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Actually, one program was drawing her—but because she didn’t quite trust her reasons for leaning that way, she was going to give it a lot more thought before she made a choice. “I’m still thinking about it,” she repeated.
“Is it still a possibility that you’ll choose to stay in Little Rock?”
“It’s a possibility.”
Her brother studied her face. “But not likely, is it?”
She shrugged. Sh
e was aware that Mitch had considered moving away several times—for medical school, for his residency, even more recently. Each time he’d come close to leaving, something had happened to hold him here, usually a family medical crisis. Now he and Jacqui had bought a house together here in Little Rock, where they planned to raise their family. She doubted that he regretted now the choices he’d made, but she had to follow her own path.
He touched his knuckles to her chin. “You know we all want the best for you, Maddie. But we all hope you don’t go too far.”
She leaned in to hug him. “No matter how far I go, you know I’ll always come back. This is home, Mitch. That won’t ever change, no matter what else does.”
He kissed her forehead, then pulled back to search her face again. “Is there something going on with you, Maddie? Other than the fellowship search, I mean? You’ve seemed distracted lately—since you got back from BiBi’s wedding, actually.”
She forced a smile and shook her head. “Just busy. Maybe a little stressed about all the changes ahead. But excited, too.”
“If you need to talk, you know how to reach me.”
“And I know you’re always there for me,” she assured him affectionately. “Thanks, Mitch, but I’m really okay right now.”
He didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he let her get away with the evasion.
The week before Thanksgiving, Jason sat again in front of his computer, gazing rather glumly at the monitor. As much as he enjoyed the daily emails from Madison, they were becoming more frustrating than satisfying now. He didn’t want to read just words from her, amusing as they were. He wanted to see her face when she laughed at his jokes or her own. Wanted to spend more time with her to see if he still found her as fascinating as he had during the scant four days they’d had together.
Twirling her tube of gloss between his fingers, he thought about his maternal aunt and her husband who lived in Little Rock. Though it hadn’t been all that long since they had visited Texas, it had been a few years since he’d been to Arkansas. Maybe it was time for him to remedy that. He knew their door was always open to him…but would Madison close her door in his face if he showed up out of the blue after they’d already said their goodbyes?
Stumbling into her apartment Tuesday evening, Madison shrugged out of her jacket and threw it over the back of a chair. It had turned colder that week. Combined with the earlier darkness, it was clear that winter wasn’t far away. Winters in Arkansas were generally fairly mild; they saw snow only a couple of times most years, and then only an inch or two. If she chose the fellowship in Massachusetts, she would see plenty of snow. Same with Oregon.
Dallas, on the other hand, had a climate very similar to Little Rock.
She pushed her hands through her hair with a weary sigh. She’d had a long day. Three admissions, one difficult chemical restraint, a bipolar patient who’d been doing so well for the past few days but had taken a dramatic turn for the worse last night. She loved her job, but there were days when she wondered if she should have learned to serve pancakes instead.
She hadn’t had a chance to eat since lunch, which had been a long time ago. She was hungry, but first she wanted to wash her face and then check her email, something else she hadn’t had time to do that afternoon. She hadn’t heard from Jason in the past couple of days. She was sure he’d been busy, too, but he’d been taking time out of his hectic schedule to send her notes. Had it become too much trouble? She’d expected the correspondence to trail off eventually, but certainly not so abruptly.
She told herself she was making too much of this. She didn’t really expect him to write every day. Didn’t mean she would never hear from him again, just that he had other things to do. Other demands on his time. Maybe he was just running out of things to say to a woman he really didn’t even know very well, despite everything they’d shared during that long weekend.
Even though she’d told herself not to expect anything, she was unreasonably disappointed when there was no note from Jason among the notices, requests and digests cluttering her inbox. A patient had told her a joke that morning she thought Jason would appreciate, but she was hesitant to send it to him. It was his turn to reply—and maybe it was silly of her to care about that little subtlety, but for some reason, she did. Maybe she’d drop him another note in a day or two if she hadn’t heard from him, just to make sure everything was okay, and then she’d let it go. It wasn’t as if she had that much extra time, anyway.
She was on her way to the kitchen, hoping to find something in her fridge for a quick dinner, when her cell phone buzzed. Figuring it would be one of her family, she lifted it to her ear without checking the screen, already frowning at the near-empty shelves in her refrigerator. She really was going to have to find time to make a grocery run soon.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Madison.”
She almost tumbled face-first into the fridge. She shut the door quickly. “Hello, Jason.”
“I hope I’m not calling at a bad time.”
“No, of course not.” She moved to the table and dropped into a chair, suddenly feeling a bit weak in the knees. A ridiculous overreaction to hearing his deep voice again, but there it was.
“I’ve enjoyed our emails, but I missed hearing your voice.”
She moistened her lips. “It’s good to hear from you.”
She heard him draw a deep breath, as if he were working up courage for what he was about to say. Her fingers tightened on the phone in preparation.
