by Jordan, Skye
He glanced at her scrubs with a frown. Then at his watch. “Why aren’t you dressed? We’re going to be late.”
She leaned a shoulder against the wall. Behind Liam, Emma’s friend and a radiology resident, Maizey, turned the corner, caught sight of them, and stopped short. She and Emma exchanged a look, and Maizey wandered the other direction, scrolling through something on her phone, waiting for Emma’s conversation to end.
“I’m so sorry,” Emma told Liam. “Carter’s having car trouble. I have to stay a few extra hours to cover.”
Irritation darkened his eyes. “Can’t someone else do it?”
“No one’s available.” She reached out and pushed a wayward strand of hair off his forehead. “You have a nice visit with your parents. I’ll catch up with them while they’re here.”
Liam let out a frustrated breath. “Okay. I’ll call you later.”
Once he’d disappeared down the hall, Maizey pocketed her phone and met up with Emma. She and Maizey had been friends since first grade. They’d corresponded during Emma’s years overseas with her family, then reconnected in medical school.
“I just saw Carter in the reading room.” Maizey’s buttery-blonde hair was pulled into a twist. She faced Emma and crossed her arms, glancing in the direction Liam had gone. “Lying to the guy you’re going to marry isn’t exactly the best start.”
“I’m just exhausted. I don’t have the energy to meet his parents or field questions about the wedding.”
“Ah, the wedding,” Maizey said. “Do we at least have a date yet?”
“That.” Emma pointed at Maizey. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” She deliberately redirected the conversation. “Did you decide to take the job at Vanderbilt?”
“I did.”
“Congratulations!” She leaned in and hugged Maizey. “I’m so excited for you.”
“A little birdie told me the ED there is still waiting for your answer,” Maizey said. “Why haven’t you accepted the offer? It’s the best in the area, and it would be so fun to keep working together.”
Emma winced. “Liam got an offer from Johns Hopkins.”
Maizey’s eyes went wide. “Are you serious?”
Emma deliberately lifted her voice. “Isn’t that amazing?”
Maizey drew back and tilted her head. “It doesn’t sound like you think it’s amazing.”
“Of course, I do. I just…”
“Wanted to stay close to home.”
“If I can’t be overseas, I’d rather be with my family.” Emma shrugged. “But it’ll be okay. It’s a quick flight.”
“So, he’s taking it, then?”
Emma thought of their trip to Baltimore for Liam’s interview. She didn’t like the city. It was run-down and dirty, with the second-highest murder rate in America. But she’d kept her opinion to herself because she hadn’t wanted to ruin Liam’s thrill of being asked to join the best medical center in the US.
“Probably.”
Maizey’s eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?”
Emma crossed her arms. “Nothing. Nothing, it’s just an adjustment. You know I’m a country girl at heart.”
Maizey looked like she wanted to dig, but dropped it for another subject. “Has he gotten on board with our trip to Honduras? I can’t believe it’s only six months away. Vanderbilt was fine giving me the time off. They’re always supportive of humanitarian efforts.”
“That’s great.”
“So? Is Liam on board?”
“I’m working on him.”
Maizey’s gaze darted to Emma’s hand and turned suspicious. “Where’s your ring?”
“Oh, in my purse.” Emma extended her fingers, then curled them into a fist. “I don’t like to wear it at work.”
Liam had given Emma a two-karat princess-cut solitaire, flanked by two half-karat trillion-cut diamonds, all set in a platinum band. She would never tell another soul, but she was secretly embarrassed to wear it. The ostentatiousness of the ring screamed wealth and privilege.
“Why do you even try that bullshit with me?” Maizey asked. “I see you outside work enough to know you don’t wear it unless you’re with Liam. And while we’re on the subject, why haven’t you set a date for the wedding? And why isn’t he on board with our trip?”
“There’s plenty of time to set a date when all the craziness of residency is over. As for Honduras, he’s not thrilled with the idea. He thinks there’s too much civil unrest there right now.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Maizey waved one hand. “He thinks Honduras is too dangerous but is all for moving you to Baltimore? The single city of Baltimore has a higher murder rate per capita than the country of Honduras. Or Guatemala. Or El Salvador.”
Emma laughed. “That’s not true.”
“Do the research. It’s very true.”
She sobered and nodded. “Okay, I’ll get the data together and talk to him about it.”
“Emma, does he understand what you want to do? That this may be your first trip overseas on a medical team, but that you have no intention of it being your last?”
Emma took a deep breath and looked at the floor as she let it out.
“If he doesn’t support you in making this part of your life,” Maizey said, “a real part of your life, then what are you doing? Why are you marrying him?”
Her protective streak flared—though for herself or Liam, she wasn’t sure. “Liam is a great man. A really good man who loves me. He may not be perfect, but no one is. And, like in any good marriage”—unlike her last marriage—“we’ll have to make concessions and sacrifices along the way.”
“What’s Liam sacrificing?” Maizey asked. “Because I see you sacrificing your family and your safety and your happiness by moving to Baltimore. And I see you sacrificing your dreams by appeasing Liam’s conservativism.”
Emma rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
“You’ve been my best friend my entire freaking life,” Maizey said. “It killed me to see what you went through over Dylan. I’m certainly not going to sit by and say nothing when I see troubled waters ahead with Liam. You’ve suffered enough. You deserve happiness. So, if you’re settling for Liam when you should be thriving in the prime of your life—”
“I’m not settling for anything.” Emma’s words came out a little too strong. She appreciated her friend’s well-meaning advocation for Emma’s happiness, but it all felt a little close to the bone tonight.
Maizey lifted a hand and started ticking off observations. “You don’t wear your ring. You haven’t set a date. You refuse to start planning a wedding. You avoid looking for dresses. You won’t move in with him. He doesn’t support your dream of working with Doctors Without Borders. He’s moving you away from your family to a place you hate—”
“Stop.” Emma put up both hands. “I know you love me, and I value your opinion. Maybe I’m a little more hesitant to jump in with both feet than Liam is, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it. I’ve been down this road before, and it ended badly.” Oh so badly. “It’s only natural for me to be more reserved.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll drop it. But I’m here if you want to talk.” She pushed off the wall and smirked. “You’d better get back to the ER and cover those fictitious patients.”
3
Emma pushed through the ER exit doors, relieved she’d have the rest of the night to herself. She was thinking of a hot bubble bath and a bottle of wine as she strolled toward the parking lot, searching for her car key on the key ring.
The fall night air was crisp. People came and went from the ER; others waited for family or friends, milling around benches and cars in the lot.
Something drew her attention to the right. To a man leaning against the grille of a Jeep, ankles crossed. Something about the languid confidence in his stance reminded Emma of Dylan, which meant she’d been thinking about him way too much lately. But she felt like her fears of moving forward with Liam were all about what had happened in her past. A past Liam didn�
��t even know about.
She thought she’d be able to put it all behind her when the divorce finally came through. But that had happened four years ago, and it was obvious by the way she couldn’t bring herself to turn the channel when he came on television that there were still hooks to Dylan lingering in her subconscious.
Tired and hungry, she thought about stopping for something to eat on her way home as she slid her key into the lock.
“Emma.” The male voice instantly sparked fire in her chest. A waterfall of awareness spilled down her spine.
Now men were starting to sound like Dylan. She had to find a way out of this spiral.
She glanced toward the man, now standing twenty feet away, in front of her car. His face was still mostly hidden by the shadow of his ball cap, but his build, his movements, the angle of his jaw…
He swept the hat off his head and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Sorry. It’s me. Dylan.”
The overhead light illuminated his face, and her stomach fell straight to her feet. Her breath stalled in her lungs.
Dylan?
She’d just seen him on the television, a world away. She darted a look around the parking lot, trying to connect with something concrete, to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. Nope, still at the hospital.
She returned her attention to Dylan. Dylan. She could not believe Dylan Wright stood on American soil, just feet away.
Crazy shit happened inside her. Things she couldn’t begin to understand. Heat exploded in her stomach. Tension coiled in her muscles. Haze filled her head.
The concept of time bent like an image in a funhouse mirror. Emma felt like no time had passed, instantly followed by the sensation of being in a completely different lifetime.
She closed her eyes and gave her head a shake. Her head went light, and she put a hand on her car to steady herself. Then she opened her eyes again, sure he’d be gone.
But Dylan still stood there.
“Are you okay?” He took a step toward her. For a reason she couldn’t explain, she took a step back. He stopped. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“What— What are you doing—” Her mind veered to his family. “Are Gypsy and Miranda okay? The baby?”
A crooked smile tilted his mouth, the one that had endeared him to her over a decade ago. “Yeah, yeah. Everyone’s fine. I’m just visiting.”
She didn’t understand the word. The concept. Not from Dylan. “Visiting.”
“Yeah. I wanted to meet Cooper.”
That struck her like a brick. Just like that, her partially healed scab ripped wide open. “Seriously? You’d fly around the world to meet your nephew, but couldn’t be bothered to pick up a fucking phone for your wife?”
Air leaked through his teeth. His shoulders dipped, and he looked at the ground. “I, uh”—he turned the hat in his hands—“I was hoping we could talk.”
“Talk. Now. Eight years after you said you never wanted to see me again.”
His gaze returned to her face. His expression had sobered into the mask she’d seen so often on television. That was when she realized just how much time had passed. Just how many tears she’d cried. Just how much damage he’d done—to her self-confidence, her self-worth, her ability to trust, her desire to dream, her capacity to take risks.
“You have every right to turn away—”
“You’re damn right I do.” The depth of anger in her voice surprised her. Her walls shook with the strength of a California quake, creating cracks for hurt to seep deeper. Seeing him was definitely a wake-up call. The fury and hurt swimming through her body was proof positive she hadn’t dealt with his abandonment. “What, Dylan? Why are you here? Now?”
“If this is a bad time, we could meet another day. I just came here because I didn’t know how else to get ahold of you.”
Part of her wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. Another wanted to sink onto a bench and talk with him for hours. She found herself in a fierce tug-of-war she didn’t know what to do with. What she did know was that she couldn’t walk away with this hanging over her.
“No.” She had to move on. She had to put him behind her. Emma gestured toward the benches lining the path to the hospital’s main entrance. “Let’s get this over with.”
Then he would be out of her life for good. Maybe things would start making sense again.
Emma gave him a wide berth as she passed, but his scent still reached her—clean and spicy. He still wore the sandalwood and citrus she loved. That did not help her head stop swimming with his sudden appearance.
She dropped her bag to the ground at the closest bench. Then she sat on one end, pivoted, and pulled her feet up, wrapping her arms around her knees. Seemed like the best barrier she was going to be able to create.
While she waited for him to take his sweet damn time meeting her there, Emma shored up her walls the way she did when she had to notify a patient’s family that their loved one had died. She retreated deep, deep inside herself. A bit of disassociation that kept her as safe as possible in the worst situations.
This was definitely one of those situations.
He strolled past her, turned, and eased to a seat on the edge of the metal bench. He stared down at the hat where he turned it in slow circles. But he remained silent. And that, more than anything, was the most effective way to damage the resiliency of her barriers, because it gave her too much time to think. Too much time to look at him. Too much time to catalog all the ways he’d changed. All the ways he’d stayed the same.
“I can’t fucking believe you’re sitting here.” The words drifted from her lips, laced with more pain than she should have exposed. “Eight years without a word, and poof—here you are.”
He turned his head and met her gaze. She could see him better here, under the well-lit entry. And, God, he was even more handsome than he was on television. But Emma could see all she’d feared—exactly how his time in third-world war zones had reshaped him. He wore the face of someone who’d seen it all. All the horror life could bring. All the disillusionment that senseless horror created.
Lines of physical and emotional fatigue framed his mouth, fanned out from the corners of his eyes. Eyes veiled behind walls almost as high as Emma’s.
“I’m not here for forgiveness, because I know there is none.” The timbre of his voice and the steadiness of his gaze made her shiver. He was a deeper, sexier, more intense version of the man she’d loved.
“I also know this may mean nothing to you and that it’s far too little too late, but for whatever it’s worth, I want you to know how sorry I am for what I did.”
The emotion in his voice tugged at every weakness. She’d seen enough people in pain to know he was suffering. And that pulled at every nurturing cell in her heart.
“For forcing you into a decision that wasn’t completely your own,” he went on. “For hurting you. But most of all, for failing you.”
The unmistakable gleam of tears in his eyes tightened Emma’s throat. Painful emotions crowded her chest, making it hard to breathe.
He looked at the ground again. “I should have done this so many years ago. Better yet, I should have never created a situation where I had to say these things at all. I’m not going to make excuses, because nothing justifies all I haven’t said for the past eight years. I’m just… I’m sorrier in more ways than you could imagine.”
“I doubt that.” The words came out flat and serious. Heavy, like a rock. “I have a very vivid imagination.”
He quirked a split-second smile. “Oh, I remember.”
Something about the way he said it made carbonation fizz in her heart and swim through her body. She bit the inside of her lip to short out the sensations. The pain resulted in an automatic strike back.
“Are you in a twelve-step program?” Her ER frequent fliers had taught her all about vices and addictions and where they came from. One of Emma’s longest-standing worries for Dylan was that his injuries and years of emotional and physical suff
ering would eventually take their toll. He was a prime candidate for addiction. Escape from the horror of his reality required heavy hitters. “Is this your make-amends step? What is that? Step eight? Nine?”
“What?” His brow furrowed, and familiar double lines creased between his brows, one longer than the other. How could something so small touch her so deeply? “No. I’m not doing this as part of a twelve-step program.”
“Then why? Why now?”
He released a breath. “That’s…complicated.”
Her mind searched for meaning in that statement, scanning what she knew of his travels over the last year from his television reports and his news articles. Then it hit her. “You heard from my attorney, didn’t you? He tracked you down through your work.”
“Your what?”
It was all crystalizing in the moment. And it made so much damn sense. “My attorney. He got ahold of you and told you about the house.”
“What house?”
Anger hardened her walls to stone. “I’m surprised money would motivate you to fly halfway around the world when nothing else would. But the more I think about it, the more I realize I never really knew you.”
He straightened and pinned her with a look she only recognized from television. The man she’d married had never looked at her so grimly. “You’re the only person who’s ever really known me.”
His words hit her barriers and dropped. They didn’t have the slightest effect on her. Emma found that both encouraging and heartbreaking.
“As soon as I can sell Aunt Shelly’s house, I’ll send you your half of the money. Nashville property may have taken a spike in value over the last few years, but you’ll be disappointed by what her house is worth. You won’t be getting as much as you may think.”
“Emma, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t want your money.”
She didn’t believe any of that. And she couldn’t take this anymore.
Emma dropped her feet to the ground and stood, grabbing her bag on the way. “You didn’t have to fly across the globe for this. You could have just called or emailed or sent a fucking letter. Unlike you, I would have responded.”