Butterfly Bayou (Butterfly Bayou 1)

“I don’t need you to fit with anyone but me.”

It was a lovely thought. “You’re an elected official. I don’t think it’s going to help you to be associated with me.”

He chuckled, his whole body moving. “I’d love to see them bring someone else in to run against me. No one wants my job. No one wants to deal with the crazies, I assure you.”

“They’re not so crazy.” It felt good to be here with him, too good. “I never thought I would be here. I actually was very against my sister marrying Remy and moving here.”

Armie chuckled. “As you should have been. Have you met his family? Sera is okay, but Zep keeps an overnight bag at the station house because he’s in jail so much, and I swear Delphine Dellacourt Guidry is a con artist of the highest order. She’s worked some kooky schemes with Miss Marcelle. Makes us all crazy.”

“It wasn’t about that. I didn’t think he was good enough for her.”

“He’s definitely not.”

“I’m being serious.”

“No, you’re piling on and you’re trying to put up walls I have to climb over to get to you because you’re afraid you’ve done bad shit in the past, which means you don’t deserve to have a man as sexy, smart, and unbelievable as me.”

She snorted, a completely unsexy sound, but she couldn’t help it. “Think a lot of yourself, huh?” But he wasn’t necessarily wrong. He was all the things he’d said he was and she was definitely scared of falling in deep with him. “I was just pointing out that there are reasons I don’t fit in here.”

“Give it time. You’ll fit in nicely once people get used to the idea of you. Folks around here don’t like change because change is almost always a bad thing for them. You’re a good thing. It’ll all be okay.”

She wasn’t sure about that. Today had been out of the norm. “Even as I was stabilizing Janice today she told me she wouldn’t come back. She actually said to me she wouldn’t go to a female doctor. She told me she remembered how she’d been when she used to have periods and she wasn’t about to risk it.”

He chuckled again, the deep sound soothing. “Janice is a character. And I think she’ll come around because you definitely made a believer of Hallie.”

“It was one day. They’ll forget. Something else will happen and they’ll forget about it and I’ll be the new girl again.” She was afraid she could live here for twenty years and she’d always be the new girl. Her sister was far better at fitting in than she was.

His big body moved and suddenly he was rolling on top of her. His eyes gleamed in the moonlight as he reached out and pinned her arms over her head. His body weighed her down deliciously, making her sink into the bed. “That’s where you’re wrong. That’s where you don’t understand this town. Nothing else will happen. Not for a long time, and people here have good memories. They don’t go from one crisis to the next because there are almost no crises to be had. What happened today will be talked about for years. Likely as long as you live. You’ll be the woman who saved four people.”

“Only three.”

“Oh, I think Hallie would disagree. I think she would say you saved her life today, too.”

It hit her all at once. She was used to being in an ER, being in a trauma situation, but she wasn’t used to being alone. She’d been in the field before, but she’d always been support. She hadn’t been one hundred percent in charge. She could have lost that baby or her grandma. One wrong call and she could have lost a man who was in the prime of his life.

It had all been on her. Every second of the fallout from that accident had been on her.

“It’s all right, chère. Cry. You need it. You deserve it. You got through it all and you performed magnificently. Now let the pressure go. Let it out. You’re safe now.”

It welled up, a volcano she’d thought was dormant. The day flashed through her, the sights and sounds, the knowledge of the edge she played on. One wrong move. Only one wrong word from her mouth and the day would have ended differently. Lives would have been changed.

The tears flowed freely. “I could have killed them. It’s every nurse’s fear. Every medical professional’s. That we’ll make the wrong call and have to live with it forever. When you’re in an ER, it’s easier to distance, but I won’t be able to do that here.”

He shook his head and his eyes shone in the dimly lit room. “No, you won’t. You’ll eventually know these people and you’ll feel every death. It won’t matter if someone dies from old age or in an accident. You’ll feel it, Lila, and it will be the single best thing that ever happened to you because it will mean you cared, you loved. The pain is going to be worth it because they will love you, too, if you’re patient enough.”