Midnight Kiss (Virgin River #12)(22)

“I can’t believe that…”

“Oh, believe it.” She opened her eyes. “You were a guy who just went along with what a woman wanted and I was a woman who, without even thinking about it too much, pushed a man into a great big wedding he didn’t want.” She swallowed and her eyes glistened. “I hate to admit this to anyone, but Glen kept telling me things—like he just wasn’t comfortable with the size of that wedding, and he wasn’t sure our work schedules would be good for us, or this or that. I told him not to worry, but I never changed anything. I kept saying I couldn’t—that photographers work weekends. But that’s not really true, they don’t have to work every weekend. Portraits for events like anniversaries and engagements can be done before the parties are held, belly shots and babies can be done on weekdays. But the important thing is that until five minutes ago, I wasn’t willing to admit our breakup had anything to do with me. And I might be admitting it to you because I’ll probably never see you again.”

“Listen—I might have been a go-along kind of guy, but I was never that spineless. Glen let it go too far. He doesn’t get off that easy.”

She gave him a weak smile. “I’m glad I met you. I didn’t want to meet a guy, get to know a guy, and I sure didn’t want to like a guy, but… Well, I’m not sorry.”

“You know what that means, don’t you?”

She shook her head.

“After you go through something like a bad breakup and you meet someone new, you check it out and you either find someone better for you, or you recognize right off that you haven’t found the right one yet. But at least you keep moving forward until the guy and the life that’s right for you comes into focus. And until that happens, we get to kiss.”

“You’re an opportunist. I could smell it on you the second I met you.”

“Now you call your uncle and tell him about the deer accident, tell him we’re safe and warm and I’ll be looking for a tow truck in the morning. If you want him to, you can ask him if he’ll come and rescue you. He can come now or later. A little later or much, much later. You could even stay the night, if you felt like it.”

“No I couldn’t,” she said with a laugh.

“Then will you ask him to wait till after midnight? It’s not that far off.”

“I think I’ll just wait a while to call,” she said. “If I know my uncle, he’ll be on the road as soon as he gets my call.”

That made Drew smile. “I know I’m probably a poor substitute for the guy you wanted to be kissing at midnight, but—”

“Actually, Dr. Foley, I think maybe you’re a big improvement. And I might’ve gone a long time without knowing that.”

SUNNY WAITED A LITTLE BIT and then called her uncle, letting him know where she was, what had happened and that she was fine. While she was on the phone, Drew quickly downloaded the pictures of the bloody deer onto his laptop and deleted them from her camera. Then, while the fire roared, they sat on the leather sofa, very close together, with their feet propped up on the ottoman. At times their legs were on top of each other’s. They kissed now and then. Other times they talked. Sunny didn’t say too much more about Glen, and she didn’t want to hear any more about Penny.

She didn’t tell him that Glen wasn’t always nice to her. Oh, it went a bit further than the comment about the wide hips. Glen was the kind of guy who stayed out too late “unwinding” after work, criticized her appearance as being not sexy enough for his tastes and when they did have time together, he was never happy with how they were going to spend it—almost as if he’d rather she be working. She had thought about snatching his phone and looking at old text messages, listening to voice mails, but she was a little afraid of what she might find so she convinced herself she was being paranoid. By the time she realized it wasn’t such a positive match, she was wearing a ring and had made deposits on wedding stuff.

It was too late.

But what she did want to ask Drew was, “What makes you think you’ll do any better the next time you have a relationship?”

He turned to her with a smile and said, “Good! I really wanted you to ask me that.” He ran the knuckle of his index finger along her cheek. “Do you have any idea what attracts men and women to each other?”

She just shook her head. “I thought it was a learned behavior….”

“Maybe, but I bet it’s more. I bet it’s a real primal mating thing that has no logical explanation. Like you see someone and right away, bam, you gotta be with that person. And I bet sometimes all the other elements fall into place, and sometimes they don’t. That kind of unexplainable thing—you see a woman on the other side of the room and your heart just about leaps out of your chest. You go brain-dead and you’re on automatic. All of a sudden you’re walking over to her and you don’t know why, you just know you have to get closer. Everything about her pulls you like a magnet. You feel kind of stupid but you just walk up to her and say, ‘Hi, my name is Drew’ and hope for the best, even though she’s looking at you like you’re an idiot.”

“Slick,” she said. “Have you actually been able to use that technique very often?”

“I’ve never even tried it before, I swear. Listen, it’s kind of embarrassing to admit this, but that never happened with Penny. It was comfortable, nice, that’s all. No fireworks, no mind-blowing passion…”