by Anna Adams
But Owen wasn’t the same man. He wasn’t trying to earn love, to believe he even deserved it. He’d been sober for a couple of months, longer than he’d managed in the past. But she’d lost his trust. He would lie to keep her confused and off balance. To keep her from taking Ben home to their safe life.
“I don’t know where Noah’s office is,” she said.
“On the square. Go straight into town. He’s about halfway down the east side of the courthouse.”
“I’ve never noticed his sign.”
“He’s subtle.” Owen’s voice cracked a little, as if he were laughing at her or trying not to groan again.
“So are you these days.”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t pretend to misunderstand her sarcasm.
“I’m afraid you’re going to need surgery,” she said. His arm was a safe topic.
“I am, too.”
“Can Noah do it?”
“He’s not a surgeon, and we don’t have the equipment for something like that in town. That’s why I’m building the clinic.”
“What if Ben had been injured like that? I hate the thought of driving him in pain all the way to Knoxville because you don’t have services here.”
“Are you dreaming up another reason to keep him from spending time here with me?”
She felt herself blushing. The heat was uncomfortable, but less so than the awareness that she would have done just that when she’d first arrived in Bliss. “I’m not all about manipulation, Owen.”
“We have Life Flight. They land on the lawn behind the courthouse.”
“Oh. Good.” She glanced at his arm. He hadn’t moved anything except his head since she’d started driving. His face was tinged with gray. “Are you cold? I can pull over and tuck that blanket more securely.”
“I’m fine. I’m not going into shock.”
“You’re superhuman?”
“We’ll find that out when Noah tries to set this thing.”
His voice went a bit hoarse, and she touched his shoulder without thinking. “I’ll stay with you,” she said.
He eased away, as far as the car would let him. “That’s not necessary. I’m all right, and you’re the last person to take care of me.”
“Why are you so raw now?”
“Raw?”
“Angry again. Is it because of Ben?” The accusation lay there in his rejection of her honest effort to comfort him. “I thought we were moving beyond that.”
“Then we should deal with it, because I’m having a hard time trying to pretend it’s in the past. What you did is always in my head.”
“I was afraid for my son. When I became pregnant, I was happy. It was shocking and a little terrifying, but I wanted my baby, and then I realized I was Ben’s shield against the bad things in the world. To keep him from going through what I did. I needed to protect him, both from men like my abductor and your drinking. I’d have done much worse than lie to you to do that.”
He was silent a moment, in too much pain to bristle at the accusation against him. “We can’t keep him in a bubble. He wouldn’t be happy, and in the end, you’d regret making him afraid of life. I believe that much about you, because I remember how happy you could be despite your past.”
“And if I said I’m sorry about the time you lost with him?”
“Are you?”
Her hesitation betrayed her, but she could not lie. “I wish I were, but would you choose an—” She didn’t want to call him an alcoholic. “A man with your problems to take care of Ben now?”
“I’m asking why you didn’t explain. How am I supposed to understand?”
“You had to change for yourself, Owen, not for me, and not for the baby I was carrying. I needed to be certain that if you did stop drinking, it was for good.”
He swallowed as if the truth really were a bitter pill. “I get that you’re saying you’d do the same thing again. And I’d still force you to come here. I’m ashamed of how cruel I’ve been to you, and I’d like us both to be good parents to Ben, but honestly, I’m not positive you wouldn’t cut me out of his life again.”
“What are you saying?” That he’d never really change? He’d never be a safe father for her son? How could he say that again, even after he’d spent time with Ben? “You’ve made him love you, Owen. You can’t let him down.”
“I’ll never let him down.” Owen braced his arm, his breathing strained. “At least that’s what I’m telling myself as often as I tell you, but how can I promise? And how can I trust that you won’t decide it’s time to walk away again? We both know I’m one bad decision away from a drink, and I always will be.”
“Why isn’t Ben enough?” Why hadn’t she been?
“He is. You were what I wanted back then, Lilah, more than anything. Except I had to drink. I don’t feel that way now. I want it, and it’s a battle to resist at times, but I’m working hard to control it.”
Her body ached with the pain of the past. “Why don’t you get help? I’ve never understood why you don’t just ask for help.”
“Rehab didn’t work, and every time I leave an AA meeting, the bleakness makes me want to drink more.”
And that was an answer. He wasn’t ready to accept help. He didn’t think he needed someone else’s assistance. “I’d make the same decision under the same circumstances.” Usually, that thought was all she needed to erase any wisps of guilt. She tried to feel relief, but, for the first time, it wouldn’t come.
With gratitude, she spotted Noah’s brass sign on a brick building opposite the courthouse. “Here we are. Wait. I’ll help you out of the car.”
He ignored her. The second she stopped, he opened his door and eased out, swaying a little as he straightened.
“I told you to wait,” she said. “You aren’t superhuman.”
“I can’t take anything for the pain,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Because of addiction?” She hadn’t thought of that. “You don’t have a choice. You can’t get through the pain of knitting a broken bone with determination.”
He shook his head.
“Wait and see what Noah says.” Lilah offered her arm, but he focused on the building, his jaw clamped shut as if he didn’t see her.
Startled at the sting of his rejection, she opened the door and waited for Owen to start up the stairs ahead of her in case he toppled. How she hoped to catch a man several inches taller and many lean pounds heavier than her she couldn’t say.
At the landing, she reached around him and opened Noah’s office door. A young woman looked up from the receptionist’s desk.
“Owen,” she said, assessing him with surprise. “What did you do to your arm?”
“Hi, Lynsay,” he said. “I think I broke it.”
The waiting room was empty. Heartening. He wouldn’t have to wait long.
“Noah—Dr. Gage—is with a patient, and he has two waiting. That’s all our treatment rooms. I’ll see if I can slip you in ahead of the two he hasn’t seen yet.”
“Don’t go to any special trouble.”
“They’re well visits. You look like an emergency.”
“Lynsay, have you met Lilah Bantry?”
The receptionist nodded a measured greeting. She’d obviously heard gossip. “Nice to meet you.”
Lilah smiled, pretending not to notice the other woman’s curiosity. Everyone in the misnamed town of Bliss treated her with suspicion. She should be glad they were willing to side with Owen unquestionably. He’d inspired loyalty, and that must have meant people liked him. Even if they didn’t trust him to stay sober, they took his side without question against an outsider.
“Have a seat,” Lynsay said. “As soon as Noah lets me know he’s ready for the next patient, I’ll notify him you’re here.”
&nb
sp; Owen sat, resting his head against the sand-colored wall behind his metal chair. The office wasn’t extravagant, but Noah had a good reputation in the town. Lilah had heard from more than one shop owner that he’d saved his fiancée’s stepmother from giving birth prematurely last fall.
Lilah found herself checking the time over and over on the big clock behind Lynsay’s head. The minutes trudged past as if they were mired in the red clay of these mountains. Finally, a console on the desk buzzed, and Lilah exhaled in relief.
“Just a sec.” The receptionist rose, straightening her scrubs. “I’m sure he’ll see you, Owen.”
“He doesn’t have to put me in before the other patients who got here first.”
“Oh, you’re a tough guy,” Lynsay said, with a sense of familiarity that troubled Lilah.
She wished she could feel that much at ease with him, especially when he needed help. Even more troubling, she felt a little—jealous.
Lynsay had hardly disappeared through the door when another woman came out, nodding at Owen and Lilah as she left the office. Then the door opened again, and Noah headed toward them. His concern got Lilah right in the heart.
His love for his brother reminded her of the distance she’d put between herself and everyone else she loved.
“What did you do?” he asked, already kneeling in front of Owen to gently manipulate the arm. “Do you mind if I cut your sleeve? I think it’ll hurt less than trying to roll it up.”
“Not out here,” Owen said, clearly in pain from his brother’s touch.
“Sure.”
Standing, Noah helped Owen to his feet with a hand beneath his other elbow. Lilah started to stand, but Owen shook his head.
She sat back down, deflated, anxious.
The door closed behind the two men. Lynsay busied herself at the desk for a few minutes, but finally, she looked at Lilah, folding her hands together.
“Your son is beautiful,” she said.
“You’ve seen him?” She hadn’t noticed Lynsay before.
“Sure, with you and Owen around town. I’ve known Owen since he was a child, and Ben couldn’t look more like him.”
“I know.” She wouldn’t change a single thing about Ben, but she had wished more than once in the past few weeks that the resemblance between father and son wasn’t so obvious.
“Do you think you’ll be moving down here?” Lynsay asked, as if it were the logical solution to Owen and Lilah’s problems.
Lilah reeled inwardly, but she managed a casual shrug. Owen’s friend didn’t need to know how loaded that question was.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I THINK I can set it. I’ll send the X-rays to an ortho I know, and he’ll decide if you need surgery.” Noah did a double take. “What’s wrong?”
“I think I’m going to be sick. Can you hand me one of those bags?”
Noah reached for one of the green bags and shook it out in front of Owen. He took it with gratitude.
Surgery. He hoped not.
His brother stood back. “I’ll stop in my office for a sample of some pain meds. And then I’ll give you a prescription, but, Owen, you have to be careful with them because they’re narcotics.”
“Always the big brother,” Owen said, trying to be wry and in control. “I’m not taking a narcotic.”
“You need one. You can’t gut your way through bone pain.”
“I have no choice.” Owen stopped talking to allow a wave of nausea to recede. He’d been the one guy on the football team who vomited instead of toughing out extreme pain.
“You can choose to be responsible. You are responsible. I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t believe you can handle it.”
“I don’t believe.” Owen glanced at the door behind Noah as if Lilah might hear through the heavy wood. “I haven’t proven trustworthy in the past.”
Noah frowned. “You’ve never admitted that in the past.”
“I never had so much to lose. Lilah’s made it clear she believes Ben won’t be safe with me. Children’s services threatened to put him in a foster home while they decided if either of us was good enough to have him.”
“She only did that when she and Ben first got here. I might have done something as unforgivable if you’d forced me to bring my child down here from the life I’d made for him.”
“I won’t take your pills.”
Noah stared at him, trying to think of a way to convince him.
“Noah, my head is full of all the dark days and nights I’ve spent, not knowing how I got somewhere, not knowing if I’d hurt someone. Wishing I could feel like any other person. Wishing I could be like anyone except Odell Gage.”
“You’re nothing like Odell.”
“You escaped that gene. You take one drink and that’s plenty for you. I take one, and I start lining up several more. It was a matter of time before I became Odell, and I think Ben is finally the reason I have a chance to take a different path.”
“You have to be the reason, Owen. You can’t use someone else as your crutch.”
Frustration made a dent in the pain. He wiped sweat from his forehead and then from the top of his lip. “You aren’t hearing me. I want to be better for my son.”
“I’m not being purely selfish about finishing the clinic on time when I tell you that you won’t be able to work if you don’t handle this pain.”
“Let’s get on with the X-rays.”
“Hold on. I’ll be right back to get you.”
“Noah?”
His brother turned with his hand on the doorknob. Owen paused, staring at the bag again. Talking made his nausea much worse. When the moment passed, he looked at his brother. “I’d take some ibuprofen if you have it.”
“Okay. I’ll send Lynsay.”
Lynsay brought a prescription dose and then helped Owen to the X-ray machine in a room off Noah’s office. About halfway through the scans, Owen reconsidered his stand on controlled substances. If he couldn’t get through X-rays...
“Last one,” Noah finally said, and the machine shot one last scan. “Doing okay, brother?”
“Couldn’t be better.”
“Lynsay will take you back to the treatment room while I email these shots to the orthopedic surgeon I mentioned.”
“Thanks.”
“Then we just have the cast.”
“Do you have a bullet I can grip between my teeth?”
* * *
LILAH TRIED NOT to stare at the door. She’d never seen Owen like that, pale with pain, yet angry and determined.
After hurrying away from her desk to look after Owen as if she were Florence Nightingale, Lynsay had returned and was rescheduling the other patients’ appointments. It felt like hours before Noah showed up again, alone.
“Where’s Owen?” Lilah asked.
“Back in the treatment room. We’ve done some pictures, and I expect to hear from the ortho anytime. Owen’s refused to take a prescription for pain meds.”
“He already told me he wouldn’t take them when we were driving over here.”
“I admire his courage,” Noah said, “but he’s suffering needlessly. I’m giving you the prescription, and I’ll call the pharmacist to tell him you’re getting it filled. If you’d check in on Owen tonight...”
“You’re acting as if Owen and I are together. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m not sure he’ll let me help him.” She stared at the printed script, ashamed because she’d given Owen ample reason to believe she didn’t wish him well. “And I don’t think he trusts me. He might be more willing if you ask your mom or Chad or Celia.”
“He’d never admit weakness to them,” Noah said. “And he’s going to think he’s weak if he needs these. We’ve all let him know we don’t believe he can stay sober.”
“I’ve done the same. I kept his son from him, and then I brought in the authorities to try to find him unfit.”
“Which didn’t work out for you,” Noah said. “We can compare notes on the way we’ve mistreated my brother, or you can accept that he might be more willing to believe you understand he’s hurt and he needs help. We’ve given him a lifetime of accusations.”
Lilah looked into Noah’s eyes, marveling that the entire family had the same icy gaze, except for Suzannah. “You think he’ll be all right if he takes the painkillers?”
“He doesn’t want another addiction. He hates the idea, so, yeah, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I don’t like the way he looks right now. You share a son. You know him well, so you can find a way to talk to him.”
“I don’t know why you think that.”
“I’m trying to say he loved you once. You have some pull with him still, and I don’t think you want to hurt him again.”
“I never wanted to in the first place,” she said. She was admitting the truth to the wrong brother, but felt such a relief to finally say it out loud.
“Good.” He backed out of her personal space, already turning toward the door to his treatment rooms. “Just drop by his cabin tonight and tell him I asked you to check in. I’ll keep him here long enough for you to go get that filled.”
Lilah had seen the pharmacy on her visits to town. Grabbing her coat and purse, she hurried out of his office, grateful for something to do.
* * *
“WHEN WE GET BACK, don’t let Ben jump on you. He was worried he’d hurt you when I left him,” Lilah said, “and he’ll want to cuddle.”
“I’ll remember to duck.” The ibuprofen hadn’t made much of a dent in the pain, but at least he’d stopped feeling sick. Owen adjusted his sling. He might just make it through this after all. “He’ll be calm once he knows I’m all right.”
Lilah adjusted her grip on the steering wheel. She rarely showed her nerves, but she’d been flexing her fingers for most of the drive. “Maybe he should stay at your mother’s with me until you’re feeling better? I’m not sure how you’d handle bath time.”
“No.” Owen felt her tense at his sharp tone. “Sorry,” he said, “but you never miss a chance to try to move me out of his life.”