Page 38 of Rescuing Dr. Marian (Made Marian Legacy #1)

TOMMY

Foster was quiet on the drive back to SERA. I figured he was experiencing a Marian hangover, so I left him to it. Maybe by the time we returned to the cabin, he would have put the trauma behind him.

In the meantime, I replayed the phone call from the chief of emergency medicine at UC Davis that had come in just after we’d arrived at the lodge.

He’d caught wind of my availability and was eager to bring me in for an interview—practically pleading with me not to commit elsewhere until they’d had a chance to make their case.

After I’d hung up, I spotted a video conference invite from Stanford’s HR department for tomorrow morning. It seemed unlikely they’d go to the trouble of setting up a meeting just to let me down gently… but stranger things had happened.

I glanced over at Foster. The evening air caught the ends of his hair as the dashboard lights threw a cool cast over his skin. He flicked his eyes over to me and back to the road.

“Y’okay?” he asked softly.

“Thanks for coming tonight,” I said, feeling truly grateful. “Everyone loved meeting you.”

He shrugged. “You’ve got a great family. It was nice to see you among your… people.”

There was something off about the way he said it, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “And you were able to avoid Tilly, I noticed. Not so much Granny and Irene, though.”

He winced. “That little one’s a fireball. Offered me five American dollars if I’d lift her over my head.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “What’d you say?”

“Told her if I started picking up random women at parties, I’d lose my gay card. She frowned and nodded. Seemed to think that made sense.”

Chickie tried to nudge my shoulder from the back, insisting on her share of the conversation, even though a moment earlier, she’d been so hard asleep there’d been snores coming from the back seat.

I reached back to pet her through the partition. “You ready for bed, Chickpea?”

Foster shifted in his seat but didn’t say anything about the name. Meanwhile, I’d been carrying it around all day like a bright, flawless little pearl hidden deep in my pocket. That kiss in Hawaii hadn’t just changed my life; it had left a mark on Foster, too.

“Long day,” Foster said after a few more minutes on the road .

I glanced over at him. “Yeah?”

He shrugged. “The hike to set the target. The SAR exercise and medical response. Dinner with your family—I mean, not… not like that. I just meant dinner at the lodge. Where your family happened to be.”

I bit my lip against a smile. “It’s my family’s lodge.”

“Right.”

“And they were the only ones there.”

“Yes.”

“So… technically, you had dinner with my family, Foster.”

He nodded but didn’t take his eyes off the road. “And I already told you it was nice.”

“Fine,” I said, letting him off the hook. Suddenly, I was tired of the games. Tired of being the only one in this supposed “fling” who seemed to want to push past it like two grown adults, even if the solution wasn’t neat or easy.

I was tired of Foster getting moody instead of talking to me about his feelings.

One day, he was cold as ice, putting up his “physical only” walls, and the next, he was holding me tight and telling me how much he missed me.

Making fucking love to me like I was precious. Like he never wanted to let me go.

Maybe this was a sign. Maybe this was exactly what I needed to see before receiving the official offer and making my decision.

It was time to stop wishing Foster would fight for us when he’d told me all along he wasn’t interested in that.

“You’re right,” I said as he turned off the highway onto SERA’s gravel drive. “Long day. I’m exhausted. ”

After he threw the SUV into Park, he turned to look at me. “Everything okay? Anything you want to talk about?”

I glanced at him, wondering if this was an opening to discuss my potential job offer. To ask his advice. To feel him out about the possibility of trying to make a long-distance relationship work.

The engine ticked quietly as I turned to face him. “If Matthew hadn’t cheated on you, would the two of you have ended up together?”

Foster’s eyebrows dipped in confusion. “Me and Matthew? What do you mean?”

“Were you in love with him? Would the two of you have ended up together?”

He tilted his head. “Those are two separate questions, Tommy.”

I shot him a look, forcing him to give me a real answer.

Foster sighed and sat back against the door.

“I wanted to love him. I wanted to settle down, have a partner I could come home to. Share my life with. I fantasized about the little things. Having a warm body waiting in my bed after a long shift. Spending lazy afternoons in front of a football game or getting up early for a hike in summer.”

He blew out a breath and forked his fingers through his hair. “My friends all have partners now, and I see them at the grocery store or grabbing a quick breakfast at the cafe before work. That’s what I wanted. The everyday companionship.”

“But Matthew moved to New York,” I said. “He wasn’t there with you. So that’s why you didn’t stay together?”

He met my eyes. “The only reason Matthew and I were together at all was because I was an idiot with more hope than practicality. He obviously needed something more. Something bigger. And I had no desire to hold him back or tie him down.”

My stomach dropped like a sack of bricks. I pressed my lips together and nodded. “Understood.”

We moved through our nightly routine by rote, slipping into our own beds automatically. Apparently, our sleeping arrangements were clearly defined based on the unspoken mood between us.

I slept fitfully—so fitfully that Chickie jumped up in my bed at one point and lay down on top of my chest, nuzzling her cold nose in my neck until I relaxed.

The next morning, I awoke to an empty cabin. Foster and Chickie were already gone, so I was able to shower and dress without walking on eggshells or, worse, staring at his body in a way that might lead to something physical.

I made my way to the dining room for breakfast, where Robyn cheerfully waved me over to a spot at her table. “Tommy! Over here. We’ve got room for you, and I wanted to ask you about today’s certification exam for your students.”

While she spoke, I picked out Foster’s and Trace’s voices as they entered the dining room from the direction of Trace’s office. Robyn must have seen me watching them because she glanced over and back to me. “Good news, I think. Foster has a lead on a new medical director for the program.”

It took me a moment to comprehend what she was saying. “A new medical director? Like, my replacement?”

Robyn frowned. “Well, you’re only here for the summer session, right? I guess Foster heard from a guy he knows down in Colorado. They worked on some SAR jobs together, and Foster thinks highly of the guy. He knows Trace needs someone killer to fill your shoes. “

And he’d mentioned it to Trace instead of me?

A thousand questions piled up behind my teeth. I started with just one. “What’s the rush? The next session doesn’t start until mid-August, right?”

Her forehead crinkled. “Yeah, but that’s in five weeks.

This is kind of the time we need to be looking, depending on how much notice our ideal candidate needs to give to their current employer.

” She leaned in and placed a hand on my arm.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t consider staying on for another session?

You know we’d love to have you. We’re so lucky you chose to come here this summer! ”

I watched Foster and Trace, heads together over steaming mugs of coffee. Neither spared me a moment’s glance, which was galling if they were considering the best person to be the medical director of SERA.

Who better to consult on the topic than the current one? Who better than the only medical professional on-site?

“I know, I know, you can’t stay,” Robyn went on, still talking despite my lack of participation in the conversation. “I think it’s because Foster told Trace you were for sure taking the job in California, that Trace realized he needed to do something?—”

“I’m sorry, he what? Foster told Trace…?”

She nodded and shot me a warm smile, teeth flashing as her ponytail bobbed in excitement. “Congratulations, by the way. I didn’t know it was official yet, even though I’m not surprised they made you the offer. ”

It was on the tip of my tongue to correct her, to inform her no one had made me any offer yet and it was for damned sure not official, but for all I knew, it was only a few hours before it would be true.

I politely excused myself and headed outside, if only to keep from murdering Foster Blake with a butter knife.

He thought I’d gotten and accepted an offer but hadn’t told him about it? And he hadn’t said a word to me about his assumption?

Anger coursed through my veins. I strode to Cabin 8 and dialed my cousin Ella.

“Hey, babe. How’d it go last night?” she asked.

“Can you come get me?” I tried to keep my voice steady so my anger didn’t show. “I have a video call in an hour I’d like privacy for.”

In true Ella fashion, she read the room and agreed without asking a single question.

Within twenty minutes, I’d informed Robyn of my need to leave campus for the morning, thanked her for proctoring the exam for my students—which she’d offered to do anyway—and grabbed a nicer shirt for the video meeting.

As Ella was backing the car out of the spot in front of the cabin, Foster and Chickie walked by and noticed me leaving.

“Want me to stop?” Ella asked softly.

“No,” I said, looking anywhere but at Foster fucking Blake.

My anger toward him only grew and festered throughout the morning until I was an overfull pot on a roiling boil.

Stanford offered me everything I asked for and more.

They made me feel wanted and appreciated, respected and recognized.

I felt the full benefit of the professional and academic achievements I’d made leading up to now.

Getting hired at St. Ignatius had been an honor, but landing the job at Stanford? It was serendipitous.

Everything I’d ever thought I’d wanted for my career. For my future.

So the fact that I felt hollow inside instead of excited made me even angrier. And that anger had a clear target.

When my mother ran me back to SERA, I considered confronting Foster, asking him why he was spreading lies about my job situation. I thought about confessing my feelings for him and begging him to be honest about his own. Begging him to consider a future for the two of us.

But I’d already tried talking to him multiple times about moving past our “summer fling” agreement, and he’d shot me down every single time. A relationship between us was never going to be a possibility if it was always me pressing for it.

Foster had tried to tell me he wasn’t interested in more, over and over, and I hadn’t listened because I didn’t want to hear it.

“Hey, Tommy,” Trace called from the path leading to our cabin. “Wait up.”

“I’m headed back to the classroom as soon as I change out of these clothes,” I said, indicating my button-down.

He waved a hand through the air. “No rush. The instructors stole all the students for a helo thing up on Pronghorn Ridge anyway. They won’t be back until four at the earliest, unless the weather turns.

Monroe said if you want to join, just catch him on the radio.

Otherwise, consider yourself with a few hours off.

Although I’d love your help assessing candidates for the medical position later, if you have time.

” He smiled. “Congratulations, by the way. Foster told me your exciting news, not that it’s a surprise. Stanford is lucky to have you.”

I considered correcting him, but I wasn’t sure I could do it without saying something scathing about Foster Blake.

Instead, I thanked him and headed into my cabin to change.

After yanking on my boots, filling my hydration pack, and stuffing a few necessities into it, I took off on a long hike in hopes of exercising and exorcising my demons—one tall, hard-headed, muscly demon in particular.

And I headed in the exact opposite direction from Pronghorn Ridge.