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On that she was right and he agreed one hundred percent. Justice might be just under five and Ross had just met him, but he could tell the boy was very perceptive.
He glanced at their son, watched the boy intently examining the rock. That was his child, his flesh and blood. Amazing how quickly the boy had stolen his heart. Then again, Justice was also half Brielle.
He took a deep breath, blew it out, and felt a great deal of tension leave his body along with the air. “Which is why, despite how betrayed I feel by the choices you made five years ago and every day since, I am going to let that hurt go and move forward, because from this point on we have to focus on the future, on what is right for our son.”
“I... Yes, you’re right.” Brielle nodded in agreement. “I agree. Justice is what’s most important. His well-being. Thank you for understanding that.”
He understood much more than she gave him credit for. He wondered just how agreeable she was going to be when he pressed forward. Probably not nearly so accommodating as her current smiling face.
“On that same token,” he told her, watching her closely, “you have to let go that I left, Brielle.”
Her amicable expression paled.
“You can’t keep bringing it up,” he continued, determined to see this through. Not only for Justice but for both their sakes, too. They needed peace, for the past to be in the past, for the present to be clear so they could figure out the future. “You can’t keep throwing the past between us as a barrier to us starting over and forging a new relationship, whatever that relationship might be.”
Her eyes widened.
“It’s time you forgave me.” Past time as far as he was concerned. “Do you think you can do that?”
Ross waited, but she just sat on the rock, knees held to her chest, skin pale.
When she still didn’t speak, he continued. “If I can put the fact that I lost five years of my son’s life behind me and forgive you...” which he wasn’t sure he had, but he could either dwell on the past or embrace the future. He preferred to embrace the future “...then it really isn’t too much to expect you to do the same in regard to me having accepted the position in Boston.”
The fact that he couldn’t say “leaving you” should tell him that she was right to blame him in some ways, because it had been about much more than just accepting the position.
His gaze met hers and he saw tears shimmering in her big eyes, saw regret and so many other things blazing in those golden-brown depths.
“Ross, I—”
“I found one!” Justice came running towards them, his hand outstretched with a rock gripped in his tiny fingers. “Look!”
“Be careful,” Brielle warned, her attention completely off Ross and focused solely on their son. Her face pinched as she stood to reach for Justice right as he lost his footing on a loose rock and tumbled forward, falling just a few feet away.
Brielle moved quicker than Ross, getting to the crying boy and lifting him into her arms. “You have to be careful on the rocks, baby. Let me check you. What hurts?”
But even before the boy sobbed out an answer Ross was already taking in the red soaking into Brielle’s shirt, taking in the red that ran down Justice’s leg and dripped from his hand.
The sight of blood had never bothered him. He was a doctor, for goodness’ sake. But the sight of his son’s blood leaving his tiny body, of blood staining Brielle’s clothing, made him feel light-headed, and if he hadn’t known better he’d say that was nausea welling in his stomach.
“Oh, Justice, sweetie.” Cradling him in her arms, kissing the top of his head and offering tender words of comfort, Brielle examined his bleeding hand then his knee while Ross tried to pull himself together.
What was wrong with him? His knees didn’t threaten to buckle at a little blood. Or a lot of blood even. At various points during his medical career he’d dealt with nasty motor vehicle accidents, amputations, and hemorrhages that had looked like a massacre had taken place. None had twisted his stomach inside out the way the site of his son’s lifeblood on the wrong side of his tiny body did.
“The cut on his hand is pretty deep, but the one on his knee is worse,” Brielle said above the sound of Justice’s crying. She stared at Ross as if wondering what was up with his frozen-statue routine. “What do you think? He’s going to need stitches in both, isn’t he?”
“I don’t want ’titches.” Justice’s crying picked up a notch and Brielle’s gaze dropped to the sobbing little boy in her lap.
“Shh, baby. It’s okay,” she comforted him, holding the boy even more tightly in her arms. “Mommy’s got you.” When Ross didn’t answer her question or move, she glanced up at him and frowned. “I’ll hold him while you check him, Ross. We’ve got to get some pressure on to stop the bleeding. Now,” she said, the last word in a raised voice, her tone warning him that he needed to get his act together.
Ross kicked into doctor mode and bent to check Justice. First his hand, which had an avulsion tear in the center of his palm where he’d tried to save himself from his fall. The jagged edge of a rock had torn into his tender flesh, lifting
the skin back in a V shape. Next he checked the wide cut on his knee.
“Both are deep enough that they need sutures,” he said, hating that Justice was feeling pain, would have to be anesthetized and sutured.
“That’s what I thought,” Brielle agreed, her eyes widening as Ross took off his T-shirt. “What are you doing?”
“Making Justice bandages. You can apply pressure while I drive him to the hospital where I can suture him. Plus, he won’t be so upset if we stop the bleeding and he’s not seeing blood.”
