“So…” she said softly. “The doctor gave me the okay to drive my car and walk more.”
Flynn shot a glance her way from behind the wheel. It had been a week since her fall. A week of sleeping in her bed, driving her wherever she needed to go…
Yeah. It had been a good week.
“That’s good.”
When she said doctor, she wasn’t talking about Victoria. Her checkups had been transferred to a new primary care physician outside of the ER.
She fiddled with the hem of her dress. A nervous gesture? Her gaze slid up again. “So you probably don’t need to stay with me anymore or drive me around.”
There was a moment of silence. In that silence, he could hear her heart beating faster than it should be. “Do you want me to stop staying over and driving you around?”
Her mouth opened and closed. “Well…we’re not even dating.”
Not an answer to his question. And, yeah, they weren’t officially dating, but they’d been sharing a bed. He’d been holding her while she slept. They’d kissed more than once. So, he’d say they weren’t dating yet. And that was mostly because she was busy healing.
His hand shifted from the wheel to her leg, wrapping around her thigh. “I care about you, Carina.”
There was a quick inhalation of breath from her. She opened her mouth, but before any words could come out, her cell rang.
Flynn frowned. Her phone rang every day. Multiple times. Sometimes it was her parents. But not always. “Parents or ex?”
She hesitated. So…ex.
She’d only told him a bit about the guy. He was a doctor, and she said they’d separated amicably, but Flynn had detected that as a lie. Considering how often the guy called, he guessed the breakup had been one-sided.
Regardless of how they’d separated, Flynn didn’t like the guy solely on the basis of him being an ex. Probably never would.
He pulled into his mother’s driveway, and Carina opened her door. When Flynn started to open his, she touched his arm. “You said you had a meeting this morning and probably wouldn’t have time to come in.”
“True.”
“So you’re only getting out to help me.”
“Yes.”
Her lips curved into a smile. “You don’t need to do that. My knee is healing well, and I’m wearing my brace. I’ll see you this afternoon.”
This afternoon. After which, she didn’t need him anymore. Too bad for him that he felt like he needed her.
She began to climb out, but this time it was Flynn who reached out. He leaned over and kissed her. They’d shared a few kisses over the last week. Not nearly enough.
His lips swiped against hers, and she all but melted across the middle console. Her fingers slid through his hair, tugging him closer, urging him to deepen the kiss. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, tasting her.
Always so sweet.
Even though they hadn’t kissed often, he felt like he knew her mouth. In fact, it felt so familiar to him that he could trick himself into thinking they’d shared a million stolen kisses.
His hand slowly slid up her stomach, giving her the chance to pull away. When she didn’t, he closed his fingers around her breast beneath her jacket, holding and massaging. Carina gasped. The gasp was quickly followed by a hum of pleasure.
God, he wanted her. All of her. Every little bit.
When her hand pressed to his chest, he slowly released her, his hand dropping. Her lips were a pretty red shade and her blue eyes were dark. The pitter-patter of her heart thudded double-time like background music to his ears.
“I’ll see you this afternoon,” he said quietly.
She nodded, her bottom lip disappearing between her teeth, then she climbed out of the car and entered his mother’s house.
For a moment, he sat there, silent and listening. He could just hear the faint sound of his mother. She was okay.
With a smile on his face, he drove off, grinning like a goddamn lunatic. The woman had him good. Even though she’d been resting most of the last week, the time with her had just cemented what he was feeling. It was crazy—he knew it was. To barely know a woman and need her like he needed air to breathe. But he wasn’t going to walk away from how he felt.
The smile slipped from his face when he thought about where he was headed. He hadn’t been lying to Carina. He did have a meeting this morning. But before that, he needed to do something.
He parked outside Victoria’s home and strode to her front door. He banged on the wood, hoping like hell she was here. He wasn’t a patient man, so waiting wasn’t an option, and he didn’t really feel like traipsing around town looking for her.
He’d sat on this question for a week. It was a week too long. He needed answers, and he needed them now.
The door opened, and Victoria’s eyes widened when she saw him. “Flynn, what a nice surprise. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“We need to talk.”
A smile stretched her lips. “Of course. Come in.”
He stepped into the living area, shoving his hands in his pockets. Her home was large and white. It was also clean. So clean, it felt sterile. He’d never seen a single speck of dust. Not a thing out of place. Damn, he’d always hated coming here.
“Can I get you some coffee? I just bought these new Brazilian coffee beans. They’re gorgeous—”
“How did you know about Carina’s drug charges in Michigan?”
Victoria stopped, her mouth slipping open. “What?”
“You don’t have access to any medical history from doctors she visited back in Michigan, so it wasn’t in her patient files. You also don’t have access to employment files, because the hospital doesn’t employ her. Not that the information would be in either of those files anyway. She did apply for a job at the hospital when she first moved here, but she wouldn’t have disclosed that information in her application.” He stepped closer. “So how did you know?”
All of that had been rolling around in his mind for the last week, and he knew Carina had to be wondering too. She hadn’t said the words out loud but he’d read it on her face. The only reason he was confronting Victoria was because he didn’t give a damn who he pissed off.
Victoria laughed, but the sound came out all wrong. “Come on, Flynn. Let me get you a coffee and we can—”
“How, Victoria?”
Her lips snapped shut and she exhaled loudly, looking out the window. When she looked back, the smile was gone.
“Fine. I knew she was hired as your mother’s nurse before you told me. While you were in the hospital recovering from your bullet wound, and before she withdrew her application at the hospital, I heard around town there was a new nurse with your mother. Being your girlfriend, I wanted to look out for you.”
She shuffled from one foot to another. “I called the University of Michigan Hospital, where she used to work, because I wanted to know who this woman was. I got to talking with a very chatty nurse called Shelley, and she told me all about the circumstances of Carina leaving the workplace.” Victoria stepped closer. “I did nothing wrong. I was looking out for you. And I didn’t ask the nurse to disclose that information. She did it freely.”
Flynn’s jaw clenched. “You did do something wrong. You should have reported the nurse for illegally telling a prospective employer the reason for Carina’s job loss. You also shouldn’t have withheld pain medication from a patient in need.”
Fuck, he was angry. Angry for Carina. For the breach of her privacy. It wasn’t enough that she’d already been through so much in Michigan, but a damn ex-coworker was still trying to keep her down. And now Victoria too.
He stepped closer. “You will be reporting the nurse for misconduct. And if you don’t, I’ll be reporting both of you.”
“Flynn, you can’t be serious.”
“Try me.”
He turned and headed outside. He couldn’t even look at the woman any longer. Her footsteps sounded behind him.
“Flynn—I’m sorry!”
He unlocked his car door and finally faced Victoria before climbing in. “Tell me that the decision you made about Carina’s pain medication was purely professional. Tell me her connection to me didn’t sway your judgment.”
She pulled back like he’d burned her. “The woman stole—”
“Was accused of stealing drugs. Then cleared. Just like we told you at the hospital. Did Shelley not share that part with you?”
Her tongue made a clicking noise. “In any case, my decision had nothing to do with you.”
Her heart sped up and her pupils dilated. She was lying. It was like throwing gas on an already raging fire. “I want that nurse in Michigan fired by the end of the day.”
Then he slid into his car and drove away from the woman, not caring if he ever saw her again.
“Dorothy, what on earth are you painting?”
Carina grimaced, and not because Patricia was calling her Dorothy again. They were sitting outside in the garden with paint and easels while Carina tried and failed at this art thing.
“It’s a bee perched on a leaf.” Carina tilted her head to the side. It wasn’t that bad, was it?
Patricia leaned closer and squinted like she was trying to discern the leaf from the bee.
Okay, it sucked. But to be fair, art had never been her strong point, and this little activity was entirely Patricia’s choice.
She cleared her throat, looking at Patricia’s painting. “What about you? What have you painted?”
The woman looked back toward her own easel, and Carina subtly shifted her painting away.
“It’s the little Italian restaurant David and I visited on our first date.”
It was like a freaking photograph, and it wasn’t even finished. No wonder the woman had looked so surprised at Carina’s pathetic attempt at a painting. Her late sister Dorothy had probably been just as much a Picasso as Patricia.
The older woman pointed to the left window. “We sat at a table just there, by that window. I barely looked out of it the entire night. David was all I saw.”
So romantic. “How old were you?”
Her sister probably would have known the answer to that, but Patricia didn’t blink an eye. Maybe she just wanted to talk about her late husband.
“Thirty-five. Old in comparison to most women who meet their husbands, especially back then. I’d dated so many rotten eggs by that point that I’d just accepted marriage and kids weren’t in the cards for me.” She gave a quick shake of her head. “That night changed everything. David was like…he was the sun after endless rain. The fire on a cold winter night.”
Carina’s heart melted at the woman’s words. “It sounds like it was love at first sight.”
“Oh, it was. And every day after that, I’ve loved him more. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had our trials, but we always navigate our way through, coming out stronger.”
The woman’s use of present tense stung at Carina’s chest. “How old were you when Flynn was born?”
“Flynn?” Patricia frowned.
A bolt of sadness coursed through Carina.
“Oh, Flynn,” she said quietly before shaking her head. “Yes, ah, thirty-six… So, again, much older than most. I was terrified the entire pregnancy. I was expecting something to go wrong at every turn. David was my calm, of course. Whenever he’d see me anxious, he’d come over, whisper sweet things in my ear. Tell me to trust God’s plan.”
When Patricia looked up, there were tears in her eyes.
“He’s not… He’s not here anymore, is he?”
Wetness built in Carina’s eyes, as well. This confusion and disorientation were normal for patients with Alzheimer’s, but it was still heartbreaking.
“He’s not.” She reached out, closing her hand over the other woman’s. “I’m sorry, Patricia.”
A tear trickled down her cheek as she looked back to the painting in front of her. The woman traced the picture with her gaze, almost like she was taking herself back there. “Will you do something for me, dear?”
Carina swallowed the lump in her throat. “Anything.”
“When you find a person who touches your heart like David touched mine, live every moment you can with him, and don’t take a second for granted. Because one day you’ll blink, and those moments will be memories that only exist inside you.” She paused. “And even then, they’ll only exist when your brain chooses to remember.”
This time, Carina’s heart didn’t just hurt. It rippled and tore. Not only at the woman’s words but at the sadness that weaved through them. “I will.”
Patricia swiped away the tear before patting her hand. “Good.”
At the sound of the back door opening, they both turned their heads.
Flynn stepped into the yard. The second her eyes fell on him, her breath caught in her throat. If there was ever a man she wanted to remember every moment with, it was him.
He stopped beside his mother, pressing a kiss to her head. “Everything okay?”
Patricia gave a firm nod, suddenly looking fine again. “Of course, dear.”
He held her gaze for another beat before turning to Carina. Just like he’d done for the older woman, he bent down, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Her skin tingled when his lips lingered.
Patricia rose from her chair. “I’m going inside to have a rest. You both go home. Spend time together.”
They hadn’t told Patricia that anything was going on between them, but Carina wouldn’t be surprised if the woman knew. On her good days, she observed others closely, especially her son.
Carina stayed for another twenty minutes, packing up the paints and making sure everything was ready for Patricia’s dinner, all the while much too aware of Flynn moving around her. Every so often, he touched her hip. Grazed her side.
When they reached her house, he walked her to her door. He didn’t have anything inside. As the cleanest man she’d ever spent time with, he was always taking his stuff back to his place the next day.
“You sure you don’t want me to stay the night?”
No. She wasn’t. But he’d stayed with her because she’d been injured, and now she was okay. Well, as okay as she could be a week after a concussion and knee dislocation. “I’m sure.”
He lifted a brow like he didn’t believe her. Then he stepped closer. “Have you heard about the Cradle Mountain Street Party?”
She frowned. “No.”
He shifted some hair from her face, and the air stalled in her lungs.
“It’s an annual thing, and it’s tomorrow night. I was wondering if you’d let me take you. You can meet some of my team. We could sit and have a drink. And when you get tired, I’ll bring you home.”
“That almost sounds like a date, Flynn Talbot.”
His hand curved around her cheek. “Would you like it to be a date?”
Yes. With everything she had, yes. But her throat felt glued shut, so she gave a small nod instead.
One side of his mouth lifted. “Then it’s a date.”
His head lowered, and he nipped her bottom lip. She gasped. Then his lips pressed to hers. Even though the kiss lasted a total of two seconds, time slowed.
“I’ll be here around six tomorrow night. Call if you need me before then.”
Another nod. Then he was gone.
