Page 10

Eight

SCOTT ABSOLUTELY KNEW you didn’t ask women their age. It wasn’t a mistake he’d ever made, fortunately, since his mother had taught him manners as a child, but with some quick math, he could make an educated guess.

A bit younger than him, but not as young as he’d initially assumed, given her air of delicate vulnerability.

When she abruptly spun toward him, eyes wide and breath catching, he struggled to read her reaction. She’d talked the whole way down here, but she’d yet to say anything about his visit, though her words to Jimmy, upstairs, seemed to imply she appreciated it.

“I don’t know what to say,” she gasped, the words tumbling over themselves as she raced to speak them. “It’s so much for you to have done this. The jerseys, the footballs...”

Scott shook his head. “It really wasn’t anything. We always keep boxes of stuff lying around, especially all the leftovers from last season, to give away like this. The team likes the publicity. I just made some calls.”

Abby snorted, the wildness slowly fading from her face. “I’m sure the hospital appreciates the publicity, too.”

Scott paused, weighed his words, then continued. “Dylan had his appointment with Dr. Hastings last week. I explained how I wanted to help, too. Like you do. You... inspire me.”

Abby’s eyes widened, then the corners of her lips fell, and her voice turned flat. “I’m no one’s inspiration, believe me.”

She turned away, but Scott caught her arm. “Hey, I mean it. What you do here? It matters to these kids. To their parents. It’s important work.” She didn’t move, but tension hummed through her frame, stiff and unyielding beneath his touch.

He waited. Most people appreciated a compliment, even if they wouldn’t accept it, demurring with false humility, or shrugging it off. Abby, though, didn’t do either. She seemed genuinely hurt by his words. His brows knitted as he studied her, trying to unravel her mysteries.

Her eyes shimmered as she answered him fiercely, “No, what matters is the doctors who heal them. The research they need to destroy the things that are killing them. What Gen and I do? It’s not enough. It will never be enough.” Her breath hitched, speeding up.

Abby’s words were layered with weight, with meaning Scott couldn’t grasp, and he negotiated his way through them, trying to find the missing piece. It eluded him, so instead he reached for her hand. “You may not be able to heal their bodies, but you heal something even more important: their souls.”

She wrenched away, pain pinching her features.

Why couldn’t she understand the value in her work?

Why had she quit as an EMT if she truly believed nothing mattered as much as healing the body?

It didn’t make sense. She didn’t make sense, and no matter how he turned it over, like a jeweler holding a gem to the light, he couldn’t understand why the facade refracted strangely.

She reminded him of a confused defensive line; trying to make meaning out of meaninglessness and everyone ended up out of step.

The low rush of the creek filled the echoing space around them, the leaves rustling in the slight breeze, and a chickadee chirped in a tree.

She crossed her arms, tucking her hands close to her body until she stood stiff and still.

The silence spooled out between them. Her eyes flitted to the trees, the glittering stones in the pavers beneath their feet, past his ear, then darted away again.

“Who’s Will?” The words were out before he could call them back and she jerked.

Her jaw tightened as her teeth ground together, and Scott shivered at the sound, like nails on a chalkboard. Her eyes turned hard, boring into his with fire and fury as she hissed, “Where did you hear that name?”

He lurched an involuntary step back. “Dr. Hastings mentioned it. We were talking about why I switched Dylan to his office, and he said you’d never liked Dr. Cunningham. Not since... Something about an internship?”

“Tom’s always been an ass.” Her face twisted with her bitter tone.

“He’s only ever been in it for the money, the prestige.

He’s never cared about helping people. He wants to be the most important person in the room, and if anyone doesn’t think he is.

.. Well, he’s small-minded and petty enough to make sure they regret it.

The Board saw through him, though. And he never got over it. ”

Scott nodded. Paused. “And Will?”

She froze, not breathing for a long second, then two, then three, until her chest heaved wildly on a ragged inhale. She closed her eyes, her lips moving with silent words.

Scott saw the exact moment she got herself back under control; her breathing steadied, her lips stilled, her eyes opened again, flat and remote. “He was my husband.”

A bare whisper of sound, little more than the susurrating breeze, and he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly, at first. Then, she continued in a louder voice, but one devoid of emotion, reciting facts, clinical.

“He died. Three years ago. He was a pediatric oncologist—a cancer doctor for children.”

“Here?”

She nodded.

The missing piece slotted into place. It explained her deep ties to this hospital, to these kids. It explained why she believed only the doctors—the researchers—mattered in the long run.

“I’m so sorry, Abby.”

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” She said this in the same, dead voice. Rote. Memorized.

“What happened? Or do you not want to talk about it?” Scott cringed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be insensitive. You don’t have to answer.”

She wandered away a few steps. Her hands clenched and unclenched, turning over each other.

“He’d been working late, trying to finish up a paper before the publishing deadline.

A drunk driver ran a stop sign and clipped his bumper, spinning him over the edge of a ditch and into a tree.

He was thrown...” Her breath stuttered again, but she swallowed and continued, voice steadying as she spoke, the distant, clinical tone returning.

“He went through the driver’s window. When we got there, the police were already on scene, directing us toward the victim.

We could barely see anything through the pouring rain, but his head.

.. There was blood everywhere, and there had been significant cranial trauma, as well as multiple limb fractures. ”

“Wait, we ? Oh, my God. You were there?”

Abby nodded, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper and tears flooded her eyes. “I didn’t see the car. I didn’t... I didn’t recognize... him. I thought it even then: I’ve never seen an accident this bad. He’s not going to make it. And he didn’t. He died a few hours later.”

“But you were with him, right?” Scott found himself wishing it. For her sake, he couldn’t imagine she might not have been.

“I was, yeah. They called me, once they ID’ed him. It took a while, but I made it at the end.” She coughed, a short, bitter sound. “First to treat him, first to say goodbye.”

“I don’t even know what to say. That’s why you quit being an EMT. That’s why you don’t drink.” They weren’t questions.

“Yeah. I couldn’t go back to work. I could barely leave the house.”

She stood, fingers plucking at the seams of her shirt, looking lost and forlorn.

He wanted to hug her, pull her into him and hide her from the world, from her grief and pain.

Would she let him? She’d been so careful.

Kept some distance between them. But had that changed?

Sharing such a deep part of her soul, would she let him comfort her?

“I’d like to hug you.” The words were awkward. They seemed silly out in the open, now. But she huffed a short breath through her nose.

“I could probably use a hug.”

He moved toward her, slowly, and opened his arms. She stepped into them, forehead falling against his chest, her breaths shuddering through her frame. After a few moments, the whipcord tension of her body softened.

Scott had no words. What could you say to such a story? It explained so much about Abby, and yet, at the same time, it left so many questions unanswered. Where had Gen come from? Was she even interested in dating at all, never mind dating him? Did she think him some kind of jerk for pursuing her?

He cleared his throat. “Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have pushed before. When we had coffee.”

She stepped away, restoring some space between them, but the distance didn’t feel like a wall between them, anymore. “It’s fine. I had fun. I hadn’t been out with anyone in a long time. You made it...easy, I guess. Or like it could be easy.”

“Then I’m glad.” There wasn’t much else to say.

She pressed her lips together. “C’mon, we should get back.”

They arrived to find the foam balls still flying. Gen, flopped on the floor at Cara’s feet and surrounded by several children, had the shredded remains of innumerable footballs between her front paws as she gnawed the nose of another one.

“Here.” Scott dug through one of the boxes and pulled out a gift bag, black with a silver raptor, glittering strands of silver rickrack erupting over the top and trailing down the sides. He handed it to Abby.

Digging beneath the decorative layer, Abby pulled out two rolls of cloth.

She shook them out to discover a pair of jerseys, but they were different from those the kids had been given.

One, in her size, had the Raptor’s symbol on the sleeves, but whereas the children’s shirts had double zeroes and the team’s name, hers had Scott’s number—seven—and his last name emblazoned across the back.

The other, much smaller, took Abby a moment to recognize.

“For Gen?”

Scott nodded as Abby held it out to the dog to sniff.

She unclipped Gen’s working jacket and slipped the dog-sized jersey over her head.

Gen nipped at the loose fabric a few times, then flopped back to the floor, taking up one of the masticated footballs between her paws and trying to find an unchewed part.

“Thank you.” Abby smiled up at Scott.

“Well, I don’t know if you’re much of a sports fan, but maybe you could wear it on game days.”

Cara giggled. “You have no idea. She can probably quote the Raptors’ stats from last season better than you.”

“Shut up, Cara.”

Scott turned toward Abby and the flash of pink across her cheekbones caught his attention before she could duck her head into the jersey, hands smoothing it down over her shirt.

“I love it. And I’ll definitely wear it on game days.

But only if you promise to hit a passer rating of over a hundred this year.

Last year, you were hell on my Fantasy score, and Livins got traded to Miami this year, so you won’t have anyone to pick up your uncatchable throws .

” She used air quotes, her derisive tone a categorical judgment of what the commentators deemed acceptable.

His jaw dropped while Cara’s peals of laughter echoed down the hall.

A moment later, he allowed himself a chuckle, running through the other above-one-hundred quarterbacks in the league and considering himself in good company if he could match them.

Over a hundred would be a good goal, considering he’d broken ninety-five last year.

“Yes ma’am.”

The elevator dinged and several more people disembarked onto the pediatric floor, cameras and note pads in hand.

Scott grimaced. “Ah, the press corps. Like I said, the team loves this kind of publicity.”

Linda, the head nurse, came out from behind the counter and smirked at Scott. “Don’t you worry yourself, darling, the hospital loves this kind of publicity, too.”

“I, on the other hand, do not.” Abby eased away.

“But you’re the whole reason we’re here,” Scott reminded her.

“Inspiration, darling. It’s a powerful thing,” Linda added. “As are all those donor dollars we’ll get when the pictures hit the internet. You want to deprive the kids of that money?”

Abby shuffled her feet a moment, twirling her ponytail, then sighed. “Fine. For the kids.”