by Dianne Drake
Well, the first thing she wanted to do—hug him—wasn’t going to happen right now. He was too injured. A quick assessment revealed a broken leg, as best she could tell without moving him. Probably a dislocated shoulder, too. So no hugs from her. But in her heart she was hugging him forever. However, the second thing she’d said she’d do… “I love you,” she whispered, crawling in and cutting away the seat belt while Neil radioed their location to his teams. Muddy tears were streaking down her cheeks. “I love you more than anybody I’ve ever loved in the whole world, and if you ever do this to me again, I’ll…” She sniffled, cut through the shoulder part of the seat belt, and pulled away the remnants of the air bag which Eric had already punctured and deflated.
“You’ll what?”
“I’ll love you more than anybody I’ve ever loved in the whole world.”
He was coming home today. It had been a crazy seven days, subduing the twins who would have surely injured Eric in their enthusiasm to hug him, and trying to get his house ready so he wouldn’t have to go home to Janice’s cottage. He was going to need a medical bed for a while, and she’d had it set up right in the front room of his new cabin. Dr. Kent Stafford, one of White Elk’s full-time orthopedic surgeons, had actually recommended Eric to a rehab facility for a couple of weeks, but Eric had refused. Said he wanted to be with his girls. Said over and over he wanted to be with Dinah.
So she was busy making sure that would happen.
As it turned out, he had been going after chocolate chips that night. In a hurry. Taking the short cut. His truck had slipped out of control in the mud, the brakes wouldn’t hold it, and it had picked up speed in its descent. On a flat surface, nothing would have happened. But rolling down the side of a foothill… The Three Sisters had been watching over him because, by rights, he should have been killed.
And the pink shoelace…he’d tossed it out the window when he’d realized he was going to take a long, bumpy ride to the end.
“In the middle of the front room?” Those were Eric’s first words when the medic rolled him in the door. His broken leg, now in a cast, was elevated. A pink cast at Pippa and Paige’s insistence. He was shirtless, but the brace supporting four broken ribs covered most of his chest. And his arm was in a sling. A mess, but such a handsome mess that tears welled in Dinah’s eyes.
“In the middle of the room,” she said, smiling so widely it almost hurt.
“I was hoping for some privacy.”
She waved to George Fitzhenry, who’d brought him home and was on his way back out. “In your condition, Eric, privacy’s the last thing you need. Especially if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
Eric sighed. “So how are you going to lift me into bed?”
“I have a few friends coming by later. And you’re getting a full-time nurse. Hired the best one I could find.”
“That would be you.”
“That would be me. And I’ll be full-time nurse at White Elk Hospital as soon as my private duty is over.”
“Meaning?”
“You know what it means.”
“But I want to hear you say it. No, I need to hear you say it.”
Yes, he did, and she wanted to say it to him. “I’m going to stay, Eric—here in White Elk, here with you and the girls. With my sister. I want to stay here.”
“Do you know how good that sounds?”
“It couldn’t sound any better to hear it than it feels to say it. Because it’s what I truly want to do. I mean, I kept telling myself that if I walked away from everything I’d found here in White Elk I’d be fine. Better to be alone, keep myself hidden, than open myself up to getting hurt again. I wanted you so much, but I was scared…scared I wasn’t enough, scared I’d let you down, scared you’d be disappointed. So it was easier to push you away, even run away…”
“To Costa Rica?” he said, smiling.
“It was never about running to someplace. It was always about running away from something…in this case, you.”
“But I wouldn’t have hurt you, Dinah.”
“Not intentionally. But what happened if we woke up one morning and you decided that I wasn’t…”
“Patricia?”
She nodded. “And the thing is, it wasn’t even about Patricia. I’m so glad you had her, so glad you had such a wonderful marriage with her. I just didn’t feel like I could be enough for you after you’ve already had perfection. For me, it’s always easy to hide behind excuses, which is what I’ve been doing, Eric. The men in my life leave, I’m too emotional to be a nurse, Charles betrayed me…excuses. And I wanted to turn you into another excuse. But you wouldn’t let me. And I know I was forcing you into that position by distancing myself, as you called it. Getting close then shoving you away. Even resigning from the hospital.”
“I would have come after you, Dinah. Don’t you know that I’ve been trying to figure out all along how to keep you here, or what to do if you did run away?”
“You were?”
“Of course I was. I mean, I’ve made a mess of things myself, and I know that. So maybe I’ve kept myself at some of that distance I’ve accused of you keeping while I was trying to figure out a way to make this work between us. I was always afraid that Patricia would be an issue…”
“I understand your feelings for her, Eric.”
“An issue for you, Dinah. I never wanted you to think I was comparing you, or putting you second. But when you love someone it’s hard to let go. Which is why I wasn’t going to let go of you no matter what happened. Even if I had to go all the way to Costa Rica to get you.”
“You would have?”
“I would have,” he said.
A shuddering sigh over took her. “I loved Molly, and that day when she died, when I kept holding on to her…I couldn’t bear the pain. That’s why I left nursing. As much as I loved, it just hurt so much, and there was nothing I could do. Molly was going to die and I knew that, but I think I blocked it from my mind because when it happened…I went to pieces, Eric. I went to pieces, and how can you be a good nurse if you get that emotional?”
“The best nurses and doctors do get that involved, Dinah. Loving someone that deeply is never anything to be ashamed of, and hurting when you lose them is natural. You loved a little girl who desperately needed someone in this world to love her, and the Dinah I know will do that again and again because that’s what makes her extraordinary…as a person, as a nurse.”
She paused for a moment, shut her eyes, fighting back the tears. “When Charles pulled me away, physically restrained me and had me sedated, I’d never felt more betrayed…more pain in my life. He told me I was being an idiot, opening myself up to being hurt, that what I was suffering was my fault. That I was weak.”
“Loving someone never makes you weak, Dinah. It’s what makes you strong. Builds you up. Makes you better.”
“But I was so wounded, and I just didn’t want to…to bleed that way anymore. My father, my husband, my fiancé, Molly… I convinced myself it was easier living life alone. That maybe Charles was right.”
“He was wrong, and it’s not easier. I’ve been alone for years and I think I’d convinced myself of the same thing, that it’s easier that way. And it wasn’t the pain I was running from so much as it was the fear of starting over. I’d had everything I’d ever wanted in life then lost so much of it, and for me it just became easier not to want any of it again. I had my work, my girls… By all standards, that makes me a very lucky man. Then I met you, and…”
“I made you miserable.”
“Sometimes, because I had to reevaluate where I was and what I was doing, and, as you’ve seen, I’ve been pretty resistant to that. But you also made me incredibly happy, and I don’t think I ever counted on having that kind of happiness again. Or maybe I’d convinced myself I didn’t need it. And to be honest, I did feel guilty…not because of Patricia, or moving away from Patricia. I felt guilty because I wasn’t feeling guilty, if that makes any sense. All along I
think I expected some huge blanket of guilt to drop down and smother me if I ever looked at another woman…thought of another woman the way I have you. Maybe I even counted on it happening so I wouldn’t have to move on with my life. Then, when that didn’t happen, when I realized that I was getting happier, I wasn’t sure how to handle it.”
“Well, we’re quite the pair, aren’t we? Me running away from the things I love most because I’m afraid of getting hurt, you hiding because you’re afraid of being happy. You know, I wanted you to let me down, Eric. I fought like hell to make you do it so I didn’t have to face myself, and I fell more and more in love with you each and every time you wouldn’t be pushed too far.”
“I know.”
His voice was so gentle it melted her heart. “Every time I did, I wanted you to come and get me. And every time I was so afraid you would, and even more afraid you wouldn’t.”
“I know that, too.”
“And you still want someone as crazy as me raising your daughters?”
“Crazy’s good,” he said. “As long as it’s crazy in love.”
“And I am, Eric. I fought myself and lost miserably. Which means I’ve won everything.”
“Damn, I wish you could be sitting in my lap,” he said. “Because I want to show you how crazy in love feels.”
“You can’t even put your arms around me,” she said, sniffling. “But I can put my arms around you…a little bit. If you trust me to do that without hurting you.” Crossing over to his wheelchair, Dinah bent down and eased her arms around him, barely touching him. But it was a good touch. A perfect touch. “Thank you, Eric. You’ve given me everything, and I don’t know how to repay you.”
“Marry me?” he asked, quite simply. “I know this isn’t the most romantic proposal, and just let me warn you that if you say yes, we’re going to do it as soon as we get the license, even with me in this pink leg cast, because I don’t want to spend another day of my life without you. Also be warned, the girls already have the wedding planned. They’ve been working on it for days, and I think their intent is to upstage us.”
She started crying again. “It sounds beautiful…perfect.” She backed away for fear she’d hurt him, and propped herself against the hospital bed.
“It was a long time coming, trying to forget Patricia.”
“But you don’t have to forget her, Eric. She was such an important part of your life…of the lives of three of the people I love most in this world. She took care of you, loved you, gave you two amazing children, and for that I love her, too. So you shouldn’t forget her…none of us should.”
“When I fell in love with you, that’s what I came to realize. It wasn’t about forgetting her. I loved Patricia with all my heart, and that won’t change. But I learned my heart has room to love someone else, too…love someone else with all my heart. And that’s how I love you, Dinah. That day in the rain, when you fought with me, it was like I woke up for the first time in many years. Woke up, felt alive. Then every time after that… There were so many things in me that I’d put away. Things you reminded me were still there. And I want that with you, Dinah, all of it.”
“You don’t mind pink shoelaces, do you? And pink and purple walls in the girls’ bedrooms? Because we’ve already talked about it and it’s a unanimous decision. Pippa’s walls will be pink on the top half, purple on the bottom, and Paige’s walls will be purple on the top half, pink on the bottom. Not negotiable. The goat is negotiable, though. But not the pony or the dog.” She smiled. “Although I can think of some things I’d love to negotiate on my own. Like a honeymoon, without the girls, once you’re healed.”
“Care to tell me what you have in mind for that honeymoon?”
“And get you all excited? That could hurt a man in your condition.”
“My only condition is totally, incurably in love.”
“Well, in that case…” She bent over and gave him a circumspect kiss on the forehead.
“Not good enough.”
Another one on the tip of his nose.
“Not good enough.”
One on each cheek.
“Closer, but still not good enough.”
This time she kissed him on the lips. Tenderly, and rather quickly. But there would be time for more. A lifetime for more. “Oh, and so you’ll know,” she whispered in his ear, “I’m taking over your duties with the rescue team. I think I have a knack for it.”
“You’re not trained for it.”
“I’ll get my training.”
“But you’re getting married, going to be a mother, going to be a nurse…”
Dinah gave him a broad smile, folded her arms across her chest, and looked down at him. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
“You know, you’re sexy when you talk that way. I like a woman who knows what she’s doing.” He arched wicked eyebrows.
“Staying with the man I love is what I’m doing,” she said, taking his face in her hands and going straight for his lips this time. “For the rest of my life.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5693-8
HIS MOTHERLESS LITTLE TWINS
First North American Publication 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Dianne Despain
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