Page 75 of Hearts and Hidden Secrets

JONAH

Melissa had a lovely funeral. Her family was there. Her friends from high school and college. A couple medical students from our year.

Not me.

Her family didn’t want me there.

But I was still present. I was in an SUV, parked across the street. My brothers were with me. They couldn’t keep me all the way away.

And I was wrong. She had a beautiful funeral.

“What are you going to do?” Kai asked me.

Sometime later—weeks? A month? I wasn’t sure—I was with Kai at the house in Vancouver.

Riley and Kai’s two children were here, playing.

They’d kept me distracted. There were lots of tea parties with Brooklyn, but not with Blake.

His nickname was Blade, after one of Riley’s friends.

He was a hellion, and had no time for tea with his younger sister.

He’d wanted hide-and-go-seek on the hundred-acre woods we owned.

He did it up right, too. Camouflage. He came out wearing a parka with leaves and sticks glued on the back.

Riley had choked up. She was so proud.

Kai cleared his throat, an expectant look on his face. He was asking me this question because my time was up. I had to go back to being a doctor or decide on a different path.

“I’m going to go back.” I decided as I said this, and it felt right.

“You sure?” he asked. “You don’t have to do medicine. Or you don’t have to do it now. You can take time off.”

I shook my head, feeling it in my gut. “Melissa would be pissed if I did that. I need work, to be honest. I’ll be a better surgeon, for her.”

He nodded. That was done.

“Brooke called, asked why you aren’t returning her calls,” Tanner informed me over the phone. I’d been back at work for two months now. And I’d been avoiding Brooke’s calls. She’d just had a high-risk pregnancy. Millie was still in the NICU.

“I don’t want her to know,” I told him. “The stress for her? I don’t want to be a part of that.”

Tanner sighed. “You sure?”

“I’m sure. Tell her I’m busy. Tell her I love her, but I can’t talk to her about this. I will, just not yet. She needs to focus on her family, on her new little girl.”

“Okay.”

I heard the sarcasm in his voice, and I almost smiled. Almost.

Brooke probably wouldn’t believe him. “You need to sell it, Tanner. I mean it. If anyone can, it’s you.”

“Riley wants to tell her.”

Kai’s wife. I loved her to death, but I shook my head as I held the phone up. “She can’t. I can’t handle Brooke falling apart over me. Put it that way to her.”

“I will.” He paused. “I’ll sell it, Jonah. Don’t worry. We love you. Just know that.”

I was loved. I felt it every day from my siblings. I’d never thought otherwise.

It was a blessing.

My throat swelled. “I love you, too.”