“Whenever you’re ready for the main signage to be created, just let us know,” the man said. “Those will take longer to manufacture, so the turnaround will be a few weeks before they get delivered.”
Hunter nodded. “I understand. Thanks for the effort you guys put into getting this to us so fast. I just need to confirm with my partner, but we’ll be in touch.”
“We hope to hear from you soon.” He gave us each a curt nod before climbing back into the van and taking off.
Hunter held the sign so close to his chest that I still couldn’t see the name. He smirked and carried it past me. “This one is only the sign that will go up behind the reception desk. If you approve of it, I can order the signage for outside, stickers for the equipment, and stationery.”
“You have to show it to me before I can approve of it,” I said.
His smirk grew before he turned his back on me and disappeared inside. When I walked in after him, he was holding it up behind the plastic-covered desk that was currently the only furniture occupying the space.
He held it almost exactly where we’d decided the divider would go, high enough that I could see it from the steps. The font he’d chosen was bold but playful with clear, clean lines and cupped hands below the words.
It read “The Helping Hands,” and was absolutely fucking perfect. I scowled at it for a moment to build suspense, then broke into a wide grin and started clapping.
“This may just be your finest achievement,” I said. “I can’t believe it, but I think you’ve really done it.”
“You’re serious?” He set the sign down carefully on the desk and narrowed his eyes at me. “I mean it. You’re not fucking with me right now, are you?”
“Definitely not. I love it.” I walked up to him and opened my arms. “Bring it in, man. Well done.”
He enveloped me in a bear hug and thumped my back so hard I was afraid I might cough up a lung after, but it was worth it. When he finally stepped back, he jabbed a thumb up at our office. “Beer?”
“Beer,” I said, turning to walk up the staircase.
Our office was the only part of the practice that was already fully functional. We had a desk each, computers that had been set up, and even a few couches. In a room right off from the office, there were even two futons in case we ended up working late and decided to crash here.
Hunter also insisted they could be used for naps, but I was hopeful we wouldn’t have time for many of those. Especially now that we’d reached our deal with the hospital.
We also had a fridge in there, a coffeemaker, and a small round table where we could grab lunch. It had been important for us to get all that set up so we could move our base of operations here while splitting our time. Like getting our treatment plans and reports drawn up, our admin would be done from here with immediate effect.
The hospital would start slowly redoing the therapy rooms there while we were moving out, which suited us perfectly. Even if it meant we’d be losing our office there as early as next week.
All in all, it was working out really well. Hunter grabbed us each a beer, and we sank down on the couches in the office. Both of us could see the lower level from here, and for a minute, we just drank our first sips and stared at our space.
“Can you believe we really did it?” he asked quietly, his gaze never leaving the floor below.
I shook my head. “If you hadn’t found and bought this building, I’m not convinced we would’ve ever done it. This is all thanks to you.”
“Not really.” He shrugged. “You’re the one who came up with it in the first place. I just pushed to make it happen.”
“Why?” I frowned, glancing at him over the top of my bottle. “I never really understood why you started pushing when you did.”
“Neither of us could spend much more time in the ER without getting sucked down there permanently, but neither of us want to be there for good.”
“What makes you think that?”
He sighed and dragged a hand through his shaggy hair. “I overheard some people talking one day about how they could outsource physical therapy to gain our space and keep our skills.”
I nearly choked on my beer. “You didn’t think to tell me about this?”
“You’ve been preoccupied recently. I didn’t want to stress you out even more.”
Lowering my chin, I gave him a sharp look. “It doesn’t matter whether I’ve been preoccupied in my personal life. You still should’ve told me.”
“Nah.” He gave me a slight grin. “I’ve been waiting for a long time for you to meet a woman who captured your attention the way April did. The timing wasn’t great, but it wasn’t like I couldn’t handle finding us the space.”
“Clearly, you could handle it, but you shouldn’t have felt like you had to do it by yourself.”
“If I’d told you, I knew you would insist on buying the building yourself. We’ve talked about why I wanted to be the one to buy it. My reasons for keeping quiet weren’t purely selfless.”
I held my bottle up to his. “Even so, thanks for acting when you did. I’d have hated getting sucked into the ER.”
“We’ve been spending more than enough time down there as it is.” He clinked his bottle against mine, sipped, and then started scratching at the label. “Speaking about spending time down there, are you okay after what happened yesterday?”
My brow furrowed. “Sort of. Why? You don’t usually ask.”
“You don’t usually have to decide between saving your girlfriend’s ex who is also the scum of the earth or allowing him to leave said earth.”
“Yeah, well, making that decision wasn’t as easy as it should have been,” I admitted, sinking back against the couch. “I’m still struggling with it. A part of me thinks I should’ve just let him go while the other knows it was the wrong thing to do. None of us would’ve been able to live with something as dark and heavy as that.”
“I didn’t tell you this yesterday,” he said after a long pause, “but I’m proud of you for doing what you did.”
“Why? I didn’t do anything other than my job.”
“Maybe not, but you still saved a life. The life probably didn’t deserve it, but most people wouldn’t have had the courage to do what you did. Even working on him would’ve been a stretch for most, but you went above and beyond for him.”
“I did what I needed to do.” I wasn’t trying to be modest or humble, simply honest. “Trying to get him back for longer than others might’ve was only because I was the one who’d hesitated in the first place.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “You hesitated for maybe a couple of seconds. It might’ve felt like longer to you, but it wasn’t.”
“Sometimes, a couple of seconds is what makes that vital difference between life and death.” I took a long sip of my beer, licking my lips when I drew the bottle away from them. “It doesn’t really matter now anyway. The douche is alive and we’re still heading to court.”
If April ever spoke to me again, that was. I still hadn’t heard a peep from her, and I was starting to wonder if I would again. Sure, it had only been a day, but she wasn’t one to twiddle her thumbs.
Hunter sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s going to have a criminal record for drunk driving after this. That has to improve your odds even more. What judge will award custody to a man when his daughter was injured riding a motorcycle without a helmet just months before he nearly killed himself the same way while drunk?”
“Hopefully, no judge.” I drained the remainder of the beer. “It’s not an exact science, though. Judges are only people, which means they’re always going to be influenced by their own experiences to a certain extent.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose that’s true. Whatever happens, we’ll get through it. All of us. I don’t want April to lose custody of Adi any more than you want it.”
“Which is why I’m struggling so much with that fucking decision.” I set the bottle down with a loud thud and scrubbed my pal
ms over the stubble on my jaw. “April was right. It could all have been over. Instead, I just had to let my conscience get the better of me and save him.”
He finished the rest of his beer before standing up. “Your father would’ve been proud of you for doing what you did. You have to face the court challenge, but you will win. Even if you don’t, there has to be a better way of going about things.”
I frowned up at him when he slid his phone into his pocket and picked up his keys. “Where are you going?”
“Oh.” He smirked. “It looks like I should get going.”
Twisting around on the couch, I looked down to see April walking through the door. My heart picked up speed and I suddenly felt hot.
I felt like shit and I was pretty sure I looked it too. April, on the other hand, looked like she’d walked off the cover of a dirty magazine. Not that she was wearing anything very revealing but because the way she looked would kickstart any guy’s libido.
The difference was that it wasn’t just my libido she kickstarted when she walked in. It was my heart too. Her black skirt hit just above mid-thigh, her kitten heels made her legs look a hundred miles long, and her shirt was cut low enough to give more than just a hint of her cleavage.
But while I noticed all that, it was her eyes I couldn’t look away from. Even from all the way up here I could see the intensity in them. It was like she had laser vision, and when that gaze landed on me, I realized that I couldn’t just let her go.
I fucking loved her.
Chapter 36
APRIL
How does he always look so damn good and put together? When I’d gotten back to my place earlier this morning, I’d looked like I’d had a fight with the Goddess of Mascara and had a raccoon stuck in my hair for a better part of the day, and I still wasn’t sure if my clothes could be saved.
They’d been so rumpled and wrinkled that, short of having them professionally cleaned and ironed, I was pretty sure I might as well just toss them in the trash. I’d looked so bad that it had taken me hours to get presentable again.
Then it had taken me several more to blow out my hair, choose an outfit, and finally gather up the courage to go see him. I wasn’t above layering in a little seduction to convince him to give me another chance, and I’d thought I might be able to do a little play on our first time together if I found him at the hospital.
I was surprised when I got there to find the place empty except for a few inspectors in their office, already planning on where and how to knock out the walls. I’d taken a chance by coming to the practice, but then I’d spotted the open doors, and my heart had soared.
Now that I was inside though, I felt practically naked in the skirt I’d chosen. I hadn’t worn the thing since I’d bought it for a girls’ night out with Luna once, and that had been before she’d even broken up with her ex-boyfriend. Which meant it had been at least four years since I’d worn anything this short, and I was feeling it now.
Hunter grinned when he walked past me, letting out a low whistle between his teeth. “Looking good, girl. I’m glad you’re here. Do me a favor and don’t leave until you’ve both put this behind you, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, though I wasn’t convinced that was up to me. I was the crazy chick who’d all but asked him to kill her ex-husband. I still couldn’t believe I’d done that.
Who does that?
Oh, right. Me. That’s who.
To top it all off, I’d also gone and told Chris I was pissed off at him for saving said ex-husband. And I had been really pissed off about it.
“I’ll give it my best shot,” I told Hunter. I managed to paste a smile on my face and waited until I heard the door closing before looking back up at Chris.
He was standing against the railing outside their office now, looking as gorgeous, confident, and cool as always. I bet it didn’t take him hours to achieve that look.
I, on the other hand, was a cool imposter. Having given myself a proper onceover in the mirror before I left, I knew I looked the part. But I also knew I didn’t feel the part.
Chris wore dark blue jeans and a black button-down shirt. His short hair was styled perfectly in that “oh, this? I didn’t do a thing to it” way that I happened to know meant he really hadn’t done a thing to it.
Those green eyes tracked my every move when I walked toward the staircase to meet him up there, but he didn’t say a thing. The closer I got though, the more I realized he wasn’t quite as cool and aloof as he’d appeared to be from down below.
There was tension in the rigid set of his shoulders and the tight line formed by his jaw. To my surprise, his first words to me weren’t “Get away from me, you insane woman,” or “I’ve called the cops,” or even “Have you forgiven me for not turning myself into a murderer for you?”
Instead, concern filled his eyes and he took a few steps closer to me when I reached the landing. “Are you okay?”
My eyes nearly fell out of my head, and the pure shock of hearing those words from him first made me stumble a little. Happily, I grabbed onto the railing before I fell flat on my face.
“I’m fine. You?” I straightened out my skirt, more to have something to do with my hands—other than reach for him—and stopped several feet away.
He surveyed the distance I’d left between us, sighed, and then nodded. “Sure.”
“Do you mind that I stalked you here?” A slightly nervous laugh bubbled out of me. “I went to the hospital first. I would’ve tried your place next, but I’d never have gotten in there anyway, so I figured I’d try here.”
“You can always get in there, April. I gave the doorman your name ages ago. He’d have let you up.” His brows pulled together. “So would I, if you’d told me you were there.”
A tiny burst of hope radiated through me. “So you haven’t told your doorman to be on the lookout for a possibly murderous redhead who has anger issues and a large cruise ship full of baggage that she drags around with her?”
The smallest hint of a smile touched his lips. “Actually, I told him that if he saw an assertive redhead who thought she saw an opportunity to get everything she wants and spoke before she really thought about it, to grab her and keep her for me.”
“You told him to kidnap me?” I joked. “Well, that’s a good sign.”
He scratched the side of his neck before he laughed. “Yeah, I guess that did come out a little creepier than I’d intended. What I meant was that I was so afraid you were never going to speak to me again that I would’ve had him ask you politely to wait for me if he did happen to see you.”
My eyebrows arched. “You were afraid I would never speak to you again?”
“Of course, I was. You weren’t exactly happy with me when you left the hospital yesterday.”
“No, I wasn’t,” I said. “But I wasn’t exactly happy with myself either. What I asked you to do…” I couldn’t even get the words out. My throat and mouth dried up at even the thought of having to speak them.
Chris gave his head a firm shake. “What you didn’t ask me to do was completely understandable, April. Show me any mother in your situation who wouldn’t have had the thought, and I’ll show you someone who’s lying.”
“You really feel that way?” I asked, not proud of how small and disbelieving my voice was.
“Is there any other way to feel about it?” He dipped his head to the side. “I don’t even know everything he’s put you through, and I was thinking it before you’d even not asked.”
“You were?” My brows swept up and I crossed my arms. “You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”
“No.” Moving slowly, he started walking toward me. “It was a difficult situation. He was already really badly injured. Both of us know what kind of person he is. It’s impossible not to think about whether the world would’ve been a better place without him in it.”
“So you’re not worried I’m the kind of person who might kill you in your sleep after that?”
He blinke
d back surprise, then laughed again as he shook his head. “I know you’re not. You had a fleeting thought when the guy was on the brink of death anyway. Now that you’ve had time to think about it, how would you have felt if I’d done nothing?”
I blew out a heavy breath. “Wow. That’s a pretty tough question, but my sister said something very true this morning. I want a story I can be proud about telling Adi, and this is one that I feel that way about you.”
“We’re in agreement that we wouldn’t have been able to look her in the eyes again otherwise?” He came to stand right in front of me, peering down at me with such hope in his eyes that I couldn’t really believe he felt that strongly about how I felt.
“I know I wouldn’t have,” I said softly. “I also know I had no right to be mad at you. In that moment, it just felt like the answer to all my problems had fallen right into my lap. I know it sounds harsh.”
He reached for my hands, taking both of them in his without moving his gaze off mine.
“But it’s true. It did feel that way. Even to me. It doesn’t change the facts, though. I’m not a judge, jury, or an executioner. I’m a doctor, and he was my patient.”
“I know.” I sighed, turning my palms to wind my fingers around his. “So where does this leave us then?”
“I think that depends on you.” He adjusted his grip on me to tug me gently closer to him, then bent his knees to look right into my eyes. “I don’t want this to change anything between us. If it already has, I need to know if there’s a way we can move past it.”
I searched his gaze for a long minute, looking for anything that even vaguely resembled doubt or dishonesty. When I didn’t find it, I gave him a soft smile. “I think it has changed things between us but maybe for the better. This was our first big fight.”
“You call that a fight?” he asked, but his voice was light and teasing. “We had a disagreement about something we felt similar about. That’s it. I won’t deny that I’m still struggling with the decision I made, but there wasn’t really any other decision to make.”
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