Doctor's Delight(64)

“Jesus.” Closing his eyes, he rocked her gently. “Someone really did a number on you, didn’t they, love?”

She didn’t answer, just pressed closer. Part of Rick cursed himself for pushing the issue, but another part of him felt as though he’d crested something so very important, that he was finally pushing open some hidden door.

Did this happen to all larger women? He wondered. Did they all lack such confidence? He didn’t remember his sister being so uptight about her weight, nor his mother. Oh, they’d been through their share of dieting and exercising, but ultimately they’d shrugged and continued on their merry way.

Not all women were that confident.

Cherry wasn’t that confident, but he wanted to bring that confidence up in her, bring it out, make her proud of herself.

Make her talk.

Resting his cheek on her head, he said softly, “Tell me what’s wrong, Cherry. Not the weight, but why you don’t want me to see. Who hurt you, baby? Tell me. Please tell me.”

She was silent for so long that he didn’t think she was going to answer, but then she whispered, “I went out with a man who dumped me on our date and left with another woman. She was gorgeous, slim, everything I’m not. I was the laughing stock of the party, and it was Susie who brought me home. I heard the teenagers when I was at school laughing at the bigger girls. I heard them laughing at me when I was in school regulation shorts, unable to run fully around the oval. I heard them call me a beached whale when I was in bathers at swimming classes.”

“Teenagers can be so thoughtlessly cruel.” Soothingly, Rick ran his hand up and down her back.

“A year ago Maxie finally talked me into going to the local pool in bathers. She’d been trying for months. There were three men there, handsome, muscular. The kind that turn a girl’s head.”

Yeah, Rick knew the kind of men of whom she spoke. Muscle-heads, the lot of them. As thick in the head as the muscles they sported with pride.

“I heard them laughing at me, heard the old ‘beached whale’ joke. One said that they better send out for the lifeguards when I hit the water, because there was going to be a tsunami for sure.”

Rick wanted to pound the thoughtless, cruel bastards’ heads in for them. As adults, they should have been more considerate.

“They commented about the dimples in my legs, saying they looked like the surface of the moon, all craters and lumps. My thighs wobbled like jelly. Someone like me should cover up, not make people sick by parading around my big arse and legs in bathers. I should be heard but not seen, one of them laughed, and another took it up and said they would be able to hear me coming a mile away by the rubbing of my thighs and the thudding of my footsteps. They had no idea that I was sitting behind them on the other side of the benches. That was the last time I ever let anyone see me in anything but my clothes. I can’t let you see me, Rick.”

“I’m not like them, Cherry.” How could he convince her that to him it didn’t matter? What could he possibly say that he hadn’t already?

Even as the thought filtered through his brain, he was already strategizing his next move. His mother had always said he was a fast thinker. His father said he was cunning. His sister said he was a jerk.

He believed himself to be determined. He knew what was of value in his life, and he would go after it. Cherry was what he valued most in his life now.

“Cherry, look at me.”

When she refused, he placed his hands on her wet cheeks and titled her head back. Tears glistened on her cheeks, and shaking his head, he took her hand and led her over to the kitchen bench. Plucking a couple of tissues from the box, he dried her cheeks then bent down and kissed her on her shiny nose.

Embarrassed, she glanced away. “I better go.”

It’d be a cold day in hell before he let her go now. “We’re not done talking yet.”

Miserable, she looked down at her feet. “I’m such an idiot.”

“No,” he said gently. “You’re human.” When the seconds kept ticking past and silence continued, Rick put a finger under her chin and titled her face back up so he could lock their gazes together.

They looked at each other steadily, he with quiet determination, she with a bravado that was trying to hide the hurt that dwelt in her soul.

Finally, he asked, “What do you want out of this relationship, Cherry?”

“You want to call it off—” she immediately began.

“No. Listen to me. What do you want out of this relationship, love? Think before you answer, think long and hard, and then be truthful.” He watched her silently, all the while his heart pounding just a little.