Doctor to the Rescue

Tia’s eyes widened. Anger fled. Flabbergasted, Ian blinked. What just happened here?

“Fairy hunt?” Tia sucked in a heap of air. “For real?” She looked at Ian for confirmation.

“Sure,” he answered Tia. “Bri’s a renowned fairy hunter.”

Suspicion narrowed Tia’s eyes. She stepped over to Bri. Aimed a finger at her nose. “Prove it.”

When Bri rose, extending her arm, Tia reached for her hand.

And just like that, Bri won his daughter’s fragile trust.

A little jealous, Ian bid them goodbye with his daughter’s demand ringing through his head and heart.

Prove it.

Those two words were the summation of his life right now, Ian thought as he strode a familiar path to the trauma center.

He desperately needed to win Tia’s trust. Needed to prove he wasn’t the world’s biggest failure as a husband and a dad. Prove to a bank that Bri’s lodge was worth saving. Prove to financial backers that his trauma center expansion projects were worth their time and dime. And lastly, he needed to know, and needed Tia to know, that life would get better. That she’d be okay.

Especially since the ink had dried on unpreventable papers. Ones on which Tia’s mom had too easily signed her away. Anger consumed him that Ava chose a sleazy boyfriend over a child. Now at EPTC’s side entrance for employees, he jerked open the heavy steel door, stormy gray like his mood. He stalked down the halls, not caring that staff had to scramble out of his way.

He wanted to get these surgeries over with and end this too-long and terrible day. Get back to his daughter and try to earn the trust that would take all her pain away.

The second Ian stepped into the operating room, he became all about the medicine. His focus fastened fully on the patient. A patient who deserved a better bedside manner than Ian had displayed walking in here.

A teen girl with the same color hair as his daughter’s.

He needed to apologize to his staff and resist making excuses for his bad behavior. Sure, he’d been up all night tending a never-ending stream of traumas. Hard ones. The kind he couldn’t save. But so had they. Friday nights were like that.

At the operating table, he faced Mitch. “We need to come up with some positive activities for teens around here, bro. Alcohol-infested parties sent way too many of ’em in here last night.” And two of them to their graves prematurely.

Mitch nodded and began to work on the teen whose face had fractured on impact from projectile wine-cooler bottles last night. Two unbelted passengers had been ejected and pulled massive amounts of water into their lungs when the car skidded into a riverbank.

Ian fought worrying over Tia and her curiosity, and Bri’s cabin sitting so close to the lake. Ian trusted Bri. He focused on damping down his fear while enabling his patient to breathe. “She owes her life to her seat belt. It’s good she was buckled, but she shouldn’t have had access to alcohol at age sixteen.”

Mitch nodded. “Agreed.”

A series of mechanical beeps, shooshes and stainless-steel-on-steel chinks invaded the sterile suite along with silent concentration as the surgery got under way.

After their successful operation, Ian found Mitch charting at a mahogany desk in the plaid-decor doctors’ lounge. “Did you hear what I said earlier about creating alternatives for teens?”

Mitch scratched notes on a post-op report and sighed. “I’ll stick it on the list.” Remorse flickered in his eyes. “I hate being so time strapped.” He was getting married in a few months. While Ian was happy for Mitch, attending his wedding was going to be difficult. Especially in light of a divorce Ian had desperately tried to prevent.

Plus, they were under a ton of pressure to get a second trauma crew selected and trained so the current crew wasn’t so stretched with long hours and lack of sleep. Like last night.

Poor Tia. He’d had to drag her here. Tia! Ian slammed his watch up. Ten past two. He stood abruptly. “Hey, Mitch, catch you later. Gotta go. I promised Tia I’d try and be back by two.” He sprinted across EPTC’s lot, past Landis Lodge to Bri’s cabin, hoping her quirky bird clock hadn’t squawked, alerting Tia to his lateness.

Bri met his approach at the deck, finger to her lips. He tripped with a tremendous clatter over a gnome in her yard. Despite winter’s chilly onset, heat blasted his neck.

After seeing if he was okay, Bri bit back a grin and stood. “Try to be quiet. She’s napping.”

“Wow. You got her to nap?” He stepped into her cabin to mouthwatering scents of Italian herbs, roasted tomatoes and cheesy pasta. The open-room layout afforded a great view of her forest-critter themed kitchen and stove. His stomach growled, reminding him he’d been too occupied to eat.

“We hunted fairies all morning.” She motioned him to have a seat and set a tall glass of tea in front of him.

He sipped, loving the memories it evoked of dinners with family. A scenario Bri probably hadn’t experienced in years. His heart clenched, wondering if it would always be just him and Tia.

He’d missed family get-togethers while at war. He needed to carve out time to take Tia to visit his mom. She’d like Bri. Ian ripped his gaze from whatever culinary goodness bubbled in that pan, and the ridiculous notion that Bri would ever meet his mom.

Bri watched him. Too carefully. “Would you and Tia like to have dinner with me?”

He rubbed the condensation on his glass. “I guess we could.” His stomach rumbled intense gratitude. “What time?”

“How does five sound?”

“Great, actually. That’ll give me a couple hours to wrangle the cabin that bucked you off its roof.” He smirked and reached for a washed cherry tomato she’d put in a bowl. The second he popped it in his mouth, his tongue cheered. “I’m kinda hungry.”

“I kinda noticed.” Bri grinned. “We’ll see you at five.”

Ian jogged past the trauma lot to Lakeview Road, where his yard sat two houses away from EPTC. He loaded work stuff in his truck and drove to Bri’s, not wanting Tia to have to trek home in the dark. Once there, he attacked cabin renovations with fervor.

A little over two hours later, his cell rang. “Hey, Bri.”

“Hi. Wanted to let you know dinner’s almost ready. Also, Tia’s still sleeping. She’s not feverish, so I don’t think she’s ill. But I wasn’t sure how long you wanted her to nap. Any longer and she’s liable not to sleep well tonight.”

If he got called in again, Tia wouldn’t sleep well, anyway. “Go ahead and let her sleep. I’ll grab a shower and be over.”

Her hesitation jabbed him. He needed more regular hours, but that couldn’t happen until they got a second trauma crew trained. Ian sprinted home, showered and walked back to Bri’s. The second she let him in, his taste buds watered in anticipation. “It smells amazing.”

So did she, as she leaned close to him to refresh his glass. “Vanilla?”

Her eyes rose. “No, just plain old tea.”

“I meant your perfume. It’s nice. So is the tea.” He inhaled the iced tea in two gulps. “Iced, even in winter?” he added since she shifted uncomfortably under his compliment. Best to keep things casual. Not personal.

“It’s Southern Illinois. People sit in hot tubs and drink sweet iced tea all year round, even on cool nights.”

“I can believe that.” He stretched his back and arms.

Her gaze skittered over him, then quickly away, eyes like a feather across his skin. She pulled out burgundy-cushioned bar stools at the kitchen counter dividing a warm-umber dining room from the canary-yellow kitchen. Her color choices were like the varying levels of her personality: shy but strong, bright and stark, each wall painted a different vivid, modern color.

Unlike his walls, which were a mix of muted, neutral, dark and subdued, which matched his personality right now.

For a brief second, Ian wished Bri knew the humorous, lighthearted, fun-loving guy he used to be. Then his marriage had imploded. Life would never be the same and he’d likely never be that guy again. Her words drifted back: That guy? I hope he sticks around. For the first time in a long time, Ian did, too.

But workload, stress and the pain of divorce didn’t promise to let up anytime soon, so it was doubtful.

Bri motioned him to a stool, then sat on one herself.