by Jamie Pope
“Hey!” He walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her, settling his hands on her belly. “What’s this you’re doing?”
“Did you know that there are thousands of short cooking videos posted on social media every day? I went online to look something up, and hours later I emerged with a dozen recipes that even I can handle. It’s the most excited I’ve been in years.”
“In years? Really?”
She turned in his arms and kissed him. She tasted sweet, like citrus. He wasn’t content with just one kiss and took her mouth in a much longer and deeper kiss.
She sighed when he finished and rested her head on his shoulder. “I should have said that I haven’t been this excited over anything that hasn’t pertained to you in years.”
“That’s better.”
“How was your day?” she asked him.
“Good. Very good,” he answered, surprising himself. Six months ago the thought of being a small-town doctor would have given him hives, but he had been taking on shifts at the hospital for the past couple of weeks, and it wasn’t nearly as boring as he expected. He was busy but in a different way, and instead of feeling drained physically and emotionally from complex life-threatening procedures, he got a little charge from interacting with his patients. “I just finished treating a broken toe. Kid kicked a microwave.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a ten-year-old boy, and that’s what ten-year-old boys do.”
“Don’t tell me that. I’ll be a nervous wreck until our child is fifty.”
“Didn’t you ever get hurt as a kid? It’s normal.”
“No. I read. It’s hard to get hurt when you spend all of your free time with your nose in a book.”
“Didn’t you have a horse?”
“Do you think I rode him?” She looked aghast. “I brushed him and petted him and told him that he was special even if he wasn’t as beautiful as the other horses.”
She made him smile. Every day. When she was around, he couldn’t help it. Things had been much better between them. She seemed happy. He was happier. This wasn’t the life he wanted, he wasn’t doing the job he wanted, but things weren’t bad. He could live this life.
When Cricket was happy, the entire world seemed to be brighter.
“Whatever happened to your horse?”
“He’s here on the island. Where do you think I went when we had our fight?”
“He’s here? And you never told me?”
“I thought I did. He’s in the most beautiful stable. It’s not far from your brother’s house.”
“You have to take me to see him.”
Her entire face lit up. “You really want to?”
“Of course. I married an heiress. I feel like it’s your duty to expose me to fancy crap.”
“Let’s go right now.”
“Right now? I thought you were cooking.”
“It’s all prepared. All I have to do is pop it in the oven when we get home. It will be ready in a half hour.”
“Sounds good. Let’s go.”
“You’re not too tired from work?” She looked at him with a touch of concern.
“No,” he answered truthfully. For the first time in his career, he didn’t come home exhausted. He came home when it was light, to a warm home and a soft woman. But his hand was getting stronger. The occupational therapist he was seeing on the island worked wonders. Elias had worked so hard to become a trauma surgeon. It wouldn’t be much longer now before he was cleared to go back. His single-minded dream had been to be the head of his department, but he was married now. They were going to have a family. He wanted to see his children after school. He wanted to have dinner with them. But it seemed impossible to match his career goals to his family goals.
They still had some time, but he was going to have to think hard and figure out how to make things work out for them.
* * *
There weren’t many perks to being an heiress. She knew that she could give it all up in an instant. But being able to keep her old, slow horse in this luxurious stable was one of them. The stable had a view of the ocean in the distance. Each horse had a designer stall and the best organic food money could buy. There was a lot of land for the horses to roam freely. It was horse paradise, and her old boy was here. Not because she loved horses or even animals, for that matter, but because as a child, she’d been watching a show on some animal-themed network, and she saw him, abused, nearly half-starved, and she had burst into tears. Her father got on the phone, tracked down the horse and gifted him to her for her fourteenth birthday. Seymour had been here ever since, eating all the food he could get his hooves on.
“This is way nicer than anyplace I have ever lived,” Elias said with awe in his voice when they got out of the car.
“It’s extravagant, but it’s the only thing I treat myself to. I just want Seymour to be happy. He was a rescue. His life hasn’t always been this good.”
“Seymour.” She could hear the grin in his voice. “I like it. I’m assuming he’s the chunky gray one grazing over there.”
“He’s not chunky! He’s delightful looking.” Seymour looked up at the sound of her voice and came trotting over to the gate from his spot in the field. “There’s my boy!” She ran her hand down his long neck, and he nuzzled her.
She climbed over the fence to get closer to him.
“Cricket! What are you doing? You could hurt yourself.”
“Relax,” she said as she hugged her horse. “I’m fine. My boy is so gentle. He knows he’s been saved. He’s grateful.”
“I’m sure he is. But I don’t like you climbing things.”
“I guess I won’t be going mountain climbing tomorrow. Damn.” She looked back at him with a grin. “Seymour, come say hello to your new daddy.”
Seymour eyed Elias and then walked a step closer to the gate. Elias eyed Seymour back. It was clear that Elias had never been around such a large animal before, but he calmly walked over to him and extended his hand. “Is it like a dog? Do I let him just smell me?”
“You should always approach every animal with caution,” she said to him. “But he’s a good boy. Just stroke the bridge of his nose.”
“I’ve never been this close to a horse. When my brother was wooing his wife, he rented horses and took her horseback riding on the beach.”
“Romantic.” She grinned, thinking about her brother-in-law. It seemed out of character for Carlos, but he loved Virginia so much she knew he would do anything for her.
“Do you want me to do that for you?”
“No. You already gave me the most romantic moment of my life.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. You made me a pickle, cheese and mayo sandwich and then made love to me like the contents of my stomach didn’t gross you out.”
He threw back his head and laughed. He had been so much happier lately. He laughed easier. He was more relaxed. He shared what was on his mind. She was loving the life they had carved out here on the island. She never wanted to leave it. But she knew that as soon as he was cleared to go back to surgery, he would go back. He’d worked too hard not to. Then he would be tired and stressed and she would never see him. It would be like being married to the male version of her mother.
She had avoided surgeons most of her adult life, only to end up madly in love with one.
“My wife was having a craving. It’s my job to make sure you always have what you need.”
She leaned over the pen and kissed him, feeling that love grow a little deeper. There were so many times she wanted to tell him how much she loved him. But she couldn’t. Not yet. She didn’t feel safe enough to. Not until she had a sure sign that he loved her, too. It was still far too soon to expect it from him.
“I’m having a craving for frozen custard.” S
he kissed him again. “It would make me very happy if we went to get some.”
“Your wish is my command.” He looked at her for a long moment. There was genuine affection in his eyes. It made her feel warm all over. The butterflies were still there whenever she looked at him. The rush. The feeling like the cutest boy in school was paying attention to her.
It was utterly ridiculous. She was a scientist. She had two doctorates. She was nearly thirty! But Elias was gorgeous and strong, and he just made her feel things that she hadn’t thought were possible.
“Let’s head to the barn and feed Seymour a treat before we head home. I suddenly feel the need to get back there.”
He gave her a slow smile, and the look in his eyes turned hot. She loved when he looked at her that way. It meant they probably weren’t going to make it to the bedroom.
They began walking back toward the barn a little faster than necessary, Seymour moseying behind them. Neither one of them spoke, but there was heat crackling between them.
Elias was on the outside of the pen and she was inside, but she was glad there was a fence between them, because she knew they wouldn’t have even made it back to the barn to feed her horse if there hadn’t been.
“Can’t you make your horse move any faster?” he asked her as they approached the opening to the building.
“He was built for comfort. Not for speed,” she said, grinning. She was still looking at Elias when she heard a shout and the loud pounding of hooves. His horrified expression was the last thing she saw before a big, powerful force slammed into her.
Chapter 10
Elias’s voice was still raw twenty-four hours later. He remembered screaming Cricket’s name. He remembered reaching for her as the horse thundered toward her. He remembered seeing her body fly through the air and then go deadly still. He had frozen, rooted to his spot for a few short moments just paralyzed with fear.
No. No. No. His mind screamed. Not her. Don’t take her. I can’t lose her.
A panic-stricken teenage girl rushed up to him, and that forced Elias to spring into action. He was a trauma surgeon. He could help her. He would not lose her if he could help her.
He got her stabilized on a board the owners had in the barn, and a few of the farmhands lifted her into the back of a pickup truck. The horse farm was on a deserted part of the island, and they’d get her to the hospital faster than an ambulance would have.
He treated her once they got back to Hideaway Hospital. Checked her vitals, made sure she was stable. Raised all hell until a helicopter arrived and airlifted her to Miami. Her bones were intact, but she had been hit so hard and there had been so much blood. All because an unruly horse got spooked and ran her way.
The staff at Miami Mercy wouldn’t let Elias past the waiting room as they rushed Cricket into surgery. They didn’t give a damn who he was or how long he’d worked there. But he knew that they were the best team in the state. That they wouldn’t let her die, not because she was the daughter of the chief of surgery, but because they were excellent at their jobs.
He was going stir-crazy waiting for word when a strong hand clamped on to his shoulder. Cricket’s father was there. His face tight with worry. The man embraced him hard, and it was what he needed. It was like having his own father hug him. He had been missing his father so much lately, wondering if he was okay with his life choices, with the woman whom he chose to love, to marry.
And through Jerome Warren’s tight hug, it was like his own father giving him comfort, promising him everything was going to turn out okay.
Elias knew life would lose its brightness without his sunny wife.
But Cricket did pull through. She was the only one to pull through the ordeal. Their baby didn’t make it.
He felt horrible because he hadn’t once thought about their baby, only his wife.
He was the one to break the news to her when she woke up and reached down to touch her belly. And it was the most painful moment of his life when he heard the strangled wail she released when the news fully hit her.
Their little family had been shattered. She turned away from him when he reached out to comfort her.
But how could he offer comfort? There were no words. Nothing he could say to make things better. So he settled on holding her hand and not leaving her side until she was released from the hospital a week later.
Things weren’t the same between them when they got home.
How could they be?
She’d been so excited about the baby. Excited to be a mother. All her future plans had revolved around the baby. All their future plans. And now they seemed to have nothing ahead of them. The house felt empty. Elias had suggested that they stay at his condo in Miami to be closer to her parents, but she wanted to come back to the island, to this house on the water.
He had wanted her to go to bed and rest, but she sat in the sunroom with the door open and just watched the ocean for days. She sat there from sunup to the moment he physically lifted her out of her seat at night and brought her back to their bedroom.
It was nearly a month later when he realized that he needed to do something more to get his wife back to living.
* * *
Cricket felt numb. It was the only way to describe what was going on with her. She was absolutely numb. She was wrecked, she knew, but she couldn’t describe the feeling as sadness. She was too far beyond that, and now she felt nothing. Not hunger or thirst or pain or anything. She was pretty sure she would have wasted away if it weren’t for Elias. He made sure her body healed correctly after surgery. He fed her. He put her to bed. He even bathed her, filling their huge bathtub with hot soapy water and climbing in it with her. He just held her while the water gently lapped over her. His strong chest keeping her upright when she might otherwise have sunk in.
There was one emotion that was still lurking beneath, and it was love. If she hadn’t known that she was in love with him before, she knew now. Head over heels in love. Crazy in love, but now she had nothing to offer him.
The baby was the only reason he had married her. It was a boy. They had learned after she miscarried. That child was their only connection, and now he was gone. Elias would be gone, too. Eventually. He was too good a man to leave her right now when she was at her lowest, but he would eventually go and live the life he had wanted before she had gotten pregnant.
About three and a half weeks afterward, she knew she could no longer continue to walk around like a zombie. She got herself up one morning. She dressed herself and combed her hair and made a large pot of coffee, and instead of sitting in the sunroom, she forced herself to leave the house and walk on the beach.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had been out of the house. It was probably to head to the doctor for a checkup. It was nice to be outside in the cool morning air. The breeze whipped her curls around, feeling good against her skin. She stood at the edge of the water, the waves covering her feet before they retreated.
She heard her name being called and heavy footsteps behind her. Fear zigzagged through her, and for a moment she was unclear why. She didn’t remember the horse running toward her. She only remembered waking up in the hospital to Elias’s twisted face telling her that she wasn’t going to be a mommy anymore. But she did remember the noise of the hooves beating the ground and Elias’s voice screaming out her name.
This time he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into him. Crushing her against him so tightly it hurt.
“What’s the matter, baby?” she asked him.
“I didn’t know where you were.” He pulled away from her slightly and looked into her eyes. The worry was clear in them, and so was the relief. “You scared me! You aren’t allowed to scare me anymore. Promise me you won’t.”
He was afraid she was going to hurt herself. The thought horrified her. She would never do that to herself, to him.
But he didn’t know that, because for the past month she’d ceased to be a person.
“I’m sorry.” She closed the gap between them and smoothed her hand down his strong back. “I just wanted to go for a walk.”
“Let me walk with you.”
“Aren’t you sick of me?”
“No! I’m sick at the thought of being without you.”
Her eyes went wide at his statement, and suddenly the numbness that was a constant companion washed away.
She knew he had been hurt, too, by the loss of their child, but he had also been worried about losing her, which was something she hadn’t cared so much about the past month.
She stood on her tiptoes and leaned in to kiss him softly. But he didn’t want just a soft kiss. He cupped her cheeks and kissed her harder. It was the first time they had kissed like this since the day of her accident.
“Let me take you out to breakfast,” she said when he broke the kiss.
“Are you sure you’re up for that?”
“As long as you are with me.”
Chapter 11
Two days later Cricket sat in the living room with her parents, a mug of steaming tea in her hands. Her mother had been to the island three times in the past month, which was a lot considering her work schedule. Her father had come twice a week without fail.
They had been so worried about her, and every other time that they had visited, she had been only vaguely aware of their presence. Now she was fully engaged, but it was exhausting. She was no longer numb, but the heaviness was still there and today it was taking everything in her power not to crawl back into bed.
She looked over to Elias, who was sitting in an overstuffed armchair, too far away from her to touch. She wanted to be sitting next to him, to lean against him. She could have gotten up from her seat to be with him, but she felt that she was leaning on him too much, that it was time to prop herself up. She’d been totally independent before him. She would need to be after him, too.