Turn Back Time

by Radclyffe

  “I’m so glad.”

  *

  Pearce nuzzled the back of Wynter’s neck. They were curled around one another, Wynter’s back tucked into the curve of Pearce’s belly and thighs. Her arm was around Wynter’s middle, her palm cupped beneath the soft weight of Wynter’s breast. She kissed the warm skin at the edge of Wynter’s hairline, running her lips back and forth over the very fine hairs, teasing them with her breath. Wynter murmured and shifted in her sleep. Pearce grinned and very delicately caught Wynter’s earlobe between her teeth and tugged.

  “Too early,” Wynter muttered.

  “For what?” Pearce teased.

  Wynter reached blindly behind her, cupped her hand between Pearce’s thighs, and squeezed. “That.”

  Pearce’s breath whooshed out on a wave of surprise and instant arousal. “Fuck.”

  “Too early for that too.” Wynter moved her hand and pushed her butt back into Pearce’s crotch. “Mmm. You’re so sexy.”

  “Now I’m so horny,” Pearce complained, dancing her fingers over Wynter’s nipple.

  “You are so easy.” Wynter rolled onto her back and smiled up at Pearce. She tapped her chin with her index finger. “What am I going to do with you?”

  Pearce grinned and nipped at Wynter’s lower lip. “I can think of about a hundred things, starting with putting your hand back where it just was.”

  “You’ll get spoiled.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “No,” Wynter replied seriously. “It isn’t. I like making you happy.”

  Pearce kissed her. “You do. Very.”

  Wynter brushed her fingers through Pearce’s hair. “Feeling better?”

  “About being stuck out in the middle of nowhere?” Pearce flopped onto her back and settled Wynter against her side. Wynter nestled her head against Pearce’s shoulder. “Not really, but I’ll go back. I don’t have a choice if I want to finish my residency.”

  “I think you should talk to your father. You’re senior enough to complain about a lousy rotation like this. It’s not fair at this point.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Pearce said, watching the shadows on the ceiling fade as light began to filter through the windows. “He’s got plans for Dzubrow. I guess he figures once he gets him settled, he’ll let me in on his plans for me.” Pearce turned her head and looked into Wynter’s eyes. “But I’ve got plans of my own.”

  “What?” Wynter asked softly, wondering at the fierce intensity in Pearce’s face.

  “I want to be with you. Whatever it takes.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Pearce smiled. “I’m probably getting ahead of you. I don’t even know what you want—”

  “Tell me what you want.” Wynter cupped Pearce’s cheek and caressed her mouth with her thumb. Pearce had always lived someone else’s dream. As much as Wynter wanted her, she would not let Pearce do the same with her. “If you could have anything, do anything—what would it be?”

  Pearce was silent a long time, stroking Wynter’s face, her neck, her breasts. She dropped a gentle kiss into the hollow at the base of Wynter’s throat. When she looked up, her face was peaceful. “I’d be with you. And Ronnie. I’d teach some, I think, and have a general surgery practice. I’d have a family—and a life.”

  Wynter’s lips parted and she drew in a shaky breath. “I said last night that you’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. I was right.”

  “Why?” Pearce frowned.

  “It took me a long time to admit that I couldn’t live the life I’d fallen into.” Wynter kissed Pearce. “I know how hard it is to be honest about something that means so much. And how scary.”

  “Not when I’m with you.”

  “God, I love you.”

  “I’m kinda still getting used to that.”

  Wynter laughed. “Okay. We’ve got time.”

  “I don’t want to be the chairman anywhere. I just never thought about anything else before, because that’s what my father wanted me to be.”

  “He won’t be happy about that,” Wynter said.

  “I know. But he’s never really been happy with me anyhow.” Surprisingly, Pearce found she could say it without it hurting quite so much. “The only difference now is that I will be happy.”

  “Pearce, honey—”

  “I know, I’m going too fast,” Pearce said hastily. “I’m sorr—”

  “No.” When Pearce started to draw away, Wynter threw an arm across her chest and pulled her near. “You’re not going too fast. I’m crazy about you. I’m a little afraid to think about the future, because I’ve gotten used to living one day at a time. But I want you to be part of my life.”

  “Okay,” Pearce said. “Okay.”

  “But you’ve got to go.”

  Pearce frowned. “What—”

  “Look at the time.”

  “Fuck.”

  Wynter rolled on top of her and kissed her one more time, a slow, thorough kiss that promised more. Soon. The next time. Again. “If you can’t come here, I’ll come there.”

  “You’ve got Ronnie. I’ll come here.”

  “I love you.”

  Pearce smiled. “I love you too.”

  Wynter sat up. It was time to do what needed to be done. “I’ll make you coffee.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve gotta get out of here. I’ll grab a coffee on the way. Once I make rounds, I can shower at the hospital.”

  “Are you sure? It won’t take long.”

  Pearce slid out of bed, grabbed her jeans, and tugged them on. “I’m okay. I slept like a log. There won’t be much traffic. Don’t worry.”

  “Call me when you get there, all right?” Wynter pulled back the covers and started to get up.

  Pearce pushed her back. “You can sleep another hour or so. Do it. You’ll need it later.” She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on her boots, then found her shirt.

  Wynter stroked her back. “I want to walk you out.”

  “Stay.” Pearce leaned down and kissed her. “See you soon, Doc.”

  “See you soon,” Wynter whispered as Pearce disappeared. She listened to Pearce’s footsteps in the hallway, and then as they faded as Pearce disappeared downstairs. It didn’t feel right—she couldn’t just let her walk away. She bolted from the bed and scrambled for her robe. Barefoot, she ran from the room and down the stairs to the front door. She pulled it open just as Pearce closed her car door and started the engine.

  “Pearce!”

  Pearce look back toward the house, frowned, and opened her door. “What’s wrong?”

  Wynter came down the stairs, mindless of the cold.

  “Jesus, Wynter,” Pearce exclaimed. She left the engine running and hurried toward her. “It’s freezing out here. Go back inside.”

  “Be careful.” Wynter wrapped her arms around Pearce’s neck and kissed her, hard. “Just be careful.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one running around half naked in the middle of February.” Pearce put her arm around Wynter’s waist and led her back upstairs. She stepped inside the foyer with Wynter, pulled her tightly to her, and buried her face in Wynter’s hair. “I wouldn’t go if I didn’t have to.”

  “I know.” Wynter stroked the back of her neck, kissed her throat, her jaw, her mouth. “I just…”

  “I’m not going anywhere, babe,” Pearce murmured. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

  Wynter nodded and reluctantly released her, knowing as she watched Pearce pull away that it wouldn’t be soon enough. She missed her already.

  Chapter Thirty

  An hour and a half later, Wynter slid a bowl of instant oatmeal into the microwave and set the timer. She checked the temperature of the bowl she had just heated and then placed it in front of Winston. “Use your spoon, honey.”

  Ronnie made impatient sounds and tried to get her hand into Winston’s oatmeal. Winston ignored her.

  “I think he’s got the disposition of an anesthesiologist,” Ken noted a
s he ambled into the kitchen, already in scrubs, as was Wynter. “He doesn’t get bothered by people crowding his territory.”

  “He is pretty unflappable,” Wynter agreed as she gave Ronnie her own portion of oatmeal. She looked at Ken. “Want some?”

  “Sure. I’ve got a little time. Thanks.”

  “Mmm,” Wynter replied absently.

  “Pearce gone?”

  Coloring, Wynter looked over her shoulder at him. “How did you know?”

  “I kind of guessed when I saw the T-shirt.”

  “Oh yes,” Wynter said, recalling that she’d picked it up off the hall floor after her hasty flight downstairs had knocked it off the doorknob. “Not too subtle.”

  Ken laughed. “I kind of felt like I was living in the frat house again.”

  “Nice.”

  “I heard her old man farmed her out. What’s going on with that?”

  Wynter shook her head. “I’m not sure. I don’t think it really has anything to do with her.”

  “It still stinks.”

  “Yes.” She passed Ken his oatmeal and then hastily ate her own. After she ran two dish towels under the warm water, she passed one to him. “You get yours, I’ll get mine.” As they cleaned up their respective children, she asked, “Is Mina awake?”

  “Yep. She’s just moving a little slow.”

  “Is Chloe coming over today? I’m not sure Mina is up to watching all of these kids any longer.”

  Ken nodded. “Chloe’s going to be spending part of the day here until the baby’s born, and then for a week after. She’ll help keep things under control.” He hefted Winston.

  “I want to pay a little extra, then,” Wynter said, lifting Ronnie into her arms.

  “No need,” Ken said as they carried the kids upstairs.

  “I want to anyway,” she said firmly.

  Mina met them in the hallway. “Have the little darlings been fed?”

  “All taken care of,” Wynter pronounced. “I left the fixings out for Janie.”

  “Park them in there, then,” Mina said, indicating the playroom. Then she looked at Ken. “Janie’s still asleep. Don’t wake her.”

  “I won’t.” He kissed Mina’s cheek and then headed toward his daughter’s room. “I just wanna see her before I go.”

  “How was your night?” Mina asked suggestively as she joined Wynter in the playroom and settled into the easy chair with a sigh.

  “Too short,” Wynter said brusquely as she dragged out Ronnie and Winston’s favorite toys.

  “Get any sleep?”

  “Some.”

  “Are you all right?”

  Wynter settled a hip on the arm of Mina’s chair. “More or less. I miss her already, and it feels like we’re constantly stealing time to be together. But it was…” She smiled. “Wonderful.”

  “Mmm. I’m looking forward to this story.”

  Wynter slid an arm around Mina’s shoulder and squeezed. “Well, you’re going to wait for a long time. I don’t kiss and tell.”

  “Since when? I knew every little detail about you and Dave.”

  “You did not,” Wynter protested. “And even so, this is different.”

  Mina gave her a long, serious look. “It is, isn’t it?”

  Wynter nodded.

  “Does she feel the same way?”

  Again, Wynter nodded.

  “Then that’s just fine.” Mina patted Wynter’s knee. “But I still want details.”

  Laughing, Wynter got up, kissed Ronnie and Winston, and started for the door. “Maybe just a few. When I have time.”

  “Tease,” Mina called after her.

  Wynter met Ken in the hall. He looked toward the playroom with a perplexed expression. “Is she talking to me?”

  “No. Me,” Wynter said.

  “Huh. Want a ride to work?”

  “I’d love one. I’ll wait for you downstairs.” She listened to Ken and Mina laughing together as she started down the stairs and allowed herself one brief instant of imagining what it would be like if she and Pearce shared the kind of life that her friends had. Then she chased the thought away. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her feelings. She did. She trusted Pearce’s too. But she didn’t trust much of anything else. She’d seen too much of life’s fickle cruelty to plan too far ahead.

  *

  “See you later,” Wynter called to Ken as she headed for the women’s locker room. She hung her parka in her locker, grabbed her lab coat, and pulled it on as she took the stairs down to the ground floor. She needed another cup of coffee to really get her brain working. She was tired, but it had been worth it. Smiling to herself, she replayed the night with Pearce. Her blood ran hot as she thought about making love to her, the way it had felt to make Pearce’s body writhe with pleasure. “Jesus,” she breathed as the heavy ache of desire descended. “I can’t think about that now.”

  Still smiling, she checked her watch. Pearce had been gone a little over two hours. She should be almost there by now. Wynter got a large cup of coffee and a bagel, paid, and started toward her usual table. She frowned when she saw that it was empty. She checked her watch again. She was right on time. Glancing around the cafeteria, she realized that none of the surgery residents were there for sign-out rounds. No one had been in the locker room, either. It was Saturday, which meant that only a handful of the residents were on call, but someone should have been in the cafeteria. Since there was no point in sitting around waiting, she started back upstairs. Just as she reached the main corridor, she saw Bruce jogging toward her.

  “What’s going on?” Wynter asked. “Where is everyone?”

  “Downstairs in the ER,” he huffed. “Pearce is there.”

  “She’s back?” Wynter said, unable to keep the excitement from her voice.

  Bruce looked at her curiously. “They medevaced her in about fifteen minutes ago. Something about a carjacking…”

  Wynter stared at him, hearing the words but unable to decipher them. Her head filled with a roaring sound and the coffee cup dropped from her hand. Bruce jumped back with a surprised yelp.

  “What?” Wynter cried. “What are you talking about?”

  “I didn’t get all the details—something about someone trying to boost her car and she tried to stop them—”

  “She’s hurt?” Wynter grabbed his arm hard enough to make him wince. “Is that what you’re telling me? Pearce is here and she’s hurt?”

  “Dzubrow told us because her father called hi—”

  “Oh my God.” Wynter dropped his arm and spun away in the direction of the ER. As she started to run, Bruce called after her.

  “She’s on her way to CAT scan, Wynter.”

  Wynter veered right and pushed through the fire doors into the stairwell. A startled lab tech flattened himself against the wall as Wynter clattered by, bolting down the stairs so quickly she nearly fell several times. The hall outside the CAT scan room was jammed with residents and a few nurses. Curious onlookers. She pushed and shoved her way through, oblivious to the surprised grunts and muffled curses until she got as far as the doorway to the small cubicle adjoining the room which housed the CAT scanner. She couldn’t see the desk where the tech sat in front of the monitor because the anteroom was wall-to-wall people, most of whom she recognized as surgery department heads. Neurosurgery. Plastic surgery. Cardiothoracic surgery. Ophthalmology. Wynter’s heart seized. Jesus God, what’s happened to her?

  She saw Henry Dzubrow and then Ambrose Rifkin in the center of the pack. Oblivious to the disgruntled expressions from those she elbowed, she managed to reach them. Through the glass partition that comprised most of one wall, she could make out part of the person inside the scanner. Bare legs and feet. Where were her jeans? Her boots? Maybe it wasn’t Pearce. Maybe it was all a mistake. It had to be.

  “Make sure you get cuts all the way through the facial bones,” Rifkin said, his voice cool and steady.

  “Yes sir,” the tech said sharply.

  “Is that Pearce?” W
ynter said, her throat so tight and scratchy she barely recognized her voice.

  “Yes,” Dzubrow replied in a strident whisper.

  Part of Wynter’s brain automatically assessed the situation. There was no one in the room with Pearce, which meant she was hemodynamically stable. There was no respirator, which meant she was breathing on her own. There was a single clear plastic bag of saline hanging on an IV pole with the tubing snaking inside the scanner and, presumably, to Pearce’s wrist. But no blood was hanging. She wasn’t hemorrhaging.

  “What happened?” she asked. She would have asked why no one called her, but why would they have? No one knew. No one knew what Pearce meant to her. Right now, knowing Pearce was in that room alone, hurt, Wynter realized just how much. She wanted to get to her so badly, she feared she might scream. If she’d been thinking clearly, she would have been surprised that Ambrose Rifkin answered, but as it was, all she cared about was knowing.

  “Apparently,” he said smoothly, “someone tried to steal her car and she objected. There is some blunt injury to the head and chest.”

  Blunt injury. Someone had hit her. Wynter’s stomach nearly revolted, but she forced down the swell of nausea. The room was hot under the best of circumstances, and now, with so many people jammed into it, the air was stifling. Dizzy, she put a hand down on the counter to steady herself, unable to take her eyes away from the body in the CAT scanner. “Is she awake?”

  “Mildly disoriented, but responsive.”

  “Brain looks clear,” the tech said.

  “Let’s let Lewis decide that,” Rifkin said, turning sideways so that a tall, thin African American man could move closer to the monitor.

  Wynter recognized the chief of neurosurgery. Refusing to give ground, she craned her neck to see the computer images of Pearce’s cranium and brain. The fluid-filled ventricles were symmetrical and not enlarged, the gray matter showed no evidence of hemorrhage or edema, and there were no collections of blood between the brain itself and the skull. No epidural or subdural hematomas. No air in the intracranial space. She scanned the double rim of calvarial bone and saw no evidence of fractures. No serious head injury. The relief was so intense she felt weak.