Twelve

A pretty young woman with wavy dark hair and coffee-colored skin came out of the pub and strode toward Dax, her hand extended. “Hi, I’m Lily’s friend Marielle.”

He shook. “Dax Xavier. Pleased to meet you.”

“Hey there,” he said to his wife as she and a couple of other women joined him and Marielle.

“Hi, Dax.” She reached up to press a kiss on his mouth too quickly for him to respond. Then she introduced Kim, a petite Asian with short, color-streaked hair, and George, a slender redhead.

Each of Lily’s friends was attractive in her own way. His wife was the most understated, in her tailored camel-colored coat and jeans, yet with her pale blond hair, fine features, and regal bearing, she drew the eye. Or, at least, she drew his eye, as she always had.

To Kim, he said, “You’re the umbrella artist. I like your work.”

“Thanks.”

“And you’re a helicopter bush pilot,” Marielle said. “I bet you have some fascinating stories.”

“Maybe one or two.” He wondered what Lily had told these women about him. Usually, she was reserved about sharing her private life, but then he’d never known her to have close friends before.

“It sounds dangerous,” Marielle said.

Nothing like flying in Afghanistan, but yeah, he’d had his close calls. Those were stories he never shared with Lily. She’d worried enough about him when he was in the army. “Not so much,” he said.

“He’s an excellent pilot,” Lily said. Then, “We should head off.”

“Nice to meet you all,” he said. “Anyone need a ride?”

They all said no then exchanged good-byes. He opened the passenger door for Lily, then went around and climbed in. “I feel eagle eyes watching me.” He started the car.

“I haven’t said much about you or our marriage.” She glanced over. “They think you’re hot. No surprise.”

Not knowing how to respond to that, he instead said, “Where do you want to go for dinner?”

“Marielle recommended a Greek restaurant on Davie. What do you think?”

His mouth watered. “Greek sounds good.”

He drove through the sparse traffic. Rather than park in a two-hour curb slot, he pulled into a flat outdoor parking lot across from Takis’ Taverna.

When he and Lily walked inside, he was relieved to see it wasn’t the kind of fancy place his in-laws went for. Tables lined each side of the long room, and the décor was simple and attractive: white walls with bright blue accents, blue tablecloths set at an angle over white ones, bench seats and cushions in shades of gold. A white brick archway strung with Christmas lights added a welcoming touch, as did plants, Greek photos and paintings, and old-fashioned lamps. “Looks nice.”

“It does.”

At ten to six on Boxing Day, the place was almost empty. At a table by the window, a gray-haired couple chatted over an appetizer platter. Farther back, a youngish woman in a Beavers jersey sat alone with a glass of red wine and a tablet device.

Lily murmured, “See the jersey? George’s fiancé is captain of the Beavers.”

“Oh, yeah?” He caught a hockey game now and then, and had seen the Beavers win the Stanley Cup this year.

A middle-aged blond woman in a blue top came, smiling, to meet them. “Pick your table, folks.”

Dax left the choice to Lily, and she selected a table for four near the back. It should be quiet there and give them a bit of privacy. When he’d suggested dinner, he’d remembered the early years, long meals filled with conversation and flirting. Lily’d never been big on public displays of affection, but flirting had been great foreplay. Tonight, he hoped they could recapture some of that relaxed fun.

Lily took the bench seat against the wall, peeling off her coat to reveal a sand-colored cardigan over a matching round-necked sweater. In her ears were the small gold studs she wore for work. She looked great, as always, but not exactly touchable.

Dax slung his bomber jacket on the chair across from her and sat down, shoving the sleeves of his lightweight wool sweater up his forearms.

“What would you like to drink?” the waitress asked.

“Martini for the lady, with a lemon twist. I’ll take a bottle of beer. Got something Greek?”

“We have Mythos.”

When the waitress had gone, Lily raised an eyebrow. “What if I didn’t want a martini?”

“You always like a martini at the end of the day.” Or had that changed too? “Don’t you?”

“Well, yes, but . . . Am I really that predictable?”

He shrugged.

She frowned. “When was the last time I surprised you?”

That answer was easy. “This weekend. Your reaction to the things I did.” His body heated at the memory.

She flushed, and when he tipped her a wink, her color heightened. “Other than that,” she said primly.

“The books you’ve been reading, the umbrella.” The pretty shirt in her closet, which he figured Kim must have made. “And they’re all due to your book club,” he pointed out.

The waitress served their drinks then left them alone with the menus.

“When’s the last time you surprised yourself?” Dax asked. “Aside from this weekend.”

She toyed with her martini glass. “All right, I get it. Book club’s about the only thing that shakes me out of my routine. I try different foods, read books I wouldn’t normally buy.” A smile flickered across her face. “We went to a rodeo and a country and western bar.” Then, seeing his expression, she said, “And that surprised you, didn’t it?”

“Totally.” Intrigued, he cocked his head. “How did you like the rodeo?”

“It was fun. Quite earthy and raw. Exciting. Those guys are crazy, doing what they do.” She sipped her drink. “It was fun hanging out with other women. Kind of like high school, where the girls giggled over what guys were hot. That’d be you, by the way, though at the rodeo it was Ty and Blake.”

“Ty and Blake?” Jealousy put an edge in his voice.

“Blake was Marielle’s one—no, two-nighter. Ty is now Kim’s fiancé, and they live together.”

“Wow. Some rodeo.”

“And bar, after. But yes, it was a fun day. We just, I don’t know, acted like girls.”

She was always a beautiful woman, but when her face softened like that, she took his breath away. “It’s nice to see you making some friends.”

So much for the softness. Stiffly, she said, “I have friends.”

She did? He’d never met them, or even heard her mention them. She really did shut him out of her life. “Like who?” Again, his voice had an edge.

So did hers when she said, “No one you’ve met.” Then she sighed. “Why are we like this? I feel like you’re criticizing me, and I’m being defensive.”

“Not criticizing,” he said gruffly. “It’s just that you don’t include me in your life.”

“Oh.” The word sat there for a long moment before she said, “There are a few colleagues I have a drink with at medical conferences and events. You’re right, I don’t really have friends. When I went to premed in Toronto, I lost touch with my girlfriends from school. Since then, I’ve been too busy to make new ones.”

“But now you have book club.”

She nodded. “When I saw Marielle’s poster in a coffee shop early in the year, it called out to me.”

“All work, no play?” She’d always been disciplined and goal-focused, but she used to take time out to play with him, when they managed to be in the same city at the same time.

“Well . . .” She smiled. “I thought it would be highbrow literary conversation, but it really has become an hour of play each week. Discussing books got us talking about our views, values, experiences, and we’ve come to know and like each other. And I’m reading and thinking about things I wouldn’t otherwise.”

Like kinky sex. The woman sitting across from him, looking so proper in her sweater set and gold earrings, had let him tie her up, blindfold her, rub ice cubes over her body. Bring her to climax again and again. His cock swelled and he shifted position to try to ease the strain against his fly.

His body language or expression must have given him away. She rolled her eyes. “Other things than that.” She picked up her menu and perused it.

Dax did the same, trying to think about food rather than sex. “Want to share a couple of appetizers? Maybe calamari?”

“Sure. And dolmades?”

“Done. Think I’ll have the kleftiko for my main course.” He closed his menu.

“What? Oh, the roast lamb. Sounds good. I’ll have chicken souvlaki.”

He glanced toward the waitress, who picked up on the cue and came to take the order. Dax added a request for a basket of pita bread and tzatziki, and they were set.

“It’s so nice to have all these food options, after being in the bush,” he told Lily.

“See,” she teased, “there’s something about Vancouver that you like.”

“Touché.”

They shared a smile then she said, “Did you have many flights today?”

“Yeah, I was busy. It worked out well, me being in town. One of their pilots had wanted to take a holiday, but the company didn’t want to turn customers away.”

“People really want scenic flights in winter?”

“It’s pretty spectacular. Ocean, mountains, snow.”

“If you can see anything for the rain.”

“The satellite photos give a good idea when visibility will be the best. And if it’s raining or foggy, well, that’s West Coast ambiance.”

She studied him curiously. “You like flying tourists?”

“I like flying. I like the ocean, the mountains. The tourists”—he shrugged—“sometimes they’re great, sometimes they’re awful, but they’re not in my life for long. Same as anyone else I fly, on whatever job I’m doing. Geologists and engineers, fishermen and hunters, loggers and firefighters, doctors, lawyers, and First Nations chiefs.”

“There are awful doctors?” she joked.

“Hard to believe, eh?”

“Do you fly doctors on holiday, or are they working?”

“Both. I’ve flown docs into remote mining or logging camps to do checkups and deal with minor illnesses and injuries, though if there’s something urgent I’ll fly the patient to a hospital. A few times, I’ve flown doctors to accident sites to patch up people enough that I can fly them out, if what’s needed is beyond the scope of my paramedic training.” He and Lily had never talked much about his work. When he’d been in the army, those stories hadn’t been for sharing with his worried wife. It had become a habit, he guessed, for him not to tell and her not to ask. Now her interest warmed him.

She nodded thoughtfully. “What kind of accident sites?”

“Plane crashes, skiing or hiking accidents, snowmobile crashes. Often in places that can’t be reached by ground transport, or where that’d take too long. A heli doesn’t need much space to land. That’s the beauty, compared to a small plane.”

“I remember you saying that when you were in basic flight training.”

Their appetizers arrived on a platter and they served themselves. Dax tasted, and sighed with satisfaction. Lily ate a calamari ring, which for some reason struck him as a sexy act, making his cock throb again.

“It’s been four years,” she said, “since you started your own business.”

Dax swallowed a bite of pita and tzatziki. “Right.” When he left the army, he hadn’t suffered from PTSD, but his head had been kind of messed up and he hadn’t slept much. He hadn’t been comfortable around people, even Lily, and she’d eyed him warily—when she wasn’t occupied in growing her Well Family Clinic. Feeling unsuited for a regular pilot job, a regular life, Dax had craved the peace and purity of nature, the independence of making his own way in the world.

“You did well right from the beginning.”

He shrugged. “I knew some guys. Being ex-Forces didn’t hurt. Means you know what you’re doing up there, better than someone who’s taken a basic flying course and put in his hours on Mickey Mouse flights. More offers come my way than I can handle.”

“You could hire other pilots to work for you.”

He snorted. “Don’t want to be a boss. Want to fly helicopters.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” she said with a touch of bitterness, and sliced into a stuffed grape leaf.

Now what was up with her? “It is,” he said evenly. “You have a problem with it?”

She ate the bite slowly. “There aren’t many people who can go off and do whatever job they want, exactly the way they want.”

Huh? “You’re upset about my job? Lily, you’ve always encouraged me to be a pilot. You told me about ROTP. And when I was finishing my last tour of duty in Afghanistan, we discussed what I’d do next. I thought you supported the idea of doing bush flying.”

“I do, Dax, honestly. You have a job that makes you happy.” Her mouth twisted in a slight grimace. “At book club a few months back, we were talking about how some people have a special thing that they feel they were born to do. And how great it is if they can make a living doing it. You’re doing that.”

“So what’s the problem?” Then a light dawned. “You mean because I’m away so much?”

She drained her martini glass. “That’s one thing. It makes it hard to have a proper marriage.”

Just like her devotion to the clinic did. But he’d long ago realized he and Lily would never have a traditional marriage. He was about to say so, but she was going on.

“The other thing is, it sounds so easy for you. You want to fly helicopters and don’t want to be a boss. By which you mean not doing administrative tasks, managing people, and so on. Right?”

“You bet.” He was trying to follow her, but wasn’t clear what she was getting at.

The waitress came by to ask if Lily would like another martini.

“No, thanks. Could I please get a glass of red wine? Whatever you’d recommend.”

“Of course.” She turned to Dax. “Sir?”

“The same, please.”

When she’d gone, he said to Lily, “Yeah, I don’t like admin stuff. I do what I have to, like pay taxes, but that’s it. Is that bad?”

“Nice work if you can get it,” she said for the second time.

“I don’t follow.”

She sighed. “My thing, the thing I always believed I was born to do, is heal people.”

“Yeah, of course.” He’d known that since the night he met her. “To heal normal people who’re sick or injured. It’s why you chose family practice and stood up to your parents when they wanted you to go into a prestigious specialty.”

“Yes, exactly. But now I spend more time on administration than on seeing patients.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s my clinic. I started it, I grew it. I’m responsible for it. For the patients, the doctors, the staff.”

“How many doctors do you have now?” She’d never talked much about her work either. When she did, it was usually to share patient success stories, not the business end of things.

She groaned.

“Did I ask the wrong thing?”

“No, it just reminded me—” She broke off as the waitress brought their wine and cleared the empty appetizer plates.

“I’ll be right back with your meals,” the woman said.

Dax and Lily both stayed quiet until she’d served dinner and left.

“Reminded you?” he prompted as he cut into his tender meat.

“The Well Family Clinic has five doctors including me, which is barely enough to handle the existing patient load. And we keep getting new patients.” She forked up some of the Greek salad that came with their meals.

“Stop taking them.”

Her mouth tightened. “Our patients have babies. Or they beg us to take relatives and close friends who’ve moved to Vancouver, and it’s hard to say no. On top of that, the baby-boom patients are getting older and having more health issues that bring them in to see us.”

“Hmm. Yeah, I see what you mean. Sorry for being so flip about it.”

She smiled briefly. “Thanks, Dax. Anyhow, now one of the doctors has to move to half-time. His wife is seriously ill and of course he wants to be with her. Her prognosis is uncertain. If she becomes terminal, which I sure hope doesn’t happen, he’d take a full leave.”

Dax’s gut clenched at the thought of Lily being sick like that. It was one thing to know that their marriage might end, but the idea of her being seriously ill, maybe even dying . . . Shit. It was unthinkable. “Poor bastard,” he said softly.

“I know. I’ll give him every support I can, but it sure doesn’t help the workload problems.”

“Can’t you find someone to fill in? A locum?”

“Maybe, though good ones are hard to find. Top priority is being great with patients, and the last locum we hired was. But she asked me so many questions, it would have been quicker to see the patients myself. Anyhow, yes, you’re right. I’ll have to put out the word, review applications, interview people. I just don’t know when I’ll have the time.”

The answer seemed obvious. “Get one or two of the other doctors to do it.”

She frowned. “Dax, it’s my clinic. I’m responsible.”

And a perfectionist control freak. It was one of the admirable things about Lily, the way she took responsibility and never shirked. It was also one of the frustrating things, that she wouldn’t share the load. He couldn’t say any of that without pissing her off, so he settled for, “Tough situation,” and took a bite of his delicious lamb.

“I’ll handle it.” The lines of stress around her eyes belied her words. “But see why I’m envious that you get to do what you enjoy, without the administrative hassle?”

He hated to see her looking so strained and unhappy. “You don’t have to run a medical clinic. You could work as a doctor at someone else’s clinic.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I—”

“Ever since you went into practice, you’ve been making things bigger and better. Trying to impress your parents.” And to compete with Anthony, who’d chosen a specialty—and a wife—they approved of.

“What’s wrong with wanting my parents’ approval?” She stared at him over the rim of her wineglass.

“They’ll never give it. You should stop trying.”

“That’s not fair. To them or to me. They believe in the self-fulfilling prophecy: have high expectations of your children, and they’ll meet them.”

“High expectations?” He snorted. “No, Lily. Their expectations. They don’t care about what you want. They won’t be happy if you turn your clinic into the largest in the city. And they won’t be happy as long as you’re married to me.” He picked up his own glass and took a hearty slug of wine.

“That’s—” She bit her lip. “They’re still my parents. I can’t just ignore them, and—”

“Yes, you can.” He put the glass down with a thump.

“No.” She shook her head vigorously. “You can do that.” Her voice rose. “You did it with your parents and grandparents. I’m sure you had your reasons, though I certainly don’t know because you always refuse to talk about them. I know your father went to jail, and I can only guess that your mother and her parents did some pretty awful things.”

“Whatever.” His life up to the time he met Lily had been crappy. He hated thinking about it, so why would he want to talk about it?

“But my mom and dad aren’t bad parents.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

Blue eyes icy, she glared across the table. “What’s that supposed to mean? They gave me everything. A good education, nice clothes, all the technological gizmos any student could possibly want, private lessons in French, Latin, piano, and—”

“They don’t respect you,” he said roughly. “They don’t care about your feelings. They don’t want a daughter, they want a puppet.”

“You’re wrong!”

“Hey, you’re the one who said you feel like you have to agree with them to be loved.”

“That was . . . I was overreacting. Of course they love me.”

He should’ve known better. Her clinic and her parents were hot buttons. If he dared criticize the way she handled either, she got pissed off and defensive. Still, something drove him to keep trying, to make her see the truth. “They never accepted your choices. When we were dating, they tried to break us up. They never gave a damn that you loved me. They only agreed to the wedding when you told them we’d get married in the registry office. We’ve been married ten years and they still treat me like shit.”

“You don’t even try, Dax. Look at Regina, making nice because they’re her in-laws. Why don’t you do that, rather than provoke them?”

Be a doormat? No fucking way. “They’re the ones who provoke me. They have since the day they met me.”

“They wanted something different for me.”

“Well, maybe they were right all along!”