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Even from across the room I saw how her eyes became unfocused as darkness threatened to swallow her. I snorted softly.
“Listen, Dr. Cade, I’m really, really thankful. I know you didn’t have to do this, and Ithinkyou’re trying to be nice? Or you’re a pervert. But either way, I can’t come with you to your house.”
All valid points. But because Laurel didn’t know me, she also didn’t realize how tenacious I was about getting my way. And in this case, it was imperative that I got my way because her life was on the line. I finished typing up her plan of care, crossed the room, and then sat next to her on the table, one leg bent and the other supporting my weight on the floor.
Like she had done every time I got near her, Laurel leaned toward me, like there was some kind of magnetic pull between us.
Well, I felt it, too. And I wasn’t about to ignore it.
I reached out and smoothed a bit of tape over her IV that had started peeling away from her skin. Her fever made her so warm to the touch, it spurred the urgency I felt to get her settled somewhere and monitored more closely. She didn’t realize how dangerously she had compromised her health. “I get it,” I said. “It’s a crazy demand, and you’re being cautious. You should be. And I’d be lying if I said the reason I offered my home wasn’t because I found you to be kind of adorable.”
She looked at me like I’d grown a hydra head.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said seriously. “You’re the cutest thing I’ve seen since the My Little Pony marathon I did with my nephew last year. And they have wings. I’d be crazy to look at you and just ignore that you need help.” I shrugged, letting my hand fall to the paper, and I leaned my weight against it. “And I know you must like me because you nearly when into tachycardia a minute ago.”
“Well,” she said tightly, her fingers gripping the navy-blue fabric of her sweats, “that isn’t really a good reason to spend the night at your house.”
I gave her a look while I waited for the “but” I heard at the end of her sentence.
She sighed, looking down at her hands. “You know, I do everything right.” I waited, wondering where she was going with that. “I fell in love with my High School sweetheart, but we waited until we were almost done with college to tie the knot. We stayed chaste for each other, like our mothers wanted for us. We got pregnant with Calla unexpectedly, but we made it work. We both graduated with honors.” She looked up, a hint of amusement haloed around her grief. “I did homework while I was in labor with Calla.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me,” I murmured, my voice gentle.
“And even after all that, after we worked our asses off and we committed to our marriage and our future…” she paused, as if searching for the right words. I waited for the nuclear bomb that had clearly destroyed her confidence and her life.
She shut down. “Anyway, it hasn’t mattered. It hasn’t mattered that I did all the right things, because even then, life doesn’t just give you what you deserve.”
I couldn’t disagree, but I was still waiting to see where she was going with this. Tension radiated through me in waves like a charley horse all over my body.Say yes,I pleaded silently.Just say yes.
Her fists tightened again. “I did everything right, and it has gotten me jack shit.” She straightened, as if resolved, and found my gaze again. “Maybe it’s time I did the crazy thing.”
A grin split my face.Maybe it’s still the right thing, Laurel,I thought as relief smoothed over my tension. Maybe the “right thing” is actually the crazy thing.
Six
Laurel
Ifell asleep in his car.
Maybe that was a bad idea. Maybe I should have been more alert and on edge. But I had rested on the exam table while Lachlan cleaned up, I had signed his consent-to-treat forms, and then he had made sure I gave my mom the exact address of his house—after all that, I felt like maybe this wasn’t all that reckless.
Sure, it was sudden. And abnormal. But Lachlan hadn’t given me any reasonnotto trust him. And this felt like a chance I should take. Something inside of me said that this was worth exploring. It might have been something in my pants, but regardless—it was something.
When the car hit rough gravel and slowed to a crawl, I woke with a sharp intake of breath.
Lachlan had one elbow leaning casually against the window and his other hand on the steering wheel as we rumbled along a gravel road slowly. “Hey. How are you doing?” he asked with all the confidence of a doctor who knew the answer to that question.
“Good,” I whispered. I wasn’t trying to be quiet. I just couldn’t talk worth a damn.
“You look like hell, but glad to hear it.”
I cast him a disparaging glance, but then his house rose into view as we leveled out our ascent. We were in the foothills of the nearby mountain range, judging by the dense forest enclosing the home from all sides, and the home had been built into the hill as if the forest had carved it out on its own.
The home itself had a modern build with straight, clean lines and horizontally striped railings on the balconies. But it had been built with stained cypress wood, so it looked like it was meant to be there all along. Wide, long windows comprised several of the walls so the misty forest around the home could breathe into the space effortlessly. The trim looked to be mostly black, some metal, and then some concrete, especially along the outdoor living areas which were recessed into the house and jutted out from the main building with tables and chairs, benches, and beanbag chairs. I had never seen anything like it in our small town.
I tried not to gawk, but it made my little updated apartment feel like a seedy motel room.
Lachlan punched a button on the console above his rearview mirror, and a heavy door opened to a pristine, organized garage. He entered, killed the engine, and the leather creaked softly as he turned to me. “Ready?”
