Who’d have thought that doing a good deed, protecting a woman in an emergency in the middle of nowhere, would change his life so drastically?
Cara had never discussed Karma or Fate with him, but she mentioned both terms in regular conversation enough that they were on his mind as he lay next to her looking for a logical explanation for what his life had become.
Certainly something stronger than logical science had led this woman to the doorstep of a cabin he’d just purchased at a time when he’d been struggling more than any other time in his life.
Whatever it was that had brought her here, he’d been given a chance to make a difference in her life and he was up for that challenge.
What came later...he didn’t know. Whether or not they kept in touch...stayed friends who called now and then...depended on where her life led her.
He wasn’t going to marry again, but he could be a damned good lifetime friend. Once he had his sight back and didn’t need to worry about her making him doubt himself.
Aware that there were aspects of the situation he wasn’t seeing as he lay in the darkness, listening to her breath, feeling the warmth of her weight against his side, he knew better than to make a concrete plan where she was concerned.
Moans... Someone was... Simon hadn’t known he’d drifted off until the sounds woke him. Lying still, he first noted the agonized rise and fall of Cara’s back against his hand, which rested there.
“Cara.” He didn’t think. He just called to her. Stroked her back with one hand, moved the hair away from her face with the other. “Cara,” he said again, as her ragged breathing continued.
He had no idea what time it was. How long he’d been asleep. Her head, which had been resting on his shoulder, was on his chest now. Her thigh resting between his. He’d woken up hard, but as another moan came from deep within her, his penis settled and his mind took over.
“Cara.” Speaking softly, he gently touched her face, trying to wake her without scaring her. No one should have to live in her hell. No one. Most particularly not a woman as giving and gentle, as willing to open her mind and consider others, as she was. Even when she talked about Shawn’s mental and emotional abuse, she’d found good things to say about him.
And Simon... She’d somehow known that he needed help believing that he’d see again and, other than suggesting that he have a plan B, had pretty much left him to it. Even encouraged him by helping him exercise his eye. Because she’d known that was what he needed, and in spite of what she might personally think, she’d been able to give it to him.
Her breathing had settled some and he lay still. Listening.
He hadn’t told her about the red dot yet. Hadn’t thought of it himself much in the past few hours.
“Noooooo!” Pushing against his chest, she sat straight up, their legs still entangled. Her hair over her face, she remained upright. He wasn’t sure if she was awake or asleep until she shuddered and her head fell down toward her stomach.
“Hey, come here,” he said, pulling her back down to him as she started to cry. He could only imagine the amount of grief the woman had been containing inside her small frame.
Years of it, to be sure.
Before she could heal, she had to get it out. She cried for a while, not huge racking sobs now, but more of a steady outpouring that tore at him just as much. He handed her tissues. And held on. Until she quieted. Reaching for a bottle of water on the nightstand, he uncapped it and handed it to her. All those tears, she’d get dehydrated...
Cara drank, handed him back the bottle and settled back down against him. Wanting her to sleep if she could, he remained still, listening to her breathe. She moved her hand. Adjusted her arm. Her foot.
“I’m awake if you want to talk,” he offered.
Not sure if she needed silence or help, Simon focused on her breathing. And brushed a hand across the hair lying on the side of her face. Ran his fingers through it. Hoped he was calming her.
His strength of purpose grew. He committed to meeting the challenge head-on. Successfully.
At first light he was getting her out of there. He’d stop in town to alert the shopkeeper that he’d been called back to his practice, so his departure didn’t draw curiosity. Cara would have to lie down on the back seat. The clothes bar he put up with all of his clothes hanging on it would cover her from view. He’d be quick about it. Because he didn’t ever want Cara to have to hide again.
Most particularly from the demons in her own mind.
Hard to believe that she was still so strong. Still trying so hard to figure it all out. Get it right. Still looking for the good. Striving for it. While he’d fallen apart and run away because his eye was damaged...
“I don’t think I can do it,” she was saying softly.
“Do what?” Go to the police? A shelter? Testify against Shawn? Hide in the back of his car for a moment while he ran into the store...?
“Live without...” Her voice broke. “I loved her so much...”
Joy. His tongue stuck in his mouth.
“She was the light in my life...truly...” She sniffed, rubbed her nose with the tissue in her hand, then settled her hand back against the side of her face at his chest. He felt her every movement.
“Just to be in the same room with her...or know that she was...somewhere...anywhere...to know that she was smiling...”
He swallowed. It didn’t happen easily.
“In the worst times...she’d be asleep, or at school or with Mary...” Another pause. Her sniffles were coming more rapidly. “I’d think of her...with every blast of pain... I’d hang on for her...knowing that when we got through it, things would be fine again. She’d never know the difference and her happy life would go on...”
She’d taken beatings to give her daughter what she remembered having...a secure and seemingly happy home.
“I just can’t... How do I fight without her to fight for? How do I breathe without...”
Cara’s shudder had gained force over the last one. He had to help her. Had to find a way to share her burden so that she wasn’t carrying it all alone. So that she didn’t give up right when help had arrived...
“It’s always darkest before dawn.” The words sounded stale to him. As a first go, it was all he had. A couple of other trite phrases occurred to him. True. But so overused they weren’t going to have the power...
Truth. His truth.
“I know how you do it,” he said. And he did. He got it right then. Right there. He just didn’t know how he reached inside himself and offered his guts to her. He’d never been that in-the-muck guy. He was the one who was supposed to maintain boundaries. Offer all of the compassion in his heart from a professional distance. Offer facts, realistic solutions, perform to the best of his ability in the operating room, maintain his skill and his focus, and...move on.
He’d overstepped once. He’d let things get too personal. And he’d lost the sight in one eye—possibly the ability to help any other children needing heart repair—because of it...
Cara’s breathing had evened out. Her body against his stilled. As though she was waiting.
As though she was open to his telling her how she was going to get up in the morning, get up every morning after that and continue on.
She was giving him the chance to help her hang on.
To do that, he had to get personal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“YOU GO ON without her by living every single day of your life in her honor.” Simon’s words came out slowly, as though he was choosing each one separately before he spoke it. “Everything you do, you do it to make her proud. You do things with the idea that, where she is, you’re making her smile. You do it because you know she somehow knows.” In the end, the words came in a rush.
Chills spread over Cara’s body in her still
ness. And she remembered...that first day, or the first few days...she’d had the feeling he had a death on his conscience. The boundaries between them had been so clear for so much of their time together—for both their sakes. She’d had no business in his conscience. Had been too busy trying to find out what was in her own head so she could quit being a burden to him...
“Who was she?” she asked, her head still on his chest, counting his heartbeats. They were strong. Sure. Steady.
“Her name was Opus.” Even expecting the confirmation, it came as a surprise. Opus. A body of art, of beauty. A musical composition. A great work. She loved the name. Wanted to know about the child.
But...with HIPAA, the laws governing patient confidentiality, he could lose his license to practice medicine for even telling her the name.
“Is she...the only patient...you’ve lost?” Thoracic surgery came with high stakes. As tragic as it was, she thought him incredibly lucky—and talented, too—if he’d managed to save every other child.
“No,” he said. “Though, to date, I’ve only lost two. Opus...wasn’t...a patient.”
“Who was she?” A sister? A cousin?
“She was my daughter.”
Hand on his chest, Cara pushed herself up. Stared at him. “Oh, my God, Simon. You had a daughter?” Her eyes filled with tears when she realized what that meant. “You lost her... You already know what I... I’m so sorry.” She reached for his face. Running her hand along his jaw. “All night I’ve been going on like this, and you... The feelings I must have brought back...”
He pulled her back down to lie against his chest. “Technically, Opus was my stepdaughter,” he said. “I just... From the moment I met her, she wrapped herself around my heart. Took ownership...”
Cara wanted to hear every detail. Needed to know his little Opus. “How old was she?”
“Six,” he said. “Her mother had had her as a single woman through artificial insemination. As far as Opus ever knew, though, I was her biological father.”
“Your ex-wife, Emily. Opus was hers?” He could have been married more than once. Their personal lives had been wrapped up in boundaries.
“Yeah.” His chest rose beneath her cheek as he sighed. “Opus started out as my patient. She had a degenerative heart disorder. Emily wanted her to have a transplant and she wanted me to do it.”
“Did you?”
“No. She wasn’t a transplant candidate. I referred her to a colleague of mine and, at Emily’s request coupled with my own desire, I was with them every step of the way. There were some things he could do, a trial she could be a part of...”
When he broke off, she was right there. “But it didn’t work.”
“The trial worked,” he said. “Opus’s heart responded and there was every chance that, as she grew, her condition would fade to, perhaps, more treatment when she reached adulthood. Worst case scenario was that she stopped responding, but would, by then, be strong enough to withstand a transplant. Opus was three by then, and her mother and I got married.”
They’d started with the tragic ending. Cara fidgeted with the button on his shirt, waiting for whatever he chose to tell her between that and the part where they thought they were going to live happily ever after. She shivered in spite of her jeans and fleece pullover. Simon pulled the blanket up around her shoulders, and she snuggled into his body warmth.
“She was six when her heart stopped responding to the drugs. As expected, she was so much more healthy all-around, her heart was so much stronger, that she was a candidate for a transplant...”
Surely he hadn’t...she knew firsthand...doctor code strongly urged physicians not to attend their own family members, except in cases of emergency...
“Emily insisted that I do the surgery.”
She wanted so badly for him to have said no. A parent...cutting into his own child...
“And I insisted that I couldn’t.” He sounded incredibly regretful.
“You couldn’t, Simon. A parent, operating on his own child’s heart...”
“I was the best qualified.”
“She was your daughter.”
“Not biologically.”
“Biology has nothing to do with the reason why doctors aren’t supposed to be involved in the care of their family members. It’s the emotional bond that makes it impossible to remain neutral, unbiased, to see every aspect...”
She stopped. Had a flash of her father’s worried face as he stood over her mother’s bed one night, shortly after she’d been diagnosed. She’d thought he’d been crying...
That was why he’d called in so many other doctors. Because he’d known he was unable to make the best decisions. To see his wife as a sick body, which was what he’d have had to have done to be able to see all the facts.
“That’s what I told myself.” Simon’s words were a long time coming. And sounded weary. As though he’d been telling himself over and over. For a lot longer than that conversation.
“She didn’t make it through surgery,” he said now. “Emily blamed me...”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
He said nothing.
“Where’s Emily now?” she asked, wondering what the woman thought of his long sabbatical. If she knew about it. Wondering if they were still in touch, even as she knew it was none of her business.
That night, in that room, in that life, it felt like her business.
“In jail.”
Cara sat up again. “In jail?”
Where she might very well find herself? Was he kidding? Was this Fate’s cruel last way of turning on her?
He nodded, his gaze holding hers.
“What for?”
He blinked. “For this,” he said, pointing to his right eye.
She couldn’t believe it. And yet...as coincidence seemed to flood down upon them...she started to believe.
He told her about Emily coming to his office on what would have been Opus’s seventh birthday. How he’d agreed to see her because he’d been grieving, too, because he’d understood. She’d been hysterical. He’d gone into his private bathroom to get a wet cloth for her face, and she’d followed him in with an ice pick in her hand.
She’d stabbed him, catching him in the corner of his eye socket, doing little damage, considering. She’d only stabbed once. And then she’d panicked. She’d locked them in the bathroom and put the ice pick to her throat. If he tried to leave, if he so much as moved, she was going to kill herself.
He’d determined, at that point, that his wound was superficial and had spent the next four-and-a-half hours trying to talk her down. In the end, he’d succeeded. She’d agreed to wait while he called someone to get her some help.
He’d called the police, because he’d known that only a court order would make her submit to getting the help she needed.
By that time, his eye had swollen shut. He’d expected as much. What he hadn’t expected was that when he got down to emergency and they opened it, he wouldn’t be able see. The cornea hadn’t been damaged, but the pressure on his optic nerve, due to the swelling, had reached the critical point...
Still sitting, her hand on his chest, Cara listened as the horrific story played itself out until she felt almost numb. And then, without warning, an avalanche hit and she teared up.
“It’s wrong, Simon. So absolutely, completely wrong. All you did, even there at the end, even after she blamed you, was continue to try to help...”
His shrug made it seem like he wanted her to think he had it all under control, but she didn’t believe that. Could feel his pain.
“It occurs to me now that maybe I’ve been so determined to see again, to be able to do surgery again, to prove to myself that I’m not somehow to blame...”
She’d played those same games with herself.
Every
time she’d heard Joy laugh had been proof that she’d made the right choices in her life. She was giving a little girl the same happiness she’d known as a child...
“Crazy, the two of us...stumbling upon each other...” Simon’s lips tilted as though he was trying to smile.
She didn’t think it was crazy.
Fate could do this...bring two people together who’d both been injured by their spouses, two people who’d just lost little girls, give them those similarities so that one could help the other.
Cara’s life had been spared...she’d collapsed near Simon’s cabin because she was meant to help him. She, with her doctor father, she who’d judged Edward Mantle so harshly, was there to show Simon that Opus’s death was not his fault. That, in not operating on her, he’d made the right choice.
Just by sharing her story with him and letting him see her journey, she could help him.
Just like Mom had said. Until you drew your last breath, your life served a purpose.
Her breath caught on a latent sob. Cara’s pain was as acute as ever, and yet, she felt...better. As though she’d gained just a glimpse of that for which she’d been searching.
This wasn’t about her. Her life wasn’t about her. It was about making Joy smile.
It was about helping others. No matter what it took.
She’d go with Simon the next day. And when the time was right, she’d let him go. For his sake.
Their gazes met and she made the silent promise, from her eyes to his. And then she leaned toward him. She’d let him go, but could she have just one breath of his air to take with her?
Her lips meeting his seemed to be outside of her doing. Touching. Gently at first. And then with an all-consuming heat that shocked her. His mouth opened and hers did, too. His tongue found hers and every part of her body came to life, her breasts, farther below... She needed him, not just sexually, but in an animalistic way.
She was a married woman.
A murderer.
She couldn’t bring him down with her.
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