for their future, was the best way to show his love.
Jillian hadn’t agreed.
“Sit. Sit, you two.”
He held up his hand to signal that he meant it, the way the dog trainers had shown him and Jill when they’d first gotten the puppies. Jillian tripping over the excited animals on their way to the sofa would not be good, and he was both glad and surprised that they actually did as he told them to.
“Jill, we’re going to walk to the sofa. I’ll be holding on to you, so try not to trip over Yorkie if he jumps around again.”
“Okay. I’m not as unsteady as you think I am.”
“That’s good. But I’ll hold on to you anyway.”
Because the feel of her body in his arms felt better than anything had in a long time, even as the ache of his failures burned in his chest.
He eased her down on to the sofa. “You feel like sitting for a while? Or do you want to lie down in bed?”
“I feel okay. Just groggy. But I want to wake up, not go to sleep. Once I’m feeling more alert you can head on home. Or back to work, probably.”
“I don’t have any surgeries or patients to see this afternoon. And I canceled a meeting I had scheduled, so I’m all yours.”
Or he had been once.
But for today, at least, he had this chance to be there for Jillian in a way he hadn’t during their marriage, although at the same time he somehow needed to keep a cool head and an emotional distance. Except looking at her now, with her arm in its huge cast, her hair all messy and her expression a little vulnerable, he wanted to scoop her into his arms, sit on that sofa and hold her close. Kiss her face and stroke her hair until she relaxed against him.
Bad idea for both of them.
He cleared his throat. “You hungry? How about a little soup and toast, or something like that?”
“Maybe in a little bit. I’ll just sit here for now. Why don’t you take the dogs out? Their leashes are in that basket by the front door.”
“Okay. Come on, you goofs.”
Wagging tails and little leaps from Yorkie had him smiling despite the weight he felt in his chest at being here. At the memories of him and Jill during happy times together. He’d never expected to be a dog person, but he had loved spending time with them. Loved seeing how much Jill enjoyed them. In some ways that seemed like a long time ago, and in other ways it seemed like yesterday that they’d lived together and loved one another until it had all imploded.
Heaving a sigh, he took the dogs outside. They were better behaved on their walk than he remembered them being as puppies, and he had time to ponder how it was going to work out, him helping Jill. He was pretty confident that she’d be okay on her own most of the time, so long as he saw her every morning and evening and took care of the dogs until her sister showed up.
Problem was her apartment was a long way from work, while his was just a couple blocks away from the surgery center. Somehow he’d have to find extra hours in the day, or look for someone to walk the dogs.
The animals were panting by the time they got back to Jill’s door, and he pulled her key from his pocket and tried to open the door quietly, in case she was sleeping—then wondered why he’d bothered when both dogs leaped into the room, making all kinds of racket on the wood floor.
Her eyes were closed when he looked across the room at her, but her lids lifted and she sent him a surprisingly sweet smile. Probably because the drugs hadn’t worn off enough for her to remember that she didn’t like him much anymore.
“Seems like you just left. Were the dogs good?”
“Really good. You’ve done a nice job training them.”
“Don’t think I can take a lot of credit. They just needed to mature a little bit. But they still have their moments, believe me.”
“Moments like when they get upset at other dogs and get tangled up and make you fall and break your wrist?”
“Yeah. Like that.”
Her lips curved even more, into the kind of laughing smile he’d fallen for like a ton of bricks when they’d first met, and it felt good to smile back.
He stepped closer and crouched down in front of her. “How you feeling?”
“Arm feels like someone attached a log to me. Can’t feel it at all yet. Sometimes I forget and lean down, then it swings out and I have to grab it back. I know you always tell patients that’s what it’ll feel like, but I’ve gotta tell you... Much as it makes me want to laugh when I lose control of it, it feels super-weird.”
“It’ll be numb like that for at least another eight or nine hours. Then it’ll feel tingly, like you’ve laid on it funny and it’s gone to sleep. Then it’ll finally feel normal.”
“I think you mean my new normal—for now. Painful and immobile.”
“Yeah.” He stood and shoved his hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t reach out and tuck those wisps of hair behind her ears, as he would have before. “You feel like eating something now? I can get some soup from the deli? Or does something else sound good?”
“Something light, like soup and crackers, sounds perfect.”
“You got it.”
It would be good to have something to do besides talk with her and look at her. From the first moment he’d seen her in the occupational therapy room two years ago, he felt like he’d been smacked in the head by some unexplainable force. She’d stood up from the table, her athletic runner’s body in a slim-fitting dress, and her laughter at something her patient had said slipped into his chest. When her beautiful gray-green eyes had lifted to meet his he could have sworn his heart completely stopped.
Looking down at her now, he felt waves of tenderness mingle with memories of that day. He wished that he could take away the pain he knew she’d be in as soon as the brachial plexus block wore off. Felt the desire to pull her close, to take care of her, to make all that pain go away.
“I’ll be right back.”
He made himself turn away before he reached for her, and then left for the deli. He chose two kinds of the soup he knew she liked, and a bagful of crackers. When he came back and opened the door to her apartment he stopped abruptly when he saw she wasn’t on the sofa, and neither one of the dogs were in sight, either.
No way would she have decided to venture out while still half drugged up. Would she?
A panicked sensation rose in his chest and he strode to the galley kitchen, shoved the food onto the counter, then moved to her bedroom. “Jill? Jilly?”
One of the dogs whined before she answered. “In here. The bathroom. I... Go ahead and come in.”
He pushed open the door. Was stunned to see both dogs and Jillian sitting on the floor of the tiny room. Her sweatpants were twisted around her thighs and her good hand was held to her forehead.
He
