Page 15 of Meant to Be
Mitch rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop his lips from curving in a hint of a smile. “How do you know Jagger?”
“I already told you. He dated Julia.”
“You didn’t date him too?”
Her head tilted. “He dated Julia.”
Mitch leaned forward. “So he asked you out, but you didn’t go.”
Sydney responded with a slight nod. “I like Jagger. He’s fun. If it hadn’t been for Julia, I might have said yes.”
There it was again. That annoying clench in his gut at the idea of Sydney and Jagger together. Mitch sat back, wondering if she was baiting him. The Sydney he’d known before wasn’t one to tease or poke, but the woman in front of him, while she looked like Sydney, a slightly older, sexier Sydney, was different. He grabbed the bottle of beer the waitress set in front of him and took a long swig. The triumph in Sydney’s eyes told him she’d gotten the response she wanted. Shewaspoking.
“So, let’s cut the games. What are you doing here, Syd?”
She looked down and toyed with her wineglass. “I told you.”
“I don’t buy it. What’s that movie you made me watch in college where the guy says, ‘Of all the gin joints you walk into mine?’”
Returning her gaze to his, she sighed. “Casablanca.”
“Right. Your showing up in Charlotte Tavern, where I’m from and now live, isn’t a coincidence.”
“Did I know this was your hometown? Yes. But I meant what I said about needing something different. I wanted to find work with more meaning.”
Mitch shook his head. “You’re a doctor. Even in New York, I suspect there’s meaning to it.”
“Yes, but I wanted to work in a place that might not otherwise have the medical resources it needs.”
“Charlotte Tavern isn’t a third world country.” Annoyance flared, and he fought the feeling he was being too sensitive and hard.
“No. However, it doesn’t have the level of care most women have access to in metropolitan cities. But it’s trying. What drew me was the free clinic. Charlotte Tavern is a small rural town, but it has its priorities straight. Thousands of women die every year because they don’t get proper screening and treatment for women’s health issues.”
He took another sip of beer, not wanting to be swayed by her passionate mission to help women in his small town. “So, my being here… just a small inconvenience?”
She took a sip of her drink, but the flash of heat in her hard, narrow eyes suggested she’d have rather thrown it on him. “I was curious to see you. To see how you were. I hoped you might be… friendlier. But I’m not surprised you’re still so bitter and angry.”
“Really?” He ground his teeth, resisting the urge to say, “Well, duh.”
She shrugged, as if it were nothing. “You always had a short fuse and hung on to old infractions.”
“I was eighteen. What did I have to be angry about?” He was working overtime to keep his voice calm, but even he heard the tightness in his tone.
“You never forgave Carter Lyons.”
“He deleted my thirty-page term paper!”
“It was an accident. One he tried to make up for many times.”
“So you just deleted me, and I’m not supposed to be angry?”
Sydney looked away in the same manner his mother always had when he was on her last nerve and she needed a second to pull herself together before boxing his ears.
When she looked back, there was a fierceness in her eyes he’d never seen in her before. “I didn’t delete you. You deleted us.”
The temper he’d been working to keep at a mild hum threatened to explode. He leaned forward, working to keep his voice even. “You got that wrong.”
She sat back. “I understand that you were angry that in my practicality and naiveté I let my parents persuade me to wait to get married. But I had every intention of spending my life with you. You.” She pointed her finger at him. “You’re the one that ended things. If you want to be mad at someone, Mitch, look in the mirror.” She grabbed her purse and exited the booth, muttering, “This was a mistake.”
