Private Partners (Doctors in Training 2)

“As if you’d let me. Please, let me handle this. I really appreciate your help tonight, but I can take it from here. I’ll call if I need anything else, I promise.”

He argued a few more minutes, but Anne was resolute. She escorted him out with reminders that it was late and that her mother would be worried if her dad didn’t get home soon.

Liam waited until he heard the door close, then another couple of minutes just to be sure Easton was gone.

“Liam?” Anne opened the bedroom door, both looking and sounding weary. “I’m sorry about that. I barely had time to get a text message to you without alerting Dad what I was doing.”

“No problem. I heard most of what you said. What happened to your car?”

“It died,” she answered simply, spreading her hands. “Just sputtered and quit at a traffic light. I couldn’t get it restarted. Dad thinks it’s serious. He had it towed to his mechanic, who will look at it tomorrow and give me an estimate.”

“You called your dad?” Liam tried to keep his tone neutral.

“Yeah. Like I said, I was stranded at an intersection. I’m just glad there weren’t many other cars there at that hour. The ones that passed by were able to go around me. A couple of people stopped as if to help, but I waved them on. Fortunately, Dad arrived quickly, so I didn’t have to sit there long.”

“It never occurred to you to call me?”

A small frown creased her brow. “I’m sorry. Were you worried because I was so late?”

“I didn’t mean you should have called me to tell me you’d been delayed,” he answered impatiently. “I was asking why you didn’t call me to come get you. To help you with the car problem.”

He could tell by the rather blank look on her face that the idea had never even occurred to her. “I guess I just thought automatically about my dad because he had his mechanic look at the car a couple of months ago when I had some problems with it. He arranged tonight for a tow truck to take the car back to the same mechanic to find out how extensive the damage is this time.”

“I see.”

Anne looked at him with confusion in her eyes. “Liam, are you actually annoyed that I called my father instead of you?”

“Your daddy instead of your husband, you mean?”

Maybe that came out a little snippy. Anne planted her hands on her hips and tipped her head, her eyes narrowing. “And just what was that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged. “I’m just saying. It seems a little odd that you’d call him, especially knowing you’d be lectured the whole time you were with him. And even though by having him bring you home, you were taking a risk that he might notice something that would make him suspicious about us.”

“I knew you would stay out of sight when I sent you the message. I wasn’t too worried about Dad seeing anything.”

She seemed to be worrying less and less about her family discovering their secret. Was she getting overconfident—or was there a part of her that almost hoped they would be found out? “I still think you should be more careful. I’d have come for you, and I’d have helped you get the car towed. Your family wouldn’t have had to even know about it until you got around to telling them.”

“I know you would have been happy to help. It’s just that Dad has always helped me when I had car problems, so I guess it was simply out of habit that I called him tonight.”

“It’s that sort of habit that keeps you under your family’s thumbs,” Liam muttered. Even he didn’t quite understand why it stung him so much that Anne hadn’t even thought to turn to him when she’d had a problem. Maybe he had more male ego than he’d realized, especially when it came to his wife.

And if he didn’t shut up, he was going to end up sleeping on the couch tonight like the stereotypical husband in the doghouse, he thought with a wince as Anne’s face flushed with anger. Judging by the glint in her eyes, he’d be lucky if he didn’t end up sleeping on the sidewalk.

“I am not under my family’s thumbs,” she said, very slowly and deliberately. “I live on my savings and my student loans. I pay my own bills and make my own way. Perhaps I ask my family for advice or minor assistance occasionally, but that doesn’t mean I am dependent on them. I could have arranged my own tow tonight, if necessary, and found my own way home, but I knew Dad wouldn’t mind helping out.”

“Damn it, Anne, you should be letting me help you. Let me pay for the repairs or buy you a new car. We’re married. My money is your money.”

“I don’t see it that way,” she replied defensively. “Especially since no one even knows about our marriage. I don’t need my family to take care of me—and I don’t need you to do so, either. Considering how rarely you’re even in the same country, I’d say it’s a good thing I can take care of myself.”

That little barb hit its target. Liam shoved a hand through the hair he’d chopped so he could spend time with her. “You knew when we married that my job would involve this much travel. You said you didn’t mind, that you would be too busy with medical school to spend much time with me, anyway.”

“And that’s still true,” she said, though her tone was rather flat. “So don’t blame me for not being in the habit of calling you for assistance with the kind of minor issues that occur in my regular routines here.”

“I’m not blaming you,” he muttered, conflicted emotions tangling inside him. “I just don’t understand why you complain about your family’s interference in your life and then you choose to turn to them when you have a problem. Every time you’re around them, you come home looking even more pressured, but you still go back to them whenever they summon you.”

“They’re my family. I love them. And they love me.” She shook her head in apparent exasperation as she snapped her response. “Just because you weren’t close to your parents doesn’t mean I should become estranged from mine.”

Maybe something showed in his face that he didn’t intend to let her see.