Page 73 of Paging Dr. Hart
Tiffany: Keep it between us. Might not work out.
Melanie: Give him a chance, okay? Don’t sabotage it.
Tiffany: Okay.
Melanie: I have a good feeling about this.
Tiffany: Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I do too.
Melanie: When you get home, I want ALL the dirty details. Promise?
Tiffany: Promise.
I’m grinning at my phone, thinking about how funny Melanie is when I notice the large work boots that have entered my field of vision. They walk right up to me. I lift my gaze and look straight into a pair of cat-green eyes.
My breath catches in my throat.
No.
It can’t be?
Can it?
Sure enough, the man standing in front of me is Rafe, all grown up. He’s the same, but different. Sleeves of tattoos so dark I can’t make out the individual images crawl up arms thick with corded muscle. Another tattoo licks up the side of his neck, ending below his ear. He’s gotten taller, at least another foot since I last saw him. Broader and filled out with bulging muscles everywhere. Dark stubble covers his jaw and arches over an unsmiling mouth. His hair is black as midnight, wavy, and long enough to curl against the collar of his shirt.
He’s beautiful in a brutal kind of way.
The worst feature, the thing that I can’t look away from, are his eyes. They glitter, cold and merciless.
As I stand frozen, my mind spinning from shock, Rafe silently reaches his hand toward my chest. For a moment, I think he’s going to hurt me, maybe push me, but instead he picks up the conference badge that dangles from its long red lanyard against my sternum. The one I had forgotten I was wearing. He lifts it up to read, eyes narrowing.
Minutes ago, with Ethan, I had felt like I was floating. Now, staring at Rafe, I’m free falling, plummeting to the ground from a great height. My stomach turns, nausea rising up my throat. There’s a roaring in my ears, the sound of the ocean during a storm. It’s so loud that I almost don’t hear Ethan call my name.
“Tiffany.” Ethan’s voice is a thunderclap, waking me up from this nightmare.
Ethan!I can’t let him see Rafe.
Turning my head, I search for Ethan and feel the badge being released. It thumps back against my blouse and swings like a pendulum.
When I swivel back to Rafe, he’s gone. There’s only empty space before me. It’s like I saw a ghost who magically disappeared, evaporated into thin air. Rafe’s absence is so sudden and disorienting that for a second I think I hallucinated the whole encounter, but then Ethan asks, “Who was that guy?”
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Tiffany?” Ethan’s voice is questioning. “You okay?”
“What?” My mind is reeling from seeing Rafe.
“Who was that guy talking to you?” Ethan looks over my head to the spot where Rafe disappeared.
My mouth opens, but no words come out. How could I ever explain my childhood and those teenage years in Las Vegas? Ethan would never look at me the same way again. Would he regret kissing me if he knew? Would he walk away from me like Shelly and Rafe?
Not ready to risk it, I lie. “Oh, just some guy. He asked about the conference we’re going to.”
Easing the badge over my head, I take it off. “I forgot I was wearing this,” I admit as I hold it out. The sun reflects glaringly off its plastic surface, sending rainbow beams of light spinning across our faces.
Ethan removes his conference badge. “I totally forgot, too.” He folds the long lanyard into halves and then quarters before stuffing it in his pocket. “I can’t believe we’ve been walking around like dorks all day wearing these.” He laughs, the sound booming.
I wish I could share in his amusement, but a heavy sense of dread is growing in my stomach. I need to shake off the worry that seeing Rafe has generated in me.
