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Chapter Eight
The next morning, Eric lowered the bottom rail on Devy’s bed. He perched next to her and woke her with a cool hand over her forehead, pushing back some golden locks from her porcelain skin. She woke with slow blinks, looking sad and then smiling weakly when she saw him. That was nice. Real nice. He wouldn’t mind waking up to that every day. Except of course the sad part. They’d have to work on that.
“I thought you were a dream,” she said, her voice scratchy. He’d have to get her to drink some water today. Hopefully her stomach would be able to tolerate at least that much without evicting its contents.
“Not a dream. Very real,” he assured her, planting a kiss on her forehead. “How’s my little patient this morning? Don’t you dare lie to me. Naughty patients get spanked.”
Her eyes got wider but she didn’t seem afraid.
“My head is throbbing.”
“Are you still nauseated?”
His sweet little girl nodded, her blond hair rustling on the starched pillow.
“Then you can’t drive those boys to school. Carter needs to do it. Here’s your phone so you can call him. I’ll wait here while you do.”
Devaney took her phone from him but didn’t make the call. She stared at it in her lap.
“What’s the matter, Devy? You can tell me,” he coaxed. He wanted her to tell him everything. He wanted to solve every problem she’d ever had and ever would have. What he wouldn’t give for her to waltz through life, sunny and content and his.
“He’s going to yell at me,” she sighed. “I don’t like getting yelled at. And he’ll be right. I did say I would bring the boys to school and I don’t want to ruin his job and—”
Her narrow shoulders shook and she put her hand over her mouth, trying not to sob. He knew she was sturdy—taking care of those boys was no joke, especially as a single parent—but she was also fragile. Perhaps she hadn’t always been but it seemed as though Carter had chipped away at her happiness and security while putting the weight of unfair expectations on her. Plus the intense and unrelenting pain of migraines? No wonder she was cracking under the pressure of it all.
“Oh, sweet girl. I’m sorry. Okay, come here.”
Eric put down the other section of the bedrail and climbed in beside her, tugging his little patient into his lap.
“Carter should not be insisting you bring the boys to school. I get that you agreed to be responsible for that task but you’re in no condition to be driving. People get sick. It happens. It can be disruptive, yeah, but what does he do when one of the boys gets sick? Complain?”
“I stay home with the boys when they get sick. If they get sick when they’re with him, I go pick them up.”
Of course she did. What the fuck good was Carter as a father? Had he been any better as a husband? Probably not.
Eric shook his head, trying to clear it of the rage he felt at Devaney’s ex. This was a problem he could solve at least.
“Give me Carter’s address and the addresses of the boys’ schools. I don’t have any early patients this morning so I should have time to pick them up from Carter’s and drop them off. And if I’m a little late, Marni and Jane will be in shortly and they can get things started. Now why don’t you lay back and rest? I hate that he makes you so upset.”
“That’s so nice,” she said, shaking her head. “But you can’t. Carter would kill me. He wouldn’t let the boys go with you and he’d be furious at me for sending you and—”
His heart broke when she cried. How could any man stand it? But probably the answer was that Carter was a sack of shit and not a man. Maybe he got off on the power trip of making Devaney cry, at manipulating her feelings. What a slime ball.
Yes he knew people who had a humiliation kink, but this was different. She hadn’t said it was okay and clearly found no satisfaction from his cruelty. This was abuse, plain and simple.
He couldn’t do anything about Carter, not at this very second anyway, but he could do his best to take a load off Devy.
“Okay, shh, sweetheart. You’re going to make your migraine worse if you keep crying like that. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll go together. I’m not letting you drive but I get why Carter wouldn’t be excited about just me showing up to take the boys to school. Does that work?”
She blinked up at him, eyes red-rimmed from her crying, but hopeful. “Really? You would do that?”
“Anything for you, baby. Now let’s get you ready to go.”
* * *
Devaney supposed she could’ve argued with Eric, but what was the point? She didn’t want to. At some point he’d get sick of her neediness and her inability to adult, and she didn’t want to take advantage of his kindness, but at this very second? He was solving a problem she desperately needed help with and while she might be stubborn, she wasn’t stupid.
Eric slipped out from under her, settling her back under the blankets and handed her a cup then, but not a regular cup. It was pink and purple and blue and it had little white stars on it—and a sippy lid.
