by Stacy Finz
“Wow, how’d you find all that out?”
She nonchalantly hitched her shoulders. “Dr. Daniels and I have become friends.” It wasn’t a lie, just a slight obfuscation. “He’s my only neighbor for miles.”
“Is the ex still a pill popper?”
“I don’t think so.” Brynn didn’t tell Lexi the rest of the story about how Joey had forged Ethan’s name on prescriptions. That would’ve been a true violation of her and Ethan’s friendship.
“Well, their daughter is cute as a button.”
She was the apple of her daddy’s eye, there was no question about that. Watching him with his daughter was one of the things she found most appealing about Ethan. And Lord knew there were plenty of things to find appealing about the man.
“You should see her with the horses. She’s fearless.”
Lexi pushed the cheese platter at her. “Eat. You could stand to put on a few pounds.”
Henry wasn’t the only one who had lost his appetite. In the last two weeks, Brynn had shed five pounds.
“Is that your tactful way of saying I look like shit?”
“Have you ever known me to be tactful?” Lexi had a point. “But while we’re on the topic you could use a touch up.” She openly stared at Brynn’s roots, the curse of being a brunette. “Some highlights and a trim.”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that with all my extra time.” Frankly, Brynn had never had so much time in her life. Even after she left the Barnes Group to be a full-time mom, she rushed from Henry’s activities to her various volunteer meetings. There had never been enough time in the day.
Other than taking Henry to his appointments and helping Griffin with his ad campaign for Sierra Heights, she didn’t have a whole lot left to do, except obsess over whether her son was improving. Even infinitesimally.
And when she wasn’t doing that, she was watching the clock for Ethan.
“There’s got to be a place around here or Reno. I’ll tell you what. We’ll leave early for the airport Thursday and I’ll take you to a salon. My treat. Come on, Brynn. It’s at least something. Something to make you feel a little bit better.”
She agreed, mostly because Lexi wasn’t the type to take no for an answer. “There’s actually a place here. It’s a barbershop but the barber has a daughter who’s a stylist.”
Lexi laughed. “I think we’ll hold out for Reno.”
“All the women around here rave about her, including Dr. Daniels’s stepmother who is a former TV anchorwoman. Her hair looks great.”
“All right, I’ll check this place out when we go to town. See if it gets my stamp of approval.”
Lexi got her hair done at one of the best salons in Manhattan. It was the same stylist who did Jerry Seinfeld’s wife. He charged an obscene amount of money, which in Lexi’s case was a complete waste. Lexi had the kind of looks—tall, curvy, big boobs, big green eyes, naturally curly red hair—that made men stop in the street. And yet she was still single. Sometimes Brynn thought Lexi intentionally sabotaged any chance at a real relationship to protect herself from getting hurt.
In Brynn’s darkest, loneliest days living with Mason, she’d actually envied that fact about her best friend.
From outside she could hear the kids calling to someone and peered out the window. Ethan was walking down the driveway. It was early for him to be home and Brynn wondered if he’d come to retrieve Roni for a special school function.
But he waved to the kids, stopped for a beat so Henry could show him his new watch, then continued to the cottage.
“What’s so interesting out there? Are the kids okay?” Lexi came over to the window to see what had caught Brynn’s attention. “Oh my. Is that Dr. Daniels?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Holy crap, you weren’t kidding. Why don’t I have a doctor who looks like that?”
Before he could knock, Brynn opened the door. “Hi.”
For a few moments they just stood there, eyes locked.
Then he looked over Brynn’s shoulder. “You must be Lexi.” Ethan stuck his hand out to shake Lexi’s. “Brynn talks about you all the time. Welcome to Nugget.”
“Thank you.” Lexi shot Brynn a quick, quizzical look.
“Come in,” Brynn said.
“Actually, I was hoping we could talk.” He smiled at Lexi. “It won’t take long.”
The context was clear. He wanted to speak to her alone and it was going to be a short conversation. Afraid that he’d come to break it off with her, she nearly told him now wasn’t a good time.
Brynn stepped outside. “I’ll be right back, Lex.”
“Take your time.”
Brynn told the kids to keep Lexi company, and she and Ethan walked to the barn. He didn’t try to eat up the distance between them, letting her hug one side of the trail while he kept to the other side. Neither said a word until they reached the corral. The horses grazed in the pasture and started to slowly make their way to the fence.
Ethan hung his arms over the top rail. He was still in his dress pants from work. “I got the radiologist to prioritize Henry’s images.”
Caught off guard, she sucked in a breath. “Oh, Ethan, I should have . . . I was awful . . . I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, you can’t do that again, Brynn.”
It was the second time she’d thrown what amounted to a tantrum to get her way. The first, he’d called out the cavalry to drive them through a snowstorm.
“I don’t let my staff play favorites. Yet here I am doing it.”
“You’re right,” she said, ashamed. “But please believe me that it’s about Henry. I push for his sake and would do the same with any of his doctors. What I’m attempting to say is that I’m not trying to take advantage of the fact that we’re . . . you know.”
He held her gaze. “But the problem is I’m giving in because we’re involved. And it’s not right. You should feel completely justified pushing the limits and I should be able to put my foot down. I should be able to say that you have to wait in line like everyone else. But I can’t where you’re concerned.” He sighed. “And it’s wrong.”
“What are you saying?” Her chest squeezed even tighter. “You want us to stop being involved.” Involved. It was his word, not hers. She’d crossed over to head over heels the first time he’d kissed her.
He didn’t say anything and with each second of his silence, she felt her insides collapse.
He blew out a breath. “I think it’s too late for that. But I didn’t come to talk about us. I came to share the results of Henry’s X-rays.”
Her mouth fell open. When Ethan had said prioritize, she’d gotten the impression that the radiologist would get to it first thing in the morning. Not today. “You got them already? What did they say?” There was an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“The results aren’t as good as I had hoped.”
“But they’re not bad?” She asked even though deep down inside she suspected that it was her worst fears.
“I would’ve preferred to do this in my office where I could show you the images.” He gave her a pointed look. “It appears that new bone tissue has begun to form but it’s microscopic. I had hoped that by now we would’ve seen some significant changes.”
A wave of nausea overtook her. Was it hopeless? Or was Henry a slow healer, like everyone had implied. “Does this mean the stem cells aren’t working?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’m somewhat optimistic given that there has been some change. We have to be patient. That’s all we can do.”
She nodded, holding onto the word “optimistic” like a rope. “Have you had other patients who started out slow like this and made a full recovery?”
He deliberated. Brynn wasn’t sure if he was trying to remember or was quickly trying to fabricate something uplifting to protect her from the truth.
“Every patient is different, Brynn.” He moved closer and took her hand. “You have to stay positive. In a week, two weeks, we could see real improvement.”
She nodded again, though she was sure her disappointment was as transparent as film. “I wasn’t expecting much,” she said tearfully. Though she’d prayed that the X-rays would show she was wrong.
“Brynn?” Ethan took her in his arms. “A little faith, okay?”
She laid her head on his shoulder. “I know.”
Chapter 19
The whole way home Ethan worried that he was giving Brynn false hope. Henry’s fractures were severe. In both femoral shafts the distal, middle and proximal sections of the bone had been shattered like a plate glass window that a truck had driven through. Only jagged pieces of the bone were left.
The last time he’d seen breaks that serious was in a five-year-old who’d been in a head-on collision and hadn’t been wearing a seat belt.
He questioned whether he would’ve been more direct with Brynn if she and Henry hadn’t come to mean so much to him. Because there was a significant chance that this was as good as it got for Henry.
But watching her fall apart . . . He couldn’t do it. Every day they’d been together, he’d become more enamored with the woman Brynn Barnes was. Funny, bright, clever, beautiful, kind. But it was her strength that he most admired. With all that had happened to her in the last year she’d carried on like a fighter in the face of adversity. Not once had she given up or backed down. Her determination to protect her son was fierce and unrelenting.
It made him want to fix everything for her. Not like a doctor with a patient. But like a man. It was visceral. He wanted to be her hero. Her protector.
Joey’s Ford was parked in the driveway when he got to the house. He’d forgotten that he granted her a dinner visit with Roni. They’d come to a tacit agreement that Joey could spend unsupervised time with Roni on weekdays as long as she gave him a day’s notice. She’d been coming and going as if the Circle D was her second home.
“Hey.” He found her in the kitchen, sipping a cup of tea at the breakfast table while Alma snapped peas into a big pot. “Roni’s down at the neighbor’s. I’ll text Brynn to send her up.”
“Before you do, I wanted to talk.”
“Okay.” He exchanged a glance with Alma, who shrugged, then slipped out to give them privacy.
“What’s up?” He grabbed a beer from the fridge, took one of the stools at the center island, and swiveled around to face her.
“I’d like to discuss our custody agreement.”
“It’s not an agreement, it’s a court order.”
“My lawyer says we can renegotiate the terms on our own and bring it to a judge to vacate the original order. It’ll save money and it’ll be better for Roni than a family court battle.”
“Your lawyer.” He cocked his brows. “I wasn’t aware you had one.”
“I do. She’s a volunteer for Legal Aid. Her day job is working for one of the best family law firms in Reno.” She jutted her chin at him in challenge. “I want to do this amicably, Ethan. Please.”
“I hope she has a bar card in California.” He was acting like a douchebag but he didn’t like being sandbagged.
“The custody ruling was made in Nevada.”
Technically. But Washoe County District Court had been apprised of his move to California after he was awarded full custody. Chances were, he’d be granted a request to move the case to his new jurisdiction. “I guess we’ll see.”
“Ethan, don’t do this.”
He rubbed a hand down his face. “It’s too soon. Come on, Joey. I’ve been fair. You’re here now, aren’t you? I’ve even backed off the supervision. It’s working. Why rush into anything?”
“It’s working for you. And rushing? You try going without your daughter for more than a year.”
He wanted to say, whose fault was it that she’d lost her daughter? Who was the one who was so stoned she couldn’t function as a mother anymore? Who was the one forging bogus scripts, putting their livelihood at risk? Who was the one who nearly got their daughter killed in the middle of the night?
But he didn’t say any of those things. They were past blaming each other, past fighting.
“Just until the new year. Then we’ll sit down and work out a new schedule.”
She shook her head. “That’s eight months away, Ethan. You know what got me through rehab? Roni did. Knowing that getting well would mean I could wake up every morning and once again see our daughter’s beautiful face. I’m not going another eight months.”
He didn’t want a second court fight—the first one had been worse than hell—but he wasn’t ready to divvy up his time with Roni. And he didn’t believe it was unreasonable for his ex to give her recovery another eight months. In the meantime, she could visit with Roni as much as she liked.
“I guess we’re going to court, then,” he said.
Joey took her cup to the sink. “There’s another solution you know.”
“What’s that?” He knew, of course. He’d toiled over the idea and rejected it a million times.
“We could try to start over. For the sake of Roni. It would be different this time. We would be different.”
She wasn’t trying to extort him. Ethan knew that as well as he knew his own heart. She truly believed they could make it work. But a working marriage wasn’t enough for him. And it shouldn’t be for her either.
He followed her to the sink and clasped both her shoulders in his hands. “You deserve more, Joe.”
She blinked up at him, her eyes welling with tears. “I know you think you’re in love with her, Ethan. I haven’t missed the way you look at her when I see the two of you together. The way you care for her son. But it’ll never work. She won’t leave her big Madison Avenue company for you and you’ll never abandon your research for her. And when she leaves, I’ll be here. And there will just be us and the family we made together.”
“And you’d settle, knowing that I loved someone else?”
“You wouldn’t.” Her voice was hoarse. “With time you would love me again. I know it.”
She was fooling herself. About him loving her again. About her loving him. Because that ship had sailed a long time ago. For both of them.
Veronica rushed into the kitchen, her face red, breathing hard. “I ran the whole way to see you, Mommy.” She threw her arms around Joey.
He watched them hug, his heart cracking a little at a time.
* * * *
Joey left after dinner. She’d been invited for dessert but she couldn’t bear to sit across from Ethan while he pined for someone else. At least four times during the meal he’d checked his phone. The rest of the night he spent staring vacantly out the window.
If Joey was a vindictive person, she’d turn him into the ethics committee at the hospital. But she’d already gotten him into enough trouble. Besides, what difference would it make? Brynn Barnes had bewitched him.
Knowing what the woman had been through, Joey couldn’t even hate her. That didn’t mean she didn’t want Brynn to pack up and leave. And she would. As soon as her son had finished his course of treatment, Brynn would go back to her glamorous life in New York City.
In the past couple of weeks, Joey had been preoccupied with reading up on the Barneses and their ad agency. How Brynn’s father was a famous conductor. How her late husband was one of the top advertising executives in the nation. And how Brynn rubbed elbows with the rich and famous. No way would she give that up to live in a small town in the middle of nowhere.
It was still light out and Joey didn’t feel like going home. By now her parents were sacked out in their recliners with a cable news show blaring. As soon as she got her nursing license reinstated or a decent job she would start looking for a place of her own. A two bedroom for her and Roni.
She found herself parked in front of the Ponderosa. One cup of coffee, she told herself. At least she could lose herself in the din of the restaurant. She flipped down her visor, reapplied her mascara and lipstick, and finger combed her hair.
The place was busy for a Tuesday evening. Families, truckers, even a few backpackers. She didn’t bother waiting for a table and grabbed a stool at the bar. A Giants game played on a flat screen in the corner while pro rodeo aired on another set.
“What can I get ya?” the bartender, a woman in her early forties, asked.
“A cup of coffee, please.” And because Joey felt funny about taking up valuable real estate during the dinner hour for a paltry two-dollar beverage she ordered a slice of rhubarb pie.
“Never met a woman who wasn’t watching her weight. Good for you.”
Ah, jeez, how had she missed Matthew McConaughey?
She turned to her left and stared into the oddest shade of blue eyes she’d ever seen. They were pale, the same color as that slice of sky underneath the horizon. “You must live here.”
His mouth tipped up and he gave her a once over before responding, “You too.”
“I live in the neighborhood,” she lied. “With my husband and daughter.”
“Oh yeah?” He made a show of scanning her naked ring finger. “Where’s the hubby?”
“He’s a surgeon. He works a lot.” The minute she said it she wished she hadn’t. It was a small town with probably only one surgeon as its resident. The likelihood that Cowboy McConaughey knew Ethan was strong.
Her coffee came and she busied herself doctoring up the cup with cream and sugar. He went back to watching the rodeo.
When the bartender delivered her pie, he glanced over and said, “Looks good.”
She dipped her fork in and took a bite. It was good. “A word of advice?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t patronize women for eating pie. It makes you sound like a caveman.” And an asshole.
“Noted.” He grinned again. His teeth were blindingly white, like a toothpaste commercial. He looked up at the TV and let out a sigh. “That’s the second time he broke the barrier.”
