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Wouldn’t that just be par for his course?
In his life, tragedy seemed to appear in pairs. His brother had died and his parents divorced. Delilah had divorced him and married his best friend. Because he didn’t pick Becca up, she’d gotten into that accident. He’d be damned if he was going to look away even for a second and endanger her again. He drove with extraordinary care to keep the pattern from repeating itself today.
He didn’t expect life to be strife-free. Ups and downs were a part of the package. The down times made the good times better.
But the rough times in his life—the times that had produced the worst despair, Caiden’s death, his parents’ divorce, Delilah sleeping with his friend—it all could’ve been prevented if he’d just done the right thing.
Now the right thing seemed that Becca and the babies would be better off without him. He’d provide support, of course, but he really was starting to believe he would be of more service to them if he focused on his job and didn’t try to have much of a personal life.
He’d said it before, he was married to his work, and medicine was a jealous spouse. The ER seemed to be the place where he did the most good and wreaked the least amount of havoc.
“I keep waiting for you to tease me about the lengths I’d go to to get out of that hospital tour,” Becca said.
He nodded, and he thought he smiled—he meant to—but he kept his eyes pinned to the road. The town had put up the decorations the day after the tree-lighting ceremony. Now all of downtown Celebration was decked out in its yuletide finest.
“Did your dad’s plane get in?”
“It did.”
He’d texted him that there’d been an emergency, apologized and told him he’d meet him later at the inn. He purposely left the details vague because he didn’t want to worry him. His dad had sounded genuinely delighted when he told him he was going to be a grandfather. Another part of him didn’t want to start off this potential reconciliation with the thoughts so you ruined this relationship, too wedged in between them like the proverbial elephant in the room.
“Nick?”
“Hmm?”
“Did he take a cab to the inn?”
“Yes. I would assume so.”
Nick glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was close to eight o’clock. It was getting a little late for dinner, but he’d get over to the Celebration Inn as soon as he could. As soon as he got Becca settled at home.
“Are you still going to go see him?”
“Yes.”
Becca was quiet for a few beats.
“Would you like to see him alone tonight? I’m eager to meet him, but I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that maybe it would be best if the two of you met by yourselves first.”
“Sure.”
“Nick, talk to me.” Becca reached out and put her hand on his arm.
“About what?”
“We could start with why you’re being so quiet. You’ve barely said a word since you got to the hospital. The words you have uttered have been all but monosyllabic. Are you mad at me? Because you know the accident wasn’t my fault. It was an accident.”
He pulled up to a red light, rolled to a slow, gentle stop before looking over at her.
“Of course it’s not your fault. That kid ran a stop sign.”
The light turned green, and he trained his attention on the road again.
They rode in silence until they got to Becca’s condominium complex. Nick parked, got out and walked around to Becca’s door, intending to open it, but she’d already let herself out of the car and had started walking toward the door.
Oh, boy.
“Becca, wait.”
He caught up with her at the door. She was fishing her keys out of her purse.
He suddenly didn’t know what to say. He could tell she was upset. Hell, he was upset—not with her, but it had just been one of those days.
With the accident and the fear of losing his children compounded with seeing his father again, which was dredging up all kinds of unwelcome memories, he was starting to feel a little claustrophobic.
And the burning question kept raging through his head: What if she had died? What if they hadn’t gotten so lucky and she had died? Like his brother and his mom—
He shook away the thoughts. He couldn’t let himself go down that slippery slope. Because once he started, he might not be able to pull himself out.
The attending on duty in the Southwestern ER who had examined Becca had given her the green light. She’d said she felt fine—no bumps and bruises. She’d only been a little shaken, as most people were when they were involved in a minor accident.
