He looked down. They were in two inches of it. “We have plenty.”
“Not funny, Wyatt. I have a flight in a few hours.”
“And I’ve got surgeries. I’ll call a plumber,” he repeated.
“But—”
“Zoe,” he said. “We both love this big ol’ piece of shit, but we can’t keep duct taping it together.”
“Duct tape fixes everything,” she said.
“Not this time. We need a major renovation, or we need to sell.”
She gasped. “Mom put you up to this?”
“No,” he said. “Look, I love the memories in this place as much as you. But—”
“But you’re leaving us.”
“You know I’m going to build a house,” he said gently. “You know I want my own place, where there’s no lingerie hanging in the bathroom—well, unless it belongs to the woman I’m sleeping with. I want to live where there’s no need to tiptoe around for a whole week every month because we ran out of Midol.”
“Hey.”
“I want to live somewhere without roommates, aka sisters who are pains in my ass who remember and enjoy bringing up how when I was ten I used to save my gum on the bedpost for the next day.”
She smiled. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“You would’ve remembered the next time Emily came over.”
She laughed. “Yeah. Maybe.”
He squeezed her hand. “And when I go, I want to know that you’re safe, and not drowning in the money pit.”
“What if I promise to stop bossing you around?”
“You’ll never stop bossing me around,” he said. “And that’s okay. I still love you. I just don’t want to live with you. Are we going to be okay?”
“No.” She sighed. “Yes. And the truth is, I don’t want to live with you, either. Or Darcy— Oh, God,” she said, clutching at his shirt. “Don’t you fucking me leave me alone with Darcy!”
He laughed, and she kicked water on him, and he put his hand over her face and shoved.
Yeah, they were going to be okay.
“Who’s going to tell Darcy?” Zoe asked, squeezing water out of her hair.
“Tell me what?” Darcy had appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Wyatt’s leaving us,” Zoe said.
“Good,” Darcy said. “You finally told him we were tired of having him as a roommate then.”
Wyatt slid Zoe a look.
She winced.
“You’re tired of living with me?” he asked in disbelief. “What do I do?”
“Besides leaving the lid up, drinking out of the milk container, thinking that doing your dishes means getting them into the sink, and parking in the good spot every single night? You’re a fun sucker,” Darcy said.
“Darcy,” Zoe said reproachfully.
“Gently,” Darcy said, and smacked herself in the forehead. “You said to tell him gently that we don’t want to live with him anymore. Sorry.”
Wyatt looked at Zoe in disbelief.
“You’re cramping our love lives,” she said on a sigh.
“I’m cramping your love life?” he asked. “You don’t have a love life.”
“Because the last time I brought a date home, you told him he was an idiot.”
“Because he used the wrong remote on the TV and unprogrammed everything,” Wyatt said. “It took me three days to undo the mess. And that was a year ago.”
“They were trying to watch porn and you came home on them,” Darcy said. “The poor guy got nervous because you’re about a foot taller than him and he was one of those skinny dudes who disappears when he turns sideways. Jeez, you’re so oblivious.”
Wyatt rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes but he still couldn’t undo the image of Zoe and that scrawny dude watching porn together. “You’ve done it,” he finally said to Darcy. “You’ve driven me to drink. I need a beer. No, I need whiskey and it’s five thirty in the morning.”
“And I realize I don’t have a love life right now,” Darcy went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “But someday I might. Because, unlike you, I’m ready to take a risk.”
“You’re a walking risk,” Zoe told her.
“I risk,” Wyatt said.
“Name one,” Darcy said.
“Yesterday. In surgery. I—”
“Not at work,” Darcy said. “With your heart.”
He stared at her. At the both of them. Not liking where this was going.
Darcy softened. “You never have, Wyatt,” she said. “You hide behind your let-it-happen attitude, because it’s safe. If you don’t ask someone to be yours and they don’t pick you, well then nothing lost, right?”
“Wrong,” he said. He’d risked with Caitlin, and she’d left. Excuse the fuck out of him for not jumping into it again with Emily.
Except . . . he had. Maybe he hadn’t put it to words, but he’d let her in. Inside him.
A tactical error on his part, one he was hoping he didn’t pay for.
His phone buzzed, and he looked down at the screen. Dell was back and needed him at work a few minutes early. Saved by the bell. “Gotta go.”
“Wyatt,” Zoe said softly when he started up the basement steps. “Darcy didn’t mean to hurt your feelings—”
“Yes, I did,” Darcy said. “Take a damn risk,” she told him. “Try it, you might like it.”
He risked plenty. Hell, he risked daily. And her name was Emily.
Risk personified.
Twenty minutes later, he strode into Belle Haven and headed to Dell’s office.
“I’m finally catching up on the business side of things after all the running around,” Dell said. “I don’t see a reason not to make the intern switch if Emily’s on board with it and wants it. You?”
Wyatt felt his gut drop. “What?”
“They’re both on board. Emily e-mailed me about it days ago.”
“When?”
“Right before I left.”
Before her and Sara’s Nancy Drew exploits. Before they’d made love all night long.
And she’d not said a word.
Dell’s gaze remained even, steady. “I was surprised,” he admitted. “I thought there for a while that you and she—”
“No.” Apparently not. “No,” Wyatt said again, trying to believe it, all while reeling.
Dell nodded. “I was going to go make the west ranching rounds. Three stops, Brady’s flying. You want to switch and take it?”
Wyatt nodded, appreciating the out today, but he couldn’t stop thinking days ago. Emily had e-mailed Dell days ago . . .
And not said one word to him.
Emily shadowed Dell for the day. He’d told her the switch had been approved and there were no hard feelings but it needed to happen ASAP for continuity sake.
He didn’t say one word about Wyatt.
And neither did she.
Halfway through the day she received an e-mail from Lilah stating that Sara had won Wyatt in the charity auction. Sara was now the proud owner of a day of shadowing one sexy Dr. Wyatt Stone.
Emily couldn’t believe her little cheat bid using someone else’s name had worked. If she was a good person, she’d gift the shadow day with Wyatt to one of the other women who’d wanted him, but she totally wasn’t that good of a person because she was keeping him.
At least on paper.
The day didn’t end at the usual six o’clock because that night was Belle Haven’s monthly immunization clinic. Emily had volunteered to work it, and then found herself surprised when the entire staff showed up to do the same, including significant others—minus Brady and Wyatt, who weren’t back yet.
The atmosphere was more like a party than a work night. Lilah brought animals who needed adopting, and held an impromptu adoption clinic. Jade was giving out free pet visit coupons, and Adam was there teaching one of his dog training courses—which Darcy took—borrowing Woodrow to do so, who learned all sorts of things, including how to sit on command.
There was food, too, everyone had brought something, and the fun and laughter was plentiful. Anyone, even a perfect stranger, could’ve felt the love the place exuded. But it wasn’t the place. It was the people. And their longtime connections to each other. Sunshine was like that, one of those places where history collided with the present, and it worked in a way Emily had never imagined it would.