“Let me make this clear to you so we can please go build a Christmas booth for your school. Here’s the deal. Almost two months ago, a week after that picture was taken, I was in a car accident. A hit-and-run.”
Jenny gasped and reached across the table for his hand. He was stunned by her impulsive gesture and sensed she was too, but she didn’t release his hand immediately. Yes, she colored pink, but instead of drawing back, she allowed him to curl his fingers around her hand and hold it. He stared at their joined hands then turned his gaze back to her face.
“Jenny—”
“Go on. Hit-and-run.”
Get your thoughts together. You’re just holding hands, for heaven’s sake! Talk about a role reversal. You’re getting as bad as her!
He cleared his throat. “Umm…so, I was in a hit-and-run, and when the other car left, I was bleeding from my forehead and it hurt to breathe. The ambulance came, and the EMTs couldn’t be sure whether or not I had a concussion, but they were pretty sure I had cracked or bruised a rib, so they took me to the hospital. Anyway, I called Pepper from the ambulance to tell her what had happened. We had plans that night to go to a charity dinner and I knew she’d be upset to miss it, but I was sure she’d come to me. I mean, we’d been dating for more than a year.”
Jenny squeezed his hand gently. “Go ahead.”
“So the hours ticked by, and she didn’t show up. I didn’t call my folks or my sisters. I didn’t want to worry them. No concussion, just a cracked rib that would heal on its own after a few weeks.” He decided not to add that things had been strained with his mother and sisters with Pepper in the picture. The women in his family weren’t big fans of Pepper. Without them coming right out and saying they disapproved of her, Sam still perceived their opinion of her loud and clear. “I was asleep when she finally got there.”
He would never forget her sweeping onto his hospital floor after visiting hours, dressed to the nines, soused from champagne. She had woken him up from a deep sleep as she made a drunken scene with the nurses about how her future husband was wounded and needed her, and, “Screw visiting hours, don’t you know who I am?”
Security had finally made her leave. Truth be told, less of a knockout might have been arrested for such behavior, but Pepper had her charms. He had cringed listening to her from his hospital bed, and his stomach curdled, horrified by the words “future husband.”
“She had gone to the benefit with a friend of mine, an associate at work, and came by the hospital when it was over. She explained later that she had a new dress and didn’t want it to go to waste. And you know? I just decided then and there she wasn’t the girl for me. So we broke up. About two months ago.”
He remembered the morning he’d broken up with Pepper.
“You think you’re going to find someone better than me?” she’d shrieked at him with furious green eyes, her perfectly manicured fingernails digging into her slim, taut hips. “You don’t know what you want!”
He’d stared back her, surprised that he agreed with her and thinking: Just because I know what I don’t want doesn’t mean I’ve found what I do want. All he’d known for sure was that Pepper wasn’t right for him.
Now it occurred to him: He’d wanted something more like what his parents shared, something good and real. What he’d had with Pepper had mostly just been status and noise.
He rubbed his thumb back and forth lightly across the soft pad of skin at the base of Jenny’s thumb, thinking about how much he’d like to pull her into his arms and kiss her. He’d like to watch her eyes close as his lips moved closer to hers, pressing softly down on them, running his hands through her silky blonde hair as he pressed her more intimately against his body.
His eyes flicked to the spice wheel covered with different peppers and the omelets still sitting on a platter. Something sort of amazing occurred to him, and he decided to take a chance, whispering, “You had nothing to be jealous about.”
When he looked up, she nodded and offered him a small but open smile. To his delight, she didn’t turn scarlet or purple or rush to contradict him, and once again he was captivated by the honesty of her reaction.
After a moment, she withdrew her hand gently, squeezing his before she pulled hers away. “How did you stay so calm yesterday? I mean, I would think seeing someone else in an accident so soon after yours would—”
“I was worried about you. I was focused on you.”
She smiled at him with such tenderness, his heart leapt in his chest. “How’s your rib now?”