Drawn Deeper (17 page)

I caught two fish, but mostly I just liked watching the boys fish. They baited their hooks and tossed out their lines in the same careful, methodical way their father did.

It was a great day, though my worry about losing these three from my life was stronger when I got home. They were right for me in every way, but I was only right for them when it was just the four of us. I’d never be a part of their extended family, and family was everything to the Lockharts.

I tried not to let the worry creep up and darken my happiness. When I’d gotten the test results on my biopsy last month, I’d vowed to find joy in my life. I’d found it, and I didn’t want to let thoughts of past mistakes steal my present.

On Monday, the boys and I made spaghetti for dinner while Kyle met up with his brothers for dinner at a local bar and tap so they could finalize plans for Mason’s bachelor party.

Tuesday, I was worried about my dad again when I got over to Kyle’s place after work. Stephanie was buried in her phone in the living room while the boys swam out back, and I came close to making a comment about her not watching them.

That wasn’t my place, though. I also couldn’t be sure it wasn’t my aggravation with walking in on my dad eating a giant cheeseburger in his office for lunch that was making me more irritated than usual. He’d smiled sheepishly as mayo and cheese dripped onto the foil wrapper.

If he didn’t value his own life, I couldn’t force it on him. But it made me angry all the same.

I was pensive when Kyle got home from work that evening, not even making eye contact with him.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Good.”

He held up a small brown paper sack. “One of my patients brought me some vegetables from her garden. Thought we could make grilled chicken salads for dinner.”

“Actually, I think I’m going to take a long run.” I pushed away from the kitchen counter I’d been leaning against.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

I shrugged. “I’m just in a mood over my dad. He won’t follow the diet and exercise plan he’s supposed to be doing. He just doesn’t care. And he and my sister are all the family I have left in this world.”

Kyle sighed and approached me, putting his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m tired of fighting him on it.”

“Does he know how you feel about this?”

I looked up into his eyes. “He knows. I’m on him about it constantly.”

He slid his hands back a little and rubbed my shoulders, then glanced at the empty living room. “Where are the boys?”

“In Jordan’s room. Their friends are over, and they made a giant tent in there.”

Kyle smiled. “I used to make those with my brothers.”

“On rainy days, my mom would put a blanket over our kitchen table to make it a tent, and we’d read books in there with flashlights.”

At the sound of footsteps pounding down the stairs, Kyle took his hands off my shoulders.

“Meredith,” Eric called as he ran into the room, “can you get me some tape?”

“There’s some on the desk in my office,” Kyle said.

Eric ran off, leaving us alone again.

“If you want to run, that’s cool,” Kyle said to me. “But if you want to stay and talk about it, I’m here.”

“I just wish there was an answer.” I stared out the kitchen windows at the glistening pool water. “Shouldn’t bypass surgery be the ultimate wake-up call?”

He walked over and stood next to me, putting an arm around my shoulders. I leaned against his chest, finding comfort in the faint smell of his soap.

“I’ll stay for dinner,” I said, sighing. “As long as you don’t mind my crummy mood.”

“Everyone’s entitled sometimes, Mer.” He kissed the top of my head. “I need to run Jordan to ball practice in a few minutes, and we can start dinner when I get back.”

“I’ll start it now. Cooking is therapeutic for me.”

“Before you break out the food, can I just tell you I removed a large, pus-filled nodule from a patient’s ass today?”

I cringed. “Eww.”

“Yeah. It was kinda awesome, though.”

He walked through the living room and called up to Jordan to be ready to leave for practice in five minutes.

“And another patient came on to me at the office,” he said as he walked back into the kitchen. “It was quite a day.”

“What? Someone came on to you?”

He grinned playfully. “Do I hear a note of possession?”

“Possibly.”

“Yeah, a woman asked me during her appointment if I wanted to get a drink sometime.”

This was bothering me more than it probably should have. “Did she have her clothes off?”

“No. But I made a note in her file that I won’t see her alone again. One of my nurses will have to sit in.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I politely declined.”

I got out a knife and cutting board to chop vegetables and set to work, washing peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes and then chopping them into neat, uniform pieces.

Kyle left with Jordan, and I got the chicken ready for the grill. He cooked it when he got back, and we ate dinner on the deck with Eric. It was nice, having a distraction from my worries about my dad.

Eric was reading me Harry Potter when Kyle got back from picking Jordan up from practice. It was getting dark, and I was putting my shoes on to leave when Kyle’s phone sounded with the loud, on-call ringtone. He answered it and said he’d be right there.

“Can you stay?” he asked me. “I can send Mason over to get the boys if I need to.”

“No, I can stay.”

“You sure? I may be a while.”

“Of course. Go.”

He grabbed his keys and took off. I took Hagrid outside while the boys brushed their teeth and then got in bed with Eric while he kept reading to me.

We fell asleep that way, and when I woke up and snuck out of bed later, I found Hagrid curled up at the end of Jordan’s bed.

When I got downstairs, I saw that it was almost two thirty a.m. I got a drink of water, curled up on the leather sofa, and went back to sleep.

The sound of the door opening woke me up again, and I got up and walked into the kitchen. The clock on the stove said it was now 3:20 a.m.

“Hey,” I said, my voice groggy.

“Hey.”

Kyle sounded defeated, which was unlike him. In the glow of the single light I’d left on above the sink, I saw dark circles under his eyes. He had to be exhausted.

He came to me and wrapped his arms around my back, holding me tight against him. This embrace was different; he needed something out of it, and I hoped I could give it to him.

“You okay?” I asked, looking up at him.

“I don’t know,” he murmured.

“You’re scaring me. What happened?”

He released me and leaned back against the kitchen island, folding his arms over his chest.

“This was one of the worst nights I’ve ever experienced.”

His forlorn tone made my heart ache. “I’m so sorry.”

“You know Russ and Laura Golden’s daughter?”

“The older one or the younger one?”

“The younger one, Madison. She’s fifteen.”

“Yeah, I do. Did something happen to her?”

He sighed heavily and his shoulders dropped. “She was raped in a wooded area of the park. It was . . .” He shook his head. “ . . . I’ve never seen anything like it, Mer. I don’t know how someone could do something as brutal as what that guy did to her. She’s ruined inside. I don’t think she’ll ever be able to have children. And she bit down on the guy’s tongue to try to stop him during the assault, and she was
covered
in his blood . . .”

I covered my mouth with my hand, unshed tears feeling heavy in my eyes. The pain in Kyle’s voice and the thought of what had happened to Madison Golden was almost too much.

Words didn’t seem like enough, so I reached out and squeezed his hand instead.

“I couldn’t fix her.” His voice broke with emotion. “It was all I could do to keep her alive. I had to send her by chopper to St. Louis to see specialists at a trauma center. And I just sat there, by that radio . . . praying she’d make it there.”

He shook his head and wiped the corners of his eyes.

“She made it,” he said, his voice thick and hoarse. “She’s a fighter. I talked to someone from the trauma team in St. Louis before I left, and they said she’s critical but stable.”

“My God,” I whispered. “I don’t even . . . that poor, sweet girl.”

He sniffed and took a deep breath. “Yeah, and about an hour after I got her into the chopper, a guy comes into the ER with his tongue nearly bitten off. Tells us he fell and did it to himself.”

I stepped back, horrified. “No.”

“I wanted to let that motherfucker choke to death on his own blood,” Kyle said in a low tone. “I wanted to chop his tongue the rest of the way off and shove it down his throat.”

I squeezed his hand and closed my eyes. I’d been here sleeping obliviously while he was experiencing something I already knew would haunt him. Just seeing him like this would haunt me.

“They prepped him for surgery, and I stood there for a full minute beforehand, just looking at him and asking myself if I could do it,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m a physician. I took an oath, and I abide by it every day. But for the first time . . . I didn’t want to make someone better. He deserved to die for what he did to her.”

I put my hands on his upper arms, and he rested his forehead on mine.

“I did the surgery,” he whispered. “I sewed that miserable son of a bitch’s tongue back on.”

“You had no choice,” I said, reaching up to cup his cheek in my palm.

“I had a choice.”

“You didn’t, Kyle. He’ll get his—I know that. But it wasn’t for you to decide.”

“Whatever he gets won’t compare to the hell she’ll have to live through.”

“You’re right.”

He wrapped his arms around me again, holding me close to him.

“I can’t stop seeing it,” he said softly. “I’ve never had trouble leaving work at work like this.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t know. Don’t leave. I need you here.”

“I’m here,” I said, tipping my face up to kiss him gently.

He closed his eyes. “I’m so fucking overwhelmed by the ugliness of it all.”

I stepped back from him and led him by the hand into the living room. I didn’t have the words to comfort him, but I had something just as powerful.

“Sit,” I said.

He sat down on the couch and looked up at me. I was wearing the short-sleeved pink blouse and black skirt I’d worn to work Tuesday, now rumpled from sleep. I unbuttoned the shirt and let it fall to the floor, then unzipped my skirt, slid it down my legs and stepped out of it.

I pulled a brown plush blanket from the side of the couch and set it next to Kyle.

“If the stairs creak, cover me up,” I whispered.

He nodded, his breathing ragged. I took off my bra and panties, and once I was naked before him, reached for the ties on the pants of his scrubs.

He helped me slide the pants and his boxer briefs down. I cupped his cheek in my palm.

“I’m on the pill, and I don’t have any STDs. I’ve been tested. Are you good, too?”

“Yeah. I got tested after Kim left.”

I straddled his lap and looked down at him. “Is this okay?”

“More than okay.”

He spread the blanket out and wrapped it around my back. I held it closed behind his neck and sank down onto his erection.

“Ah . . . fuck,” he whispered.

I rode him slowly at first. His hands closed around my hips, and soon he was setting a faster pace, grinding his hips up to mine.

Our heavy breathing and the slamming together of our bodies were the only sounds in the room. Kyle took one of my nipples into his mouth and licked it gently, a contrast to the rough sex we were having right now.

It was so good. Only one thing mattered right now. Everything else had been cleared away as we chased the release building deep inside both of us.

“Shit . . . Mer.” Kyle whispered against my mouth, his breath hot on my lips. “I’m gonna come, baby. I need you to come.”

I would have done anything for him in that moment. The frantic need in his voice pushed me over the edge, and I panted as I came hard, digging my nails into his shoulders and fighting not to cry out.

He pulled my hips down against him one last time, and I felt his release inside me. I went limp against his chest.

“Thank you,” he whispered in my ear.

I sat back just enough to see his face in the moonlight. “You never have to thank me for sex, Kyle. I want it just as much as you do.”

“I don’t mean thanks for the sex so much as . . . thanks for knowing what I needed. For helping me get some of the pain out.”

“Of course. My heart hurts for that girl and her family.”

His brow was furrowed with worry. “Mine too. Things like this just don’t happen in Lovely.”

“She has a long road ahead of her. I’ll be praying for her.”

“That’s a good idea.” He ran a hand over my thigh. “And hey, I don’t normally disclose details about my patients or who they are. That has to stay between us.”

“I understand. I promise it’s safe with me.”

He cringed. “This will be the talk of Lovely within a few hours. Everyone wants to know the details, but they don’t realize that knowing them isn’t all that easy.”

“I admire you. I already did, in so many ways, but . . . thank you for being there to put people back together when they’re hurt.”

“People in the medical field need someone to be open with. We usually can trust our partners with this stuff, but . . . I’ve never had that until now.”

“Not with Kim?”

He shook his head. “She would have repeated stuff.”

I nodded.

“What are you smiling about, Mer?”

I shook my head and looked away.

“What? Tell me.”

“I’m just being a girl. It made me feel good that you called me your partner.”

“You’ve become that in my heart. I’m sorry it’s so fucked up because of my mother.”

“No, it’s my own fault.”

He put his thumb on my chin and turned my face so we were eye to eye. “Nothing is your fault. None of this. This isn’t because you didn’t marry Reed, it’s because my mother carries a grudge over it. Tell me you understand that.”

“I do . . .”