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  He stopped. Just stood there, slowly leaning back against his truck and waiting. If she’d wanted his shoulder to cry on she so clearly could’ve asked. He thought they’d gotten to that point, especially after the other night. His instinct was to just drive away, but that didn’t feel quite right. He scrubbed his hand over his face. He couldn’t fully leave her alone with her tears, even if she didn’t know he was right here.

  Hell, he couldn’t even get back into the warmth of his truck because if he couldn’t at least take some of that burden off her back, then he should suffer too. Although given the way she’d reacted to his music at lunchtime, she might say that his listening to country radio might be suffering enough. It was clearly another discussion they were going to need to have.

  Since his lights were off and his truck was dark, it wasn’t overly surprising to him that she didn’t see him until she backed out of the turn space and swung back around to face the road. She slammed on the brakes when she saw him standing there.

  She didn’t do anything at first, and since the headlights were glaring in his eyes he had no idea what she was thinking. He felt like maybe it wouldn’t be the best idea to just go around and open the passenger side door.

  Which ended up being the right decision, because she was pissed.

  When she got out of the car ten seconds later, the slamming of the door was as loud as a shot. She came directly up to him. “Did you follow me?”

  Since the answer to that was clearly yes, he responded with a question of his own. “Why didn’t you want to meet me until 6:30?”

  “Because I have a standing date with Bruiser.”

  Tuck was all for using Bruiser as a means to get her out to lunch, but that was downright ridiculous. Though he successfully fought the urge to scratch his head, he could probably have been a bit less obvious about his thoughts when he said, “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” She jabbed him in the chest. “You’ve only been a part of my life for two months, he’s been with me for almost twenty years.”

  Bruiser was twenty years old? Damn. Tuck needed the name of her mechanic.

  Not the issue right now, however.

  “I know exactly where he is at all times,” Karen said, “and he’s always there when I need him. Unlike any man I’ve known, ever.”

  Like Tuck, of course. Which, yes, was true, but that was because he was an actual sentient being, for Christ’s sake, unlike the car. “Because you park him wherever you go.”

  Christ, and now Tuck was calling the car “him” in all seriousness.

  Again, not the issue.

  “And this is why I didn’t tell you! Because you’d try to mansplain to me why you’re better at comforting me than my own car.”

  Mansplain it? They were talking about a car. Tuck was clearly missing something here. Now he did scratch his head. “Does Ryan know about this?”

  That made her so angry Tuck was afraid flames might shoot out of her eyes. Except her words were icily cold. “Ryan isn’t my keeper.”

  “No, but...” Tuck was completely lost. “You have to admit this just feels a little weird.”

  “Which was why you weren’t invited in the first place!” Karen ground the heels of her hands into her forehead. “You’re right. This is weird. You should just go back to Inspiration, and I’ll go home. You can call me again if you want to, but I totally get it if you don’t.”

  She whirled away from him, clearly with the intention of getting back in Bruiser and driving away. He grabbed her elbow just before she was out of range. “Could you just... Jesus. Just hold on for minute?” Tuck didn’t blame her for yanking her elbow away. He probably would have, too. It didn’t mean he was any less bewildered, however. “What exactly is happening here?”

  No, he didn’t do relationships regularly. And yes, he knew that sometimes they weren’t on the same page. But this had gone from zero to Twilight Zone in almost no time at all, and he was just trying to find something to grab on to.

  “What is happening,” she snapped, “is that you feel like your approach to things is better than mine is, and I’m disagreeing with you. Adamantly.” She threw her hands up in the air. “And because you’re big and strong Officer Hottie-man, you can’t quite believe that I’m perfectly fine managing my life without you.”

  That didn’t clear up matters one freaking bit. He took a step closer. “I have no problem admitting you manage your life just fine. And you disagree with me often. What I don’t get is why you would choose your car over me when I’m standing right the hell here!”

  And now he was yelling, something he rarely did, much less in the middle of a cornfield, just off Highway 30, on a freaking cold night.

  “Because,” she said in the kind of tone you’d use with a child, “Bruiser was the car my dad’s friends helped me buy when I was seventeen. Bruiser was there when the ambulance drove my mother away. Bruiser got me through college and all those years of medical school when if I should so much as hint at emotion all those big, strong guys would be more than happy to offer their shoulder for me to cry on as long as I got naked with them first.”

  With each statement she got more strident, and every single one made him ache for the childhood that had been cut off midstream. Well, every one except the big and strong part, because he had no issues with short-term memory and remembered her calling him that clearly.

  “But God forbid I shed one tear,” she was saying, “and they were out the door before you could blink. And those are the ones who didn’t tell me that if I couldn’t cut it without crying, I wasn’t going to make it as a doctor, much less a surgeon.” She hit his chest. “So, yes, when I feel a need to cry, you can be damn sure that Bruiser is who I’m going to go to.”

  Now her voice rose with an edge of hysteria. He grabbed onto her hands even though she didn’t seem to notice. She just stood there, her fists were clenched in his hands, and the tears were flowing freely.

  “Because he isn’t going to be shot and killed in the line of duty. I’m not worried about him just deciding not to talk one day, because it’s not like he could ever talk to me. And if anything happens to him, odds are it will be happening to me, too, so I won’t have to say goodbye or wonder if there’s anyone left to say goodbye to me!”

  Oh, hell.

  Despite her tears, she looked up at him, glaring. “What, you’re not about to tell me that my pretty little head doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation and maybe I should be in another line of work where things aren’t quite so hard?”

  Tuck looked down at her. There was as much hurt in her eyes as there was anger, and he had a hard time with both. Because he could see exactly where she was coming from. And, yes, he was well aware he did need a bit of an attitude adjustment in some areas. It wasn’t that he thought she shouldn’t be doing the work she did, it was just that he wished she had more happiness in her life. He wished he could give that to her.

  So, although this might just get him in trouble, he wrapped his arms around her even as she tensed.

  “I, uh... That all makes a lot of sense.”

  She looked up at him. “It does?” Then she shook her head. “I mean, I know it does, I just didn’t think you did.”

  And he’d given her no reason to. Thank God she had no clue about the thoughts he’d had running through his mind all afternoon.

  He had concerns, yes. He couldn’t deny them. But he couldn’t see himself willingly walking away. Although her lips were so close he could practically taste them, he felt it was imperative to say, “I can’t promise you nothing bad is ever going to happen. You and I both see too much for me to even make an attempt.” He brought his hands up to her face. Ran his thumbs up over her jaw. “But I can assure you that I will spend every day I have with you savoring it and wishing for the next.” He dipped down for the briefest of kisses, not quite
sure if she’d push him away again.

  He felt like he’d hit the brass ring when, after a heavily loaded moment of her standing there, staring up at him, she grabbed him and pulled him closer, kissing him—heatedly—and somehow they ended up half naked in the back of his truck, with the cars rushing by on the highway only fifty yards away. He even got one of the heaters out so they could stay there a little longer, looking up at the almost too beautiful night sky.

  Although it wasn’t exactly a topic of conversation he wanted to revisit, he did have to ask, “Do you cry like that a lot?” Because even once had been too much as far as he was concerned, but pretty soon he’d have to count with two hands.

  She clutched at his shirt. It seemed she only managed to appear relaxed because she was forcing herself to be. “Only on Tuesdays.”

  Wait—she scheduled a time to cry?

  He tightened his arms around her. “Do you think you’d ever want to come find me?”

  She hesitated before answering. “You’re not always around.”

  Well, yes, she had a point. “Does it help at all that I want to be?”

  And now she turned to him. Climbed up into his lap and put her hands on either side of his face. “It takes some getting used to, but yes, it really does.”

  She kissed him again, long and hard. And he decided that if he couldn’t stop her from crying, then he’d at least always be there to kiss away the tears.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Karen looked out over the crowd. She’d come to know a lot of them in the last few weeks, and she was starting to feel as if this were a place where she could truly settle. Where she could lay down some roots that wouldn’t just be yanked away from her—or even worse, just sit there ignored to wither and die. She didn’t even mind the huge display of poinsettias across the platform, or the Christmas lights and bells that were liberally hung about the room. She’d even begun thinking about getting a tree and lights for her own apartment. Maybe some candy canes and tinsel, too.

  Ever since that day in the cornfield, things had felt different with Tuck. She knew he couldn’t promise to always be there, but she also saw the effort he was making to weave her into his fabric. It wasn’t so much that their day-to-day lives had changed—and, granted, it had only been a week and a half. But he’d been doing a lot less at night in order to spend his evenings with her. To come to her. To wait for her in the parking lot at 5:30, and drive her somewhere for dinner. Or, in the case of this past Tuesday, follow her and Bruiser out to some abandoned cornfield, and hold her while she cried.

  And she kind of didn’t mind any of it.

  Ryan said she was less fun because she wouldn’t watch the Kardashians with him—and Tim flat-out refused—but she caught him smiling when he looked in her direction these days instead of being worried all the time. And every once in a while he’d just give her a hug and a kiss on the top of her head and say, “Officer Hottie looks good on you.”

  She’d only known Tuck for a little over two months, and yet she was thinking maybe she was tired of inching forward, one tiny step at a time. Maybe she was ready for a big, huge, grown-up leap. Her rental was up at the end of January, and, after the workshop today, she was going to tell Tuck she was thinking that maybe she could get a place in Inspiration. She’d stayed overnight at his place a few times and the commute really wasn’t that bad, especially considering she had lived eight miles away from the hospital in Denver and yet had spent forty-five minutes each way on the road. It was only ten miles to Ames Medical and the traffic was nonexistent, especially at 6:30 in the morning.

  So, yes. She was going to tell him, and if he balked at that then she’d deal. But she was pretty sure they’d be fine.

  In fact, he was coming toward her now, nodding at something Coach O’Reilly was saying, but his eyes fully on hers. And although they were in a room full of his people, as she’d come to think of them, he did come up so close that she thought he might go as far as kissing her right here in front of everyone. Even just a peck on the cheek.

  Except then one of the kids from behind him started singing, “Officer Tuck and Dr. C sitting in a tree...” and he turned away abruptly.

  He did grin at the kid, though. “That’s a pathetic attempt, Martin. Try harder next time.” Then he called everyone’s attention to the front of the room, reminded them of why they were here, and turned it over to Karen.

  She never minded speaking in front of a crowd, especially when it came to anything regarding the human brain, and although she was absolutely not an expert on concussions, she was happy that they cared enough to make this mandatory. And not only that, but in Inspiration, it truly was a full town deal. It wasn’t just the kids and the coaches, there were a lot of parents, too. And, standing along the wall were more faces she recognized—like Fitz, Deke, and Nate.

  This was her element. She knew how to command a room. And by the time she turned it over to Eric Hanson, who had been the one to actually treat Justin, the room was utterly quiet. Considering there were a couple hundred high school kids, not to mention all the adults, that was impressive. And Karen knew it was partly because of the respect they had for Tuck, Coach O’Reilly and the trainers. Eric led them through a presentation aimed directly at this age range—he was as good at his job as she was at hers; she really did love their team—and then they moved on to Tim, with the coach closing it out. By the time they opened it up to Q&A, Karen knew it had gone perfectly.

  Idiot.

  Nothing ever went perfectly.

  “Excuse me?” she asked, as she realized she’d missed the third question in because she’d focused on the man asking it: Justin’s dad. And he definitely looked like he was ready to blow. “Could you repeat the question?”

  He’d been focused on Eric, but now he turned to Karen. “I said, how can you possibly tell a kid who’s spent his whole life working for one thing that because of one bad fall he can’t play at the game he knows the scouts will all be at?”

  Karen glanced over at Tuck, but the second their eyes met he looked down at the floor. She sat back in her chair and tried not to react. She knew it was a hard pill to swallow. She knew how hard these kids worked for that one shot at greatness. But Justin’s concussion had been a bad one and he still hadn’t fully recovered. Even if it was hard for Gary Hale to comprehend, though, the odds of any of these kids making a living in professional sports weren’t high, whereas there were a million other things a kid could do with his life—as long as he still had one.

  Coach O’Reilly stepped in to answer the question, although his heart didn’t seem to be in it, either. Which she understood as well, because given the scrutiny in this room, she could only imagine the pressure he was under. So she appreciated that he at least tried to field it.

  “We’ve already had this conversation, Gary. We’ll do what we can, but you know that any athlete who’s had a concussion needs to pass the baseline test before they can play again. Our hands are tied.”

  That answer wasn’t acceptable, apparently. “Yeah, but you’ve got six other kids you can pull from the bench, and Justin’s got just one shot.” He gestured to Eric. “Dr. Hanson is saying Justin might not play another game this season. What the hell is he supposed to do with that? That’s his whole life right there. Everything he’s ever worked for.”

  There was a bit of a rustle in the crowd. Karen looked up to see a group of boys—very tall boys—standing in the back of the room. One of them was Justin. His friends were there for him, their expressions as full of anger and frustration as his was. And, yes, she could imagine what it must feel like to have to face something like this at this point in his life, especially with a father who was pushing so hard. But for as much as she truly wished she could say otherwise, that couldn’t be their concern.

  “Hell...” Gary went on, his anger beginning to stoke up the crowd. “They’re saying it wo
uld be better if he never played again.”

  Justin wasn’t Karen’s patient—probably a good thing because she sure as hell would’ve said anything physical was dangerous after an injury like that. It was yet another reason why the idea of having kids scared the life out of her. Because she knew exactly what could go wrong. But even she was aware that was entirely unrealistic and it was more likely Gary had interpreted that to be the message no matter what Eric had actually said.

  She also knew, however, that she’d brought Eric into this, and it wasn’t really a question he could answer as it involved a specific patient of his. So Karen leaned forward to the mic. “I think it would be better if we kept it away from specific circumstances due to privacy issues.”

  It didn’t do a damn thing to help. If anything, it only got Gary angrier. “You seriously think there’s anyone in this town who doesn’t know exactly what’s going on with Justin?”

  Karen took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “That may be the case, but the fact remains that we are not able to talk about specifics in this forum.”

  Tuck had begun to make his way toward the back of the room, from which he’d have better access to Gary. Or, at least, Karen hoped that was what he was doing. Because the man was only getting more belligerent. “Even if I say right here, right now, Dr. Hanson can tell this entire room everything he told us about Justin’s ability to play?”

  She felt Eric shift forward, but she was not going to let him take the fall for this. She pulled the microphone away from him. “Then I will say as the senior doctor on the team, that he is not permitted to tell this entire room anything regarding Justin or his ability to play. If you’d like to discuss this afterward, we’d be happy to do so in private.” Damn it. And now she was on the verge of losing her temper. She summoned all of the reserves she had. It was just like any other situation where she had to deliver bad news. Just, you know, this time it was with an audience of several hundred people. “Next question?”