Page 16 of Rescuing Dr. Marian (Made Marian Legacy #1)

“What do we have?” I asked, giving Chickie a quick head scratch as I stepped up to the student offering to help me into a harness. “Any idea of the injuries involved?”

Foster quickly took over from the student, squatting at my feet and reaching for the webbing straps. “Possible head injury with loss of consciousness, multiple contusions. No report of compound fracture or bleeding,” he called without looking up at me. “Medical up first. I’ll belay you.”

He quickly began strapping the harness webbing around my waist and thighs, his muscles moving under the tanned skin of his forearms. Being this close to him, feeling his hands on me even through the clinical necessity of the harness, sent heat racing through my body.

Not the time. Not the place.

“You have climbing experience,” he said, remembering the stories we’d shared in Hawaii.

“Yes. I’ve climbed this route before.”

He must have caught the hesitation in my voice because he glanced up from where he was crouched at my feet, and his eyes met mine. “But?”

The harness felt strange after months in emergency rooms and hospital corridors. My hands shook slightly as I clipped in, muscle memory from my climbing days rusty from disuse.

“It’s been a while,” I admitted.

“Like riding a bike,” Foster said, his voice softer than it had been all morning. “You’ll be fine. I’ve got you.”

I met his eyes and saw kind reassurance instead of judgment, the first crack in his professional facade. “Okay.”

He nodded and began talking me through the route, his voice calm and reassuring. As I climbed, I could feel the tension in the rope, the steady presence of Foster belaying me from below. It was trust in its purest form—my life literally in his hands.

There wasn’t a single doubt among anyone present as to who was in charge of this rescue. Foster commanded the scene from his position on belay, never once taking his eyes off me.

As soon as I found the fallen climber on a rocky landing partway up Spiny Tooth, I dropped into assessment mode, running through ABCs while calling down vital signs to Foster and the rest of the team.

“Pulse is thready, possible internal bleeding,” I shouted. “I need him immobilized before we move him.”

“Copy that,” Foster called back. “Coming with the spine board. I need you to find an anchor up there and clip in.”

The young man and woman who’d been climbing with the injured patient showed me where the anchor was and then explained what had happened while I transferred from the belay line to the anchor point. Tears ran down the woman’s face while the man gripped her hand tightly.

“How the hell did you get here so fast?” the guy asked, almost hyperventilating.

“We were already nearby, running a drill. There are at least twenty first responders at the base of the climb ready to help,” I told him.

“He… he slipped and swung on his rope, but like… Jesus. I don’t even know what really happened. He hit his head, and… then he was gone.” The man ran a hand over his head and pointed upward. “Over that outcrop. ”

“He’s going to kick himself when he wakes up.” The woman’s face crumpled. “He… he is gonna wake up, right?”

I set a hand on her arm. “My name is Dr. Marian, and I’m a trauma doctor. I promise we’ll do everything we can to help your friend. Right now, I need you to give us room and keep yourselves safe, okay? Stay hydrated and reapply sunscreen if you have it.”

Foster’s helmet appeared over the edge of the rock ledge. He met my eyes and nodded slightly, recognizing I’d given them a simple task to help keep them distracted.

The next hour was a carefully choreographed dance between medical treatment and technical rescue.

I had to treat and package the patient while Foster coordinated the lowering system, both of us calling out constant updates.

As the sun beat down on my head and shoulders, my heart pounded with adrenaline.

This was what I’d missed in the sterile environment of the ER—medicine that required improvisation, that forced you to adapt and overcome. Medicine that felt like an adventure. But also seemed like the difference between life and death in the field.

When we finally got the patient down the mountain and into the care of the EMT team waiting for him, Trace came over to shake our hands.

“Clean execution,” he said loudly enough for all the gathered students to hear. “Medical assessment was thorough, rescue techniques were textbook. Great example of flawless teamwork.”

As I opened my mouth to thank him, I heard the barest scoff of disagreement from Foster. I turned to stare at him in disbelief, though no one else seemed to notice his reaction.

What the hell?

After the successful rescue, after what felt like perfect coordination between us, he was still finding fault? Professional distance was one thing, but undermining me in front of the students crossed a line.

Trace continued to review the situation with the gathered students and announced we would move our original missing kayaker drill to the afternoon. “Let’s take our lunch break, and then we’ll make another attempt at the drill, alright? Robyn brought sandwiches and fruit for everyone.”

After stripping off my harness and stowing the remaining medical equipment with my team, I dragged myself toward a nearby bench. I was sweaty, filthy, and definitely dehydrated. Thankfully, Sierra and Kofi were both looking out for me, handing me ice-cold water bottles from the coolers.

“That was amazing,” Sierra said.

I took a huge swig of water and enjoyed the cool slide down my dusty throat. “Thanks. If we get another injured climber this afternoon, I’m sending you up instead,” I teased.

Trace tilted his chin up at Foster and then gestured for me to join them.

“Listen, why don’t the two of you head back to SERA and get cleaned up?

I’ll review this morning’s case with the students and quiz everyone on it after lunch.

It’ll give you plenty of time to get back here for the drill. ” He handed Foster a set of car keys.

Foster nodded silently and handed Chickie’s leash over to one of his students before heading toward a large black pickup truck with a SERA logo on the side.

I fell in line behind him and climbed up into the passenger seat.

Instead of speaking, I lowered the window and focused on drinking my water and inhaling the fresh mountain air as Foster drove out of the trailhead parking lot.

Long minutes passed in silence as tense as a long shift during a mass casualty event. The truck cab felt suffocating despite the open windows.

Screw this , I finally decided.

“What happened to being professional?” I snapped. “Trace says we worked well as a team, and you scoffed? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You were distracted on the way down.”

I stared at him. “Distracted? I was trying to keep my patient alive while dangling from a fucking rope!”

“Can’t have distractions when lives are on the line.”

The words stung because they carried a grain of truth.

I had been distracted—by the way his muscles flexed as he worked the ropes, by the memory of those same hands touching me in Hawaii, by the growing frustration of being treated like a stranger despite our obvious chemistry. But it hadn’t been on the way down.

At every moment of our rescue, I had focused on the patient and doing the job to the utmost of my ability. How dare he call my professionalism into question.

“Name one thing I did wrong.” My voice sounded low and accusatory.

He hesitated but persevered. “You were staring at my ass while I was rigging anchors. ”

Heat flooded my face because he wasn’t wrong. “I was observing your technique as I approached the scene!”

“Bullshit.” He stared at the road with nostrils flaring and his jaw clenching. “Look, I get it. You’re having your little experiment, but some of us are here to work.”

“Experiment?” The word came out strangled. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Married guys looking for some action on the side,” he said without looking at me. “I’m not interested in being someone’s dirty little secret.”

I stared at him, my brain struggling to process what he’d just said. It snagged on one word. “ Married ?”

“Don’t play dumb, Tommy. I was there, remember?” He pulled the truck into the lot by our cabin and shifted into Park before throwing the door open and striding toward our cabin.

I stumbled after him, legs shaky from the adrenaline crash and low blood sugar. “What?”

“Married, asshole!” The words exploded out of him as he yanked the cabin door open. “As in, you making vows to the woman who was wearing the Bride sash while standing next to you in that lobby. Ring a bell?”

My world tilted sideways. All this time, all the cold shoulders and professional distance—he thought I was married. He thought I’d kissed him while engaged to someone else… and then married her anyway.

“Foster,” I said slowly, my voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t get married.”

He went very still, shoulders rigid. “What?”

“I called off the wedding. That morning, after—” I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry. “Kari gave me an ultimatum—marry her that day, or we were done. I chose done. I thought you knew.”

The silence stretched between us, broken only by the distant sounds of birds in the trees through the cabin’s open windows. Foster’s face went through a series of expressions—confusion, disbelief, and something that might have been hope before he seemed to catch himself.

His hands slowly unclenched. “You called it off.”

“Yes.”

Foster’s breath came out in a rush. “Jesus, Tommy.” He raked both hands through his hair, pacing to the window and back. “All this time, I thought?—”

“I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t let me explain?—”

“You tried to tell me?” His voice cracked. “When?”

I stepped closer. “The other night, in here. You kept cutting me off, saying we should keep it professional.” Frustration bled through my words. “I wanted to explain everything, but you made it clear you didn’t want to hear it.”

Foster tossed the keys on the nightstand and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fuck. I thought—Jesus, I thought you were married. I thought you were just looking for some guy to screw around with while your wife was back home.”

“I would never do that,” I said, surprised by how much his assumption hurt. “I’m not that kind of person.”

His eyes met mine, something raw and vulnerable flickering there. “You’re the kind of person who kisses someone else, on the eve of his fucking wedding.”

Foster’s accusation punched the breath out of me. I moved to the edge of my bed and fell onto it, accidentally dropping my water bottle and watching it roll under Foster’s bed.

The feeling of the blankets under me reminded me how tired I was. I wanted to crawl under the covers and sleep for twenty-four hours. But that wasn’t an option. I was still on the clock.

“I’m going to take a shower,” I said, forcing myself back up and over to the drawers to grab clean clothes. If I sat on the bed any longer, I’d pass out. And if I stayed here trying to defend myself to him anymore, I’d lose all self-respect.

When I reached for the bathroom doorknob, I felt Foster’s big body step up behind me. “Tommy, wait.”

I didn’t turn around. “Wait for what, Foster? You obviously don’t know me, and I get it.

I’d probably think the same thing about me if I were you.

But I’m not a cheater. Well, maybe it would be more accurate to say I’d never cheated on anyone until that night, and I thought I did a pretty damned good job of keeping myself from doing what I actually wanted to do with you. ”

“I thought you were married,” he repeated, his voice softer now.

I turned to face him, noticing something desperate in his expression, like he was trying to rewrite six months of assumptions in real time.

The weight of our misunderstanding settled between us. All the walls Foster had built, all the professional distance—it had been based on a lie. On assumptions neither of us had bothered to correct.

“But I’m not. ”

“So you’re… single,” he said, like he was testing the words. His eyes searched mine.

“Very,” I confirmed. “Have been since Hawaii.”

“Because of me?”

The question hung in the air like a challenge. I could lie, make it about my career or cold feet or a dozen other safer explanations. But Foster Blake had changed my life that night in Hawaii. Changed it for the better. He deserved the truth.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “Because of you. I knew I’d never see you again, but you gave me a glimpse of something amazing, and I couldn’t go back to the life I’d planned.”

Foster’s chest rose and fell rapidly. I could practically see him recalibrating, adjusting his entire understanding of our situation.

I hesitated, then added, “It shouldn’t have been because of you.

There were obviously things wrong in my relationship I’d chosen not to see.

But I can honestly say I would’ve gone right on ignoring them and married her that weekend if I hadn’t met you.

” I took a step closer, my heart hammering.

“That night made me realize what I’d been missing.

Because kissing you felt more real than anything I’d experienced in ten years with her. ”

Foster’s breath hitched. His eyes dropped to my mouth for just a second before meeting my gaze again.

Something flickered across his face—want, hope, fear—and the air between us felt electric, charged with possibility.

For a moment, I thought he might close the distance between us, might kiss me the way he had on that Hawaiian beach.

Instead, he stepped back, though I could see the effort it cost him. “But it wasn’t real,” he muttered .

I suddenly realized this man had the ability to cut me deeper than anyone else I knew. And what was worse? He did it quietly and without warning.

“And you think it’s my family who has no right to hurt me,” I murmured through lips that felt numb.

I turned back to the bathroom door.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said, his deep voice unmistakably defensive and petulant. “You’re leaving. Moving back to California.”

“You’re right, Foster.” I turned to close the door and met his eyes before the door closed completely. “It doesn’t matter.”

When I stepped under the shower, I tried not to think about the look on his face as I’d closed the door.

Because if I allowed myself to believe there was even a single part of him that still wanted me, I would put myself in a position to let him hurt me again.

And being hurt by Foster Blake was a new kind of hell.