Page 12 of Midnight Between Us (The Timberbridge Brothers #4)

Chapter Nine

Simone

I know the steps.

Check the vitals. Review the chart. Sign the discharge papers.

Smile like it doesn’t feel like peeling off my skin.

But nothing about this feels normal because once he’s discharged, he’s going home—with me.

I’m the one who’ll be taking care of him and I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with that. Not at all.

Honestly, I was bracing for worse. Darren Russell-Aldridge was supposed to say something reasonable like, “Keep him here for a year—until he remembers who the hell he is,” or maybe even, “Let’s transfer him to witness protection and scrub his brain entirely.”

Instead, what did Darren say? “He’s fine. He can go home.”

Which would be fine if home didn’t mean my house.

My house.

“Are you absolutely sure he shouldn’t stay longer?” I ask, again. My tone’s clipped, but not enough to hide the undertone. “Maybe observe him another seventy-two?—”

“Nope.” Dr. Darren Russell-Aldridge cuts me off before I can finish.

His eyes are already back on his tablet like we’re checking off a grocery list. “He’s stable.

Lucid. Cognition’s tracking within expected post-trauma parameters.

He’s cleared for outpatient care under close supervision. That’s why we assembled a team.”

“Supervision,” I echo, jaw tight. “Right. That’d be me.”

“For now,” he confirms, glancing up like he can sense what I’m holding back. “We’ll rotate specialists during his recovery window. But you know as well as I do—he can’t stay here.”

Because the boss wants it that way.

No questions. No appeals. No time to argue when you’ve sold your soul. I should pack my things. Change my name and find a remote island where no one needs saving but me. But that’d be a waste of time because he’d still find me.

Finnegan Gil always does.

Today, I wish I’d gone into architecture. I could’ve rebuilt the guy’s house instead of attending Keir Timberbridge. I could’ve laid bricks instead of bones. Molded glass to steal, instead of memories.

I grind my molars together and flip through Keir’s chart again, slower this time. Make it clear that my hesitation is clinical. Pretending it has nothing to do with the fact that the only man who’s broken me just woke up with no memory of doing it.

“Sedation protocol?”

“Discontinued twenty-four hours ago. Glasgow Coma Scale was fifteen at his neuro check. Reflexes intact. No dysphasia, no focal deficits. Mild tremors in his right hand—he’s aware. No hallucinations. He’s oriented to person and place.”

Unfortunately.

I scroll through the med sheet. “I’ll adjust his dosages to transition to oral pain management.”

“Already pre-authorized,” Darren replies. “Pharmacy should drop the rest of his meds before you take him home.”

Take him home.

My home.

I swallow that sentence whole and move on. “At least he has amnesia,” I mutter.

Darren snorts. It’s a too-quick, smug sound that puts me instantly on edge.

I lift an eyebrow. “What does that mean?” My throat goes tight. “Did he remember something? His name? Because if that’s coming back, maybe it’s safer if?—”

“Only one name,” he says, and he’s smiling now. Not professional. Not kind. Amused. Like he’s been waiting for this.

I go still.

“His name, right?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.

Darren shakes his head. “Nope. Said he remembered a woman. Said she was in his dreams.” His grin widens. “Her name was Simone.”

The air leaves the room.

My name hits harder than I expect, like it doesn’t belong to me anymore. As he dug it out of a part of me, I thought I’d buried a long time ago. I keep my face neutral, professional.

But my pulse doesn’t get the message.

“It could be any Simone,” I argue—out loud, because silence is starting to get too loud.

“Sure,” Darren says with a smirk that knows too much. “I’m heading to the hotel. Call if you need me. Or . . . if you’re ready to talk about your hesitation in treating this guy.”

I don’t answer. Just watch him walk away and try not to think too hard about that word—hesitation. Like it’s some clinical observation, not a confession I haven’t dared say out loud.

The pen squeaks across the discharge form, like it’s just as annoyed with me as I am with myself.

“Vitals stable, mobility limited but improving. Discharge approved,” I mutter, like saying it will somehow make it easier to deal with what comes next. I close the folder, slap it against my palm, and turn toward the hall.

I already hate this hallway. Hate what’s waiting at the other end of it.

Not because it’s long.

But because of what’s behind the door.

I open it.

He’s sitting almost upright—body still mummified in gauze and dressings, pain stitched into every inch of him. His face is pale. Lips cracked, hair a little too clean, like someone else had to make him human again.

There’s something about the way he looks at the window—like he’s hoping the glass will offer him answers. Like maybe out there is the version of himself he’s still trying to find.

I used to know that boy. The one who sat too close and listened too hard. The one who made forever sound like a promise instead of a warning.

But that was before.

Before his name became a wound, I couldn’t stitch. Before I cut every part of myself that remembered what it felt like to be his.

Don’t, I tell myself. Do not.

Do not notice the way his mouth tilts slightly when he listens.

Do not notice the way his body—still broken, still pieced together by my hands—leans forward when he thinks you’re about to say something important.

Do not look for nostalgia in someone who already told you none of it meant anything.

“I was told they’re prepping you for transport,” I say, voice clipped. Neutral. A professional doing her job.

He looks up. Blinks. His eyes land on me like I’m a memory just out of reach.

“Simone?” he asks.

My breath snags. Just for a second. Long enough to feel something twist beneath my ribs.

“Dr. Moreau,” I correct him.

“But your name is Simone,” he insists, as if it means something. Like it ever did.

“That’s not the point,” I say quickly. “I’m just here to?—”

“How do we know each other?” he interrupts.

“Listen, you’re in a very delicate state, and it’s probably best if you don’t talk,” I say—clinical, distant, detached. As if I hadn’t spent three days scraping him back from the edge.

“They’ll be here to transport you within the hour. Once you’re settled, you’ll go through cognitive assessments and PT evaluations. The team should start working with you tomorrow.”

I almost sound professional when I say it. Almost. Of course, I don’t look at him. I keep my eyes on the machines, the slow drip of saline into his vein, the mottled bruising climbing up his arm like vines I can’t untangle. Anything but his face.

He shifts under the blanket, his shoulders twitching as if he’s trying to sit up. When I glance, I see the tension pulling through his frame—jaw locked, muscles tight. He’s hurting.

Too much.

My body moves before my brain catches up—one hand gripping the bed rail, the other reaching for him. My fingers close around his wrist.

Just like that, it’s there: the connection. It’s familiar, immediate, wrong in all the ways that still feel right.

My fingers close around his wrist. Just like that, it’s there. The connection. It’s familiar, immediate, wrong in all the ways that still feels right.

His skin is warm beneath my palm. His breath stills, and so does mine. He looks down at where I’m touching him. It’s almost like he’s chasing a thread only he can see.

Then—without hesitation—he lifts his other hand. Mirrors the gesture. Lets his thumb brush the inside of my wrist.

A simple touch and the air in my lungs forgets how to stay.

“You used to do that,” he murmurs, voice hoarse but certain.

I freeze.

“What?”

“That thing,” he says softly, thumb moving again. “Right here. You’d hold my wrist like that. Always just . . . there. Like you didn’t want to let go yet. As if you’re trying to help me with the pain nobody else could see.”

I pull my hand back like I’ve touched fire. Like it burned even though it didn’t leave a mark.

“No,” I say too quickly. “I was just trying to help. You can call that medical instinct. Don’t read into it—I saw you were in pain.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a bitter laugh curls. Medical instinct . . . as if that’s what I’ve been running on this whole time.

But his eyes are on me now, really on me. The haze is lifting, and what’s left beneath it isn’t confusion anymore—it’s searchlight clarity. The kind that sees more than it should.

“You’re mad at me,” he says quietly.

I say nothing.

He lets out a breath, soft but heavy. “No.” He scoffs. “You hate me.”

His voice is stronger now. Raw. Accusing, not with venom—but with recognition. Like he’s reading something in my silence and doesn’t like what it tells him.

“You don’t even know who you are,” I say, stepping back. “So maybe don’t make assumptions about who I am either.”

He flinches. Not physically. Just in his eyes—the way something behind them flickers and hardens. Like a memory he can’t quite catch, just brushed past him.

This is the part where I’m supposed to leave. Where I’m supposed to walk out before the moment turns into something I can’t walk back from.

Before he remembers more than just my name.

Before I let myself remember too.

I turn, head for the door.

“I’ll send someone in to prep you,” I say without looking back. “Try not to fall apart before they get here.”

His voice follows me anyway. Quiet. Broken.

“Maybe they were lies I had to tell myself—and you.”

And just like that, I’m gone. I don’t know what he means. I can’t afford to care. Not if I want to make it out this time in one piece.