“You should rest,” she said. “Then you can yell at Dr. Parker.”
“I’m not here to yell.”
“Yes you are. You came to tell me what roads I’m allowed to drive on.” The sass again—quiet, not mocking, but enough to make me realize I needed to leave.
I sat up, the paper crinkling under me. She reached to steady me, stopped short, fingers hovering inches from my shoulder. I wanted her to touch me more than I wanted air. My hand lifting to tuck a loose strand behind her ear. Before I could, the door opened, and in walked Dr. Parker.
The doctor’s expression was carefully neutral when he saw us standing so close together. “Tucker, good to see you. Everything all right?”
I glanced at Emily, and her face turned red. “I’ll just.” She hurried out the door without saying another word.
“Don’t send her up there alone again,” I said as soon as the door closed behind her.
Parker sighed, removing his glasses. “Tucker—”
“I mean it. Send someone else. Hell, I’ll come down and pick them up myself. But I don’t want her on that road alone.”
“Why?”
Because I’m afraid of what I’ll do if she keeps showing up. Because I’m afraid of what I won’t do. “Because it’s not safe.”
“Emily is perfectly capable of—”
“I don’t care how capable she is.” My hands clenched at my sides. “That road washes out in storms. There are drop-offs that’ll kill you if you’re not careful. And she drives that little hatchback like it’s invincible.”
Parker’s expression softened slightly. “You’re worried about her.”
“I’m being practical.”
“You drove down here—something you haven’t done in months—to tell me not to send her back. That’s not practical, Tucker. That’s concern.”
I didn’t answer.
He put his glasses back on, studying me for a long moment. “I’ll make you a deal. You come down for your refills from now on, and I won’t send Emily up the mountain with them.”
“Fine.”
“Every month. On time. No excuses.”
My jaw clenched. Coming down here meant people. It meant stares and whispers and having to pretend I was okay.
But it also meant keeping Emily off that road.
“Deal.”
The look on Parker’s face was amused, as if he knew what being alone with his little nurse would cost me.
Not for the first time, I wanted to punch him in the face.
CHAPTER THREE
Emily
I stared at the flat tire and tried to remember if I believed in karma.
Because if I did, this was definitely payback for something. Maybe it was for that time I’d told my mother her pot roast tasted like cardboard. Or for stealing my brother’s Halloween candy when I was nine. Or for thinking extremely unprofessional thoughts about a certain patient.
Yeah. Probably that last one.
