“Thanks, I’ll do that,” Flann said, her voice unusually husky.

Ida raised an eyebrow in Glenn’s direction. “You’ve been scarce lately. Working too hard, I imagine.”

“No more than usual.” Glenn settled with a cup of coffee at her usual place at the table. That might not be strictly truthful, but trying to give Mari the distance she apparently wanted had cut down on some of the time she spent in the ER. The hours they’d spent wrapped up in each other probably weren’t going to change that. When Mari had left the day before, neither of them had suggested plans to get together again. Glenn sighed. When she looked up from her coffee, Ida and Flann were regarding her curiously. She straightened, hoping to look nonchalant. “Just getting used to the new routine down in the ER.”

“I imagine you miss keeping this one in line.” Ida pointed a spatula affectionately in Flann’s direction.

Flann laughed. “Oh yeah, like I need supervision.” She paused, shot Glenn a look. “Although Glenn might need a wingman these days, seeing how she’s starting to make a little more time with the ladies.”

“I imagine that’s Glenn’s business and none of yours,” Ida said soundly and pointed Flann toward a chair. “Sit. Your father’s on his way down.”

Glenn didn’t hear anything for a few seconds and then picked out the steady fall of footsteps approaching down the hall. She couldn’t imagine being that tuned in to another person, not until she thought about waking next to Mari, feeling the weight of Mari’s head on her shoulder, the featherlight touch of Mari’s fingertips resting gently on her abdomen, their heartbeats slowly beating in time. Oh yes, she could imagine it with equal parts wonder and fear. What would happen if that fragile, essential connection broke?

“Eggs?” Ida’s voice shattered her reverie.

“Oh, sure. Anything,” Glenn said.

Edward and Margie sat at the table and the room filled with conversation. Like the rest of the Rivers family Margie was a morning person, and despite it being only six thirty on a Sunday morning, she eagerly questioned Flann and Glenn about the case they’d done the night before.

When Edward got up to leave for hospital rounds, Flann said, “Can I take a care package home for Abby and Blake?”

“Already put one together,” Ida said. “Bacon and egg sandwiches. Two each.”

“That might be enough for Blake,” Flann said, grinning. “He seems to be in the midst of a growth spurt.”

“You ought to take it before it gets cold,” Ida said.

“Let me help you clean up.”

Glenn stood and began to gather the plates. “I’ll take care of that, you go ahead.”

“Sure?” Flann asked.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Flann clapped her on the shoulder and grabbed the bag Ida had prepared. “Thanks. I’ll run by the hospital later this morning and check on our postop.”

“I’ll do that.” Glenn shrugged. “I’ve got nothing else going on today.”

Flann hesitated. “How will you get home?”

“I’ll take her,” Margie chimed in.

Flann laughed. “Any excuse to drive, huh?”

Margie grinned and Glenn caught a glimpse of the beauty she was going to be in another year or two. Her face was already leaner than a few months ago, her cheekbones strong and arched, her wide blue eyes deep set and the color of the sky on a hot summer day.

“Thanks.” Flann kissed her mother, ruffled Margie’s hair, and headed out the back door.

In a few minutes, the table was cleared and Ida was sitting on the back porch drinking her coffee and perusing the Sunday paper. Glenn kissed her cheek, said good-bye, and followed Margie down the drive to where the old pickup was pulled up beside the barn. She climbed in as Margie got behind the wheel.

Margie didn’t turn on the engine right away, but swiveled on the seat and glanced at Glenn. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Glenn rolled down her window and the breeze off the pasture blew through. A creek ran behind the barn on its way down to the river, dividing two of the larger fields, and the scent of corn and fresh-cut hay lofted in.

“Blake told me about the surgery,” Margie said, “and that he and Abby and Flann talked it all over and it’s no big deal.”

Glenn waited.

“I’ve seen the videos too,” Margie said.

“Uh-huh.”

Margie tapped her fingers against the wheel, looked out through the windshield before glancing directly into Glenn’s eyes. “Sometimes when you’re afraid, you don’t want the people who lo…care about you to be scared too, so you pretend you’re not.” She snorted. “Like pretending to be strong is what matters the most.”

Glenn swallowed. She knew a lot about pretending not to be afraid so the ones who depended upon her wouldn’t be paralyzed by their own fear. Was that how Mari felt, refusing to let anyone close to protect them from the fear she felt inside?

She refocused on Margie. “You know, Blake’s surgery, that’s private stuff.”

Margie nodded quickly. “I know that. It’s okay, I got the gist. He tells me pretty much everything.” She grinned. “Well, maybe not everything. You have to have your secrets, right?”

“Right.” Glenn wasn’t really so sure about that. She didn’t seem to have any secrets left where Mari was concerned, whether she told her or not. Mari just sensed how she felt, what she needed. “So what are you worried about?”

“You and Flann, you’ll make sure nothing happens to him, right? You know, some weird-ass thing that nobody expects?” Margie sighed. “Because I think he’s maybe just a little scared.”

“The chance of anything serious going wrong is really, really, really small.” Glenn held Margie’s gaze. “But anything can happen, anytime, to anyone. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Margie said softly. “Like Kate. My dad and Harper and Flann couldn’t save her. If all of them together couldn’t save her…” She shook her head, took a deep breath. “They don’t talk about it, but I know they’re really sad that they couldn’t.”

Glenn clasped Margie’s hand tightly. “That’s not going to happen to Blake. Flann and I, and Abby too, will take care of him.” Sometimes, after the hard truth, hope was the most important gift. Without hope, the struggle was too hard.

Margie’s eyes cleared. “Okay, yeah. I knew that. I just wanted to hear you say it, I guess.”

“Anytime.”

“You’ll tell him that, right?”

“I promise.”

“Swag.” Margie started the engine and dropped the hammer on the old truck. It jolted forward, and they shot down the driveway.

Glenn laughed. “Harper sees you drive like that, she’ll kick your ass.”

Margie shot her a look. “Yeah, maybe. But then again,” she laughed wildly, her hair blowing like strands of red fire around her face, “maybe not. I might be able to take her.”

“Yeah, right.” Grinning, Glenn leaned back and closed her eyes, indulging herself in memories of Mari. Dangerous, yeah, but sometimes the pleasure was worth the risk.

Chapter Twenty-six

“I thought you were off at five,” Abby said when she noticed Mari in the ER lounge.

“I was. Am.” Mari set aside the month-old copy of the Annals of Internal Medicine she’d been scanning in the never-ending, never-victorious battle to keep up with her professional reading. “I’m just waiting on a couple of X-rays on the biker in seven. I figured I might as well finish that out since there’s four new patients waiting on the board to be seen.” She probably would have stayed anyhow, even if she hadn’t been right in the middle of an interesting case. She liked finishing her own cases, even if it meant staying an hour or two after her shift was over. But she had another reason for lingering tonight. Glenn was off shift but hadn’t left either, and Mari was hoping to accidently bump into her before they both left for the weekend. She hadn’t exchanged more than a word or two with Glenn all week, and she was hoping to catch her. She really didn’t want to spend another weekend like the last one.

“I don’t mind picking it up,” Abby said, “if you have plans.”

Oh, she did. She hoped. “That’s okay, I’ve got it.”

Abby smiled. “In that case, I’m going to grab some dinner while you and Glenn are both still here.”

At the mention of Glenn’s name, Mari felt her face heat and hoped Abby didn’t notice. They’d all been busy the entire week with interviews for the new residency program that was set to gear up in just a few weeks. In between supervising students, meeting with applicants, and taking care of patients, she and Glenn had barely had time to do anything other than review cases. Glenn had seemed her normal self—calm, steady, and focused. Mari doubted she seemed as cool and collected. Every time she saw Glenn her pulse shot through the stratosphere and she seemed to have trouble finding the right words. After they’d parted on Saturday, she’d spent the rest of the weekend trying to keep busy and finding her concentration was completely shot.

No matter what she was doing, she ended up thinking about Glenn. And that almost always led to thoughts of sex. How was she to have imagined something so natural, and so easy, could cause just about every cell in her body to ignite and her brain to malfunction? She understood the biology, even the psychology, of desire, but nothing she’d ever learned came close to the reality. And the worst part was, as amazing as those few hours had been and as exciting the aftermath, she didn’t have a clue what she was going to do about it. She knew what she should do, and apparently Glenn agreed. Glenn hadn’t given any sign she wanted to repeat their encounter, just as Mari had stipulated. Yep. She had what she’d asked for, and she wasn’t the least bit happy about it.

“Got the X-rays back,” Antonelli said. “Nasty spiral fracture of the femur—midshaft.”

Grateful for the interruption, Mari jumped up and followed him out into the hall. She didn’t see Glenn with a quick look around. “Put them up on the board, let’s take a look.”

The fracture was simple enough to diagnose—the thigh bone in the mid portion was splintered with a long crack running diagonally and the two opposing, spear-shaped fragments overriding each other. The surrounding soft tissues were misshapen and swollen with blood just as she’d expected from the exam, along with the noticeable shortening of the upper leg. “What does that look like to you?”

“Looks like a trip to the OR to me.” Antonelli spoke with his usual confidence but after a quick glance at Mari’s expressionless face, hastily added, “Spiral fractures tend to be unstable, and in a weight-bearing bone, the potential for limb shortening and gait problems is significant. Open reduction is indicated.”

Mari smiled to herself. He was learning to make the transition from battlefield snap decisions to the kind of assessment appropriate in civilian care. She nodded. “Timing?”

“Considering it’s almost seven on a Friday night, if we don’t get it done now, chances are the ortho boys will want to wait until Monday or Tuesday, when the swelling is down and they can get it on the schedule electively.”

“Pros and cons to that?”

Antonelli frowned. He might be shifting his evaluations to the demands of community medicine, but he was probably always going to be a battlefield medic at the core. And he’d learned at the front that the more rapid and aggressive the treatment, the greater the number of soldiers they saved, with the smallest number of complications. Battlefield statistics supported that approach. He would never recommend postponing care. All the same, Mari wanted a medically sound reason for early intervention under the present circumstances.

“Right now, the soft tissue swelling is minimal. The longer they wait to operate, the more swelling there will be and the more difficult the dissection down to the bone. Plus, the patient’s going to be damn uncomfortable if she has to wait for four days until surgery. She’s an otherwise healthy, active fifty-year-old and she’s gonna want to get on the road to rehab as quickly as possible. If they operate tonight, she’ll be in PT by Monday morning. If it was my wife or sister, I’d want surgery tonight. So I say we call and push them to come in and rod it.”

Mari nodded. “I agree.”

From behind them, Glenn said quietly, “So do I.” When Mari swung around with a questioning look, Glenn shrugged. “I happened to notice the films down in X-ray when they were shooting them. Nice work-up, Antonelli.”

“Uh, thanks.” Antonelli shot Mari a look, as if asking if he really deserved all the credit.

Smiling, Mari shook her head, pleased by Glenn’s assessment. Glenn had praised Antonelli, and rightly so, but Glenn knew what Mari’d been trying to teach him, just like Glenn always seemed to know what she was thinking and feeling. Glenn’s professional opinion of her was nearly as important as her personal feelings, but those she could read far less easily. Did Glenn think about their intimate time together as often as she did? Did she lie awake, restless at night, her body humming with the memory of desire? Was she finding it as difficult as Mari to pretend she didn’t want it again?