by Fiona Lowe
Her head rolled on the pillow and her mouth kicked up on one side. “We?”
He knew that ironic tone—Katrina had used it on him in the early days. “Yes, we. You, your oncologist, me, the family.” He shot for a reassuring smile. “It’s a team thing, Bonnie.”
“Well I’m sure as heck taking one for the team, Josh. I feel like someone picked me up by the hair and threw me hard against the wall.”
He opened his mouth to say you’ll feel better soon—it had always been his exit line whether he believed it or not, but he found he couldn’t say it. Not this time. “Come into the hospital, I’ll start an IV, run the tests and we’ll take it from there, okay?”
“Can I come home tomorrow?”
“I’m not making promises I might not be able to keep, Bonnie.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “That’s both good and bad to know.”
“Yeah.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, not knowing what to say and hating the feeling.
“I can smell pancakes. Katrina’s are not quite as good as mine but they’re close,” she said, rescuing him from an uncomfortable conversation. “Go have some.” Her eyes fluttered closed. “Can you tell the others about the hospital?”
That he could do. “Consider it done.”
He entered the kitchen to find the rest of the family, with the exception of Beau, sitting down to a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausage links, hash browns and pancakes. The clink and scrape of silverware on china suddenly stopped and everyone looked at him, their faces filled with apprehension and questions. He wished he had better news for them.
Kirk rose to his feet, dropping his napkin on the table. “How is she?”
“I’m admitting her to the hospital.”
He nodded as if that was the news he’d expected. “How long for?”
“As long as it takes.”
He sighed. “I’ll go pack her things.”
“I can do that, Dad,” Katrina offered.
“I know, and you’d probably do a better job, but I want to do this.”
Megan pushed back from the table. “We’ll tell Beau you’re at the hospital, Dad.”
Dillon stood, grabbing a last piece of toast. “Don’t worry, Dad. We’ll get the west pastures cut and raked. You stay with Mom.”
“If she lets me,” Kirk said with a grimace. “It’s just as likely she’ll insist I come back and cut hay.” He put his hand on Josh’s shoulder. “It was good of you to come so early, son. Appreciate it.”
“No worries. I was awake so it made sense.” He glanced at Katrina and couldn’t stop himself from grinning widely.
Katrina, who was mid-sip of coffee, suddenly started coughing violently and hers eyes widened so far they threatened to leak color.
Josh immediately thumped her on the back as everyone left the room. “You okay?”
“No.” She sucked in a restorative breath. “You’re grinning at me in front of my father like you just got laid.”
“I did.” He bent down and kissed the side of her neck. “And it was amazing.”
Her hand touched the back of his neck and her fingers caressed his hair for a moment before falling away. “Not here, Josh. Please.”
“Sure.” He understood, but as he straightened up an odd, empty feeling slithered through him. He immediately shrugged the sensation away.
“Have some breakfast,” Katrina said, pouring him a coffee. “There’s plenty.”
“Thanks. It looks great.” He picked up a plate and loaded it with food. He’d just taken his first mouthful of the light-as-air pancakes when a woman’s voice floated through the screen door.
“Hello? It’s Rhonda.” The door opened and the Bear Paw courier stepped inside holding a couple of boxes. “Got that e-reader for your mom, Katrina.”
“Great, thanks, Rhonda.” Katrina took the packages and set them on the table.
“Oh, hey, Doctor Stanton,” Rhonda said, catching sight of Josh as Katrina signed. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve got a delivery for you that needs signing for. Can I bring it in now?”
He wasn’t expecting anything. “Are you sure it’s not something for the clinic or the hospital?”
She shook her head. “Nope. It’s got your home address on it. I’ll go get it.”
Used to interruptions and never getting to finish meals, he turned his attention back to his breakfast and shoveled in a few more mouthfuls of the crispy bacon and runny egg before Rhonda returned with a large box. As he signed for it, she tapped the label. “It’s from out east. Chicago. You have a good day.”
When Rhonda left, Katrina passed him some scissors. “Is it your birthday and you didn’t tell us?”
“No, that’s in November. Maybe the guys from Mercy have sent me my favorite coffee blend.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, like you can’t buy coffee here. Give me their address and I’ll ship them some.”
He laughed. “You getting all parochial now you’ve been home for a while?”
She shrugged. “I miss some stuff about Philly, but I don’t miss the traffic or the noise.”
Sliding the blade along the brown tape, he pulled open the cardboard top and removed the crumpled newspaper that had been used as filler. An eclectic collection of things lay underneath: some CDs, an old copy of Gray’s Anatomy he’d always used as a doorstop in college, a bunch of paperback novels, his tuxedo still in its protective bag, a baseball mitt signed by the New York Yankees and some mail bundled together with a rubber band, the top one a slightly yellowed letter from the Mount Sinai Medical Center.
Ashley had done a comprehensive clean sweep of the apartment and sent him all his stuff. He noted with some cynicism that her engagement ring and the expensive silverware his family had given them were not there. The inclusion of his letter of offer from Mount Sinai was a particularly vicious touch.
Fuck you, Ashley. With a burst of delayed fury, he picked up the letter and ripped it into pieces.
—
STUNNED by Josh’s outburst, Katrina watched the pieces of paper flutter to the ground. “It seems dumb to ask if something’s wrong when obviously it is. Want to talk about it?”
His gray eyes, which recently had glowed warm and soft whenever he looked at her, had taken on the color of flint. “Not particularly.”
“If a patient had just done something like that in front of you, would you leave it alone?”
He grunted. “It’s nothing. Just ancient history.”
“History has a way of coming back to bite you.”
He ran his hands through his hair and then rubbed his freshly shaved cheeks. “Tell me about it.”
She picked up the scattered papers and made out the words Mount Sinai. “Prestigious hospital.”
“Oh yeah. One of the best in the country.”
“And?”
He kicked the box. “And I had the opportunity to work there.”
And he was in Bear Paw. She poured more coffee for both of them. He looked like he needed something stronger than caffeine, but at seven in the morning, it was the only option. “Did you work there?”
“No. I took the job at Mercy instead.”
“Having a choice is fantastic. So why are you upset?”
His brows pulled down in a sharp V. “You’re going to keep at me until I tell you, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “I think that I am.”
“Why?”
Because you look like you’ve been sucker punched. “Friends tell each other things.”
He tilted his head, his eyes far too incisive and intelligent. “We’re friends now, are we?” His gaze made her shiver. “I thought you said we were just using each other for sex?”
He’d turned her words back onto her and the effect was unsettling. “I . . .” She rolled her palms outward and then laced her fingers. “Can’t we do both? You’re obviously upset and talking might help.”
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong,” he said quietly, his voice edged with steel. “
Talking doesn’t help at all. Ashley and I talked for months. We went around and around and it didn’t resolve a fucking thing.”
He’d talked about his father but he’d never mentioned anyone else. “Ashley?”
He ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah.” He walked outside and she followed him, sliding her hand into his as he leaned up against the porch rail and looked out toward the mountains.
They stood there silently for a long minute before Josh walked to the porch rocker, taking her with him. “Ashley and I dated for two years, before we rented an apartment together. A year after that we got engaged. We were together five years.”
Shock dropped her mouth open and she had to work really hard not to stare at him. For some reason she’d never once imagined Josh in a long-term relationship, let alone one headed toward marriage. “That’s . . . that’s a long time. When did you break up?”
“Officially? The day the moving truck arrived to pack all of our stuff for the move to Bear Paw.”
Unofficially? Memories of the prickly, aloof and angry guy who’d arrived in town three months ago came to mind. She’d never quite been able to reconcile why, if Josh had chosen to come work in Bear Paw, he’d been so detached and irritable instead of enthusiastic in his early weeks. Now she might have stumbled onto the answer. “Ashley didn’t want to come?”
He gave a harsh laugh. “That would be the understatement of the year. She said it would be professional suicide.”
She thought about how Bear Paw was always chasing all types of medical and support staff. “I’m guessing she didn’t work in health care?”
“No. She was in corporate marketing.”
“Oh.” Maybe Ashley had a point.
“Oh?”
His stony expression made her feel as if she were letting him down in some way. “What I meant was that there’s not a big call for that type of work in Bear Paw.”
He grimaced. “There isn’t, but her company understood and totally supported her telecommuting from Bear Paw three weeks out of every four. They knew it wasn’t forever and were bending over backward to help. We were coming out here to knock down my student loans fast so we could do the time, get the hell out of Dodge and start a family.”
A family? Her gut thudded to her feet. First he’d been engaged and now he was admitting to wanting to be a dad? None of this matched up with the Josh she thought she knew.
“And . . . um, that’s what Ashley wanted? Um, what she agreed to?” She fought to sound coherent while her thoughts splattered across her mind like they’d been whizzed in a blender.
“She’d agreed to way more than that.” His thigh was so rigid against hers she could have bounced a ball off of it. “When I left the surgical program, I got offered my dream job in the ER at Mount Sinai. At the exact same time, Ashley got offered a position in the Chicago office of her firm. It was a big promotion for her. She sided with my father about my change in career direction and had been upset with me, but when I discussed my ideas with her on how to reduce my student loans fast, much faster than staying out east, we agreed on a plan. I supported her by moving to Chicago so she could take her dream job, and when the time came, she’d support me and we’d move somewhere rural out west for three years. Somewhere we both agreed on. We struck a deal for our future and got engaged. You know, the give-and-take of a mature relationship.” He snorted.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever had one of those,” she confessed with a wry smile.
“Yeah, well, they don’t exist,” he said bitterly. “I doubt Ashley ever had any intention of keeping her side of the bargain, but she happily let me give up Mount Sinai to get what she wanted.”
He’d given up his dream job for this woman, and Katrina clearly saw Ashley’s betrayal in the lines on his face, around his mouth and at the edges of his eyes. She thought about her total blindness with Brent. “Hindsight’s a bitch.”
“She’s a bitch.”
She squeezed his hand.
A hint of gratefulness lit up his eyes. “When the time came for me to apply for rural positions, I presented her with a list of ten places I’d researched and thought would be good places to work. She chose Bear Paw and I started all the paperwork.”
She shifted to face him straight on. “So, wait, I don’t get it. If she chose Bear Paw, why did she then refuse to come?”
“Apparently she never thought I’d go through with taking a rural job or expect her to actually uphold her part of the deal.” Every muscle in his body clenched. “As we stood on the curb with movers waiting to get into the apartment, she told me that if I’d stayed in the surgical program, none of this would have happened.”
“How did she figure that?”
He sighed. “Surgeons don’t work in towns this small. Surgery meant we could have continued living in a big city, which was the only place she was prepared to live, and I could have paid off my loans without it impacting her life.”
She struggled to understand Ashley’s logic. “But you weren’t happy doing surgery. Surely as your fiancée she wanted you to be happy?”
His mouth pulled down on one side. “Her solution was for me to go beg my father and ask him for the money to pay off my loans and we stay in Chicago.”
An intense dislike for the woman crawled through her veins. “How could she ask you to do that? She must have known how much that would cost you?”
—
JOSH saw Katrina’s jutted chin and the spark of indignation in her eyes and heard the pique in her voice. It took him a moment to realize that her reaction was for him and not against him. He wasn’t used to the feeling of support from anyone outside of his colleagues, and as it slowly dripped into him, he had to work at not questioning the reasons behind it.
“Ashley believed it was something I should do for both of us. A sign that I was putting our relationship first. She didn’t understand why I wasn’t prepared to go into financial debt to my father. I knew if I asked, he’d levy a heavy emotional debt on us. He’d likely want my firstborn child and a commitment that, no matter what, the kid becomes a doctor. No way in hell was I committing to that when I’d already broken away. The emotional cost at Thanksgiving and Christmas is more than enough.”
“So don’t go this year,” she said, her very kissable lips thinning fast. “Invite your parents to Bear Paw instead. Show them you’re not only responsible for your choices, you’re fine with them.”
The absurdity of his parents coming out here made him laugh. “Maybe I can even get the town to throw me a ticker tape parade.”
“They’d probably do it now.” She grinned and giggled. “Wait. I have a better idea.”
His fingers toyed with her hair. “What’s that?”
“We introduce your father to Bethany. She’d pin him to the wall with that crutch and set him straight.”
A rush of something he didn’t want to name filled him and he leaned in to kiss her.
She kissed him fast and then pressed her hands to his chest. “You have to go to work and I have to go check Dad’s packed everything Mom needs.”
He rose, his mind running through his work schedule. “I’ll let admissions know your mom’s coming in right away and I’ll talk to her oncologist.”
Her green eyes, which could light up a room, dimmed. “She’s not strong, Josh.”
He knew that, too. “We’ll set up isolation procedures to keep her safe from any hospital bugs, and I’ll call you the moment I’ve got the test results. We’ll hit it with everything we’ve got.”
“I can’t ask for more than that. I just hope it’s enough.”
“So do I.”
She was standing right next to him, so close and yet so far away. He wanted to reach out, grab her wrist, spin her back into his arms and kiss her the way he always did just before she left the cottage. He wanted to say, When will I see you? Next time, come stay the whole night with me. Let’s make plans to go watch the aurora borealis.
But timing was everything, and sadly, this w
as so not the time.
Chapter 17
Beau McCade, 12:37 p.m. Day 2 of cutting hay. Hunter & Rastas driving the tractor. Don’t worry, it drives itself ;-)
Shannon Bauer, 12:40 P.M. He looks happy S x
Beau McCade, 5:04 p.m. Radar showing chance of rain. Hunter will be at gate at six. Sorry, I can’t stop to stutter or steal kiss at pickup. Will miss your smiling face. B x
Shannon Bauer, 5:55 P.M. I left pie at the house for everyone, especially you. I notice you don’t stutter when we’re having sex. S x
Beau McCade, 6:30 P.M. Thanks for pie. Speech therapist never suggested that particular exercise for stutter. I should practice more.
Shannon Bauer, 6:31 P.M. S xx
Beau McCade, 11:42 p.m. Long day. Just finishing with hay now.
Shannon Bauer, 11:43 P.M. Are you hot and sweaty?
Beau McCade, 11:44 p.m. Yes.
Shannon Bauer So am I. It’s a hot night.
Beau McCade Too hot for covers.
Shannon Bauer Too hot for pajamas.
Beau McCade Take them off. Enjoy the breeze.
Shannon Bauer It’s like your breath against my skin. If you were here, I’d like you to . . .
Beau McCade Spray you with a mist of cool water and lick you dry.
Shannon Bauer God, I wish you were here.
Beau McCade I can make you feel like I am.
Shannon Bauer Yes please.
—
SHANNON was cleaning out the diner’s fridges when she heard heavy footsteps and the clack of dog’s nails on the floorboards.