Healing The Md's Heart. Nicole Foster

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ euphoria of hearing Sawyer was a match was dispelling, leaving in its wake all-too-familiar fears. At the hospital all he could feel was hope. After even a few short hours of mulling things over, letting the news sink in, reason declared war on blind optimism.

      He distanced himself from the raging conflict of emotions, not willing to air them to his brothers, and simply answered Cort with a noncommittal, “So I’ve heard.”

      Cort stopped what he was doing and laid a hand on Duran’s shoulder. Duran tensed, but it didn’t seem to discourage Cort. “You’ll find out. Josh told me the great news about Sawyer.”

      “It is good news,” Duran said, thinking how inadequate his words were compared to his feelings. “I’m still a little overwhelmed, I guess.”

      “I can see why. But you’ve got the best pediatrician in town on your team.” Both men turned to catch Lia a few feet away throwing one long, slender leg over her mount. “And she’s not a half-bad horsewoman either.”

      Lia, not knowing they were talking about her, threaded the reins through her fingers. “Where are your girls and your little boy today?” she called over to Cort.

      “Quin had a playdate and the girls are at ballet. Angela would have gladly skipped it to come riding, but Laurel wouldn’t hear of it. That’s what they get for having a teacher for a mother. Laurel would consider it an insult to another teacher to let her daughter ditch class.”

      “Too bad for them,” Tommy said, slanting a grin at Anna. “They’re gonna be jealous we got to go.”

      Cort gave Tommy a stern look. “No rubbing it in or next time you’ll be sitting in on ballet class.”

      The threat made Noah giggle. “That would be way funny.”

      “Ha, ha,” Tommy shot back.

      Finishing Tommy’s stirrups, Cort turned back to Duran. “I know you keep hearing this, but anything Laurel and I can do—” he paused “—anything at all. We’re here.”

      “I told him he was stuck with us,” Josh added as he lifted Noah onto Peggy’s back. He gave Noah a quick lesson on how to steady himself and stay upright, then swung into the saddle of his own mount.

      Duran appreciated the gesture; he still couldn’t believe how readily and easily his brothers had accepted him, Noah and their situation. It almost seemed too good to be true, and a big part of him feared it was. While none of his brothers had said or done anything to justify his doubts yet, he had long abandoned the habit of relying on anyone else for support or comfort.

       And that’s why you keep spilling everything to Lia? Because you don’t share, you don’t rely on anyone?

      He caught her watching him and the slight questioning expression on her face made him wonder what she’d read in his. Shaking off his introspection, he looked between Cort and Josh and said, “I don’t know how to thank you, all of you.”

      “By helpin’ us get these kids to the pond.” Josh pointed to a wooded area to the east. “We’ll keep it to a walk, since it’s your first time, Noah.”

      “Can we go already?” Noah insisted, wriggling excitedly in his saddle.

      Duran watched his eager son, reins in hand, looking as comfortable and confident on Peggy as a boy who’d grown up on a ranch. “Stay close to Dr. Kerrigan and me, okay?”

      “Tommy, you and Anna keep an eye on Noah, same as you do with Angela,” Cort called after his son, who’d already taken the group’s lead.

      Tommy waved him off over his shoulder and let out an exaggerated sigh. “I know, I know.”

      “Don’t worry,” Josh said, “Noah will be fine. Peggy’s real good with kids and she knows her way to the pond. All Noah’s gotta do is hold on.”

      Wanting to believe Josh, Duran nodded, but the protective father in him wouldn’t rest easy again until Peggy was back in the barn and Noah was safely on solid ground.

      Once started in the right direction, the group of them fell into a comfortable pattern, the kids riding a little ahead, he and Lia side by side behind them, Cort and Josh bringing up the rear. Duran began to relax a bit, soak in the sun and breathtaking high country scenery. It was then he was finally able to focus his attention on Lia.

      She fairly glowed beneath the afternoon sun, her hair threaded with a thousand different highlights of copper and gold, her cheeks flushed soft pink, a slight smile curving her lips as she savored the air fragrant with pinion and sage.

      “You ride well,” he said, taking note of the curve of her backside and thighs beneath slim jeans as her body rose and fell in harmony with her horse’s rhythm.

      “Me? No, hardly,” she said with a chuckle. “I’ve never had time to pursue it as a sport or a hobby. Medical school, then my practice pretty much precluded getting good at any sports.”

      “You could have fooled me. You ride like a natural.”

      “You’re not doing so badly yourself for someone not used to a horse.”

      They smiled at each other. “I haven’t fallen off yet, so I guess that’s progress. I have to admit, this is a nice change. My preferred mode of transport is my bicycle. In California, I hardly use a car. Now that Noah is old enough to ride with me, when he’s feeling up to it, we bike everywhere together.”

      “What a great thing to do together. Did you grow up riding bikes a lot?”

      Nodding, Duran remembered his childhood fondly. “Yeah, my dad got me into it. We used to spend endless hours messing around in the garage, building bikes, taking them apart, getting new components and rebuilding them. He ran sort of a neighborhood bike shop out of our garage.” He glanced over to Lia, noticing she had a distant look in her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m boring you.”

      Lia’s horse sneezed and shook all over. She bent and stroked his neck. “Almost to the pond, where you can take a rest under a shady tree,” she soothed. Slowly, she turned toward Duran, a strangely solemn look on her face. “You’re not boring me at all,” she answered softly. “I’m imagining what it must have been like growing up with parents who spent so much time with you, and thinking how lucky Noah is to have such a devoted father.”

      The few things she’d said, the old pain underlying her words, made him wonder, yet hesitant to ask directly about her childhood. It might be something she wasn’t comfortable talking about with him. But curiosity got the best of him and he asked straight out, “I get the impression you aren’t that close to your parents.”

      Lia laughed, but it was a brittle sound, without joy. “That would be the understatement of the century. I spent very little time with my parents. They were far too occupied messing up their lives to waste time trying to improve ours. I taught myself to ride a bike, finally, out of embarrassment at being the last kid on the block to learn, at about Noah’s age. I fell so many times, my knees still have scars. Neither of my parents had time to help me. Between work, destroying their marriage, divorce, remarriage, boyfriends and girlfriends, kids were mostly an inconvenient blip in their social schedules.”

      Duran could barely conceive that kind of life, although he wasn’t naive enough to think it didn’t exist. He’d been lucky. Compared to his stable, СКАЧАТЬ