Page 14 of The Marriage Mistake

I could still feel the place on my forearm where she’d smoothed down the gauze. Could sense the press of her shoulder against my chest. For someone so small, she had a hell of a presence.

Darby shifted on the plastic seat next to me, and I jerked my gaze away from Ember. I checked on my daughter, who was staring at her scratched forearm.

Ember had been right to insist on us coming here. She’d put my daughter first, even when it meant going toe-to-toe with me. She hadn’t backed down when I’d tried to brush her off. That, I realized, meant something to me.

FOUR

EMBER

The wait at the medical center was short, which was a pleasant surprise. When they called Jack’s and Darby’s names, I nodded at them and stayed in my seat until they both re-emerged a short while later.

Darby looked a little green around the gills as she clutched her arm. Poor girl. I’d heard the rabies PEP shots were painful. Jack looked pale, but he gave me the same flirtatious grin he used when he was trying to annoy me.

And it was working.

Barely containing the urge to roll my eyes, I stood up and headed toward them.

Jack’s grin widened—he could tell he’d succeeded in irritating me—and he opened his mouth to say something. Unfortunately, nothing came out, because his eyes went all funny and his next step dragged, and then he was falling face-first toward the hard tile floor.

I gasped, lunging forward, and caught him around the chest to keep him upright.

Ha.

I’d never pegged myself as delusional, but I’d have to reassess, because the man was a six-foot-four pillar of brawn. There was no way I was holding up that much dead weight, and the moment I wrapped my arms around him, his momentum pitched us toward the floor once more.

Luckily for him, I softened his fall. Unluckily for me, I softened his fall.

He landed on top of me, expelling every single molecule of air from my lungs. Darby screamed. Footsteps told me nurses were coming running.

I, however, was stuck.

Jack stirred, mumbling something unintelligible. With his lips near my ear, I thought I heard, “You smell nice,” before he lifted his head and looked at me with a soft smile on his lips.

Ignoring the thrill his words sent arrowing through my stomach, I shoved at his shoulders. “Get off me. I can’t breathe.”

Jack’s gaze sharpened, dispelling all the softness. He lifted some of his weight off me, propping his upper body on his elbows on either side of my head. I inhaled sharply, glaring when he didn’t move.

“What if I like it here?” he replied in a voice so low no one else could hear it.

It was a lie. He was only saying it to get a rise out of me.

“I’m still feeling a little lightheaded,” he went on, hips pressing against mine. “I don’t think it’s safe for me to move.”

“In a minute, it’ll be a lot less safe for you to stay,” I shot back, baring my teeth. I needed him off me. Not because I hated the way it felt to have his weight on top of me, but because I liked it a little too much.

That was a first.

“Jack? Ma’am?”

Jack rolled off me, but he didn’t go far. He lay on his side, pressed up against me, and smiled at the nurse in the floral scrubs. “What did you put in that shot, Doris? And have you got another one?”

“Oh, Jack,” the older woman clucked, flapping her hands at him. “You went down like a cut tree. My God. Are you okay?” This, she asked me, quickly following up with, “Did you hit your head?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Stay right there. Jack, give her some room. Here, Ron will help you into a chair. Darby, sit beside your father.”

There was a bustle of activity while Jack was checked over and I was assessed. “Good save,” Nurse Doris murmured to me while she checked my head for lumps. “But next time two hundred pounds of dead weight is falling toward you, I would suggest moving out of the way.”