Page 6 of Midnight Between Us (The Timberbridge Brothers #4)

Chapter Three

Simone

There’s a difference between a trauma response and a personal one.

In theory, I know that. I’ve been trained, certified, battle-tested. I’ve cracked open chests, stabilized fractures, stitched skin so thin it could have split like rice paper. You don’t freeze. You don’t think. You move. You follow protocol. You don’t let your hands shake.

But right now, my hands won’t stop shaking. There’s a battle within me. Should I save him, or smother him, since I hate this man with all my heart.

“Vitals are crashing,” the nurse says, pressing the monitor screen. “BP’s dropping. Eighty over forty and falling fast.”

That’s what it takes for me to wake up from my personal vendetta, of course. The reason I studied medicine is to save lives and not to . . . focus on the right now, Simone.

“Hang another unit of blood,” I snap. “Push fluids. I need an OR prepped. Now.”

Someone hesitates. I don’t see who. I just hear him, “He’d be better in a hospital, but?—”

“Move, people,” I say again. “He’s not going to survive a second transport.”

They scatter.

We wheel him into the tiny OR. Technically, it’s not design for this type of surgery—we’re a small-town clinic, not a trauma center—but my employers have planned for this.

Stocked the place with just enough for when someone needs saving quietly.

No press. No paperwork. Just blood, bone, and decisions.

“Call Doctor Aldridge,” I call out, already turning toward the sink. “Tell him I need him to fly here for a post-op neuro consult. Now.”

“Which Doctor Aldridge,” someone asks.

Since his bones need repair, I simply answer, “Both.”

One nurse pulls the gurney sheets while another adjusts the overhead light. The tray’s already being set—metal tools gleaming under the too-white bulbs. Bone saw, drill, suction. Gauze. Lined up like soldiers.

I scrub in fast. Too fast. Elbows to fingertips, rinse, repeat.

I don’t have time to breathe, so I don’t.

I scrub like in the old days of med school—back when failure was still just a theory, not bleeding out under the harsh lights of an OR, waiting for me to save it.

“Neuro kit’s ready,” a nurse calls. Her voice is steadier than mine feels.

I step away from the sink and remove my contaminated gloves, sliding on a sterile pair without missing a beat.

“Vitals?” I ask.

“BP’s dropping. Heart rate’s erratic.”

I nod once. No room for panic. No room for fear.

“Drill,” I say, holding out my hand.

A tray slides closer. The metal clinks as the tool is placed in my hand.

“You’re going to drill?” someone asks, his breath catches, almost as if he’s afraid of blood.

“Yes. I’m going to save his life,” I answer, already positioning the bit.

There’s something surreal about cutting into the skull of the boy you once loved. About cracking the bone, you used to kiss just behind the ear. About slicing through skin your fingers once memorized in the dark—like he’d be gone by morning.

Because he was.

And now he might be again.

Not that I want him at all. He’s the one who left. The one who rejected me when . . . fuck.

Now here he is, opened up beneath surgical lights, his life sliding through my hands like sand, and I can’t even scream.

I pack the gauze. Relieve the pressure. Slide the shunt in with practiced hands.

I don’t flinch when we hit a bleed—I suction, cauterize, move fast, move smart. His body’s fighting me, jerking on the table like it’s ready to give up. But I don’t let it. I can’t. Not when it’s him. Not when the man who vanished without a word is the one bleeding out in front of me.

“Clamp that. Good. Suction here.”

He’s lucky to be alive. Luckier than he knows.

Three broken ribs, a bruised lung, and a fractured femur.

Contusions scattered everywhere like someone tried to beat the life out of him and almost succeeded.

A head injury that hasn’t declared itself yet—because the brain likes to play dirty, likes to pretend it’s fine until it’s too late.

His oxygen stats keep bouncing, refusing to hold steady, and the left side of his chest barely rises with each shallow breath.

Possible pneumothorax. Probable, if I’m being honest. Then there’s the bruising across his abdomen—deep, dark, blooming under the skin like a fucking warning sign.

The bruising across his abdomen isn’t just ugly—it’s a loaded gun cocked and waiting.

And if we miss it, if we blink, it’s over.

It’s the other thing that gets me.

The thing no scan can catch, no sutures can fix.

Whatever dragged him into that trunk in the first place still hangs in the air, thick and poisonous, wrapping around the edges of every decision I make tonight.

The story behind these injuries will come later, whether the body in front of me survives or doesn’t.

Right now, he needs every second I can give him.

For all I know, he could be some lowlife who made one too many enemies, running from mistakes that no one was willing to forgive.

It does not change what he is to me at this moment.

Right now, he is a pulse, a breath, a broken body fighting to stay alive.

I am the only thing standing between him and the dark.

So I keep working, refusing to let my hands shake, refusing to allow the questions I cannot afford to ask slow me down.

When it is finally over, I stand over the table, my breath rasping through clenched teeth.

My scrubs are soaked through, plastered to my skin, the fabric stiff with blood, sweat, saline—maybe all of it mixed into one godawful reminder of how close he came to dying.

The gloves cling to my fingers like a second skin, and it takes everything I have to peel them off carefully, methodically, when all I want to do is rip them away and scream until my voice breaks.

“He’s stable,” the nurse says, hovering nearby, watching me like she expects me to collapse next.

“Put him under.”

“You want to induce?” she asks, hesitation bleeding into her voice.

“He is not waking up like this. Too much swelling. Too much trauma. If he wakes confused or combative, it will spike his intracranial pressure. He could hemorrhage. Arrest. Sedate him—Versed, low dose, then start a Propofol drip. Keep him intubated and monitor ICP closely. We will reassess in seventy-two hours.”

She hesitates for a second longer. “He might not remember.”

I look at her across the wreckage of the night, feeling something crack inside me. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

They wheel him into post-op recovery while I move on autopilot, snapping out orders, and locking down the situation.

Only three people know he is here, and I make them sign NDAs so quickly that their pens scrape across the forms like warnings.

No visitors. No exceptions. If a single word gets out, it will be too late to fix it.

When I finally allow myself to stop, it is not in my office behind a closed door. It is beside him. I lower myself into the hard plastic chair at his bedside, the adrenaline bleeding out of me too fast, leaving me cold and hollow.

Across from me, he lies motionless, a ghost of whatever he used to be.

Swallowed by bandages and machines, the only proof he is still fighting lies in the stubborn blip of the monitors.

I should be reviewing scans, calling the police, preparing for whatever the hell comes next.

Instead, I sit there and watch his chest rise and fall, willing him to hold on.

There will be questions. Accusations. Stories that unravel slower than his battered body can heal. For now, I push them all away because tonight, survival is enough. It has to be enough.

At least he looks cleaner now. His skin is pale, stitched, almost peaceful. Like someone who drifted off during Aunt Norma’s long-winded stories. If a nurse walked in, they’d probably think he’s just waiting for apple juice and a bland sandwich.

But I know better.

Keir Timberbridge isn’t waiting for nourishment. He’s stable—but barely. One bad spike in pressure, one clot, and he’s gone. He could die right now. Or never wake up again.

I just don’t understand how this happened. Wasn’t he some polished CEO of a top-tier company? Untouchable? Always five steps ahead of everyone else?

“Who did you piss off, Timberbridge?”

No answer, of course.

All I know is this: someone stuffed him in the trunk of a car. Duct-taped. Bleeding. Left to die.

And I’m pretty sure he said my name before his heart stopped.

I rest my elbow on the bed rail and press my fingers to my lips, trying to swallow whatever this is. The ache. The rage. The grief I’ve refused to name.

He left. No explanation. No goodbye. Just a silence—louder than any siren.

I tried to reach him, and all he said was, “You can’t believe we had something, Simone. We were just fooling around. Don’t be a fucking child. Get the fuck out of Birchwood Springs when you can and start a new life. Forget everything—forget we ever crossed paths.”

He said Simone, not Sims.

That was the second time he broke my heart.

I survived, though. And yet, here I am. Putting him back together. Stitch by goddamn stitch.

“I should’ve let you go,” I whisper. “Should’ve let the woods keep you. Bury you.”

He doesn’t answer.

Of course, he doesn’t.

He’s unconscious. Suspended between life and whatever comes next. For all I know, he’s already gone. And I’m just sitting here with bones and skin and a history I haven’t healed from.

I study him a second longer—because that’s what I do. I hold on for too long. Even to men who let go first.

Then I rise, slow and stiff, like peeling myself out of the past. My chair scrapes softly against the tile. I pause. Look at him one last time. “You left me once,” I whisper, voice catching on the words. “Don’t you dare do it again. This time, I get to choose when it’s over. Not you.”

And then I pull the door shut behind me, step into the hallway, and tug my phone from my pocket.

This is one of the reasons I’m here, after all: to report suspicious activity.

In this case, John Doe shows up in my clinic half-dead and carrying the ruins of what we used to be.

“It’s too late for late-night calls. If you’re calling to discuss the explosion?—”

“If someone already briefed you . . . then why do you need me here?” I cut in, not in the mood to spar. “Actually, I don’t care. I have something more pressing. There was a bad crash on Route Seven. There was no driver or passenger.”

“Why do I care?” he asks flatly.

There’s typing in the background. No doubt he’s at his desk trying to figure out what he missed.

He thinks he knows everything. Maybe he does, but surprisingly, I have something only I know.

“According to the reports, they cleared the wreckage hours ago. No one was at the scene. It was just a car. Again—why the fuck do I care?”

I take a breath, then let it drop. “Unless you count the guy in the trunk.”

“Fuck. So we have a body?—”

“I’m not finished,” I snap.

“Then speak faster, Simone. I don’t have time.”

Of course. God forbid someone breathes while he’s doing something more important.

I walk him through everything—the car, the restraints, the blood. How Keir flatlined. How I brought him back, one heartbeat at a time, with whatever was left in me. Then I say it.

“It’s Keir Timberbridge.”

He doesn’t say anything right away, until he asks, “Are you sure? How can you recognize him?”

“Believe me, it’s him.”

Then, there’s a low and resigned, “Fuck.”

Yeah. That about covers it.

“I should’ve known,” he mutters. “When are you waking him?”

“I’m reassessing in seventy-two hours,” I say, already worn out. “But I’ll need a neurologist. Probably an orthopedic surgeon to double-check the leg. If he pulls through, it’s going to take more than stitches and hope.”

“Does anyone else know?”

“No. I should probably tell his brothers, but . . .” I trail off. “They’ve been through enough. The warehouse fire. Blythe’s ex. It’s like the second they all came back to this town, they brought trouble with them.”

There’s a huff. Then, surprisingly: “Good, don’t tell anyone. When he’s stable enough to leave the clinic, take him with you.”

“He’s in my clinic,” I say, just in case he assumes I’m at Larkspur General.

“I get it, but afterward, we’ll move him with you.”

“Not sure what that means, but may I remind you that I have a clinic to run,” I say, feigning ignorance. I understand what he’s implying, but there’s no way I’m in charge of him. Nope.

“I’ll assign enough personnel to cover for you while you monitor him—at home.”

Is he fucking kidding? He wants me to take him home? My house?

“No.”

A pause. Then his voice drops—low, gravel-thick, not quite human. “That’s not a suggestion, Dr. Moreau. You’ll do as you’re told.”

There it is. The beast shows his teeth. He’s always growling. Always circling. I want to ask if I can speak to his partner—the one who’s less shouty and more civilized.

“Am I clear?” he asks.

There has to be a way out of this. I rub my eyes with the back of my hand. “I could lose my license.”

“You won’t. I’m not asking you to take him now. Just when he’s stable enough to be discharged.”

Of course, that’s not enough. Of course he has a rebuttal for everything.

“I’m too close to this.”

“Emotionally?”

I hesitate.

And in that hesitation, he jumps again. “Just because you’re acquainted with the Timberbridge brothers doesn’t mean?—”

“We fucked when I was sixteen.” The words hit the air like shattered glass—blunt, jagged, ugly. As if I’m trying to make it sound like it didn’t mean anything.

There’s silence on the line.

“It was a long time ago,” he finally says.

“Not long enough.”

“You’re not in a relationship with him now. Any other excuses?”

I have so many, like I’m thirsty for his blood, and I might slit his throat once he’s healthy. Or that . . . okay, whatever I say in anger won’t get me out of this.

I just say, “Fine. I’ll take him.”

“I’ll send someone in the morning to assess the clinic’s security,” he says. “Keep it quiet for now.”

Of course. Secrets always hold in Birchwood Springs—until they don’t.

When the call ends, I remain frozen, staring down the hallway toward the room where Keir lies—stitched together, silent, half here.

Someone tried to erase him from the world. They tried and failed. He’s still breathing.

And now he is mine to protect.

I am not the best person for this job. There are a dozen names that should come before mine, people who would know how to do this cleanly and carefully, without dragging the past through every decision. Hell, I might be the worst choice they could have made.

Maybe that is why I have to do it.

Maybe I owe it to the boy who once stood between me and every bad thing—the one who pulled me out of places I never properly thanked him for.

If I can focus on that—on who he was back then, not the man who left—maybe I can keep him alive.

Maybe I can keep myself from falling apart in the process.