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Chapter twenty-two

D amien

I sat across from the recruiter in a downtown Manhattan office that probably cost more per month than the entire flower shop back in Cedar Springs.

Everything gleamed—polished glass table, chrome lamp, her expensive blazer.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, the skyline pulsed with energy and noise, but inside, it was silent. Still.

She placed a leather folder between us like it was a peace treaty.

“Dr. Cole,” she began, her voice cool, precise, and confident. “We’re offering you full reinstatement—lead cardiac surgeon. New team. Your own research lab. Access to the best equipment in the country. And a bonus package most people only dream about.”

I didn’t blink. I’d read the email. But hearing it aloud made it feel more... real.

“You’d be working with an elite staff. State-of-the-art facilities. Patients flown in from around the globe. And we’ll cover your relocation costs.” Her gaze met mine. “Of course, full-time presence in the city is expected.”

I nodded, even though my jaw tightened at the word relocation.

“This isn’t the kind of offer we extend lightly, Dr. Cole,” she added. “We’re building the future of medicine. We want you to be part of it.”

She waited, probably expecting me to reach for the folder with both hands and sign on the spot. Once, I would’ve. Not long ago, this exact moment would have lit something inside me—a spark of ambition, the thrill of a challenge. Now, it just felt... complicated.

My fingers brushed the edge of the folder, but I didn’t open it.

Instead, my mind wandered—to soil-stained knees and a woman with paint on her elbow and a daisy behind her ear. Ruby’s voice, warm and real, teasing me about “bedside flowers” and humming while she arranged blooms with names I couldn’t pronounce.

I cleared my throat. “Can I think it over?”

“Of course,” the recruiter said, though I could hear the expectation in her voice. “We’ll need your decision by Friday.”

“Understood.”

We shook hands. Her grip was professional. Controlled. Exactly what this world demanded.

Back outside, the city hit me in the face. Horns, flashing lights, the rush of people brushing past like rivers split at the shoulders. I walked without a destination; the folder tucked under my arm like a weight I hadn’t agreed to carry.

I passed a coffee cart and the scent of burnt espresso mixed with exhaust. At the corner, someone was playing the saxophone, and two kids danced for loose change. This place was alive—no doubt. But something in me was... quieter now. Settled.

Eventually, I ended up back at the hotel and sat by the window, folder unopened on the table beside me.

I finally picked up my phone. No new texts from Ruby.

The last one I’d sent her was still there, waiting like a half-breath: "Call me when you can. I have news too. It’s… big."

I didn’t know what she’d say when she heard this offer. Or what I wanted her to say.

All I knew was this: There was a time when I thought legacy was earned in operating rooms and journal publications.

Now? Now I wondered if legacy looked more like a garden with a crooked wooden sign. A woman who saw through all my walls. And a place where every heart—not just the ones I repaired—got a chance to bloom.

Maybe the future of medicine was in New York.

But the future of my heart?

It was still in Cedar Springs.

…

The clinic was quieter than usual that afternoon. Sunlight poured through the windows and cast warm patches across the floor, and out back, the garden Ruby and I planted bloomed in full, unruly color. I could smell lavender through the open door. The air felt slow. Peaceful.

Then came Hank.

He was sixty-three, wore flannel like it was armor, and had a voice like gravel in a coffee grinder. He stomped into the waiting room with a scowl deep enough to scare off most interns.

“I told your receptionist I didn’t need no fancy tests,” he grunted as I opened the exam room door.

“And I told her to schedule you anyway,” I replied, motioning him in. “You lost thirty pounds in six months and nearly passed out in the co-op last week. That’s not just hay fever, Hank.”

He grumbled but followed, planting himself on the exam table like it had personally offended him.

“I hate hospitals,” he muttered. “White coats. Cold rooms. Makes a man feel like he’s already halfway dead.”

“You’re not in a hospital,” I said, setting my stethoscope aside. “And I’m not wearing a white coat. I’m wearing a sweater. And jeans.”

He glanced at my clothes. “Still feels like trouble.”

I gave him a smile and reached for his chart. “Then let’s take this outside. I’ve got a better idea.”

Five minutes later, we were walking the path around the Hearts in Bloom Garden.

Hank’s boots scuffed the gravel, and he kept tossing wary glances at the raised beds like the roses might bite him.

I gave him space to settle, breathing in the peppermint from the herb patch and watching the wind tug gently at the marigolds.

“You ever seen a flower get high blood pressure?” Hank asked.

I chuckled. “Nope. But I’ve seen a lot of farmers who do.”

He didn’t answer at first, just stared at a nearby trellis covered in climbing morning glory. “Been eating bacon and biscuits since I had teeth. Now the doc wants me on rabbit food. You try working ten-hour days on lettuce?”

I didn’t interrupt. I just kept walking, letting the tension bleed out of him like air from a balloon.

“I ain’t afraid of hard work,” he said after a long beat. “But I’m scared of not waking up one morning. My wife—Lena—she’d lose the farm. We’ve had that land three generations. I can’t…” He trailed off, jaw tight.

I stopped by the bench under the arbor and sat. “Then let’s keep you waking up.”

He dropped down beside me, his body creaking like a barn door.

“I’m not giving you a stack of prescriptions,” I said. “We’re going to start small. Cut salt. Add one walk a day. Swap a few meals. And check in with me every two weeks. Deal?”

He eyed me. “You don’t rush folks out the door, do you?”

“Not my style.”

Hank’s mouth twisted, not quite a smile, but not far from one either. “You some kind of fancy miracle worker, Dr. Cole?”

“No,” I said. “I just finally remembered why I got into this in the first place.”

He looked down at his hands, thick and calloused. “I thought good doctors only lived in cities.”

“Turns out the best kind live in towns with wildflower gardens.”

Hank let out a quiet chuckle, rough and soft at the same time. Then his eyes turned glassy, and he quickly cleared his throat, looking away.

“I’ll try,” he muttered.

“That’s all I need,” I said. “And if you need backup, Ruby’s got a tea for just about every ailment known to man. And some that probably aren’t.”

He snorted. “That girl’s got spirit.”

“She’s got heart,” I said. “More than anyone I know.”

We sat for another few minutes, watching bees dance lazily between blooms. I didn’t feel the need to rush him back inside. Didn’t feel the pressure to push through patients like puzzle pieces.

When Hank finally stood, he turned to me with a gruff nod. “Thanks, Doc.”

“See you in two weeks.”

He walked off toward the gravel lot, boots crunching steady now.

I stayed behind a little longer, eyes trailing the garden paths.

This. This was it.

Not the glitter of operating rooms or the roar of crowded emergency wings. Not six-figure bonuses or newspaper profiles.

It was a man with rough hands letting his guard down. A bench shaded by roses. The kind of medicine that grows alongside its people, not above them.

The phone in my pocket buzzed—a message from the New York recruiter. I didn’t open it.

Instead, I took the long way back inside.

The morning paper was still warm from the press when I unfolded it on my desk, the ink smudging my fingertips as I smoothed out the front page.

And there she was—Ruby, mid-laugh, her arms full of wild blooms and confidence, beneath the bold headline: Florist Wins Innovation Award at Regional Showcase.

I should’ve felt pure pride. Maybe I did.

But beneath it, something else tightened in my chest—a sense of missing something vital, like standing outside a house glowing with warmth and realizing you left the key on the kitchen counter.

She looked radiant. Alive. Like she belonged exactly where she was.

I traced the corner of the picture absently, then reached for my pen. I’d written her one letter since she left for the competition. Maybe it was time for another. Something real. Something that didn’t dance around the truth.

Dear Ruby,I miss the way your hair smells like citrus and chaos. I miss your laugh echoing down the garden path. I miss you...

I tapped the pen against my lip, then sighed. No. I balled the paper and tossed it toward the wastebasket. It missed. Of course it did.

I stood and paced, my eyes drifting toward the manila envelope still sitting on the edge of my desk—the job offer from New York, unopened for two days now.

The weight of it pressed like a cinder block on my chest. Reinstatement.

Full privileges. Research. Resources. Everything I once thought I needed.

But the cost was clear. A life built around eighty-hour weeks and hotel rooms. A city with no Ruby, no garden, no awkward breakfast meetings with Hazel ranting about town zoning codes. No late nights sketching plans by candlelight with coffee-stained fingers and her head on my shoulder.

I sat back down and rubbed my temples. The deadline was in less than twelve hours. I had to respond.

I reached for the envelope just as my phone buzzed sharply on the desk.

Cedar Springs Clinic: EMERGENCY — Teenage Patient, Cardiac Arrest in Progress.

My breath caught. The world narrowed to a pinpoint. My muscles responded before my mind fully caught up. I was out of the chair, grabbing my keys, running.

…

The clinic was chaos when I arrived. Nurses shouted orders. The girl—fourteen, maybe fifteen—lay still and gray on the gurney, wires tangled around her like vines trying to hold her together.

“She collapsed on the soccer field,” the paramedic explained. “No history, just dropped.”

“Stats?” I snapped, already pulling on gloves.

“Blood pressure plummeting. Irregular rhythm. We think it's congenital.”

My heart pounded, but my hands moved with practiced precision. I looked into the girl’s terrified eyes and forced calm into my voice.

“You’re not alone. I’ve got you.”

The nurses knew better than to question me now.

We worked like clockwork. Defibrillator prepped.

Oxygen stabilized. I guided the team through a fast diagnostic—symptoms aligned with a rare congenital defect I’d seen only three times in my entire career.

But I knew it. I knew it like a scar I’d touched a thousand times.

I slid into position. “She needs pericardiocentesis now or we lose her in ten.”

A younger doctor looked hesitant. “You want to do that here? In a small-town clinic?”

“No,” I said firmly. “I need to do it here. Because we don’t have time to move her.”

And then I was in the zone, everything else falling away—New York, Ruby, the garden, the deadline. It was just me, the needle, and this young life hanging in the balance.

The needle slid in with precision. One breath. Two.

The heart monitor steadied.

I exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours. The girl blinked up at me, dazed, but alive.

I stayed by her side for a while after, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. Her mother clutched my hand with tear-streaked gratitude, and I accepted the hug without protest.

It wasn’t until the chaos died down that I returned to my office. The job offer still sat on my desk, unopened. But now it felt… unnecessary. Or maybe just outdated.

I glanced again at the photo of Ruby in the paper.

Then I did something I hadn’t done in a long time.

I smiled.