Avery narrowed her eyes. It was close to three miles to Isle of Palms. “Why? Is Jessica tracking your car?”
“My phone, actually,” Tucker said. “I left it in the car.”
Avery rolled her eyes and pushed past him. “Please leave, Tucker. I don’t want to be a part of this.”
“I know, I know. I just came to apologize.”
She turned around. “For what? For using me? For making me think you actually wanted to get back together? For lying to me over and over again? Fine. You’ve apologized. Now get off my property. I never want to see you again.”
“Avery, come on. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“But you did. And I was an idiot to let it happen. Lesson learned. When all of your friends say you’re dating a jerk, it’s probably best to listen.”
Tucker’s eyes narrowed. “Did David say I was a jerk?”
Avery turned on Tucker. “Don’t even try to bring my friends into this. You are a jerk. Your behavior more than justifies anything that any of my friends might have said about you.”
Tucker was silent a moment, his hands propped on his hips. “He told you, didn’t he? He followed me once before. He must have done it again last night and then called you and told you I was at the movie theater.” Tucker swore. “I knew that guy would rat me out.”
“Stop it, Tucker. David doesn’t have anything to do with this. I was at the movie theater and I saw you. That’s all there is to it.”
Tucker shot her a look. “Alone? In Mt. Pleasant? I know you well enough to know you’d never go see a movie alone.”
“You don’t know me at all, Tucker,” Avery said. “Not anymore.”
Tucker turned and looked toward David’s house. “Is he at home right now? I feel like punching somebody’s nose in. His will do just fine.”
“Tucker, stop. I mean it. This isn’t a mess David made. This is a mess you made. And if you think I’m going to stand by and let you sling mud at him or wreck his career over something you did? You’re wrong.”
“So he did tell you,” Tucker said. “You wouldn’t know I’d threatened his job unless he did.”
Avery’s stomach sank, realizing too late that she had implicated David by what she had said. She had to think fast.
“Fine,” she said, her tone even. “Go ahead. Attack David. Ruin his career, get him fired from the hospital, whatever you want. Then I’ll go straight to the Charleston Chronicle. I’ll give them an exclusive on the aspiring young attorney whose political hopes were dashed when he got caught sleeping with his ex-girlfriend only weeks before his wedding. I know how much you protect your social media image, Tucker. Don’t think for a second I won’t go online and do everything I can to tear it all down. I wonder if there are other women who might come forward. You know how it often goes. One person has the courage to speak up, and then the others decide the hush money they’ve been paid maybe wasn’t worth it, after all. The truth is more important in the end, isn’t it?”
Tucker’s jaw tightened. “You wouldn’t do that to me.”
Avery scoffed. “Go home, Tucker. Please. Just go live your life and let me live mine.”
An hour later, after a long shower and two more donuts, Avery pulled out her phone and texted David.
Did you ever follow Tucker home from work?
Yes, David replied, almost instantly. A few times. But I never did anything else. I realized I was being impulsive and reckless and I needed to leave things alone and try to move on.
Avery stared at his text. He’d tried to move on. Which is why he’d asked her to set him up with Shelley. And probably why he was on a date with the other girl, as well. The poor girl who had witnessed the whole movie theater debacle.
When Avery had asked Shelley about her date with David, Shelley’s response had been straightforward and short. “He was nice, Avery, but he’s clearly in love with you. The whole date, all he did was talk about you.”
Avery sighed. It was too much. His feelings were too much. That he had gone to such lengths, that he felt so intensely . . . it was more than she could process. She typed out a response, reading it over and over before finally sending.
Thank you for the basket. I understand why you did what you did, but I need some time to process and think. Don’t text me for a while, okay?
Chapter 18
David did his best to give Avery the space she needed. At first it was a daily battle not to give into the doubt and regret that threatened to overwhelm him whenever he thought about her. Regret that he’d behaved so poorly in the first place. Doubts over whether or not he’d told her too much. But then days turned to weeks and the ache in his chest subsided to more of a dull pain, so dull he could almost forget about it if he stayed busy enough.
The easiest way to stay busy was to pour himself into his work. He practically lived at the hospital. He picked up extra shifts whenever he could, often opting to sleep in the on-call room rather than drive home. It was easier that way. Easier to keep working. Easier not to see Avery at all.
“Hey,” Lucy said as she dropped into a chair across from him in the doctor’s lounge. “How are you holding up?”
“Good. Great. Never been better.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Sure. I buy that.”
“Really. I’m fine,” David insisted. And he meant it. He’d started to appreciate the new routine of his days.
“David, you’re always here, do you realize that? Have you even worn anything besides scrubs in the past month? Go home! Take a walk on the beach. Go see a movie. Do something besides work.”
“Scrubs are really comfortable, you know,” David said, though he did wonder how long it had been since he’d worn real pants.
“Is there seriously no hope for you?”
David only shrugged.
“She hasn’t reached out at all, has she?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
Lucy sighed. “I’m sorry, David.” Their phones went off at the same time with the familiar chime of the hospital’s paging system. “An accident,” Lucy said out loud, as David read the same information she did. “Multiple victims, on their way here. Let’s go.”
Chapter 19
Early Tuesday morning, Avery walked along the beach, pulling her sweater tighter around her. The September air wasn’t quite cold, but there was a bite to the early-morning breeze that was new. She welcomed it. It had begun to feel as though summer might never end.
Avery paused when she saw David sitting a few paces away in the sand. He wore the scrubs she’d grown so used to seeing him in and looked as though he’d been sitting there quite a while.
Avery paused a few steps away. “David?”
He looked up, and Avery’s heart lurched in her chest. He looked exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot and surrounded by dark circles, and he wore several days’ worth of beard growth.
“Are you okay?”
He didn’t say anything, just turned his gaze back to the water. Something was wrong. She sensed it in the air around him, could see it in the set of his shoulders and the way his head hung forward.
Even though she hadn’t talked to him in weeks, she moved to his side and sat down, leaning her shoulder lightly against his. She didn’t know what had happened, something at work, probably, but her gut told her he might benefit from a little bit of human company. She didn’t say anything—what could she possibly say?—instead hoping her presence might be comfort enough.
In truth, she wished she could talk to David. She’d done more than her fair share of thinking about him over the past month. Not at first. At first, she’d spent a solid two weeks nursing her bruised ego and feeling nothing but anger. At Tucker, at David, at everybody. But as her anger started to fade, she’d realized how much she missed having David to talk to. More and more frequently, she thought about the times they’d spent together, and all the ways he’d made her smile and laugh. She read the letter he’d given her so many times, she could almost quote the thing word for word.
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Figuring out what to say to him was a different thing altogether. She’d picked up her phone to text him a dozen different times but could never get anything to sound right. Hey. Thanks for loving me. I think you’re cool. Want to come over for pizza? The longer she waited, the harder it felt to reach out. What if she’d waited too long? What if his feelings had started to change?
David cleared his throat beside her, pulling Avery fully into the present.
“I, uh . . .” David sniffed and cleared his throat again. “I lost a patient last night,” he finally managed, his gaze still trained on the horizon.
Avery didn’t say anything, instead lifting a hand to his arm, giving it a gentle squeeze.
He shook his head. “You try really hard to keep things clinical, to keep your emotions out of it. But sometimes, it . . .”
“Sometimes it really sucks?” Avery said.
“Sometimes it really sucks,” he repeated.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Avery asked. She wasn’t sure she was ready to hear it if he did. She could only imagine the kinds of things he dealt with at work every day. But she was determined to be what he needed. If that meant listening to hard stories, she’d listen all day.
He closed his hand over hers and squeezed her fingers. “I don’t, really. I’ve been thinking about it all night and now I think I need to let it go. But thank you for being here.”
“You’ve been out here all night?” Avery said, wishing there was something, anything she could do to make him feel better.
“Mostly,” he said.
Avery leaned her head against his shoulder and offered up a silent prayer of gratitude for people like David who sacrificed so much to take care of other people.
They sat together in silence another few minutes, watching the birds as they swooped up and down over the water.
“I don’t want to wait anymore, Avery,” David finally said, giving her hand another quick squeeze.
She sat up and looked at David, meeting his steady gaze. There was a certainty in his eye that surprised her. “You don’t want to wait for what?” she asked.
Before she even realized what was happening, David’s hand was on her face and he was kissing her, his lips warm and soft against hers. Surprise kept her from responding at first, but then something inside her ignited and she kissed him back, her hands sliding over the planes of his chest, then moving up and over his shoulders. Clearly encouraged by her response, David’s kisses turned from gentle and searching to hungry and intense. He wanted her and Avery realized with desperate certainty, she wanted him, too.
Finally breaking the kiss, David leaned back just slightly, his hands still cradling her face. “Life is too short, Avery. I can’t wait anymore. You either want me or you don’t.” He kissed her one more time, this one quick and a little more hesitant, more like a question, then pushed himself off of the sand and walked toward home, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
Avery sat for a long time, long enough to watch the sun rise into the sky, to see the tide roll slowly toward her. She couldn’t stop thinking about David’s touch against her skin, about the feel of his lips on hers.
The last person she’d kissed before David was Tucker. She almost felt sick at the thought.
To think that she could have had David all along. She couldn’t believe how blind she’d been, how hard she must have worked to ignore how perfect David was for her.
But now she knew. And she had the power to do something about it. Happiness surged in her chest. She had to find him. She had to find him and tell him that between now or never, her answer was irrefutably now.
Melba was on Avery’s back porch when she made it back to her house. Avery hardly acknowledged her on her way in, leaving Melba to follow her inside, Jasper in tow.
“What’s got you all worked up this morning?” Melba asked.
Avery didn’t answer. She was too busy thinking about what to do first. She needed to talk to David, but she probably ought to take a shower before she did. Even though he’d already seen her once that morning, she was suddenly self-conscious and wanted to look her best when she told him she loved him, too.
Her heart jumped at the thought. She did love him. How had it taken her so long to realize it?
So, shower. That was the first thing on her list.
She glanced at the clock. It was just past nine, which meant she was officially late for work. She’d been so caught up with her thoughts out on the beach that she’d completely lost track of time. So that was the first thing on her list. Call in and take a sick day. A twinge of guilt filled her chest, but she shook it away. She never took sick days. And knowing her boss, and the way she fawned over her own marriage and family, she’d likely consider being heart sick a perfectly justifiable reason to stay home.
Call work. Take a shower. Find David.
Avery’s stomach growled loudly and Avery amended her list again.
Call work. Eat food. Take a shower. Find David.
“Are you ready to tell me what’s going on inside that brain of yours?” Melba said. She leaned against Avery’s counter where, bless her, she’d already started a pot of coffee.
Avery rifled through her purse that hung over the back of one of the chairs at her kitchen table and pulled out the letter David had given her when he apologized. She pulled the letter out of its well-worn envelope and handed it over to Melba. “Here. Read this.”
Avery had told Melba about what Tucker had done and about David’s involvement in how she had figured it out. But she’d never told her about his apology. She’d never told her about the letter.
Melba gave her a quizzical look but took the letter and read it without asking any questions.
Avery bit her lip, growing antsy while she waited for Melba to finish.
When she looked up from the letter, Melba’s eyes were misty. “Child, why are you standing here with me when there’s a man close by that feels this way about you?” Melba gave the letter back. “When did he give this to you?”
“A month ago. Right after everything happened.”
Melba frowned. “And you never did anything about it?”
“I didn’t know what to do,” Avery said. “I was angry at him, Melba. I needed time to sort out how I felt, plus I had to give myself a little time to get over Tucker, to get him out of my system.”
Melba huffed. “Bet that didn’t take long.”
Avery’s pride wouldn’t let her admit it out loud, but Melba was right. It hadn’t really taken long to get over Tucker. She could still work up some anger if she thought about him for too long, but she didn’t miss him.
“He kissed me this morning,” Avery said.
Melba’s eyes went wide. “Who? David?”
Avery nodded. “He was out on the beach and was feeling pretty emotional, I guess. He said he lost a patient last night. I just sat with him for a little while, figuring he probably didn’t want to be alone, and then he kissed me. He told me life was too short and he was tired of waiting. It’s now or never. I either want him or I don’t.”
Melba couldn’t stop smiling. “Well, which is it? Do you or don’t you?”
Avery grinned. “I do, Melba, I really, really do.”
“Land sakes, I thought you’d never figure it out. I’m so glad you finally have.”
After a shower and a meal and two full cups of coffee, Avery finally felt settled enough to find David. Since he’d worked the night before, she expected him to be home, but by the time she was ready to go, his car was no longer in his driveway. Hoping he’d only made a grocery run, or gone out to get coffee, Avery waited an hour, and then another.
Still, he didn’t show.
Melba had gone home when Avery had gotten in the shower, but she texted every twenty minutes or so, wanting to know if Avery had found him yet. It wasn’t helping. It made Avery feel as though she needed to be actually searching, rather than just waiting for him to come home.
She paced around her kitchen. Shou
ld she call him? Text him to check on him? He’d been pretty raw that morning. Maybe she needed to wait a little while? But waiting felt impossible. Now that she’d owned up to her feelings, she couldn’t bear the thought of living one more minute without telling David how she felt.
When two more hours passed and David still didn’t return, she decided he had to be at the hospital. Maybe a Tuesday afternoon at the ER would be slow enough she’d be able to see him. Did they let people do that? Just show up at the hospital and ask to see specific doctors? Would she need to fake an injury to get anywhere but in the lobby? Maybe she could show up at the hospital and then text David and see if he had a minute to spare? Something about that last option felt wrong. She didn’t want to text him. She wanted to see him. See his reaction to her. See if he noticed that she was different.
She pulled into the hospital parking lot ten minutes later and made her way into the ER. The waiting room was mostly empty, which she hoped was a good sign. Avery stopped in front of the desk.
“Hi,” she said to the nurse. “I’m hoping I might be able to see Dr. Daniels. Is he available?”
The woman gave her a tight smile. “That’s not exactly how the ER works. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on and we’ll get you checked in. Whatever doctor is available will be able to take care of you today.”
“Oh no, I’m not sick,” Avery clarified. “He’s a friend, actually. A good friend. I just, really need to talk to him.”
The woman lowered her glasses and studied Avery. “While he’s working? Saving lives?”
Avery’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “I definitely don’t want to interfere with any life-saving. Can you just tell me if he’s working right now?”
“If he’s such a good friend, wouldn’t you know whether or not he’s working right now?”
Avery sighed. This woman was not making things easy for her. “You’re right. But, you see, we had a little bit of an argument and . . .” Avery paused when a familiar face floated into view. She couldn’t quite remember her name, but it was the woman David had been on a date with when the entire movie theater fiasco had happened. “Oh!” Avery said. “Her! She knows me. Can I talk to her?”
D is for Doctor (ABCs of Love Sweet Romance Book 4) Page 15
