Sea Glass Island (Ocean Breeze) - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,116

patient?” she asked Debra.

“No, ma’am, but he doesn’t like being disturbed.”

Cora Jane smiled. “I think he’ll make an exception for me.” When Debra reached for her phone, Cora Jane shook her head. “Maybe you should just pretend you never saw me.”

Debra shrugged and put the phone back.

Cora Jane found Ethan in his office, a clutter of files spread out on his desk, though his back was turned to the mess and he was staring out the window.

“I came to thank you,” she announced, startling him.

He whirled around and regarded her warily. “Cora Jane,” he muttered, his tone not especially welcoming. “What brings you by? Everything okay? Did you get cut or burned or something?”

She smiled at his attempt to turn this into a medical visit. “Nope. Like I said, I came to thank you for going to bat for my girl.”

“Samantha would have been okay without me,” he said. “Still, I figured I owed her a little backup. I understand you did your share of rabble-rousing in Ken’s office.”

“I did, but I’m not the one who persuaded him to print a retraction or got to the bottom of who was behind this in the first place. I’m afraid I was too busy ranting to ask the right questions or make the right demands.”

“Well, the record’s straight now,” Ethan said. “All’s well that ends well.”

Cora Jane gave him an impatient look. “That’s it? You see this as the end of things?”

“No other way to look at it,” Ethan said.

She studied him for a full minute, then shook her head. “You think she needs to come to you, don’t you? You want Samantha to reach out, put her heart on the line again, prove she really wants you.”

Ethan actually flinched at what she could only assume was a direct hit.

“She’ll never do it,” Cora Jane told him. “It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you. It just means her pride runs as deep as yours. I hope to goodness one of you snaps out of it before it’s too late. Anything else would be a crying shame.”

She was halfway to the door when he said, his tone miserable, “What am I supposed to do?”

“You could start by admitting you love her,” she said, relieved that he’d asked.

“I do,” he said firmly.

Cora Jane smiled and turned back. “Not to me. I meant to her.”

“I was afraid that was what you meant.”

“For a man who braved death, probably more times than either of us would like to count, why are you so scared of three little words that could give you everything you want?”

When he started to reply, she held up a hand. “Never mind. I know. You’re thinking if she doesn’t say them back, it’ll be humiliating, maybe leave you with a broken heart.”

He nodded. “Something like that.”

“You feeling real good with the way things are now?”

A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Point taken.”

She gave a nod of satisfaction. “Good. I knew you were smart. And for whatever it’s worth coming from me, she does love you. Not a question in my mind about that, or I’d never have set foot in here.”

“Thanks, Cora Jane.”

“No thanks necessary. Just do right by my girl.”

“I’ll try,” he responded.

She gave him one of her fiercest looks. “And do it soon, too,” she ordered. “Jerry’s getting impatient. I can’t hold that man off much longer, and we’re waiting on the two of you before we set our wedding date.”

“Pour on the pressure, why don’t you?”

She laughed. “Best way I know to get things done.”

And then she left him to think about what she’d said.

* * *

Despite his reassurances to Cora Jane the day before, Ethan still wasn’t a hundred percent sure what was right. Maybe things had turned out exactly the way they were meant to. Unfortunately that thought left an empty place inside him.

He’d almost convinced himself to live with that lonely destiny when he walked the few blocks from his home to the clinic Thursday afternoon to meet the kids for this week’s outing. At the edge of the parking lot, he stopped in his tracks.

There was Samantha, sitting on a bench beside Cass, who was staring at her with the rapt attention of a starstruck fan. Cass’s face was transformed. The sullen teen was gone, replaced by an animated young girl. In that instant, all the feelings he’d been denying he had for Samantha—the ones that ran so much deeper than a longing for a quick roll in the sack—surfaced. There was