Page 36 of The Golden Hour

“You’re an incredible doctor,” Honey murmured. “Do you know that?”

He kissed her palm.

“And you’re my number one patient,” Mason promised. “Always.”

Later, after Honey was picked up by her parents and he was picked up by his, his mother bandaged his busted lip and nose, and Mason washed the blood from his hands in their sink, watching the white marble turn pink.

He looked at his busted face in the bathroom mirror and smiled—proud and satisfied.

But now, as he washed his hands in the locker room of St. Mary’s Trauma Center, scrubbing his skin raw with scalding water and sterile soap, he realized how fucking weak he has been for the last year.

Mason faced down a bigger, stronger opponent for Honey without hesitation. Without wanting to be praised for it. He jumped into a losing fight to protect and defend the most precious woman in his life.

His ambition. His ego.

Those were titans he couldn’t fight.

Worse. He didn’t want to fight them.

Because it felt good. He felt satisfied and proud every time Dr. Weaver said, “Good save, Carpenter.”

Fighting that would have meant giving up the rush.

He chose that.

Now the most precious girls in his life, his wife and his unborn daughter, were paying the price for his God complex.

And no matter how many times Mason washes his hands, no matter how hard he scrubs, Honey’s blood is a stain that will never come out.

“Carpenter,” he hears from behind him, and turns to see Nurse Ellen standing in the doorway.

Her face is pale, but her eyes are narrowed on him. It’s the look she gives the hospital administration when they decide to come down to the emergency department. Just pure disdain.

Her face is very scary, but not as terrifying as the man who walks through the locker room door she’s holding open behind her.

He meets his father’s dark eyes and feels his blood run cold with fear.

Suddenly, he was not sixteen again, standing in the school office beside his dad while his mother made the principal cower behind his desk, demanding justice for Honey.

He was not the young boy being fist-bumped in the parking lot by Rob, who quietly said he was proud of him for defending Honey when she needed him.

He was not sitting in his dad’s garage, changing the oil on his mom’s car as his dad explained that he should always protect the women in his life because they are precious.

“The family runs through our women,” Rob explained as he took gentle care of Marlene’s Mustang. “Without them, we all fall apart, Mason. That don’t mean we just leave it all to them though, because they’re stronger than us. We do our part, and we take care of anyone who tries to hurt them. Including little fucks like Eric Preston. I’m so fucking proud of you. You hear me?”

He’s not the son Rob looked at with pride.

He is nothing but an ego-driven disappointment with his wife’s blood staining his skin.

Nurse Ellen looks at his father, and her expression softens. She pats his shoulder. “Take as long as you need, Rob. You guys won’t be disturbed.”

“Thank you, Ellen,” he says.

His father returns her smile.

She walks out the door, giving Mason one more sharp, disappointed look before she goes.

When she’s gone, the silence in the room stretches, long and heavy.