“I love you,” she said, and then, “So what happened?”
“I was wrong about her.”
Another time she might have laughed at his look of almost physical pain from his admission, but she couldn't. Not when she was so terribly worried about her sister. And his brother.
“She's not playing Luke,” Travis said. “She really, truly cares about him.” His face tightened even further. “He needs her in a way that he doesn't need you or me. And I'm afraid he's going to lose her.”
Her heart was so heavy a couple of tears fell before she even realized she was crying. “I'm afraid of that too.”
“Hell,” Travis said. “I'm thinking if things don't change soon, we're going to have to get them on a plane to Italy and force the issue.”
Her eyes sparkled at the memory of their surprise wedding. “Oh, wouldn't it be amazing to see them up on that stage at the Festival of Weddings?”
Travis pulled her back into his arms and loved her tears away, but even after he fell asleep with his head on her chest, she couldn't stop worrying. Because she knew that dragging her sister and brother-in-law off to Italy wouldn't make a lick of difference.
She and Travis couldn't make the decision for them.
Luke and Janica needed to choose love for themselves.
All she could do was pray that they did. Because Luke and Janica meant everything to her.
And they both deserved the kind of forever love that she and Travis shared.
Chapter Twenty-three
As soon as Janica touched down in Italy, she knew she should get right back on the plane.
She always loved Italy. The architecture. The passionate natives. The food. The fashion. And as soon as Travis had left her office, she'd booked the next flight out to Milan to deal with some accounts that she'd recently picked up and to get a feel for the new fabrics and styles coming out of fashion's center of business.
But neither of those were the real reasons she'd gotten on the plane.
She'd had to leave. Had to get away from any and everything that reminded her of Luke.
Only, how could she have forgotten that she'd been here, in Italy with him, when they'd been trying to help Lily and Travis with their own roller-coaster relationship?
I love you, he'd said. It shouldn't have taken me this long to figure it out.
Okay, so he'd finally owned up to his feelings. But how long would it take him to accept them? To embrace them? To not be embarrassed by his feelings for her or to wish he didn't feel them? And if she had to tell him, if she had to give him step-by-step instructions on how to really and truly love her, then how could it possibly be real? And in the end, she couldn't force him to feel anything other than what he really, truly felt.
Only, it was one thing to try and resist Luke from 5,000 miles away. It was another entirely to think that she'd be able to do it when they were both back in San Francisco, meeting regularly at family events.
One touch, the slightest stroke of his fingers against her skin, and she knew she was going to be lost.
She'd loved him too deep, for too long.
Janica had never settled for anything her whole life. But if Luke could only love her part of the way, maybe settling for whatever he could give her was something she'd need to learn to live with.
Not even bothering to pick up her luggage, she stepped up to the ticket counter and got herself on the return flight out to San Francisco. A dozen hours later as she got off the airplane, knowing she couldn't go another second without seeing Luke, she told the taxi driver to take her straight to the hospital.
And then, from out of nowhere, she felt the truck in the lane beside them clip the back bumper, spinning the taxi off into the center divider on the freeway. Everything went black.
* * *
"Taxi crash. Twenty-nine-year-old woman. Head wound. Possible internal bleeding."
Luke was heading into his tenth hour for the day and had just downed his fifth cup of coffee. He'd worked much longer hours in the past, but now the days seemed longer than they ever had. Coming off his four-week leave, he still felt tired, like he was dragging all the time.
And yet, at the same time, his hours in the ER were the only time he even felt remotely alive.
Somehow, none of the things that used to give him a rush, not even a car accident victim who would need every ounce of his concentration, set off a spark inside of him. Whereas Janica, with nothing more than a wicked little smile, had made him feel like it was the Fourth of July every single day.
Every single moment.
He was still amazed to realize that in less than a week she'd taught him how to have fun. How to appreciate everything around him. And how incredible it was to share his life with someone else.
How had he screwed everything up so badly? And how the hell could he possibly win her back?
The first time she said “I love you” he should have been right there with her, showering her with everything he'd felt for her for so long—and had so stupidly held back. He'd been scared to love and lose again. But he'd had no idea just how much it would really hurt. Especially when the losing part was entirely his fault.
Grabbing the chart from the paramedic, he moved to the quickly moving gurney and finally looked at his patient.
Oh God.
No.
Please, let this be a nightmare.
Please, God, please let this not be real.
But the blood across Janica's forehead and cheek, dried in clumps in her soft hair was real. Her pale skin, her closed, bruised eyelids were real. Her small body, so still and lifeless beneath the thin white sheet—so completely different from the way she normally was, the woman who didn't know how to stop moving—was real.
All of the patients he had ever worked on throughout his years in the ER came down to this moment.
The moment when he needed to save the woman who meant everything to him.
One of the first things he'd learned as a doctor had been that emotions had a time and place, but not in the operating room. He'd always known how to segment the surgeon from the flesh-and-blood man.
He called out instructions one after the other, held out his hands for the nurse to put on his gown and surgical gloves, while his brain worked methodically to assess the damage to Janica's body.
Sweetheart, please hold on. I'm going to save you. I promise.
But before he could lay even a finger on Janica, he felt a hand on his arm.
Luke looked at Robert, frowned as his colleague said, "You're crying."