Page 57 of The Bad Brother

T HE LONGER I LAY HERE, JENSEN sleeping next to me, the more certain I become.

I can’t let Ethan win.

I can’t let him take this from me.

From either of us.

He’s taken enough.

That means I’m not leaving, no matter what Jensen says. The problem is that I already tendered my resignation and accepted another position.

Reaching for my phone on the nightstand, I check the time. It’s 7AM. As chief of surgery, barring disaster, Ragnar keeps banker’s hours—nine to five. That means she doesn’t get to the hospital for another two hours, so she hasn’t checked her email yet.

Problem number two is that the hospital operates on a closed server. There’s no way for me to access my email to delete it before she sees my resignation from here. If I want to delete it, I’ll have to actually go into the hospital.

Starting to slowly ease myself out of bed, I’m not surprised when I feel Jensen’s arms tighten around my waist to pull me closer. “Where you goin’, Peach?” he murmurs in my ear, eyes still closed.

“I’m thirsty,” I tell him, tilting my head to press my lips to the firm angle of his jaw.

“You stay,” he tells me, his tone still heavy with sleep, the arms around me tighten for a moment before they start to loosen. “I’ll get it.”

“No, you stay here.” I kiss him again, this time on the mouth, when his brow crumples into a frown. “I need to check on Mr. Redford anyway. I’ll be right back.”

Loosening his arms completely, Jensen lets me go on a sigh. “Hurry.”

Easing myself out of bed, I stand at the side of it, waiting until his breathing slows and he falls back to sleep.

Telling myself I’m not a liar because I am going to check on Mr. Redford while I’m at the hospital, I get dressed, throwing on a pair of scrub pants and top before hurrying downstairs.

Stopping only long enough for a quick drink of water at the kitchen sink to make myself feel better, I grab my bag and the sneakers I kicked off when I came home last night and ease myself out the front door—and run right into River.

“Oh.” When she sees me, she stops, mid-stride, her cheeks pink with embarrassment. “Hi—I woke up and Jen was gone, so I?—”

“He’s sleeping.” I say, while I close the front door as quietly as I can. Giving her a nervous smile, I remember Jensen’s comment about River being mad at him if he didn’t follow me to LA, and figure she knows about us. It’s safe to assume everyone knows about us by now. “Upstairs.”

The smile she gives me is nearly wide enough to crack her face in two. “He told you.”

Leaning against the closed door, I set my bag on the floor so I can pull my shoes on, while shaking my head. “Told me what?”

“That he’s in love with you,” she says it like I’m dumb for even asking. “And you forgave him.”

“Yes.” Nodding, I put my newly sneakered foot back on the floor before bending down to retrieve my bag. “He was here when I got home last night and we—” When I straighten, River is frowning at me.

“Where are you going?” she asks, her gaze narrowing suspiciously.

“To the hospital,” I answer her truthfully, too on the spot to make up a convincing lie. “I need to?—”

“No.” Saying it on a definitive head shake, River starts to push her way past me, obviously on her way to wake Jensen up so she can rat me out.

“Psycho Brother is out there, stabbing people ,” she reminds me while looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“Sorry, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to just let you leave. ”

“Wait.” Reaching out, I wrap a hand around her wrist to stop her before she can get to the door.

“I have to go to the hospital, Riv—” Wedging myself between her and the doorknob, I shake my head.

“I was angry last night. Very, very angry—so angry that I submitted my resignation at the hospital and accepted another job, three thousand miles away.”

When I say it, River rocks back on her heels like I just took a swing at her. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes. I mean, I was, but no.” Giving her a frantic head shake, I imagine Jensen waking up, at this very second.

I don’t have time for this. If I don’t leave right now, he’s going to realize I’m gone and come after me.

If I’m still in this building when that happens, I’m never getting to that email in time.

“I was going to leave—he lied to me.” Suddenly trying to defend myself, I feel my frustration and anxiety start to build.

“He didn’t tell me who he was. He knew and he didn’t tell me. ”

“He was scared,” River says, her pretty face falling into a scowl. “He knew what you’d say. How you’d react and after everything that happened, everything Ethan did, can you blame him?”

“No,” I answer her honestly. “I can’t. That’s why I forgave him.

Everything is fine between us—better than fine—but I told him that I resigned at the hospital and accepted another job on the other side of the country and he’s insisting that I leave.

” Sure the door behind me is going to fly open at any moment, I grip her arm even tighter and start dragging her toward the stairs.

“He wants me to leave because Ethan is dangerous but I can’t just leave because?—”

“Because that means Ethan wins,” she finishes for me, digging her heels into the floor before I can drag her down the stairs. “I get that, but what does that have to do with you sneaking off to the hospital?”

“The hospital email is on a closed server,” I explain as patiently as I can. “I need to take back my resignation before my boss sees it and the only place I can do that is from a computer at the hospital.”

Staring down at me, River slowly processes what I’m telling her, so slowly that I’m ready to push her down the stairs in my frustration. Finally, she nods her head. “Okay. So, lets go to the hospital.”

“What?” Shaking my head, I let go of her arm so I can start down the stairs on my own.

“No—you’re staying here.” Doing a quick calculation, I take the steps leading to the bar as quickly and quietly as I can.

“I’ll be back in an hour. It’s 7:30 in the morning. I promise you, Ethan isn’t even awake.”

“How do you know?” River narrows her eyes at me, suspicious all over again.

“Because in all the time I’ve known him, Ethan has never even thought about getting out of bed before noon.

” It’s true. The only thing that will get him up is brunch or an early tee time at the club.

Unless he’s golfing, which seems unlikely, Ethan is still sleeping.

“One hour. If I’m gone any longer than that, you can wake Jensen up and tell on me, okay? ”

“Sorry.” Following me, River gives me a shrug while she passes me on the way down. “But it’s either I come with you or I wake Jensen up, right now and tell him?—”

“Alright,” I tell her, my tone tinged with irritation. “Fine. You can come.”

“Great.” Laughing because she knows I don’t have a choice in the matter, River gains the landing first and turns to watch me finish coming down the stairs. “If you hurry, maybe we can stop for coffee on the way there.”

DESPITE THE FACT THAT WE ENDED UP stopping for coffee on the way to the hospital, we still managed to make it there before eight o’clock.

Installing River in Orton Redford’s room where a tired Reese is keeping watch over her sleeping father while her little brother snores on the couch, I hustle my way to the office I share with the other attending surgeons on staff and open up my email.

My resignation letter is still unopened.

Offering up a silent thank you that finally, something has gone my way, I delete it from Dr. Ragnar’s email before deleting it from my outgoing emails and the trash, just to be on the safe side.

While I’m here, I send a quick email to the hospital in LA, letting them know that my circumstances unexpectedly changed and that while I appreciate their generosity and interest in me as a surgeon, that I’m no longer in a position to accept their offer.

Hitting send, I know they’ll be angry but I don’t really care about setting fire to that particular bridge because if it’s on fire, Jensen can’t make me cross it.

My only hope is that word of my flakiness gets around and other hospitals stop extending job offers.

Because Barrett is my home.

Jensen is my home and I’m not going anywhere.

Closing out my email, I gather my bag and make my way back to Orton Redford’s room, stopping by the nurse’s station for a quick update on his condition.

Satisfied that his progress is moving in the right direction, I check the time.

It’s just before 8:30. I’ve been gone just shy of an hour now.

We should be able to get back to the Mill before Jensen wakes up.

The fact that he hasn’t called me yet to ask me where the hell I am is proof enough that he's still sleeping.

Knocking softly, I push the door open to find River and Reese talking quietly, their heads bent together while they whisper. When they hear me, their heads come up and they both go silent, looking at me with a mixture of amusement and guilt.

“We’ve got to get going, Riv,” I say quietly, choosing to ignore the fact that they’re obviously talking about me. “If we don’t get back?—”

“Jen will skin us both.” Giving Reese a brief told ya so smile, River stands, swirling the ice in her watered down mocha. “I’ll try to come back by later,” she tells Reese while she moves toward the door. “Wake that useless brother of yours and make him take a shift—you need to sleep.”

“I’m not sleeping until the asshole who stabbed my dad is either dead or in handcuffs,” Reese says, shooting me a quick, guarded look. She undoubtedly knows that the asshole who stabbed her dad is my ex-fiancé.

Feeling like I need to apologize for some reason, I step forward, shaking my head on a sigh. “Reese?—”

“You saved my father’s life.” Knowing exactly where I’m going, Reese stops me before I can say it. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Okay.” Giving her a head bob, I take a step back so River can pass through the open doorway and into the hall. “But maybe call Colt and ask him to take over watch for a few hours. You’re no good to your father if you’re exhausted.”

“Colt’s got enough on his plate,” Reese tells me with a tired smile. “I’ll be okay, Doc. I’ll call Cade and his base-ball bat to take over if I start getting loopy.”

Even though I know she won’t, I give her another head bob, just as I let the door glide closed between us.

“She won’t call Cade,” River says on our way to the skybridge. “She won’t call anyone.”

“I know,” I say on a laugh while digging my badge out of my bag. “I may not know her very well but from what I do know, she’s as stubborn as the day is long.”

“After everything that happened with her mom, I can’t really blame her,” River says while she digs around in her own bag.

Pulling out her cellphone, she scrolls through it with a flat smile.

“From what I heard, Red kinda fell apart after his wife died and Billy’s always been.

.. Billy. She’s kinda the glue that holds them all together.

” Finding what she’s looking for, she hits send and lifts the phone to her ear while I swipe my badge to access the skybridge.

“Hey Cal, it’s River,” she says behind me while I push the door open and make my way through it and into the parking garage.

“I’m at the hospital—” There’s a pause in her conversation and even from where I am, several yards ahead of her, I can hear a deep, rumbly male voice chastising her on the other end of the phone.

“You said if I went anywhere alone . I’m not alone—” More rumbly chastising.

“I’m with Sloane. Sloane —yes, the doctor.

No, don’t do that. We’re already on our way home.

I just called to ask you if you’d come here and sit with Red.

Reese is being stub—” Spotting my car at the end of the row, I reach my hand into my bag for my keys, just as I hear River drop her coffee cup, the echo of it ricocheting around the parking garage like a gunshot.

Hand still buried in my bag, I turn around to find her about six feet behind me, coffee cup broken, ice and watered down coffee flooding the concrete between us, running like a river from her feet to mine.

Ethan is standing next to her, a gun dug into her side, a cruel smile aimed in my direction. “Good morning, sweetheart... where you off to in such a hurry?”