Free Anytime Darlin' by Julia Rachel Barrett Page A

knee perfunctorily. “I’ll let you know what time John can see us. And don’t worry about your father. He’s in London at a conference.”
    Dr. Duarte saw Janice the next morning. She came home and went directly to bed, the promised late lunch forgotten. Here she’d stayed. She hadn’t seen her mother since she drove her home from the appointment, although she’d heard her call for Louise a short time ago.
    Janice couldn’t bring herself to get out of the bed in her old bedroom, in her parents’ home. She’d lain there for two days. Somehow she had thought having an abortion would be easier than it was. She hadn’t wanted a baby in the first place. She just wanted Jake. Now she’d lost him and, in fact, lost anything that could possibly bind her to him. But as her mother kept insisting, what choice did she have? It wasn’t Jake’s baby, and she didn’t want to marry Jim Peters, even if he would consider it.
    Jake hadn’t said a word in the car after they’d left the restaurant. Other than the hum of the engine, there had been complete silence. What was there to say, Janice asked. No matter how hard she tried to pretend otherwise, her relationship with Jake was over. The truth was as plain as the nose on her face.
    He’d been kind. That was the worst part. He’d parked her car in the long drive, helped her climb out, then escorted her to the front of the house and used her keys to unlock the front door. He seated her in the living room, kissed her on the cheek, and asked the housekeeper, Louise, to let her mother know that she was there. Then he turned away and left, closing the heavy door without a sound.
    Janice doubted she could show her face in the ER ever again. She’d already requested two weeks of sick leave. She knew Jake wouldn’t say anything, no matter what he suspected, but to have to see him constantly? She didn’t think she could handle that. Maybe she’d transfer back up to ICU. And go to days. Because her father was a big deal at the hospital, Janet assumed it would be easy to get on day shift.
    Janice turned over to face the wall. In her mind, she saw Jake with the girl, that runaway, the way he protected her, how he treated her like she was made of spun glass. Why didn’t he treat her like that?
Sick,
she thought to herself.
She’s only a teenager. What’s the big deal about a stupid runaway?
They came into the ER all the time, a dime a dozen. That’s what her mom had said.
A dime a dozen
. Janice barely even remembered why she and her mother were talking about it.
    There was a knock on Janice’s door, and her mother entered the room. She seemed perturbed.
    “Janice, your father is coming home this evening, and I don’t want him to see you like this. Get up, dear, and make yourself presentable. Better yet, why not return to your own house? We wouldn’t want him to wonder what’s wrong now, would we? I’m certain you’ll feel much better in your own place.”
    Janice continued to stare at the wall.
    “I’ve got to go out, darling, but I know you’ll be just fine. Come over for dinner next Friday. We’ll have roast chicken, your favorite. I’ll have your father call tomorrow. Pull yourself together, dear.”
    Just like that, Janice was dismissed. She was twenty-six years old. She should be used to it by now. But she wasn’t. Jake had been her hope. When she was with him, she felt like a different person, pretty enough, smart enough, funny enough, sexy enough, good enough. But he cared more about a teenage runaway in a hospital bed. Now she was just Janice Matheson, the daughter born by mistake, the child who should have been aborted.
* * * *
    Two days later, Jake got a call from Mary that Devlin was awake and breathing on her own. The central line had been pulled, and her white count was approaching normal. Mary’s mother, Delores, had arrived and taken things in hand, greeting Jake with a lecture about his own health before shoving him out of his chair, sending him home