Slow Hands

way.”
    He hesitated, still waiting, so sexy-yet-vulnerable, holding out for the words she was not going to offer him.
    They wouldn’t come. Not now, not ever. Not when she had the power to hurt him…tomorrow, next year. And not when she knew she could be crushed into unrelenting sorrow for the remainder of her life if he ever did the one thing that could most hurt her, too—stop loving her.
    “I forgive you, Jake. But I don’t want to see you again.”

13
    C ONSIDERING SHE WAS BACK at the hospital by 10 a.m. on Saturday, Maddy might as well have stayed there. If she hadn’t left, if she’d just curled up on the lumpy sofa to wait until visiting hours, perhaps she could have delayed the inevitable moment when she’d had to rip her own heart out. Because that’s what she’d done with every word she’d said to Jake in the predawn hours.
    “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, rubbing her hands over her weary eyes as she watched the clock in the hospital waiting area. Her father was allowed two brief visits per hour, starting at eleven. She was the first of her family to arrive, and she could have come in a little later. But what was the point? It wasn’t as if she’d slept, nor had she been doing anything at home that she couldn’t do here. Worrying. Crying. Regretting.
    If her fears about her father hadn’t kept her brain from emptying and her eyes from closing in the cold darkness of her room, her heartache over pushing Jake away would definitely have done the trick, anyway.
    He hadn’t been pushed easily. He’d tried hard to dissuade her from doing what they both knew she didn’t really want to do. But in the end, with tears streaming down her face as she admitted she was too tired, too frightened and too confused to think straight, he’d let it go. Let her have her way.
    Let her shove him out of her life.
    Maddy was no fool. She knew he’d only left because he, too, was worried about her father—and Maddy’s own state of mind. If not for that, she figured they’d still be down in the parking garage below her building, arguing about whether or not he really loved her—and would keep loving her.
    And whether or not she could allow him to.
    Funny, the one thing he hadn’t even questioned had been her feelings. He took her love for him as an utter certainty, though the words had never come out of her mouth.
    It didn’t matter. There was no hiding how she felt. From him, from either of them. “But that’s today,” she reminded herself as she watched the clock ease closer to eleven.
    Tomorrow, well, her heart could prove to be as fickle and arbitrary as everyone else’s in her family. And Jake deserved more than that. So much more.
    She loved him too much to ever want to hurt him that way. Even if she hurt every minute of every day for the rest of her life.
    “You’re here!” a woman’s voice said.
    Half fearing it would be Deborah, Maddy couldn’t help sighing in relief when she saw Tabby’s pinched, pale face. Rising, she took her sister in her arms and hugged her close, looking over her shoulder into the corridor beyond to make sure she had come alone. “Are you all right?”
    Tabby nodded. “Fine.”
    They drew apart. “You don’t look fine.”
    “Well, hell, of course I’m not fine. Are you?”
    Maddy shook her head. “But he’s going to be all right.”
    “I know.” Tabby reached into her designer purse and plucked out a wad of tissues, offering one to Maddy taking one and then wiping under her own eyes. “Can you imagine? Puffy eyes in my wedding pictures?”
    Maddy’s jaw dropped open. “What are you talking about?”
    Tabby lifted her chin, her lips quivering, then straightening into a calm line. “Bradley and his family want to proceed with the wedding this afternoon.”
    “No, you can’t do that!”
    “They say it’s exactly what Daddy would want.”
    They were probably correct. But that didn’t make it right.
    “They also pointed out, quite correctly, that everything is paid for, food prepared, flowers in place. Dozens of relatives have already come in from out of town. And that Dad’s own surgeon said he was going to be fine. He just won’t be able to walk me down the aisle…this time.”
    This time. Somehow, Maddy had the feeling Tabby was repeating verbatim words someone else had said to her. And she suddenly wanted to hit that someone for dumping such pressure—and guilt—on her sister’s slim shoulders.
    “ Don’t marry him.” The words had