Tender to His Touch. Adrianne Byrd

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СКАЧАТЬ nothing wrong with him and kept referring him back to his cardiologist. All the while, Mr. Johnson’s condition grew worse and worse. When he finally passed away, the autopsy showed that he had a lot of blockages in his arteries and his poor heart just gave out. There were so many of them that it was just unexplainable how Dr. Stewart had missed the obvious.

      What did it say about the state of the health-care system when doctors were just too busy to do their jobs?

      The phone chirped.

      Lucius glanced up, annoyed to have had his concentration broken. He punched the speakerphone button. “Yeah?”

      “Mr. Gray, I have your wife on line one.”

      He frowned. “You mean my ex-wife, don’t you, Maggie?”

      “I’m just repeating what she said.”

      Lucius drew a deep breath and pitched back into his chair. Until that moment, he hadn’t noticed how hungry he was or how tight his neck muscles had become.

      “Mr. Gray?”

      “Put her through,” he said and expelled a tired breath. In the next second the phone rang and he picked up. “What can I do for you, Erica?”

      “You haven’t been able to do anything for me in a looooonnng time,” she answered in her usual sarcastic tone.

      He rolled his eyes. “I really don’t have time to fight with you right now. So—”

      “I know. I know,” Erica huffed. “You’re working on a really important case. The story of our marriage.”

      “So you kept reminding me through the divorce.” Lucius’s office door crept open and he looked up in time to see Maggie poke her head inside. He didn’t miss the tired lines beneath her eyes or how her morning curls had wilted on her head. “Erica, hold on for a moment.” He hit the phone’s mute button without waiting for his ex-wife’s permission.

      “I’m getting ready to head out,” Maggie said. “Is there anything else you need?”

      Lucius glanced at his watch. It was well past seven o’clock. “No. I’m good. Have a good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”

      Maggie nodded and then disappeared back behind the door.

      Lucius drew a deep breath and hit the mute button again. “I’m back.”

      “I can’t bring Ruby this weekend. It’ll have to be next weekend.”

      Lucius’s grip tightened on the phone. In the five years since his divorce, he and Erica kept playing the same game with their now eight-year-old daughter—the emotional blackmail game. And now that Erica had a new man, Andrew, in her life, she seemed steadfastly determined to have this jerk take Lucius’s place. “You said that last weekend, Erica.”

      “It was true last weekend, too,” Erica snorted. “And don’t act like you’re so disappointed.”

      “I made plans,” he said, though it wasn’t exactly true. He’d planned to wing it. Maybe take Ruby to Chuck E. Cheese or a movie or something.

      “Please.” He could practically see Erica rolling her eyes. “Buying her a bunch of junk food and dragging her to your office isn’t exactly a trip to Disney World.”

      Great. She played a guilt card. “It was just that one time.”

      “Uh-huh,” she said dubiously. “Like I said, I can’t bring her this weekend. Andrew wants to take Ruby up to Boston.”

      “Boston?” Lucius barked, irritated. “What the hell is in Boston?”

      “Andrew is from Boston…and we’re going up to meet his family.”

      Silence.

      “Lucius?”

      “So…what? This relationship is getting serious?” He was surprised by his annoyance.

      “Maybe,” she hedged, her tone finally softening.

      Lucius closed his eyes and then rubbed the tension from his forehead. It wasn’t that he still harbored romantic feelings toward his ex-wife. It was more that the threat of him being replaced in Ruby’s life with another man was becoming a reality at a pace that made him more than uncomfortable. “C’mon, Erica. How long have you known this guy? Two months—three?”

      “A year,” she corrected him.

      Had a year passed that quickly?

      “Of course, if you ever pulled your head out from your…work, you’d see that life was passing you by.”

      Lucius heaved another frustrated sigh. “Can we not fight tonight? I have a headache.”

      “Fine.”

      The line fell silent, but the tension remained. Finally he said, “I don’t know if I like this.”

      Erica chuckled. “Don’t tell me that I’ve finally done something to catch your attention.”

      “Is that what this is all about—getting my attention?”

      Her laugh deepened. “Please. I’ve stopped trying to do that a long time ago. You made it perfectly clear that your work is all that matters to you.”

      “That’s not true.”

      “It feels true.” Another awkward silence drifted over the line. “I’ll bring Ruby next weekend,” she said and then disconnected the line.

      Lucius held the phone until the automated voice came on and instructed him on how to make a call. “That went well,” he mumbled under his breath. He settled back in his chair, replaying the call in his head and wishing he had handled the situation better. But what had been obvious for many years now was, point-blank, he and Erica just rubbed each other the wrong way.

      His gaze fell on a framed photograph of his precocious daughter, Ruby. He struggled to remember exactly how old she was in the picture—maybe four or five. It was an adorable picture of her with her thick black hair parted into two fat ponytails. On the day of the picture, she was so proud to show off the loss of her two front teeth. Her big quarter-size hazel eyes danced with excitement at the possibility of seeing the Tooth Fairy.

      Lucius reached over his desk and picked up the photograph. Instantly, his irritation and annoyance at Erica melted away and a broad smile broke across his face. Ruby was a perfect amalgam of him and Erica. She had his warm brown complexion and hazel eyes and Erica’s button nose and full lips. “Daddy’s little girl,” he whispered, feeling his chest swell with pride.

      Ruby Elizabeth Gray was the absolute joy of his life—despite what her mother thought. Sure, he had been thrown out of his element from time to time by tea parties with imaginary guests or playing baby dolls with dolls that actually did number one and number two. However, most of that came from the fact Lucius grew up in a family dominated by men.

      It had been a real shock to him when the doctor told him and Erica that they were going to have a girl. He didn’t СКАЧАТЬ