“I swear,” he muttered, “you enjoy the tidying more than the sex.

I was down on my hands and knees, trying to reach the last kidney bowl, so I whacked him playfully on the leg. The truth was, I was feeling a lot less obsessed with order. A little chaos had done me good. And I’d never look at an operating table the same way again. I took his offered hand and he hauled me to my feet, pulling me up as if I weighed nothing.

And then he just stood there, my hand clasped in his, staring down at me. “What?” I asked quietly.

He closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them again, the pain I saw there made my chest ache. But it was different, now. He wasn’t burying the pain any longer, hiding it away behind cocky arrogance. He was open.

He was ready.

“It was my fault,” he said.

And he told me about the night he lost everything.

47

Dominic

WE SAT SIDE BY SIDE on the operating table and I stared at the shadow we cast on the wall, my big form next to her much smaller one. I spoke mechanically, trying to reduce everything to simple facts that wouldn’t hurt. But each piece of memory was a razor-edged slice of that night that felt like it was cutting my throat. “We were living in Chicago. I was a resident at a hospital, Chrissy was a kindergarten teacher. Rachel was six, obsessed with ballet. I’d just finished my shift, called Chrissy to tell her I was on my way. But then….” The words seemed to thicken and stick to my tongue.

“A trauma came in,” said Beckett.

I glanced across at her. She understood me. She understood how I was wired. “A trauma came in,” I confirmed. I took a deep breath. “I could have let someone else take it. We weren’t that busy. But it was a family. Kids. And….” My throat closed up.

“And you felt like it was your responsibility.”

I closed my eyes and nodded. Kept them closed as I told her the next part. I could almost hear the buzz of the ER around me. “I didn’t call Chrissy because I knew she’d be pissed. I kept thinking, five more minutes. But we couldn’t get the mother breathing and one of the kids was bleeding into their chest. By the time I finally got everything sorted, I was an hour late.” I swallowed, the glowing scarlet numbers of the ER clock clear in my memory. “Seven fifty-seven,” I rasped. “That’s what time it was when I ran out the door.”

I still had my eyes closed. I felt her hand cover mine, so delicate and graceful next to my big, clumsy paw. It felt cool against the back of my hand, calming me. “When I got home, the house was dark,” I said. I was still trying to break it down into the facts, but, as I lifted each one towards the surface, the pain welled up underneath, threatening to rush up and drown me. “I thought maybe Chrissy had taken Rachel out for dinner, but her car was there. I knock: no reply. I unlock the door and call for them. Nothing. Maybe the car wouldn’t start and they got a cab. So I—”

I stopped and couldn’t start again. It was like I’d hit a wall: my lips refused to form the next word. I could feel my feet sinking into the soft carpet Chrissy had chosen, could feel the wallpaper, smooth under my fingertips as I fumbled my way along the wall. I was there. And I couldn’t bear to describe what I was feeling.

Then there was a pressure against my side. Beckett was leaning into me, pressing herself tightly against me from her hip all the way up to the top of her head, lending me her strength. And it worked.

“I was already halfway down the hall when it sunk in how dark it was. The light switch was back by the front door and I’m stubborn.” I opened my eyes and glanced at her again, trying to lighten things. “You know how stubborn I am.” I gave her a weak grin, but she just looked right back at me, caring but serious, determined to help. She wasn’t going to let me sidetrack.

I nodded and carried on. “I wasn’t going to walk back to the door, so I kept going, heading for the living room. But just as I get to the doorway, my foot hits something and I nearly trip. I think maybe Rachel’s left her coat on the floor again, but it’s too heavy. And then... and then a car passes by the house.” I still had my eyes open, but I could see the scene in my head, could see the white light wash across the carpet and catch the edges of the dark shape. “And I could see it was a body. And I feel along the wall and find the light switch.... and I can’t fucking press it.” The dark pain I’d been suppressing for years with women and booze and danger swarmed up my body, crushing my chest with its cold. My voice cracked. “I stand there and inside I’m screaming at myself: get the light on. But there’s a part of me that—that already knows. That saw enough, from the headlights, that it knows who it is on the floor and what I’m going to find.”

Tags: Helena Newbury Romance
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