the medical director.”

The oven timer rang out. Meghan walked over to the kitchen and opened the door, checking on the tater tots and nuggets inside. “So I have a confession,” she told him.

“You do?”

“Yeah. On tater tots nights we don’t have any vegetables. And I know that sounds terrible, but tater tot nights happen once every blue moon. I promised Isla them tonight because she did so great in her play. But if you like, I can peel some carrots or something?”

She looked so earnest, he couldn’t help but laugh. “What do you think I am, the food police? You should see what we eat when we’re on a shift. And at home, come to that. I don’t know any doctor or nurse that eats well. We just stuff whatever we can find into our mouths when we have a spare minute.”

“I just didn’t want you to think I’m a bad mom.”

The smile slipped off his lips. “I would never think that,” he said, his voice low. From the corner of his eye he could see Isla entranced by the television screen. “I’ve never met a better mom than you, and that’s the truth. Isla’s lucky to have you.”

Meghan pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, still staring at him with wide eyes, and damn if he didn’t want to kiss her.

“You look beautiful, by the way,” he murmured. “I should have told you that the moment I saw you.”

She glanced down at her dress. “Thank you. It felt nice being able to dress up, even if it’s just for tater tots.”

“Did you wear it for me?” he asked, his voice low.

Her eyes flickered to his. “Yes.”

Warmth rushed through him. For a moment they said nothing, just stared at each other as though there was nobody else in the room. And yeah, if they’d been alone, he’d probably have kissed her. But they weren’t.

So he’d have to wait.

The timer went off again. “Okay, they should be ready this time.” She grabbed three plates and laid them out on the counter. “Isla, go wash your hands please.”

Isla hopped off the sofa. “Rich, you need to wash yours, too. Who knows what you’ve been touching.”

He swallowed down a laugh. “You’re right. Can I share your soap?”

Isla nodded, her expression serious. “Of course. Come on, we have to sing HappyBirthday three times to clean them properly. Even though it takes forever…”

“That’s exactly what we were taught at medical school.” He stole a glance at Meghan, who was watching them with soft eyes. When she realized he’d caught her looking, she turned away, busying herself with taking the food out of the oven.

“Come on then, let’s go,” Isla urged. “It’s tater tots night!”

* * *

Isla was so excited to have Rich at the table with them, she barely tasted her food, wofling it down between breaths as she regaled him with all the details of her play. “And that’s why we made a model for Ursula. Nobody wanted to play her. She’s mean and horrible and everybody hates her.”

Rich was nodding as she talked, though he clearly had no idea about The Little Mermaid or Ursula or any of the gang. “She sounds like a medical director I used to work for.”

Isla giggled. “Was she mean?”

“Yep. She used to roster me on eight nights in a row. Everybody knew she hated me. It wasn’t my fault I put a banana in her exhaust pipe for a dare.”

Isla’s mouth dropped open. “You were naughty?”

Rich’s glance caught Meghan’s and she felt it to the tip of her toes. He dwarfed their small dining table, his legs barely fitting beneath the surface. And yet it felt so weirdly natural to have him here. He was just so easy to be with. He made Isla giggle, and Meghan smile, and she was enjoying it all a bit too much.

Rich put another tater tot into his mouth. “These are delicious. I can’t remember the last time I ate one of these.”

“Why don’t you have kids?” Isla asked him.

Rich shifted in his seat. Meghan sent him a sympathetic glance, but was interested to hear his answer.

“I guess I never met the right person to have children with,” he said carefully.

“Would you like to have some?” Isla wasn’t taking any prisoners. She was worse than Meghan’s father. And it was so amusing to watch Rich squirm.

“I guess so.”

Isla ran her finger across her lip, looking up at Rich with an intense expression. “I could be your kid. You could be my dad.”

Okay, so this wasn’t quite so funny anymore. Meghan glanced at Isla’s empty plate. “Take your dishes to the kitchen, honey.”

“I can’t. It’s rude to clear the table before everybody is finished.” She looked at Rich’s plate, with three nuggets still there. “I’ll wait.”

Silence fell over the table. Rich speared another nugget, looking at Meghan with wide eyes, as though he needed help.

“Rich can’t be your dad, sweetheart,” Meghan told her. “You already have a dad, remember?”

Rich blinked, swallowing down the nugget.

“Yeah, but I don’t know him. And some kids at school have two dads. He could be my Angel Sands dad.”

“Maybe I can just be your friend.” Rich seemed to have recovered his poise. “Would that work?”

Isla tipped her head to the side, her eyes narrow as she thought it over. “I guess… yeah, we can be friends.”

“I’m glad we’ve got that figured out.” Rich had thankfully finished, and Meghan took his plate, passing it to Isla to put on top of her own. “Help me clear up, sweetie. I have a special ice cream for dessert.”

“A new one?” Isla’s eyes widened. “Yum!”

* * *

“She’s asleep, finally,” Meghan said, softly closing Isla’s bedroom door and tiptoeing back to the living room. Rich was sitting on the sofa, scrolling through his phone. After dinner, they’d played a game of Uno, and Isla had taken a shower while Rich cleaned up the kitchen. Then they’d watched a couple of episodes of some Disney kid show she seemed to be hooked on, before she’d reluctantly gotten into bed.

And it was weird, because at any other time he’d have made an excuse to go home after dinner was over. But he was enjoying being part of their routine. It reminded him of the ER, there were protocols to follow, a system to be had, and Isla was always trying to buck it.

But she was no match for Meghan. He bit down a smile at how in control she was.

“Would you like a beer? Or a glass of wine?” Meghan asked him. “I have a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in the refrigerator.”

“Wine sounds perfect. Thank you.” He stood, stretching his aching muscles. “Can I help?”

She shook her head. “Let’s drink out on the balcony. That way we won’t disturb Isla.”

The sun was setting as Rich pulled two chairs around the little bistro table on Meghan’s mostly unused balcony. She passed him a glass and they sat, looking out at the distant mountains, shaded purple by the evening rays. The air was cool, enough for Meghan to slide a grey cardigan over her pretty yellow dress. Her feet were bare, her toes painted a pale pink that enhanced the lushness of her skin.

“So.” Meghan gave him a tight smile. “I’m sorry about Isla. She shouldn’t have said that stuff about you being her dad.” She shifted in her chair and took a sip of her wine, her chin lifting as she looked out at the distant hills.

“You don’t need to be sorry.” He tipped his head at her, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Hey,” he said, reaching out to touch her arm. “I’m not running away screaming because your kid wants to know why I’m not a dad.”

Finally, she looked at him. He felt like he could breathe again.

“We had a talk at bedtime. Isla knows she already has a dad. I think she’s just not sure how to relate to you. She doesn’t have a lot of men in her life apart from my dad.”

“Can you tell me more about her dad?” he asked. “Only if you want to.”

She crossed her legs, the movement pulling her dress up her thighs. He was really trying not to look at them.

And failing miserably.

“I think I told you we met the year I graduated. I was trying to earn some money and get some experience. I always had a plan to start my own business, just needed to know how. I think I knew from the start I couldn’t work for anybody else long term. Not after growing up in such a controlled household. I still kind of blanch when people tell me what to do.”

“That’s understandable,” he murmured, entranced by the way she was looking at him.

“Anyway, I was running a bar at a festival. Typical rich girl rebellion. I’d lucked out or maybe they could smell the upbringing on me, because I was in the VIP area. Which meant mostly rich people who liked to tip a lot were coming in to drink and relax. And the bands would come in after their sets and hang out in the area. One of them – a drummer – took a bit of a liking to me. He’d stand by the bar and talk to me while I served. After a couple of nights, he got me a backstage pass and let me stand in the wings while they played. It was so different to anything I’d experienced before. I guess I got swept up in the romance of it all.”

His jaw tightened at the thought of this drummer, whoever he was. Not because he was jealous – they were adults, they had pasts after all – but because he knew where this story was going.

“Sleeping with him was my first real shot at pushing away my upbringing. I don’t think I’d ever felt alive before that festival. Not in a real way. But that week, it felt like I was finally waking up from a really long sleep. Surrounded by people who loved what they did.” She pulled her lip between her teeth. “I guess lived for what they did, would be a better way of putting it. And there was no stigma attached to being with somebody. No expectation that you’d have to marry them or date them or do anything but feel good with them.” She shook her head, a wry smile pulling at her lips. “A few months later, I found out I was pregnant.”

“Did you keep in touch with the father?”

She shook her head. “It was a one week thing. I think we both knew that. So I contacted his management to try to get him the message.”

“Did you hear back from him?”

“Yeah. He sent me his lawyer’s details. Asked me to get in touch about child support.” She swallowed.

Rich blinked. “Did you?”

Meghan shook her head. “I never filed any papers. But I sent a photo and her birth details after we got out of the hospital.”

“Did he reply?”

“No. His lawyer paid the hospital bills, but that was the last I heard from him.”

“What an asshole.” Rich shook his head, his fingers curling into his palm. “Who does that?”

“I guess I could have pushed it, but part of me didn’t want to. I don’t want to force somebody to be Isla’s father. And I don’t want to demand his money. I was lucky that my grandma left me a trust to help keep a roof over our heads and buy the business.”

“But Isla knows who he is?”

“She knows she has a daddy, and that he’s busy traveling the world. When she’s older I’ll explain more, and when she’s eighteen she can contact him if she wants to. In the meantime, I’ll try and be Mom and Dad to her.”

“Is that why you keep in touch with your parents? To give her some kind of father figure?”

“One of the reasons. I told you that I needed to know she’d be safe if something happened to me. That’s one of my biggest fears. Knowing they love her makes it a little easier.”

“Yeah. I completely understand that.” He inhaled softly. “Single parents are amazing.”

She blinked. “Thank you. That means a lot. I know everybody expected me to fail. Not just my parents, but the women I was in the hospital with, the grandparents who would visit and send sympathetic looks at me, the nurses, even. But when it comes to having a kid you can’t fail. Because they’re the ones who pay the price.”

“Can I ask you something else?” He put his wine glass on the table.

“Of course.”

“Why were you so embarrassed when Isla asked about me being her dad? Some of my friends who work on the pediatric floor get that a lot, especially from kids who don’t have a dad. It’s normal, nothing to be embarrassed about.”

She looked down at her hands. “I guess I was worried you’d think I’d primed her or something. That I was trying to corner you into something you didn’t want. Maybe I was scared you’d think I was like Carlyn.”

“You’re absolutely nothing like Carlyn. And I didn’t think that at all. I thought it was sweet. I like Isla, she’s a good kid. I like spending time with you both.”

“You do?” Their eyes met. He felt a warmth wash over him. She was as afraid of this thing as he was. No wonder, all she’d experienced in life was people trying to control her or abandon her. Nothing in between. They were two sides of the same coin. She was afraid of relationships because they meant being controlled. And he was afraid because they meant being out of control.

Maybe Belle was right. It was time to say the way he felt.

“Yeah, I do. And I want to spend more time with you.”

She smiled shyly. “I want to spend more time with you, too. But I have to think of Isla. She’s already confused and I don’t want to confuse her anymore.”

“We can take it slow.” He could feel the need for her building inside him. Not just a sexual need, though that was strong enough. The need to be with her. To talk with her. To know that she was his. It was like his talk with Belle had flipped a switch, and now he was all in.

“It’d have to be tortoise paced. I don’t know if that’s fair on you.” Her cheeks flushed. “I feel really stupid saying that, since we’ve already had sex. But it’s true. I have to guard her heart, and guard my own.”

“This isn’t just about sex for me.” His voice was low. “If it was purely about sex, I wouldn’t be here now, because I know how complicated this could get.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. And it scares me to death.”

She laughed. “It scares me, too.”

He put his hand on the table between them, palm down. “The thing that scares me most is letting you down. I’ve got a history of that. So going slow seems right. And if I fuck up, I want you to walk away. You’re too good to deal with bullshit from people like me.”

She slid her fingers through his, and it made his body clench. “You have a really low opinion of yourself. Look at what you did for your sister. You helped take care of her when you weren’t much more than a kid yourself.”

“I had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice. People walk away from things that scare them all the time. But you don’t, no matter how bad your opinion is of yourself. You stay and face the things that scare you most.” There was heat in her eyes. It was as though she could see through the façade he’d built to protect himself, to the real person that lay behind. And it touched him more than he could say.

It would be so easy to fall in love with this woman. She made him feel like he could fly.

He circled her palm with his thumb, pulling at her hand until they were both standing. “So we’re friends?”

She smiled. “Friends plus. Like economy plus.”

“Does the plus include hugging?” The need to feel her against him was impossible to ignore.

“Friends hug,” she agreed.

He slid his arms around her back, pulling her to him, until her face rested against his shoulder, her slim body pressed into his. He sighed, loving the feeling of her against him. Her hands bunched against his shirt, holding him tight.

“Will you go to my sister’s show with me?” he asked her. “As a real date, not a pretend one?”

“I’d love to.” She looked up at him with those big eyes and he was a goner.

Neither of them moved, but it felt like everything was spinning around them. His lips parted, and hers did, too, like she was mirroring his moves. Her chest rose as she inhaled sharply, as though her need for him was as great as his own for her.

“Are you going to kiss me?” she whispered.

“Do friends kiss?” His voice was teasing. He felt like he’d been holding his breath for a lifetime, only to experience sweet, sweet relief.

“We’re friends plus. That means the occasional kiss when certain other friends are asleep in the apartment are permitted.”

“You’re going to have to write out all the rules, just so I know,” he murmured, his eyes still fixed on her pretty mouth. “And maybe give me a frequent flyer card or something.”

She cupped his jaw, studying his face with clear, observant eyes. “You’ll have to work your way up to platinum,” she told him.

“I’m goal oriented. I like a challenge.” He dropped his brow to hers, his lashes sweeping downward as he held her gaze. She had a row of tiny freckles across the bridge of her nose. He planned to memorize every last one of them. Her hair tickled at his cheek as he leaned closer, her fingers caressing his jaw, her eyes wide and intent and waiting for his next move.

He slid his hands down her back and pulled her in, teasing his lips against hers until she let out a soft sigh. Then he kissed her harder, tangling his hand into her hair until their faces were at the perfect angle.

His heart drummed against his chest as she arched her body against his, the softness of her breasts making him hard as hell. Their tongues slid, circled, caressed. Her hands moving from his face to his neck, her touch so arousing. And if she was anybody else, he’d lift her up right now and take her to bed.

But she wasn’t. She was Meghan. She was more.

Her lips were swollen when they parted, both panting for air. She reached up to brush her hair from her face, her eyes crinkling as she looked up at him.

“The first time we kissed you ran away,” she said.

“I know. And I want to kick my own ass for that.”

“And the second time we ended up in bed.”

Rich swallowed hard. “Yeah we did.” And the thought of it sent blood straight to his groin.

“So what’s going to happen the third time?” She bit down a smile.

“The third time I’m going to go home, go to bed, and really try hard not to think about you laying the other side of the wall.”