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It was one of the smartest and most satisfying decisions I had ever made. Sometimes, I still shudder at the thought of what my life would have been like if I hadn’t left him. I would have probably been living behind a white-picket fence with an unhappy household full of kids—all of us afraid and terrified each night when Daddy came home. I had certainly dodged a bullet by leaving Tyler.
Nevertheless, I’d become lonely in the aftermath. There hadn’t been a single man to catch my eye though. Not until Dr. Evan Sholly. Yet, something told me he had caught my eye for all the wrong reasons. The thought of him coincided with a random man in a parked car catcalling at me. At the sound of his whistle, Lucy halted for an instant and growled.
“Good girl,” I said. “Let’s go.” We were halfway to the park.
Looks. Just like the creep who’d just whistled at me, my attraction to Dr. Sholly was all about looks because I hardly knew anything else about him. And the little I did know about him hadn’t been exactly flattering. I could still recall his haughty tone in the way he had chastised me while working on the gunshot patient. The mere memory still made my blood boil. It was people like Dr. Sholly that gave doctors a bad name.
As we reached the park, I looked around, checking to see that the area was empty. It usually was during this time of evening, which I was always grateful for. It allowed me to unhook Lucy from her leash so that she could walk around, stretch her legs, and do her business.
“There you go girl,” I said, releasing her from her leash. She wagged her tail and happily trotted off, w
hile I took a seat on the bench, careful to keep my eye on her nonetheless, just in case someone happened to cross our path.
Molly had claimed I’d just gotten the wrong impression of Dr. Sholly, but I wasn’t so sure. She had blamed his biting personality on the fact that he was ex-military. Yet, that excuse didn’t work for me. I had an uncle who’d been in the army. He was rigid, but stoic and noble. I had a hard time imagining those traits in Dr. Sholly.
I sighed, already not liking how much of my mind Dr. Sholly was occupying after just one day of knowing him. I hated people judging me for my looks, so it certainly didn’t sit well with me that I was being such a sucker for a handsome face. Yet, even as that thought crossed my mind, I recalled how it had appeared that Dr. Sholly hadn’t been able to resist peeking at my chest. The thought brought a flush to my face.
Right on time, Lucy trotted back to me. I hooked her leash back on and we set off for our run back home. I even managed to push thoughts of Dr. Sholly from my mind, at least until I went back home to take a shower, where I unfortunately started imagining him in the shower with me…
“Tessa, you seriously need help,” I told myself in the foggy bathroom mirror.
Or to at least think about what Molly said and give him another chance, a voice in my head counterargued. Everyone is prone to having a bad day every once in a while.
CHAPTER 6
Evan
If I’d thought day two of working the day shift was going to get easier, I was so damn wrong. This became more than evident when the gaze of a feverish seven-year-old girl was making me sweat. I squirmed in my chair as she continued to unflinchingly stare at me.
Her mom had stepped out to take a phone call that was lasting far too long. I didn’t have kids of my own, so I tried to refrain from judging parents too harshly. Yet, some of them really threw me for a damn loop. This little girl was sick and had a terrible fever, yet her mother saw it more important to put me on hold so that she could run her mouth on the phone. Not only was this rude, for I could be needed for another patient at any moment, but it also just seemed careless. I drummed my fingers on my knee as the girl continued to stare at me.
“What’s your name again?” I asked.
The girl blinked with her peaky eyes. “Sarah.”
“Sarah. Right. Such a pretty name.”
“Then how come you couldn’t remember it?”
It was my turn to blink. Little smarty-pants, I thought to myself. I forced a smile. “Because it’s really early and I should still be sleeping.”
“It’s not early. This is what time I go to school.”
“Well, I haven’t been in school for a very long time, so this hour just isn’t practical for me.”
“How old are you?”
“Old.”
“How old is old?”
“Grown.”
The girl crossed her little arms across her chest.
I was reminded of yet another reason I preferred the night shift; I was no good at working with or entertaining children; they were few and far between during the night shift.
I sighed. “So…do you like stickers, Sarah?”
