by Fiona Lowe
She seared him with her gaze. “I know my son and he’s never looked at me like that before. We’ve damaged him.”
He rolled his eyes, unable to help himself. “Now, you’re being . . . as dramatic . . . as Hunter.”
Her lips clamped into a thin, hard line. “You’re not a parent, so you can’t possibly understand.”
He tried to deflect the hurtful words and not allow them to land. “I want to be. I love you. I love Hunter . . . like a son.”
She wrung her hands. “We’re not going to work.”
Anxiety threaded through him that she truly believed that. “If . . . we talk to him . . . together—”
“No.” The word exploded out of her, harsh and cutting. “The only person who’s going to explain anything to Hunter is me.”
His heart lurched. He loved her. He had to make her understand that this situation was their problem, not hers alone. He suddenly remembered something Shannon had told him. I’m his mother and I’ve protected Hunter from heartache. “You’ve done a . . . great job p-p-p-protecting Hunter, giving him . . . stability but he . . . needs men in his . . . life.”
“Plenty of great men were raised by women.”
Yes, but you’ve got me to share this with you. Why couldn’t she see that locking him out was the wrong thing to do? She looked so scared and fearful, and he couldn’t work out why. And then it hit him. “This isn’t all . . . about Hunter . . . is it? Some of it . . . is about you. I’m not like . . . Hunter’s father. I won’t leave you. I want to . . . be with you.”
She flinched. “You had no right telling him you loved me.”
He threw up his hands. “I was . . . trying to . . . help. To explain.”
“He’s my son,” she said with icy calm. “I don’t need your help.”
Her words hit worse than a horse’s hoof to the chest. Air whooshed out of his lungs and rafts of agonizing, stinging pain radiated to every part of him. “Family . . . help . . . each . . . other.”
She shook her head traitorously slowly. “We’re not family, Beau.”
Ten minutes ago when he’d told her that he loved her and that he wanted them to be a family, she’d kissed him like he was the love of her life. “I thought . . . we were.”
“It was just a silly fantasy,” she said, her voice trembling. “God knows, I should have known better. I have to put Hunter’s happiness first.”
Her skewed logic stunned him. “Do you think . . . p-p-p-p- Fuck.” He hauled in a breath trying to keep everything together despite the overwhelming feeling it was all falling apart. “Maybe some . . . of his happiness . . . is connected . . . to me.”
She folded her arms across her chest and faced him down. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for Hunter, but it’s over. I need you to leave so I can talk to my son. Alone.”
Her words shredded his heart and destroyed his dreams. She was dismissing him, her ears now deaf to any of his stuttering entreaties. He’d tried and lost, fighting phantoms he didn’t even know existed. Grabbing his hat, he strode from the house without looking back.
Chapter 18
The night sky was as black as the dread that hovered permanently over Katrina. As she gazed out of her mother’s hospital room window, she wished the cloud would clear so she could see some stars. Stars always filled her with hope, and boy she needed some of that now. Bonnie wasn’t improving the way everyone had hoped, and Josh, in consultation with her oncologist, had changed the antibiotics. Now they waited.
She kissed her sleeping mother. Come on, Mom. We need you. Dad needs you. I need you.
Kirk snored gently in the chair, and she threw a cotton blanket over him. His eyes opened. “What time is it?”
“Almost dawn.”
He scrubbed his whiskered face with his palms and immediately glanced at his sleeping wife. “Your mom loves the dawn. She always says—”
“It’s a fresh day to do great things.” Katrina smiled as she squatted down in front of him so she could speak quietly and not wake Bonnie. “I probably should be more enthusiastic about the dawn, but it always comes so darn early.”
He chuckled softly. “You get that from me. I might have been ranching all my life but I’ve always preferred to watch a sunset.”
His face suddenly sobered, and he swallowed as if he were fighting for control. “For thirty years, no matter the weather or the worries about stock or feed prices, or what you kids were doing or not doing, I’ve gotten up because of her. I’ve wanted to do great things because of her.”
Katrina’s heart trembled. What would it be like to love like that and be loved back? “You’re a great team.”
He nodded slowly. “We’ve had our moments. Every couple does, but we’ve always respected each other. Tried to put each other first.”
She thought about her own relationships and how no guy had ever put her first.
Ty got close. And he had, but she’d been too young to settle down then and she’d left Bear Paw.
Josh? No. It’s not that sort of relationship. If she was honest, it was no longer just about the sex—they’d shared too much about each other for that. She respected him as a doctor and she liked him as man. He made her laugh, he constantly surprised her and she was so very grateful to him for the way he was caring for her mother. Caring for the family by explaining everything that was happening in words her father and siblings could understand.
Kirk’s hand came to rest gently on her shoulder. “I know you went east for some excitement, Katrina, but that can burn out fast. What your mother and I have is commitment. I know you roll your eyes every time I mention it, but you should give Ty a chance. You might be surprised.”
She thought about Ty and his generosity to the family. To her. How he was helping out Beau on the ranch while her father was spending every minute with Bonnie. He was a great guy—a dear friend, and life with him would be steady and predictable. Safe.
And there was the problem. A smile from Ty made her feel momentarily warm like sunshine breaking through clouds on a dull day. A smile from Josh blazed through her like wildfire in the mountains during a hot and endless summer. Both reactions scared her.
“Kirk?” Bonnie stirred. “Can I have some water, please?”
“Sure thing, sweetheart.” He shot to his feet, and with one large hand he supported her head and with the other he angled the straw to her lips.
He was a no-nonsense man of the land—big, broad and strong, but gentleness, caring and love emanated from every pore.
Tears stung Katrina’s eyes, and an enormous hollow space opened up inside of her. She immediately backed out of the room, feeling like she was suddenly intruding on something intensely personal and private. Something she’d never known.
She blew her nose and marched toward the vending machine. She was sleep deprived and overreacting and she needed sugar and cocoa and she needed it fast. She had a perfectly fine life. Granted, it was on hiatus at the moment caring for her mom, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Her phone rang and she fully expected it to be Megan telling her what time she was coming in to relieve her and sit with Bonnie so she could go home and grab breakfast and a shower. She pulled the sleek white device out of her pocket and immediately saw Josh’s name. Her heart gave a ridiculous lurch.
“Hi.” She could hear talking in the background.
“I’m sorry to ask, but all hell’s broken loose and I’m desperate. If you’re still in the hospital and someone’s with your mom, are you able to help out in the ER for an hour? I promise it won’t be any longer.”
She needed some distraction from all her worries about her mom and she knew he’d only have asked her if he had no other choice. So help her, she was a sucker for a plea that she was needed. “I can do that.”
“Thank you.” His relief was palpable, rolling down the line and wrapping around her. “You’re the best, but you know that, right?”
His flirting made her smile. “And I bet you say that to all the n
urses who help you out.”
“No.” His voice dropped, the delicious bass notes suddenly serious. “Just to you.”
This time her heart turned over. I love him. Panic followed. No, I can’t love him. But she couldn’t hide from it. She loved him, even though falling in love with Josh was up there with every other dumb thing she’d ever done in her life. He’d been up front about not wanting anything more than sex from the very start, and she’d insisted on it, too, so why, oh, why had she fallen in love with another unsuitable man?
Not able to answer the question and hating herself for even having to ask it, she shoved all her feelings about Josh down deep to join the pool of anxiety about her mother and the lack of direction that was her life. Taking the shortcut to the ER, she pulled on some scrubs and five minutes later she was thankfully way too busy to think about anything except how to keep two out-of-town brothers from murdering each other.
“You stupid bastard,” Glen, the older of the two yelled as he tried to grab his brother’s shirt. “You were supposed to shoot the fuckin’ antelope, not me.”
“It was an accident,” Lenny groaned as he shrank into the wheelchair, trying to avoid his brother’s hand. “If it makes you feel any better, when you grabbed my ankle, I tripped. I might have broken it.”
“I should have killed you,” Glen roared, heaving himself up on the sides of the gurney before collapsing as pain flattened him.
Katrina took the opportunity to pull Lenny’s wheelchair a long way from the gurney. “Gentlemen,” she said, using the term loosely, “this is a hospital. Inside voices, please, and no swearing.”
“He’s not usually like this,” Lenny offered up in defense of his brother. “He’s been through a lot lately what with April leaving him and the business hemorrhaging cash. This trip was supposed to be some R & R, you know, to kick back, but he’s not very good at relaxing.”
“You fuckin’ shot me,” Glen screamed, his face going the familiar puce of someone with hypertension.
She didn’t need the guy stroking out on her as well as having a load of buckshot in his ass. “Lenny, time for you to go have that ankle X-rayed.”
“I don’t want to leave Glen on his own.”
Lenny seemed impervious to the fact he was the source of Glen’s current rage. “I promise you, I’ll be here with him.”
His worried brow cleared. “As long as you’re sure. Thanks. I won’t be long, Glen.”
“Argh!” Glen banged the side of the gurney with a closed fist.
The moment Joe, the hospital transporter, took Lenny away, she said, “Glen, I’m going to start removing the shot, but before I do that I’ll give you some pain relief.”
“I’m gonna kill him.”
And a sedative. “Are you allergic to anything?”
“Lenny.”
—
JOSH heard the ping, ping, ping of buckshot hitting the mono-metal of a bowl as he slipped in behind the curtain of one of the ER cubicles. Katrina, dressed in identical scrubs to his, looked up, and although a mask hid the curve of her lips, he saw the smile in her eyes. A smile he’d come to think of as his smile—the one she reserved for him.
“Doctor Stanton, as always, your timing is perfect.”
He grinned at her. “Just removed the last piece of shot?”
She dropped the forceps into the kidney dish. “Exactly.”
“She’s got the softest touch,” Glen mumbled in sharp contrast to when Josh had seen him last, at which point he’d been roaring. “The kindest hands . . .”
He raised his brows. “Lortabs talk?”
“Right again.” She applied a large dressing to Glen’s very red and sore butt cheek. “You rest here, Glen, and someone will be along soon with some breakfast for you.”
As they left the cubicle and she washed her hands, she said, “Breakfast he’s going to be eating on his stomach. And talking food and stomachs, I could do with some breakfast myself.”
“Good idea. I’m buying.” Josh ushered her out of the ER and straight into the staff lounge, kicking the door shut behind him before pulling Katrina into his arms. He kissed her, then buried his face in her neck and started caressing it with his tongue.
For a moment she trembled against him before cupping his cheeks and lifting his head. “Hey, you promised me breakfast. You didn’t say I was breakfast.”
“I wish you were. I can, however, offer you cereal and coffee.”
“And here I was fantasizing about one of Shannon’s big breakfasts.”
“I’m sorry but I’ve only got ten minutes before I have to start rounds.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’ll take a rain check, and cereal’s fine.”
“You sure?” He smoothed down her hair, which had been ruffled by the ties of the mask, looking for signs of her being pouty the way Ashley would have been.
Her brow creased. “You do rounds at seven thirty most mornings, and as that includes checking in on my mom, of course it’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be?”
Her honesty both reassured and discombobulated him all at the same time. “Just checking.”
As she moved away from him and pulled out bowls and poured cereal, he turned on the coffee machine. “Thanks again for helping out this morning. I felt bad asking.”
She shrugged. “I would have said no if I didn’t want to or couldn’t do it.”
There it was again—reasonableness and a distinct lack of game playing. He could get used to this.
She brought everything over to the table. “So you’ve had an exciting early morning.”
An irrational jolt of disappointment zapped him that the hospital grapevine had stolen his news. “Who told you?”
“No one, but there were some clues. The first one was that you gave up the opportunity to remove shot out of some guy’s butt.” She spooned the crunchy cereal into her mouth.
He grinned. “True, that’s always tempting. And?”
“Your eyes.”
“My eyes?” He had no clue what she was talking about.
She nodded. “When you’re excited, they sparkle like sunshine on water. It’s how they look right after we’ve had sex.” She winked at him. “So as I know it wasn’t that, I’m guessing you’ve just had one of those magic work moments.”
Stunned that she read him so well, it took him a moment to respond. “I delivered a baby.”
She dropped her spoon. “Get out of here!”
He knew he was grinning like a loon. “I know, right? It was pretty special.”
“So, I want details.”
Memories of Ashley looking at her watch or glancing at her phone when he was talking about work burned in the back of his brain. “You’re really interested?”
She huffed out an exasperated breath. “Of course I’m interested. This is huge.”
He loved that she got how big a deal it really was. “I got called in around four because Kimberly Buffa had gone into labor at thirty-two weeks.”
“Preterm labor. Scary stuff.”
“Yeah, and I haven’t delivered a baby since I was a med student, and Bear Paw hospital is hardly a NICU. I tried nifedipine to stop the labor and gave her corticosteroids for the baby’s lungs just in case.”
Her eyes were riveted to his face as she took in every word. “And?”
“And despite everything, nothing was going to stop this kid. I called the MontMedAir team, hoping they’d arrive with all their neonatal equipment before she delivered, but just as Will Bartlett touched down, Jacinta Jane slipped into my hands. She looked up at me with huge, dark eyes as if to say hello, have we met before?”
“So magic and scary.” Her voice was almost reverent as she slid her hands into his and her wonder flowed through him. “I wish I’d been there.”
The emotions of the moment rushed back to him so clearly it was like he was still standing in the delivery room. “It was totally amazing. Well, in a heart-stopping, gut-clenching kind of a way that I don’t want to repeat anytime soon.”
She laughed, her expression skeptical. “I doubt that. You thrive on this sort of thing.”
And he did. “I know, but this time it was different.”
“How?”
“Kimberly’s my personal banker, and her husband Jett, whom I wave to every morning, is the contractor working on the clinic upgrade. They were looking at me with such faith and trust, as if I knew what I was doing. It was terrifying.”
“Missing your anonymity?” Perspicacity filled her smile. “But you did it and you’ll do it again.”
“Millie and I did it. Thank God she’s got some NICU experience.”
She squeezed his hands. “I’m so proud of you.”
Her words sent cozy warmth spreading through him, which unsettled him. Hell, he wasn’t a kid receiving a student of the week certificate. Memories rolled in. The time he’d come home from elementary school so proud of his participation certificate and his father quizzing him about exactly what he’d done to deserve it. The feeling he’d gotten when he couldn’t give a specific reason. “I was just doing my job.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh please. You’re still using that line? It’s okay to be proud of what you’ve done. Jacinta Jane is your first Bear Paw baby and you rocked it. Enjoy the moment. Celebrate. Life’s too sh—” Her face dropped and she bit her lip, pulling her hands abruptly away from his.
Her pain and distress circled him, and he wished he could make things better. “Bonnie hasn’t gotten any worse in the last twenty-four hours.”
“And she hasn’t gotten any better, either.” She stood up abruptly. “So, did Millie go to Great Falls with the Buffas?” she said, changing the subject.
He loaded the coffee mugs in the dishwasher. “No. Will Bartlett had a neonatal nurse on board with him.”
“Didn’t she fly with that doctor before?”
“Yeah, a few times this summer.”
“You know she wants a permanent job in the ER, don’t you?”
“Don’t we all,” he said flippantly, although he had to concede that his primary care load was slowly starting to grow on him.