Chapter 14

Chapter

Fourteen

Rhonda

Rhonda adjusted her stance, heels digging slightly into the bland carpet. Her presentation on Reviact was polished, her tone upbeat, but her mind was elsewhere. Most notably on the full novel of text messages between her friends and Jordan.

“And that brings us to the latest clinical trials.” She clicked to the next slide. “We’re seeing a 35% reduction in relapse rates over six months. That’s significant for patients who . . . ”

Somehow she kept talking as her phone vibrated against the podium. Rhonda’s heart jumped. She hadn’t intentionally set it where she could see it. Or had she? Her pulse picked up speed when she saw the text was from “J.”

She prattled on, worried that she’d fully dissociated as her eyes flicked down to the screen. She swiped up.

J

My sister started on Reviact this week

Her chest tightened and she sucked in a breath. Before anyone noticed, she finished her sentence and scanned the room. “Questions so far?”

As the doctors stared at the screen, taking in the chart on her slide, she typed a quick reply.

I’m glad to hear it. Keep me updated

The room settled into silence again as she fielded a question about dosage adjustments. Her phone buzzed once more. Another glance.

J

Working on Mallory

She breathed a sigh of relief. After what happened between them, and especially after her friends had hounded him for hours the night before, she hadn’t worked up the courage to ask him about that favour.

Honestly, she’d been a little pissed that he wouldn’t just leave the chat alone. If he stopped responding, Anne and Tina would lose interest. Rhonda’s finger hovered over the heart reaction, but she settled on a thumbs-up, then tucked her phone away into the pocket of her dress slacks.

The rest of the week blurred into a series of meetings, small talk, and networking over coffee and catered lunches. On Thursday, Rhonda grabbed dinner at the hotel bar. Brunch that morning had been fantastic, and hunger didn’t hit her until seven o’clock.

She set her fork on her plate and waited for the bartender to notice she was finished. Reid found her first.

“Back for more, eh?”

“Always.” She smiled.

“You staying for the weekend?”

Rhonda shook her head. “Nope, heading home tomorrow,” Rhonda replied, leaning back in her chair and giving the server a wry grin. “Thought I’d soak up one last night of Edmonton’s finest hotel bar cuisine, though.”

Reid chuckled, leaning on the edge of the bar with a grin that asked, “ Are you still in a serious relationship with work? ” He wasn’t not charming. “Well you know, this is the spot for anyone with an evolved palate and a passion for sticky menus.”

“Stop it. You’ll ruin the mystique,” she deadpanned, pointing her fork at him. “How else am I supposed to pretend I’m an heiress with Daddy’s card?”

He leaned in. “Is that the game we’re playing tonight?” His smile widened. “If you want to do some damage, I happen to know the chocolate lava cake is worth its weight in gold.” He straightened and took a step back. “I could deliver it personally.”

She tilted her head, pretending to mull it over. Yes. The answer was yes. She could lick chocolate lava off Reid’s obviously toned chest and forget all about text chains and Jordan’s shoulders. Damn it, she should not have thought about Jordan’s shoulders. She wanted to be thinking about this guy—Reid, standing right in front of her. Rhonda turned to him, narrowing her eyes, willing herself to think about unbuttoning his shirt or running her hands through his tousled hair.

She bit back a groan of frustration. Nothing. All she could think about were Jordan’s scrubs and his flexing forearms as he prepared an IV. This was Anne and Tina’s fault. His initial had flashed in front of her face consistently enough to full on incept her.

She gave Reid an apologetic grin. “I think I’ll have to get it to go. The ol’ ball and chain.”

He dropped his eyes and nodded. “I’ll wrap it up for you.”

Rhonda left the bar with the lava cake in hand. She rode the elevator up to her room, which was blissfully quiet, and set the dessert box on the desk. She kicked off her heels, sighing as her bare feet met the soft carpet. Her jacket and bag landed unceremoniously on the chair before she grabbed the cake and flopped onto the bed.

She settled against the pillows and pulled out her phone, scrolling back through the last messages with Anne, Tina, and the actual Jenna this time.

Tina

I say we invite Mystery Man to therapy

I just found out I have a meeting Friday

Jenna

LOLOLOL

Anne

Rhonda, I hope you’re not mad!? It was just funny

So glad I could provide the entertainment this week

Tina

You better be prepared to tell us everything. You’re only getting away with this because we haven’t been in person

She sent a GIF of someone slamming handfuls of popcorn. It was funny. If this had been Anne or Tina’s misstep, she would’ve jumped in with both feet. But it wasn’t them, it was her. And Jordan wasn’t playing nice.

Rhonda flicked on the TV and watched a half hour of Notting Hill while she finished her cake, then walked through her bedtime routine and curled up in bed. She kicked her legs under the sheets to create some heat for her perpetually freezing feet, then eventually fell into the kind of deep sleep that felt like it came with its own weight.

She slept blissfully free of her Jordan focused brain until the next morning. She woke and ordered room service, then did yoga until a knock came at the door. She opened it and accepted the tray, then set it on the dresser and removed the covers, breathing in the scent of bacon, eggs, and avocado toast. She ate while answering emails on her laptop, then eventually showered, taking full advantage of her late checkout.

At twelve-thirty, Rhonda pulled out of the hotel parking lot, immediately turning on her seat warmer. The wind had whipped up into a frenzy in a matter of minutes. Though, that was Alberta for you.

She wound back to the highway and headed south. All in all, it had been a productive week. Northgate and Prairie Stone had both approved on the spot, which wasn't a surprise. They were traditionally early adopters of new pharmaceuticals. The question was whether Gateway and Summit Creek would take the plunge.

They were interested in the research, and they'd asked questions, which was always a good sign. But they hadn't given her any sort of commitment after the brunch. She sent a follow-up email last night, highlighting the generous rebates they were offering patients deep into 2025. She hoped that would push them over the edge.

Rhonda stopped for a donair and ate sitting on one of the diner stools so she wouldn't spill tzatziki all over her thighs. In just that short fifteen minutes, the wind had picked up again, tiny snowflakes whirling around her as she got back in the driver's seat. Fantastic. Hopefully, the weather was only there in the north and she would be able to outrun it as she drove back toward Calgary.

She topped up her gas, even though she already had three-quarters of a tank, and grabbed a bag of salt and vinegar chips and chocolate-covered almonds for the drive. She pressed play on her queue of audio podcast episodes and pulled back out onto the highway. She thought about checking the weather, but at that point, she didn't even want to know. If a bad storm had been forecasted, someone over the past week would have talked about it, which meant this was probably just a cold front blowing through.

She mentally chastised herself for not putting on snow tires yet. But the year before, she'd put them on two weeks before Halloween for a snowstorm, and then the roads had stayed dry until the beginning of December. That was a waste of good rubber.

By the time she reached Red Deer, the almonds were half gone, whereas the bag of chips still sat unopened in the passenger seat because the bag was made of raccoon-resistant plastic, and she needed her hands at ten and two on the wheel. Snow snaked across the road, and she could barely see a meter in front of her front bumper.

She drove between forty-five and sixty kilometres per hour, cranking the heat so she wouldn't get chilled from stress sweat. She could do this. Slow and steady. There weren't very many people on the road, so that was a blessing. But driving in the middle of a snowstorm was Rhonda's personal hell.

After nearly sideswiping a car a week after getting her learner's permit, Rhonda had refused to drive until she was sixteen, and even then, it was forced. She made her high school basketball team, and her mom’s work schedule meant she couldn't drive Rhonda home from practice. After a month of bumming rides off friends, she decided facing a nightmare was better than burning all her bridges.

Last winter, she'd taken rideshares more times than she could count and flown both to Edmonton and Medicine Hat to avoid getting on the roads. She'd been so distracted by Jordan and Rocky Ridge over the past week, she hadn't even thought to check the forecast. Rhonda's hands tightened on the wheel. Anne and Tina were going to get an earful at therapy on Friday. Jenna was off the hook since she hadn't even been on the text chain, though she was positive Anne and Tina had been sending her screenshots.

Why the hell had they started texting him? It could have been one of her professional contacts, or a family member for that matter. Though, based on Jordan's text, it was pretty obvious that even if he was in one of the above groups, he wasn't beyond their brand of humour. As far as she could tell, Anne and Tina still had no idea who he was. But Jordan had given just enough for them to start frothing at the mouth.

Normally, she was excellent at BSing, but any story she thought of to explain this random person in their text chain sounded ridiculous. The evidence was mounting against her. Weird smiles at Sunday Supper, the admission that she had met somebody the week before, and then Jordan's flirtatious texts. She had to come up with something good, something just embarrassing enough that they would believe she was telling the truth.

It was a damn shame she was such a terrible liar. The idea of making up a story and saying it straight to their faces made her stomach twist. But the idea of telling them the truth about Jordan, there was no way that would stay quiet. They would be the ones giving the weird smiles after games or whenever Pucks Deep was brought up in conversation. Eventually, Country or Gary or one of the other guys would pick up on it. And she would be forced to word-vomit her shameful history to the entire team.

And over what? No matter how she spun this, it would not look good for her, and it wouldn't look good for Jordan either—especially not for Jordan. Not that she was doing anything to protect him, but still.

That was really it, wasn't it? She'd heard the Snowballs talk about Jordan and his lack of moral standards for as long as she'd known them. And wasn't she exactly the same as him? She'd never asked anybody to prove that they were single before hooking up with them. For all she knew, she'd been just as guilty as he was. She loved her Snowball family. If they looked at her like they looked at him?

Of course, she could just become a more moral person.

And there was that thought spiral again, ready to kick her in the teeth. Women were supposed to love commitment. They weren't supposed to be driven by pleasure or passion, to not want a serious relationship.

In her thirties, she'd gotten to the point where she gave zero shits what other people thought about her life choices. But she did give many shits about the people she loved. The truth was, some people just weren't ready to love that part of her. Which was why she kept her handful of friends close. And why she couldn't lie to them during girl therapy.

But none of that mattered because she was going to skid off the road and die in an effing ditch.

Rhonda gripped the wheel, muttering prayers to any god that would listen and wishing she’d stopped to open the damn bag of chips.