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Her look of gratitude was fleeting but sincere. From how deep she was in her head, he suspected she was employing every coping strategy she could. The agony of anticipation could be worse than the event itself, not knowing how or if you could handle what was ahead.
She wore a navy-blue tailored skirt and matching jacket. The lapels had a pink pin stripe. A short sleeved white blouse was beneath the coat. Her cross and his badge rested on the exposed triangle of skin. The outfit made her look thinner than usual. She had her hair down but pulled up on the sides, those hoops she always wore in her ears. She looked very adult. And to him, very vulnerable.
He couldn’t stand in front of her, like he had with Colin. He kept reminding himself of what he’d told her. She was strong enough to handle this. But he hated having to watch her do it. One moment at a time. One breath at a time. For both of them.
“Won’t your family miss you at Easter?” she asked as she took a careful nibble of the toast.
“We’re more about Christmas and Thanksgiving,” he said, one-handing the wheel to pull them out of the parking lot as he bit into the biscuit. “I call Mom and Dad at Easter and send them a card. My brother brings his kids over for the egg hunt with Dad, so that holiday is all about the grandbabies.”
They talked a little about his family, some about hers. He wasn’t sure she heard most of his answers. Eventually, she laid her head back on the seat and closed her eyes, her face pale and drawn. She continued to hold his hand throughout the drive. Whenever he needed it to navigate the truck, he returned it to her as soon as possible. She played with his fingers, stroked them. Sometimes he felt a tremor in hers. They were cold.
Every protective instinct he had told him to turn around, tell all those waiting doctors and legal people to fuck themselves.
When they turned into the hospital parking lot, she opened her eyes. “It’s really hard, letting someone go into the fire without you. Isn’t it?”
She’d been watching and monitoring him, just as he’d been doing to her. She cared about his state of mind, too. Hell if that didn’t make this all the harder. But as he took a second look at her serious and earnest expression, he saw a remarkably evident calm, locked in place like armor.
He expected she’d used some version of this throughout medical school and family tragedy. To cope, to handle whatever pressures she faced, and to conceal whatever worries she had. She had a core of inner strength he’d never doubted, even when she broke down and had to shore it back up again.
If what happened in the hospital destroyed her, they wouldn’t know it. He would, when he made her remove that armor, under his touch, under his command. That was how and when she would need him. To help her move forward, and heal.
He needed to say what was in his head and heart. Things he’d held off saying, because he knew she had to come to it on her own, and there was always the chance he was wrong.
Even if he was right, the timing might suck. And he might piss her off. But maybe that was okay. Maybe that would help.
He put his hand on her shoulder, sliding it to her nape to stroke and let her feel his hold there. Her hazel eyes turned in his direction. He felt so damn much for her, he had to steady himself, reach for calm, before he spoke.
“When your dad took that second job to pay your medical bills, that’s when his heart problem started, wasn’t it?”
As she digested the question, she stiffened a little under his touch and her eyes frosted. “I know what you’re implying. It’s not my fault, I was a baby, and had no control. I get that. But it was a chain of events that happened because of me. Dad died, and Rory tried to take on too much of his work. The tractor turned over on him and that brought Thomas back from New York, where he got bleeding ulcers, trying to be what he wasn’t.”
“So being a doctor, doing something worthwhile with your life, is a way to make up for some of that?” He spoke quietly. “Prove that their sacrifices were worth it? Because if you’re something the world thinks is less important, like a grocery clerk or a pet groomer, why should they have bothered?”
Shock crossed her expression. “That’s not what I think. That’s not why I chose… Even if it was part of it, that doesn’t make it wrong. If it’s something I can do and am good at, why shouldn’t I do that? And I don’t think being a doctor is more important than any other job.”
“Glad to hear it. Have you seen the trauma a poorly groomed poodle can wreak?”
“Don’t you dare mock me.”
Her sudden white-faced anger goaded dark and dangerous things inside him. Like his rage at having to let her stand by herself before a conference she was dreading like a firing squad. “You think that’s what I’m fucking doing?”
She shook her head. Closed her eyes. He gripped her upper arms, the sleeves of that trim blue suit creasing under his palms. He turned her toward him. “Look at me, Les.”
When she didn’t, he made himself let her go and sat back. “Look at me. Right now. It’s not a request.”
She had her hand on her stomach, kneading it. When he covered her hand with his, pressed his palm there, her gaze rose.
“Every loss, every struggle in your family,” he said. “They were going through it while you were the sponge absorbing it. You felt helpless, so helping became the goal. One you sharpened into an arrow, pointing toward being a doctor.”
He nodded at the hospital. “Maybe you do love medicine, and healing people. But I think all of that gets in the way of knowing that for sure, one way or another. It also makes it far harder for you to do something that’s already really hard. Like understanding that mistakes are a tough but expected part of the job.”
Les blinked rapidly before the tears he saw could spill out. “Why are you doing this to me now?”
“Because this M&M thing, the legal stuff—even the terrible thing that happened with this kid—I think it’s the catalyst that blew open the door. Maybe you will be a science teacher. Or a great doctor. You have this incredible, analytical mind. Answer why you came here in the first place, why you’re here now, and you’ll know what you want to do.”
He touched her lapel, her earrings, the lipstick on her mouth. “Use this to do whatever you need to do today, but remember at the end of it, I’ll be here. Whether it’s to let you scream, cry, or have the biggest cone of ice cream I can find for you.”
He dropped his hand to their clasped ones. Her fingers were rigid as she looked away, stared at the console. Slowly, they loosened and gripped his. When her eyes shifted his way, he still saw the pain, the nervousness, the anguish, but there was a heartbreaking trace of a smile. “Will you let me nip the top of your cone, without adding it to the list?”
