“Well, okay,” Mari said in defeat. She followed along with the throng of people clambering down the bleachers and finally found a clear space to catch her breath and figure out where she was. She was pretty sure she remembered the direction Glenn had driven, and it wasn’t very far at all from the center of town. All of a sudden, she really looked forward to a few moments of being alone to regroup.

“Carrie says you’re not going out with us,” Glenn said, materializing by her side.

“No, I thought I’d call it an early night.” Mari smiled. “Congratulations on winning the game.”

A quicksilver smile flashed across Glenn’s face, adding warmth to her cool attractiveness that was disconcertingly captivating. “It was a bit of a cakewalk, but we’ll take it now and then.”

“Oh, absolutely. Every now and then you need an easy one.”

“Yeah.” Glenn lightly touched her arm. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

“You don’t have to do that. You’re going out, aren’t you?”

“Maybe.” Glenn’s brows drew down. “But I’m certainly not going to let you walk home.”

“It’s not far, right? Maybe a mile?”

“That’s about right, but in case you haven’t noticed, it’s dark. Or almost—it will be by the time you get there. You’re not walking home.”

“It’s not safe?”

Glenn blew out a breath. “Probably it is, but you’re still not walking home.”

“Don’t forget, I’ve got city smarts. I’ve been getting around at night by myself for a lot of years,” Mari said. “Besides, you run at night, don’t you?”

“Yes, and I’ve never had a problem.” Glenn put her hand in the center of Mari’s back, gently directing her out of the stream of foot traffic. “But unless you want me to worry, you’ll take the ride.”

Mari laughed. “That strikes me as blackmail.”

Glenn grinned. “Possibly.”

“Thank you,” Mari said, aware of the press of Glenn’s fingers along the edge of her scapula, the tiny points dissolving the terrible distance she’d felt earlier. “I’d appreciate a ride, then.”

“Good. That’s better.”

In minutes Glenn pulled to the curb in front of Mari’s apartment. As Mari was about to say good night, she regretted her decision not to go out with everyone after the game. Reminding herself of all the reasons why she had decided to pass, she pushed open the door and stepped out. “Thanks again.”

“Don’t forget the barbecue tomorrow. Do you need a ride?”

“No,” Mari said, wishing for a second that she did. “Carrie is showing me around tomorrow, and I’ll be going over with her.”

Glenn nodded. “Have fun then.”

Mari held the door open for a second, searching for something to say and discarding everything. She’d made the rules and wished she wasn’t so sure of them. “’Night.”

Glenn’s gaze traveled over Mari’s face, warming her skin and making her heart race.

“’Night, Mari.”

*

Glenn waited until Mari was inside before pulling away. She drove to the next corner but instead of turning left toward Bottoms Up, she turned right, and five minutes later pulled into the lot behind the hospital. In the locker room, she stripped out of her dusty softball clothes and crammed them into her gym bag, pulled clean scrubs from her locker, and turned on the shower full force. With steaming water sluicing over her head and shoulders, she braced both forearms on the shower wall and closed her eyes. With nothing but silence to focus on, her thoughts were all of Mari and what Mari had told her about the last year. Her hands closed into fists and the muscles in her shoulders bunched. She hated thinking about what Mari had endured with her illness and her family’s rejection, and she hated even more imagining the uncertainty she lived with every day. She hated not being able to do a damn thing about it, and she could only imagine what the waiting must be like for Mari. She was so fucking tired of senseless waste, of cruelty and the fickleness of life. And she ought to know by now she couldn’t change a goddamned thing.

Straightening, pushing the anger deep down inside, she rubbed her hands over her face and switched the water to cold. The shock against her heated skin jolted through her like a rifle crack. Her mind cleared and she accepted that reality was often unfair and inexplicable. Life, her life at least, was a battlefield, and she knew what she needed to do.

She pulled on scrubs, toweled her hair dry, and went down to the ER. Bruce manned the desk.

“I didn’t know you were working tonight,” he said, sounding not the least bit surprised to see her.

“I’m not, officially.”

“It’s Friday night, though. Should have known.” He gestured at the board, which was half full of names already. “In another hour we’ll really be able to use you.”

“Thought I’d check in on the student. Where is she?”

He grinned. “In six with an earache. Three-year-old.”

High-pitched screaming alternating with heartfelt sobs emanated down the hall from the direction he indicated.

“Oh, boy,” Glenn said. “My favorite thing. Holding down a thrashing, inconsolable child to look in their ears.”

Bruce laughed. “Uh-huh.”

“If I don’t come back in half an hour, send help.”

“Oh no—you’re on your own, Doc.”

All medics in the field were Doc, and as Glenn headed off to give her student some backup, she was grateful for anything—even a screaming three-year-old with an earache—to dull the weight of helplessness sitting on her chest.

Chapter Seventeen

A little before four in the morning, Flann pulled into the drive beside the schoolhouse her great-grandfather had attended and parked behind Abby’s car. Before Abby came to town and into her life, Flann would’ve bunked the rest of the night in an on-call room reserved for docs waiting for babies to be born or for the OR to get ready for an emergency case. After a few hours of semi-sleep, she’d grab a quick breakfast in the cafeteria, shower in the surgeons’ locker room, and start her day again without giving the world outside the hospital a thought. There were times when she didn’t get home for a couple of days. She’d never really minded, before Abby. But everything was different now.

Now the chance to slip into her own bed for forty-five minutes, to slide her arm around Abby’s waist and press against her back, to cradle her face in Abby’s hair and breathe her scent, was worth every second of the rushed trip home from the Rivers and back. Maybe Abby would wake up and turn to her with a murmur of welcome and a soft kiss, and they’d have a minute or two or ten, enough time for her to feel Abby’s heart quicken as she stroked her, hear Abby’s low moan as she teased her. A precious minute to feel Abby turn into her with a muffled cry as she exploded. Oh yeah. A few minutes with Abby was everything.

Flann bounded up the front steps and slowed when she saw the inner door was open, with just the screen keeping out the bugs and the night. Abby tended to lock up at night—city habit, and like most doctors, she was a creature of habit. Flann frowned, wondering why Abby had forgotten to close up. She eased the screen open as quietly as she could, took two steps inside, and stopped. The sun was just rising, and dim dawn light illuminated the single big room with the living area in front and kitchen in the rear. Blake sprawled in the corner of the big sofa, his head angled in an unnatural position that was going to hurt when he woke up.

“Hey,” Flann whispered, moving closer.

“Hey.” Blake sprang upright, shot a hand through his tousled hair, and stared at her.

“Too hot in the loft to sleep?” Flann asked.

“Wasn’t so bad.”

“Okay.” Flann thought about Abby behind the bedroom door down the hall. Her stomach still quivered with thoughts of warm flesh and hungry kisses. She looked at Blake. “Something going on?”

“Can I talk to you?”

“Sure. Want to take a walk so we don’t wake your mom?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Flann turned around, walked back outside, down the short walk, and out the picket fence. Every time she saw that fence she smiled. Yep, she had the picket fence and soon she’d have the wife, officially, and one kid and maybe another one day soon. Nothing she’d ever wanted, and all that mattered to her.

“Tough case?” Blake asked as they walked toward the center of the village.

“Perforated diverticulum—you know what that is?”

“Yes, it’s an outpouching of the colon, a thinning of the muscle layer, which can become inflamed and sometimes rupture. Sort of like an appendix.”

Flann laughed. “Very good. You’ve been studying.”

“Some animals get them too.”

“I didn’t realize that. I’d think with their diet it wouldn’t be as common.”

“It isn’t. Dogs get it pretty often. Volvulus and other malrotations of the intestine are more common in ruminants, because of the extra stomachs.”

“Uh-huh.” Flann waved to the daughter of a local farmer who beeped the horn as she rattled by in an old pickup truck loaded down with hay. “Feels like I could use an extra stomach this morning. I’m starving. Think we should pick up some breakfast for your mom?”

“The café will be open any minute,” Blake said, a hopeful note in his voice.

“We’ll head that way, then.” Flann figured the ten-minute walk would clear the last of the churning arousal from her system and give him a chance to get to the point. A minute passed in silence.

“I want to have my top surgery before school starts. Will you do it this summer?”

Oh, boy. For one second, Flann wanted to punt. Let Abby make the decision. But Blake hadn’t asked Abby, he’d asked her. They’d have to talk, the three of them, but for right now, she was the one he’d chosen. “Let’s back up a couple steps, okay?”

His shoulder stiffened, as if he expected a rejection, but he nodded.