Page 89 of Back in the Saddle

‘I’m happy to hear. He’s a good guy.’

Amira blinked. ‘Nothing to hear because nothing’s going on.’

Caroline chuckled as she turned back to her desk. ‘If you say so.’

She stared at Hunter’s message again. With a heavy sigh, she picked up her phone and typed:Depends what time you get here? I can get away at 5 but not before. And I have plans for lunch.

He replied almost instantly. Seeing his name pop up on her screen twisted a knife in her gut. Normally, he didn’t have time to text during the day. It was too busy at the ranch. If he was able to message her right away, it meant he was either taking his time or stressing over Alan’s results.

HUNTER:I’ll come round just after 4 and meet you in the centre’s lobby? P.S. Lunch plans, huh? Should I be jealous?

CAROLINE:Sounds good, see you then x Hope you find your dad’s glasses! P.S. Yes, jealous of a seventeen-year-old girl – I told you about Yolanda, right? It’s Wednesday – her mum’s having chemo and we’re having lunch together.

She put her phone into a desk drawer so it wouldn’t distract her again and opened another Excel spreadsheet with interim results from the bladder cancer trial.

Yolanda wasn’t at the usual table in the hospital cafeteria.

Caroline sat on the uncomfortable plastic chair, watching the faces of the people milling in and out, searching for the characteristic black fringe.

Twenty minutes had passed and there was no sign of her.

She didn’t have her phone number, and even if she did, what would she say? They weren’t friends or colleagues; they weren’t family. Yet somehow, over the past few weeks, they had fallen into a routine of chatting over lunch.

As a doctor, this kind of arrangement would be inappropriate when it came to a family member of a patient. But Caroline wasn’t a practising doctor just now, and Yolanda’s mother wasn’t her patient. A half-hour chat over lunch was completely different from what she and Hunter were doing, but the principle was similar.

Don’t get attached. Don’t get involved.

It seemed that she had been failing in more than one instance.

‘Is this chair taken?’

She looked up at a man in teal nursing scrubs who stood by the table.

Caroline shook her head, rising. ‘I was just leaving.’

Checking her watch, she decided she would check the centre’s lobby, where she and Yolanda first met. Maybe she’d sought refuge there today.

And if she’s not there, you’re just going to get back to work and not dwell on it.

Yolanda was awkwardly perched on the black sofa, just asshe had suspected. As soon as Caroline stepped into the lobby, she knew.

Yolanda didn’t even look her way. She didn’t say anything. But Caroline knew. It was like a thick blanket of unmistakable grief had wrapped around the girl. Which could only mean one thing: her mother had died.

Caroline sat on the sofa, right next to her. She didn’t say anything, just sat there. Hoping that her presence could bring her even a small semblance of comfort.

‘My mom’s gone,’ Yolanda croaked, her voice broken and throaty, like she had been crying for hours on end.

‘I’m so, so sorry.’

Yolanda just nodded. She kept nodding, slowly rocking back and forth, her eyes glazed and distant.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Caroline asked softly.

Yolanda shook her head.

‘OK. I’ll just sit here for a while, and if you change your mind … Well, I’ll sit here.’

She heard Yolanda swallow hard, her breathing laboured. ‘I’m just so relieved that she isn’t suffering anymore. I really am. But … I just don’t know who I am in the world without her.’