Jeannie shook off her fantasies. She topped off the scotch for the salesman at the other end of the bar and poured the wine for table eleven, but her attention was focused on Wyatt. She had to break the bad news to him—she’d be gone next week to help her sister, Nicole, with the baby girl that was due any minute.
This baby was the key to Jeannie and her sister being a family again. Any family Jeannie had ever had, she’d lost. She’d never met her father—he’d left before she’d been born. Mom had died when Jeannie had been ten and Nicole...
It didn’t matter what had gone wrong between the sisters in the past. What mattered was that they were going to grab this chance to be a family again now. Melissa—that was what they were going to call the baby—would be the tie that bound them together. Jeannie would do her part by being there for her sister, just like Nicole had been there for Jeannie when Mom had died and left the sisters all alone in the world.
In an attempt to demonstrate her commitment, Jeannie had even offered to move back into their childhood home with Nicole. It would’ve been a disaster but Jeannie had still offered because that was what family did—they made sacrifices and stuck together through the rough times. Only now that she was twenty-six was Jeannie aware how much Nicole had sacrificed for her. The least Jeannie could do was return the favor.
Nicole had told Jeannie that, while a thoughtful offer, it was absolutely not necessary for them to share a house again. Thank God, because living together probably would’ve destroyed their still-fragile peace. Instead, Jeannie would keep working nights at Trenton’s—and taking care of Dr. Wyatt—and then she’d get to the house around ten every morning to help Nicole with the cooking or cleaning or playing with the baby.
Jeannie might not be the best sister in the world but by God, she was going to be the best aunt.
That was the plan, anyway.
The only hiccup was sitting in front of her.
Wyatt didn’t do well with change, as she’d learned maybe six months into their partnership, as Jeannie thought of it. She’d gotten a cold and stayed home. He’d been more than a little upset that someone else had made him a subpar Manhattan that night. Julian, the owner of Trenton’s, said Tony, the bartender who’d subbed for her that night, had gotten a job elsewhere right after that. Jeannie knew that wasn’t a coincidence.
Maybe half the time Dr. Wyatt sat at her bar, he didn’t say anything. Which was fine. But when he did talk? It wasn’t inane chitchat or stale pickup lines. When he spoke, every single word either made her fall further in love with him or broke her heart.
“So,” he started and Jeannie knew he was about to break her heart again.
She waited patiently, rearranging the stemware that hung below the bar in front of him. He’d talk when he wanted and not a moment before.
Had he lost a patient? That she knew of, he’d only had two or three kids die and those times had been...awful. All he’d ever said was that he’d failed. That was it. But the way he’d sipped his drink...
The last time it’d happened, she’d sobbed in the ladies’ room after he’d left. Below his icy surface, a sea of emotion churned. And when he lost a patient, that sea raged.
After three years of listening to Dr. Wyatt pour out his heart in cold, clipped tones, Jeannie knew all too well how things could go wrong with babies. That was what made Jeannie nervous about Nicole and Melissa.
“I heard something today,” he went on after long moments that had her on pins and needles.
She studied him as she finished the lemons and moved on to the limes. He straightened his cuffs and then took a drink.
She fought the urge to check her phone again. Nicole would text if anything happened and there’d been no buzzing at her hip. But tonight was the night. Jeannie could feel it.
Wyatt cleared his throat. “I was informed that my father is considering a run for governor.”
Jeannie froze, the knife buried inside a lime. Had she ever heard Dr. Wyatt talk about his parents? She might’ve assumed that they’d died and left the bulk of the Wyatt Medical fortune to their son.
And who the heck had informed him of this? What an odd way to phrase it. “Is that so?”