Page 54 of Drive
“You know you can call my office if you need to before then,” Dr. Lambert saidgently.
“Thank you, Dr.Lambert.”
They ended the call as Rainey moved across the room. She was fully prepared to apologize and send Jacques away until she opened thedoor.
“No barbecue,” he said, holding up two takeout bags and stepping over the threshold. “I hope you likeChinese.”
Rainey had to move back from the entrance before he collided with her. “I-I love Chinese,” shestammered.
“Good, because I got enough to feed you and your sister for about a week.” Jacques filled the foyer and seemed ready to continue into the kitchen, but he stopped beside her, leaned down, and kissed hercheek.
She jolted at his touch. It was gone before she could blink, but Rainey was left with the overwhelming desire to throw her arms around his neck and hug him for a solid hour. She hadn’t seen him in more than three weeks, and he’d been hard to resist even in theabstract.
But here in the flesh, resisting Jacques Gilchrist was quite impossible. All thought of sending him home evaporated. He contrasted sharply with the rest of her life in a way that beckoned her. She wanted to see him. She wanted to talk to him. And even though she knew she shouldn’t, Rainey wanted to be nearhim.
So, stunned speechless, she followed him through thehouse.
“Will I get to meet your sister tonight?” he asked, setting the takeout bags along the kitchenbar.
Rainey swallowed and tested her voice. “If she’s feeling up to coming downstairs. If not, I’ll fix her a plate, but knowing you’re here…” Rainey angled her eyes to the top of the stairs in hopes Holi couldn’t hear her. “…I’m betting she’ll make an appearance just to meetyou.”
Jacques’s brows lifted at this. “She knows aboutme?”
“Of course she knows about you. You’re the first guy to take me out on a date in years,” Rainey blurted. Immediate regret nearly made her wince. Why had she needed to say that? Even if it were true? Even if he already knew it? It just made her seem sopitiful.
His brows rose a fraction higher, but otherwise, Jacques betrayed no reaction to this. “I hope I get to meet her. How’s she doingtoday?”
This time, Rainey did wince because his question brought to mind the latest of their setbacks. Of course, Rainey never forgot Holi’s illness. Not completely. Not ever. But sometimes she could push it to the back of her consciousness and lose herself in a crochet pattern or abook.
Jacques’s arrival had definitely succeeded in tucking her worry away, but his question called it forward again, and, again, she was faced with the grim state of Holi’s health and her inability to do anything about it. In spite of herself, Rainey told Jacqueseverything.
“I was just on the phone with her doctor when you arrived,” she said, unable to bring even a fake smile to her lips. “We got some badnews.”
He frowned. “Howbad?”
Rainey closed her eyes, wanting to pull away from the sinkhole that had claimed her hope of finding a match for Holi. But before she could open her eyes again, she felt Jacques’s hands close around her own. She raised her eyelids to find him peering down at her, his expression full of gentleregret.
“That bad,huh?”
She nodded and swallowed. “She needs a stem cell transplant, and we don’t have a donor. No one in our family is a match, and, so far, there isn’t one in the national donor registryeither.”
Jacques gave a slow nod. “That’s a lot to absorb,” he said, his deep voice rumbling through her. “Do you want me togo?”
Rainey was shaking her head even before she spoke. “No.” It was the truth. As much as she needed to get on the phone and start calling family, the thought of letting him leave suddenly made the oxygen in the room thinout.
Jacques squeezed her hands. “Tell me what I can do tohelp.”
The statement — the sentiment — was so novel in her life, it almost knocked her backward. Rainey pulled a breath deep into her lungs and felt capable for the first time inweeks.
“Thanks, but I need to make some phone calls, and I don’t really think you can help me withthose.”
He nodded then scanned the kitchen. His eyes landed on the wine chiller next to the refrigerator. “How about I put the food in the oven so it’ll stay warm, find a bottle of wine that will go with Kung Pao Shrimp, and pour you a glass while you do what you need to do? I’m not working tonight, so I’ll have onetoo.”
The suggestion sounded so divine, Rainey stifled a giggle. “Yes, I’d lovethat.”
At her smile, Jacques gave her a grin. “Good.”
With reluctance, Rainey pulled her hands free of his grip and grabbed her phone. “I’m just going to go out to the porch. You can come join me whenever you’dlike.”
