Healing The Md's Heart. Nicole Foster

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СКАЧАТЬ I’m going to start him on intravenous antibiotics. He may have had those before, if he’s had other infections.”

      His eyes on Noah, Duran nodded. More hospital time, more treatments that would only buy a temporary respite, not the permanent answer Noah needed. “I should never have brought him along.”

      “It wouldn’t have made any difference. The infection’s been going on for a couple of days, at least, probably since before you left L.A., and it would have been worse for him if he’d been sick while you were gone. At least here you and Noah are together and you’ve got—” she looked lost for an appropriate word, settling on “—family you can rely on to help.”

      “I’m not quite ready to consider them family and whether or not I can rely on them remains to be seen.”

      “You can—rely on them, I mean. I’ve known four of them for years, and they’re all good guys.”

      He noticed she deliberately avoided referring to them as his brothers, perhaps because of his comment wary of acknowledging a blood link between him and the others. “You don’t seem surprised to find out Garrett’s got two more sons.”

      “Not really,” she said. “Jed’s five sons here were by four different women, and the oldest one he didn’t even acknowledge until a few months ago. I’d have been more surprised if it had turned out the five of them were the only children he fathered.”

      Duran shook his head, not yet ready to learn any more about what was obviously a convoluted family tree. “Noah wants to meet them all. When I explained to him why I was coming here, that I had found out I had more family than just his grandparents, that’s all he could talk about.” He lightly stroked his hand over his son’s tousled hair. “He’s lonely, with just him and me, and because he’s been sick for so long. My ex-wife’s family decided that he and I didn’t exist after Amber left me. So the idea of having more family is exciting—to him. But he doesn’t have to think about the consequences.”

      “That one of them might not be a match?”

      “That they might not care about knowing him, or that it’s all temporary. We stay here for a while and then he never sees them again.”

      Suddenly, Duran felt tired, drained by the emotional roller-coaster ride he’d been on for what seemed like years now. He heard himself, a damning echo in his head, admitting Noah was dying and all the fear, grief and worry he’d been shouldering alone for so many months welled up in him, tearing at his control.

      Turning away from the sympathy in Lia’s eyes, he leaned his hands on the back of a chair, head bowed, struggling to regain his composure. There was a pause, a whisper of sound and then a gentle hand touched his shoulder.

      “You’re doing everything you can,” she said softly.

      “It hasn’t been enough so far, what if it isn’t enough now?”

      “Then you keep trying. Because even if it isn’t enough, that’s all you can do.”

      If it wasn’t enough, it would break him. There would be no compromises with his emotions, no comfort in telling himself he’d done his best. “I can’t let that happen,” he said, but instead of coming out as clear, hard resolve, it sounded desperate, already cracked with sorrow.

      “Duran—” Lia reached around and laid her hand against his jaw, turning him to face her. Whatever she saw in his expression prompted her to abandon what she intended to say and before he understood, he was in her arms, she was holding him or he was holding her, and it didn’t matter because it had been so long since he shared the burden, that giving even a little of it up, for however short a time, was like being able to breathe again.

      The moment stretched into many, into time he couldn’t measure, before the comfort she offered and he grasped at became too much to accept and he very carefully pulled out of her embrace. Still within touching distance, they stood looking at each other and for the first time, he saw her as a woman and not the doctor who’d stepped in to help a stranger in need. She was barely to his shoulder, on the thin side of slender, and there was a delicacy about her, as if she were finely made and vulnerable to the rigors of life. Her dark red hair was gilded with copper and gold in the dim light, her eyes an unusual shade of light brown. He might have, at first glance, dismissed her as merely decorative, with little substance, except he had felt the strength in her hands, seen the intelligence and empathy in her eyes, been touched by her warmth even when he thought himself immune.

      She accepted his study for a minute or two and then dropped her eyes and took an uncertain step back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

      “Don’t be.” Duran resisted the urge to reach out to her, to reassure her that she’d misinterpreted his moving away from her; he’d been alone for so long it had become habit to throw up his defenses when he was most vulnerable. “I appreciate everything you’ve done so far. You’ve gone way out of your way to help us.”

      “Yes, well, that is my job,” she said briskly. She avoided eye contact with him and busied herself taking Noah’s temperature again. “I’ll have the nurse check him again in a couple of hours. If there’s no change, then we’ll start the IV. But we’ll keep our fingers crossed he won’t need it this time. I’ll be back first thing in the morning, unless there’s a problem before then.”

      For some reason, her determined return to professional detachment irritated him. It felt jarringly out of place, though by all rights, it shouldn’t have. “Does this mean I have to start calling you Dr. Kerrigan again?”

      “You haven’t called me anything,” she said. A slight smile touched her mouth, bringing back a whisper of the warmth. “At least out loud.”

      “Okay, Lia,” he said deliberately. “Then we’ll see you in the morning.”

      This time the smile blossomed. “Count on it.”

      Lia left the hospital, her body tired, but thoughts and emotions too unsettled to let her rest. It was late, nearly ten, but the notion of going home and confessing her sins to her elderly cat didn’t appeal. Instead, she decided to stop by Morente’s and see if Nova could spare half an hour for a glass of wine.

      She and Nova Vargas—six months now Mrs. Alex Tréjos—had been friends for a decade, ever since Lia had come to Luna Hermosa as a young intern and decided to make it home. Nova had been waitressing at the local diner—they’d met the first time Lia, new in town, came in search of a serious caffeine transfusion—and almost from the first they’d started a ritual, Lia sticking around after the diner closed, the two of them having coffee or a drink, sharing grievances and confidences. Since last year, when Nova had taken over managing the upscale Morente’s and then in February, had married the local middle-school principal, they’d had less time together. But they both resolved to keep their weekly ritual, even if it meant an hour in Nova’s office, sharing a margarita and whatever chocolate dessert was left over from the kitchen.

      “Hey, girl, I didn’t expect to see you here tonight,” Nova greeted her with a hug before stepping back to give Lia a critical once-over. “I thought you were going to go home and actually relax for once.”

      “I was, but something came up.”

      “I hope he was tall, dark and gorgeous.”

      “He is, but he comes packaged with a short, dark and cute one,” Lia said, smiling when Nova’s mouth pulled up in an expression СКАЧАТЬ