Joy in His Heart (19 page)

“Brian signed himself out?” Joy was stunned. That didn’t sound at all like by-the-book Brian. “Why would he do that? He must know he needs to do the physical therapy.”

“One would assume. I believe it had something to do
with you. I wondered if you would consider using your influence to get him to return for an evaluation. And perhaps you could tell him I didn’t mean he wasn’t welcome to practice at Memorial.”

Joy felt her blood pressure skyrocket. Furious and incredulous, she went on the attack. “You fired him! How could you? He’s a talented, gifted surgeon and children love him almost as much as he loves them. Talk about kicking a man when he’s down. What kind of doctor are you?”

Dr. Hawkin’s chin came up in defense. “He’s on staff at two other hospitals, so it isn’t as if I’d pulled the rug out from under him. He mentioned that he intended to cut back to one hospital when he went back to work. I’d hoped we would be that hospital. I would like to make amends, but each time I call he cuts me off and tells me he’s working on something more important and that he’ll get back to me. Honestly, what could be more important than his career?”

“She is,” Brian said, suddenly appearing at Joy’s side. “And if you will excuse us, I intend to convince her of that.”

C
learly stunned by his sudden appearance, Joy easily let Brian lead her out of the room onto the adjoining terrace. He fought a grin as he considered the idea of spending the coming years finding ways to keep her half a bubble off level. She was much easier to deal with when she was off balance.

Then she turned to face him and the fire in her eyes had him quickly rethinking his plan. At the edge of panic, he wondered exactly who had led whom out of earshot of the other guests.

He looked away from her, determined not to let last-minute misgivings interfere with his strategy. Too much was riding on tonight and a lot of work had gone into making this scheme unfold so seamlessly. It hadn’t been easy to gain the cooperation of every person who’d come to Laurel Glen that night. He’d called in markers, begged favors and jokingly promised their firstborn in marriage just to fill those rooms.

Joy’s brother had threatened his very existence if the
evening hurt Joy in any way, but Jim had gone ahead and enlisted the aid of his extended family, hoping to help Brian prove his love for Joy. And prove to her that she was perfect just the way she was.

They’d all chipped in and worked like troopers to make this charity event look as if it had taken weeks to put together. Brian knew Meg had been careful to float that impression so Joy wouldn’t suspect anything. Disabusing her of that fact was the trickiest part of this whole insane plan. She could get so angry she’d storm away and be done with the whole lot of them, but he’d seen no other way. Worried as he was, Brian was still determined to be truthful. He would not have a lie—even an assumed one—come back to haunt them.

“I’m sorry,” he rushed to say now that they were away from the party and it was time to face the music.

She stiffened more when he hadn’t thought her back could get any more rigid. “What exactly are you apologizing for this time?” she wanted to know.

Brian raked his hand through his hair, stalling. “It’s a…a blanket apology,” he hedged, then added, “for whatever you want to apply it to. Just in case. Promise me you won’t run away again before we settle several things between us.” She opened her mouth and he knew it was to deny that she’d ever run from anything in her life. He covered her lips with his index finger. “Aaah! You disappeared from my hospital room at Memorial and didn’t even leave a puff of smoke behind.”

He knew he had her there by the way she tipped her chin up and looked away. “I had a lot of work to do at Agape Air.”

He believed that to be true but doubted it as the reason she’d suddenly fled his room. “Please come sit down and just talk to me,” he said, and ushered her around the corner to an area at the back of the house far from prying eyes. In the center of the wide stone terrace stood a chimenea with a cheerful fire burning in it. There was a semicircle of stone benches in front of the opening that provided a cozy spot for a long overdue talk.

She stopped dead. “This looks awfully preplanned.”

He’d worried that the May night would be too cool for her in the sleeveless dress she’d worn, so he had her shawl waiting there. He picked it up off the stone wall where he’d left it and draped it over her shoulders. “We needed to talk so I arranged it with Ross Taggert, or rather Jim did.”

Brian sat and looked up at her. Joy didn’t move but for the moment he didn’t mind. She was so beautiful it took his breath and stuffed it right back down his throat. Her dress had a strong Asian influence and covered her from neck to ankle, with the exception of slits that went only to her knees. It was probably the most modest dress any of the women wore that night but it was utterly alluring to Brian. He was sure that had more to do with the depth of his love than anything else.

He held out his uncasted hand in invitation, thinking he could loop his arm around her shoulders to keep her close. “Please,” he all but begged.

“You sound like a four-year-old trying to wheedle a second cookie,” she snapped. She did sit, but on a different bench.

Refusing to be baited, he stood, moved to the end of the bench next to hers and straddled it so he faced her. The spring breeze ruffled her short hair and the fire played on her smooth cheeks and glittered in her remote, blue eyes. It was hard to keep from reaching out to her—even though she clearly preferred to be at arm’s length—because he wanted to banish that distant look forever. He’d been looking at it for years across rooms.

“It isn’t going to work. No matter what rotten things you say to me, I’m not getting mad so stop trying to provoke me. No matter how you try to freeze me out, I’m not going away. I don’t want to be saved, Joy,” he said with deliberate care, then leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. Her head snapped around and their gazes locked.

She didn’t even pretend not to know what he meant. “Who told you—”

“Shh,” he whispered and kissed her lips this time. “I love you,” he said against those captivating lips of hers. She turned her head again to face the fire, so he finished his thought a centimeter from her ear. “And I’m not sacrificing our happiness because you have some mistaken idea of what I want and need from you.”

He sat back but only a little. “You left my hospital room because somehow or other, Linda intimidated you. How Linda could intimidate a woman of your accomplishments is beyond me but that’s what George says happened.”

She gritted her teeth. “Uncle George is going to pay. And I didn’t say she intimidated me.”

“Okay. Let’s revisit what happened that day and you
explain it to me in your words. You came to ask what I meant on the ledge and to tell me I had the wrong idea about your desire for children. It was part of our argument years ago. I freely admit I’ve always seen my future wife as a full-time wife and mother, but I’ve always thought you weren’t planning on kids at all. That subject aside, I find it hard to believe you came there to deliver a message that personal for no reason at all.” He waited but she remained stoically silent. “Nothing to say? Then suppose I try to fill in the blanks. I think you came to try to work things out between us but then Linda showed up. You left because you remembered the rest of my sophomoric life plan and you decided it was beyond you.”

“Why did you have to come here tonight?” Her voice shook and she clenched her hands in her lap.

Okay, so she could still provoke him and who would ever have thought seeing her in such obvious pain would make him angry. “Because I arranged for you to be here. I arranged the whole night. It was bait. And a test.”

The fire exploded back into her eyes and he was glad. He wanted her mad at him in that moment because he was mad at both of them. They’d wasted so much time already.

“Was it a pass-fail grade or were you and your co-conspirators grading me in increments?” she demanded.

“I wouldn’t know. You’re the one who has to do the grading. How would you say you did tonight?”

She stared at him as if one of them—most likely him—had lost their mind. “I don’t understand.”

“Basically, I got Meg to throw you to your wolves. You have a lot of misconceptions but this was one I couldn’t let you have even if we never see each other after tonight. First, I don’t care if you ever volunteer for a charity committee. Twelve years have not only changed me, they’ve changed the world. The point of this party is that you can handle anything. If something was important enough, you could do it. You just did. Not, I want to add, that there’s any way you could adversely impact my professional life.”

She arched her eyebrow and smirked. “Apparently, I’m the reason you got kicked off the staff of Memorial. That self-important, chief-of-staff person I was talking to seemed to want you back but then I told him off so who knows, now.”

Brian grinned, remembering the look on Hawkins’ face from across the room. “He never had the power to suspend me for checking myself out. I didn’t even listen. Thank you, though. It’s nice to have you in my cheering section. And I’d sincerely like to keep you there. You didn’t reciprocate, by the way.”

She blinked—off balance again. “Reciprocate?”

He looked at the ground then back up at her. Time for even more honesty. “I said I love you. You didn’t say it back. That hurts, Joy. A lot. The last time I said it, you admitted you loved me, too, but you still said goodbye. That hurt, too.”

“Look, I do love you and I don’t want to hurt you but we want different things.”

“And I don’t want to hurt you, but I have. Years ago I acted as if those things mattered more than
you.
They
don’t matter. You do.” Brian gently turned her face to his. He left his palm resting against her cheek, his thumb caressing her face. “I want you for my wife. Whatever that means.”

Joy looked away from his beloved face. Afraid to hope. Afraid to see the dream die in his gaze. “But I can’t be the wife you want. You admitted you’ve always wanted a stay-at-home wife and mother for you and your children. I could try to be that person but I don’t want to try because I know I’d be miserable. Then I’d make you miserable. You called it right when you said Agape has been like my child. I couldn’t abandon it or the men and women who depend on me for a living anymore than I could abandon my own children.”

“And I’m no longer asking you to.”

“Then what do you want? You said compromise. You’ve already said you don’t care if I join those charity committees.”

“You have more important ways to spend your time.”

She threw up her hands and turned more fully to face him. “Then I’d have to give up Agape. It’s a great choice you’ve left me with. Either I’m miserable with you or miserable without you.”

“But Agape Air
is
the more important thing you do with your time. Dreams change, Joy. Mine has. George told me about the extra office next to yours that you can use as a nursery and playroom. And Memorial has a great day care right there. I could take our kids there on days you’re tied up until they’re ready to go to school. I can even have lunch with them.”

She remembered his reaction when she’d told him to
parachute out of the crippled Cessna without her. “Then what’s my concession in this? Flying?”

He shook his head and smiled sadly, but it faded quickly. “I’m not asking you not to fly. All I’m asking is to stop acting as if you’re unbreakable,” his voice cracked, and what she saw in his eyes broke her heart all over again. He was terrified for her and he confirmed it when he continued. “Just quit winding up on the evening news. How many community commendations for risking your neck do you need hanging on your wall, anyway?”

He shook his head and ran his good hand through his hair. “I haven't been able to sleep since we got back. Do you know why? I keep reliving those minutes in the plane when you said you were flying on to try to land the plane after I jumped. Only this time I let you have your way and I then I’m floating to earth and watch you smash into that cliff. Then I’m suddenly rappelling down the cliff to find you dead in the cockpit. I wake up in a cold sweat, then, screaming your name.”

Joy turned to him. Her hand slid over his unbandaged hand and held it. “I’ve only taken one flight since the crash, Bri. A puddle jump to Pittsburgh. I meant it when I told you I don’t have a death wish. I never intended to continue taking chances once there were others who depended on me. But since I didn’t have anyone in my life, I’ve tried to help save the lives of people who did.” She took a deep breath. Could this really be happening? She ran a quick mental checklist. Had they really managed to comprise on all the issues keeping them apart?

“You’d really be okay with all of this? It feels as if
you’re doing all the giving. I don’t want you to wind up hating me.”

He smiled but it was tinged with sadness. “I love you. How could I hate you for being you? I’m so sorry for ever making you think I would. Joy, I want
you
for my wife. Not some conjured set of statistics I dreamed up when I was an idiot fifteen-year-old. I can hire a housekeeper, a cook and the occasional babysitter. But
you
are one of a kind. I want you to be my partner. My love.”

He slid to his knee and she had to blink away tears just to see him. And she blinked really hard because she wasn’t going to miss even a second of this. “Will you marry me?” he said and pulled a platinum and diamond solitaire out of his sling.

He looked up at her, an embarrassed grin pulling at his lips, and she knew exactly what he was remembering. Another ring. One expensive, gaudy nightmare of a ring with too many strings.

“See, I really know you now. The wedding bands are just as plain. Come on, Joyful, put me out of my misery.”

Joy felt the tears she’d been holding back spill over and run down her cheeks. “I love you. And yes. I’ll marry you.”

And then Brian was there sharing the bench, drying her tears and laughing. “You’re not supposed to cry, Joyful, but if you want to, you go right ahead. Then we’ll go turn that benefit into an engagement party.”

Thinking of all the people he’d had to get there, she asked, “Why’d you go through all that trouble?”

He just smiled gently and kissed her. “When I was running around this week like a nut my brother asked me the same thing. I’ll tell you what I told him. Because I have Joy in my heart.”