had luckily been on leave and in the hospital waiting room when their daughter had been born. They’d been the closest thing to family he had.
Brody’s death had sent him reeling and, coming just before Cort had been due to reenlist, had seemed like a sign. How could he not have known his best friend had been in so much pain? He’d known, of course, about Brody’s original, job-related injury, but not that his best friend had descended into a full-blown opiate addiction. Jenna said she hadn’t known either, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. Cort felt as though he should have known, despite being so far away.
He’d always promised Brody to look after Jenna and the kids should anything happen, but leaving the army hadn’t been easy since it had been his life for so long. But there really hadn’t been an option, and he’d headed back to Denver when his tour was over and his contract had expired.
Now, in hindsight, he realized he’d been drifting along ever since.
Even getting engaged to Mimi had been done almost unthinkingly. She was Jenna’s cousin, and she and Cort had gotten close during the dark days following Brody’s death. It had felt good to be a part of Jenna’s wider family, and when Mimi had hinted it was time to get married, Cort had agreed without thinking too deeply about what that entailed.
Three weeks before the wedding she’d called it off, saying she just didn’t think it would work out. That she’d realized she didn’t love him enough to be his wife, and she’d already found someone else.
After months of soul-searching, Cort knew he’d been unfair to Mimi. In a way, she’d been a crutch, holding him up after Brody’s death. An imperfect replacement for the companionship he’d lost.
Despite the embarrassment and hurt, he’d known she’d been right not to go through with it.
Brody had always been the one who’d longed for a family, for roots, while Cort had wanted to see as much of the world as possible. Perhaps the difference stemmed from the fact Brody had lived with his mother until the age of seven, and knew what it was like to be a part of a real family. Cort had never had that, and knew he wasn’t cut out to be a part of a family, didn’t even know how to be.
Apparently he wasn’t even fit to be a family member by proxy either since, soon after, Jenna too had cut him loose.
“Me and the kids, we’ll be fine,” she said, while they sat on her back step. “Mimi is a flake for waiting so long to break things off, and I know you’re just hanging around here because of us. Brody always said you wanted to see the world. Go. Do it.”
The sadness had weighed so heavily in his chest he’d been unable to even look at her. How many evenings like this had he and Brody sat in this same spot, beers in hand, talking? The twilight sky had gleamed between the branches, and a cool wind, harbinger of fall, had rustled the leaves, making them whisper and sigh. Her words had felt like another rejection, in no way softened by the squeeze of her fingers on his shoulder.
It was then he’d accepted that nothing good in life lasted. He was better off not getting attached, because to do so just brought heartache.
But this was a new day, full of potential and future adventure, and he wasn’t going to let the past encroach on it. Shrugging off his dark thoughts, Cort wandered along the corridor, away from the chief surgeon and the construction zone.
At the end of the corridor was a T-junction, with a bustling nurses’ station on his right and, as first one person and then the next turned to look at him, he once more became the cynosure of all eyes. Making eye contact with a few people, he nodded and smiled, until a noise to his left caught his attention, and he turned to look.
A woman stood at an exit door, holding a travel cup and tucking a cell phone under her chin. Something about her carriage, her profile made Cort’s heart stumble over itself. And, as she turned slightly to swipe her access card to open the door, for the second time in less than five minutes his world tilted on its axis.
It can’t be.
Yet, as she used her hip to push open the door and slip outside, he knew he wasn’t imagining things.
It definitely was the woman he’d met in Mexico, who’d given him the most sublime night of pleasure he’d ever had, and had then run out on him without a word.
Without even giving him her name.
Worse, he’d confided in her about being dumped just before his wedding. No doubt, with the way hospital grapevines worked, that tidbit of news would be on everyone’s lips by the following day.
A sour sensation filled his stomach, and all the anticipation regarding his new job leached away in an instant. It didn’t matter that he didn’t plan on staying at Hepplewhite very long. He’d only signed a one-year contract and, although the board had made it clear they hoped he’d renew at the end of that time, the plan was to move on to somewhere else. Have another adventure.
Right now, though, this felt less like an adventure and more like a mistake.
So much for a fresh start.
Cell phone held to her ear with one shoulder, Dr. Liz Prudhomme stepped out into the quiet of the staff parking lot and let the door swing shut behind her. Although there had been a midwinter thaw of sorts along the east coast, it was still cold, but after the dry heat of the hospital the damp chill felt good against her face. Grabbing the phone before it slipped, she found an alcove out of the wind and took a sip of her rapidly cooling coffee.
She normally didn’t make personal calls while on duty, but her mother had just flown in from Milan the day before and this was the first opportunity Liz had had to speak to her. With the time difference between New York and California, it was perfect. Her mother would have just finished breakfast.
“The dress is delightful. Giovanna picked a strapless mermaid gown, made completely of Guipure lace. It’s elegant and suits her so well. Although the designer isn’t one I would have chosen, I have to admit it is beautiful.”
In Liz’s opinion, her future sister-in-law could wear a gunny sack and still look gorgeous. After all, Giovanna modeled for some of the world’s best designers and probably wore a size negative three. Pulling off a dress like the one her mother was describing wouldn’t be difficult for her at all.
Even if she wanted to, that wouldn’t be the case for Liz. When it came to height and bone structure, she’d inherited her father’s mostly Anglo-Saxon genes, rather than her mother’s mix of Latin and Asian. She had a farm-girl sturdiness that once upon a time had been the bane of her existence. Now she was proud of her strength, and confident in her womanhood.
Most of the time.
Unless she let old insecurities rise up and blindside her.
But it wasn’t jealousy making Liz feel out of sorts as she listened to her mother breathlessly give her all the details of the dress and their subsequent orgy of shopping. It was the usual feeling of inadequacy, knowing her ex-beauty-queen mother would have loved to have a daughter like Giovanna, rather than the one she had. Someone as passionate about fashion and decorating as Lorelei Prudhomme was herself. A daughter who could follow in her footsteps and excel at being a member of high society, not single-mindedly focused on her medical career.
Better to be useful than decorative.
Funny how often,
