How to Find a Man in Five Dates by Tina Beckett

Author:Tina Beckett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

MIRA HAD DESERTED HIM.

With dinner behind them and the night closing in fast, Jack sat at the bar, wondering exactly how he’d gotten here. After the shock of the avalanche and subsequent rescue efforts had worn off, it would have been easy to just cancel their plans to eat at the restaurant and go back to their rooms. Alone.

And yet once they’d come off that slope and stood in the arched doorway of the lodge, the words had come out of his mouth of their own volition. “Are we still on for dinner?”

She hadn’t paused, even for a second, before saying yes.

Jack wasn’t sure why he wanted it so badly, but he did. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready to be by himself. Seeing that person’s death earlier today had shaken him. Would someone grieve for the victim the way he’d grieved for Paula?

He ordered his first drink of the trip—other than that spiked hot chocolate—from the bartender and took a healthy swallow.

His wife had helped so many people. Worked tirelessly for her young patients, even when hope had seemingly been lost, to make sure they’d been cared for and comfortable all the way to the end. And he’d taken that away from her—had taken it away from those she could have helped in the future. She had been brilliant in her field. One of the best. And now she was gone.

All because he’d wanted to play doctor with a damn sports team. Lining up their specialties side by side, he’d known which one gave more value to mankind. But none of that had mattered at the time. Because he’d wanted that job. Had wanted it badly. And now none of it meant anything.

He’d seen that same special spark that Paula had possessed in Mira today. She’d been up on that mountain when the avalanche had hit. No one had known if that snow was going to shift again or not. She could have simply called in the rescue teams and waited for them to get the survivors out before she’d begun treatment.

But she hadn’t. She’d been one of the first on the scene, digging right alongside the relatives and friends of the victims. And the way she’d run toward him and that rescue worker, fire in her eyes as she’d yelled at them to pull the last man out of the snow, saying there was still hope.

Something his wife had said constantly. There’s always hope.

Until, of course, there wasn’t. Until a plane—a plane Jack had asked her to be on—had gone down in a ball of fire. Until hope had been snuffed out by reality.

Just like in Mira’s eyes when she’d looked into that hole in the snow and seen the truth. That there had been no hope.

His brain headed down familiar dark paths. He took another sip of his drink. Relished the steady burn of the alcohol as it trickled down his throat and hit his gut.

Dinner had been good, helping him relax and forget all the reasons he should be avoiding Mira like the plague.

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