Page 43 of Rescuing Dr. Marian (Made Marian Legacy #1)
TOMMY
Since I hadn’t, I’d stayed behind to calm my family. Once they’d left, there’d barely been enough time for me to shower, kiss Foster’s sleeping forehead, and retrieve Chickie before rushing back to the main building to meet with Trace about “the future of my job at SERA.”
That convo, which had also included an epic—and, yeah, well-deserved—dressing-down for being an idiot, had been interrupted by an emergency call, and the next thing I knew, I was in a helicopter on my way to the far side of Slingshot Mountain for a medical assist. There hadn’t been time to tell Foster I was leaving, even if I’d wanted to chance waking him with a text.
The following twelve hours had been nonstop, to the point that I’d finally collapsed in one of the on-call room beds at the hospital in Billings so I could catch enough sleep to make my way back to Legacy safely.
I’d woken hours later to the gentle nudging of a hospital admin handing me the keys to a rental car they’d arranged for me.
By the time I slid into the vehicle’s cool leather seat and pulled out my phone, it had been nearly eighteen exhausting hours since I’d spoken to Foster, and I decided I couldn’t wait another minute.
Which was when I saw the text that had come in last night.
Foster
I’m headed to Majestic in the morning. Be safe.
Maybe it was the long shift and all of the stress. Sleep deprivation. A muddled head from having just woken up. But this seemed weirdly like a brush-off.
I quickly texted Trace.
Leaving Billings now. Did something happen with Foster?
I sipped shitty coffee from the hospital while I waited for a response, but it didn’t help my brain fire any better.
Trace
You mean about him leaving?
I stared at the text, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
Was there a family emergency?
Trace
Not that I know of.
Did he quit?
Trace
I think so.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Had Foster seriously left SERA in order to get away from me? He’d told me he loved me?—
Actually, no. He’d said I’m in love with you, and I can’t fucking stand it. This had seemed incredibly romantic at the time. Now, combined with the last thing he’d said before walking away from me and my family— This is too much for me. —it felt like something else entirely.
My hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly they hurt.
How dare he chicken out without even talking to me? Was he really that immature? I didn’t like to think so, but he was undeniably on his way to Majestic, and if it had been a previously planned thing, wouldn’t he have mentioned it?
I was pulling out of Billings before I knew it, and with each mile that passed, my anger grew more wild and feral, a volcanic eruption that could level entire cities.
I was fucking furious.
Furious enough to take Hwy 310 instead of 212 and head straight for the Wyoming border.
Like any sane person did when they wanted to commit murder.
Thankfully, it was hard to fall asleep at the wheel when you were contemplating violent death .
That motherfucker.
I thought about calling Foster, lighting him up with all of my thoughts and feelings as soon as humanly possible, but if I did that, I ran the risk of him shutting me down. Telling me not to bother coming.
I needed to see his gorgeous, awful face.
When I pulled into Majestic, I realized I recognized it from a day trip to a rodeo when I was a teenager.
We’d been on our way to Yellowstone in a camper, and Mom and Dad had given in to Hazel’s insistence that we stop in Majestic to see a rodeo star named Avery Hart.
Hazel had been in her mid-twenties, and Avery had been her semi-famous crush for a year already.
The two of them hadn’t actually met until two years later when the rodeo came to Legacy during another summer vacation, but now that I saw the fairgrounds on my way into town, memories flooded in.
Majestic was charming. I could see why Foster took so much pride in his role as protector of this place.
Flower baskets hung from street lampposts along the main road through town.
A cycle store, boutique clothing store, and ice cream and chocolate shop lined one side of the road while the other hosted a green park with a playground, flanked on either side by more businesses and restaurants.
On one end of the street was a bright stone building with City Hall stamped into the polished stone above the large double doors.
I parked nearby, googled the sheriff’s office, and started walking. When I saw Foster’s SUV parked out front, my walk became a stomp.
Inside, the front desk was deserted, but I heard a man’s voice through the open doorway to the offices beyond, so I followed the sound.
“Who’s the guy you told your mom about?” the guy asked, a laugh in his voice. “Is he hot? Does he have anything to do with you acting like a complete jackass all fucking winter?”
My heart rate picked up as his words hit me.
“Because I’ve never seen you meaner and more pathetic than you were after your so-called hookup trip in Hawaii. Hell, I was on the verge of joining your mom’s matchmaking team just to see if I could get you laid. Silas and I placed bets on it.”
Foster’s voice was calm and teasing. “Who wins the bet if I murder you?”
“Considering the bet is for a deep-throated face-fucking, I’m gonna say we both win no matter how it plays out.”
I stepped into the office space on the word fucking , and felt my face heat immediately.
Both men looked up at me in surprise, but for some reason, my eyes went right past them to the wall behind Foster…
Where a very familiar photo was pinned front and center by a handful of darts and what looked like hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny holes.
My breath caught in my throat as I stared at my own face, enlarged and printed in grainy black and white. The photo from St. Ignatius’s website—the one with my professional smile and neatly combed hair that now looked absurdly formal compared to the battle-worn dartboard surrounding it.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, taking a step closer. The paper was curled at the edges, worn soft from months of… what? Anger? Obsession? The dart holes formed a constellation around my fa ce—some clustered near my eyes, others scattered across my cheeks and forehead. It looked like a crime scene.
“Oh,” I said stupidly. “Well, then.”
Foster and his friend turned to see what had caught my attention, and it seemed like all the oxygen was sucked from the room.
“Wait,” Foster said. The only thing that kept me from bolting or throwing something at him was the thread of absolute panic and fear in his voice. He walked toward me slowly with his hands out, as if trying to approach a wild dog. “Tommy, I can explain.”
I couldn’t look away from the dartboard.
Six months. He’d been throwing darts at my face for six fucking months.
“You can explain why I’m the face of your workplace rage?
” My voice came out strangled. “Jesus Christ, Foster. How many times did you—” I gestured helplessly at the punctured remains of my professional headshot.
The other guy, who I’d guessed by now was his cousin Way, from everything I’d heard as well as an obvious family resemblance, breathed, “Ho-lee fuck. It’s…
it’s you.” He looked from me to the dartboard and back again.
“I thought this was just some picture Foster found on the internet. Like maybe he had a bad experience with doctor porn or something.”
“Doctor porn,” I repeated flatly, finally tearing my gaze away from the dartboard.
“That’s… actually not too far off, I guess.
” The laugh that escaped me sounded slightly unhinged.
“Though I’m pretty sure most people don’t print out photos of their porn to use for target practice.
Especially after they kissed them on a Hawaiian beach. ”
Way’s eyes went wide. “Oh, dude. You’re the reason?—”
“Waylon,” Foster warned, his voice deadly quiet.
But I was already piecing it together. The way Foster had looked at me that first day at SERA. The careful distance he’d maintained. The walls he’d built between us. “You hated me,” I said, and it wasn’t a question. “Before you even knew me, you hated me.”
Foster didn’t take his eyes off me or crack a smile. “Tommy, what are you doing here? I thought you were headed back to SERA.”
“That’s funny because I thought you were at SERA, too.”
Way’s grin was so wide it bordered on shit-eating. “Soooo, Foster… if you need me to help you figure things out the same way you helped me when Silas first came to town, I could?—”
Foster didn’t take his eyes off me. “Waylon, get the fuck out. And so help me if you pretend to flirt with me, I will beat the shit out of you right here, right now.”
Way’s laughter followed him out until the sound of the door closing ended it.
The silence stretched between us, heavy and loaded. I walked closer to the dartboard, studying the damage. Some of the holes were small and precise—clean hits that spoke of careful aim. Others were jagged tears where darts had been yanked out in frustration.
“How often?” I asked quietly.
“Tommy—”
“How often did you throw darts at my face?”
Foster’s shoulders sagged. “Every day. Sometimes… sometimes multiple times a day. ”
I traced a finger along one of the larger tears, right through where my left eye would be. “Were you imagining revenge or something?”
“No.” His voice was raw. “I was imagining forgetting you.”
Suddenly, I realized my eyes were filling with stupid-ass tears. I gritted my teeth against them. “Why did you leave without saying goodbye?”
His eyebrows crinkled together in confusion. “You were in Billings. I sent you a text.”
“You sent me a ‘Have a good life’ text!” I snapped.