Polished by Alyssa Turner Page B

right back and get my boyfriend to the ER?”
    “Yes. Be just a few more minutes.”
    Spencer clutched her small hand with his big oafish ones. He always hated his hands, so big and clumsy-looking. His precision in both his work and his recreational hobby tempered that unfortunate characteristic in his estimation. But still, he’d never admit to anyone how he sometimes wished he could be seen as suave and fluid instead of rough and rugged. Only Rory saw through his rugged exterior to his heart. When he’d mentioned his desire to see Jack taken care of before himself, she’d known it was something important to him. She didn’t need him to explain. They fit together so well, ebbing and flowing with each other’s moods and quirks. He clutched her small hand and he kissed it through a gentle smile while she nodded in understanding.
    Officer Peters arrived at their side. “I was able to get through to your mother, Mr. Hartley.”
    Spencer’s face fell at those words. “Who told you to call my mother?”
    Officer Peters looked confused at Spencer’s reaction and flashed his eyes at Rory.
    “I’m sorry, sweetie. I thought you could be…” She bit her lip.
    Spencer squeezed her hand and forced a reassuring smile to his face before addressing the officer again. “So, let me guess; she told you she wished she could do something to help.”
    Officer Peters tilted his head. “I told her I’d keep her posted.”
    “Thanks, Officer. It’ll keep me from having to do it.”
     

Chapter Six
     
     
    It wasn’t the questions that bothered him so much. Jack half expected a gang of reporters to be waiting on the scene trying to find out if the subway project—and more specifically, his engineering firm—had anything to do with the water main break. It was the fact that he had to be there to face them alone that had him grinding his teeth to powder.
    “What part of ‘no comment’ don’t you fuckers understand?” he grumbled. Fortunately the paramedics had begun to place him in the back of the ambulance. His shoulder screamed out, although the pain was slightly more distant under the influence of the codeine he’d been given.
    The doors closed and there was peace. And quiet. Too much quiet, in fact. As he lay there on the stretcher, lolling slightly with the turns of the vehicle, the paramedics sat up front with little chatter between them. He thought to ask them to call his father, but mostly it would be to warn him of the coming onslaught. Jack didn’t want his father’s compassion. He’d learned long ago that compassion was not a fruit of the Rothman family tree. It was a deficit that Jack had tried not to inherit, but so far, he felt like a miserable failure in that regard. It wasn’t a mystery why no one was waiting for him with tear-streaked cheeks at the top of that manhole.
    Jack had many acquaintances and just a few less casual playmates on call to satisfy any appetite that struck his fancy, but he hadn’t the audacity to think any of them could be called friends, let alone something more. A self-affirmed man-whore, he was; a hypocrite, he was not, at least not in his personal life. He was blunt and merciless about what his intentions were and were not. He had no intention of falling in love, or getting hurt.
    But Jack could admire the love of others from afar. He could appreciate the beauty and joy others found within the embrace of someone they cared for. It wasn’t that his heart was too small to imagine what that could feel like. On the contrary, Jack was deathly afraid his heart was too big to ever be filled. It must be, because he’d never known a day without emptiness. He had resolved long ago that for him a heart full of love was just asking too much.
    His thoughts tugged toward Rory and her pretty face peering over him. Her expression had been desperate, aching to see her lover safe and in her arms. Spencer was a special guy, a straight shooter with a pure heart. He deserved her love for all the