will.” The few times he’d had to work late Marybeth had been more than willing to pick JT up after pre-school. He turned back toward JT. “I’m going back to work now, but I’ll pick you up at four. You know how to tell the time, don’t you?”
JT nodded with enthusiasm. “Yep. When the big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the four.” He hopped from one foot to the other, his earlier fears seemingly forgotten. “Me and Jeremy are going to play swords this afternoon.”
“Be careful.” Why did boys always want to play with weapons? Gabe figured he must have done the same thing at JT’s age, but it was amazing how almost anything he gave the boy to play with ended up as a sword, a knife or a gun, no matter how hard he tried to discourage it. Maybe JT could use the sword to kill the wild animals in his dreams. He pressed a kiss on the top of JT’s head. “All right, then. I’ll see you later, buddy.”
“Bye, Uncle Gabe.” JT’s face was relaxed and smiling, making him feel better about going back to work. As he strode to his car, he noticed he’d barely have time to wolf down a quick sandwich before seeing patients. But the potential indigestion from eating too fast was worth taking the time to calm JT’s fears.
Too bad he hadn’t been able to ask Holly out for dinner, but leaving JT wasn’t an option. The boy’s emotional status was still too fragile. Would probably be too fragile for a long time to come.
Yet after meeting Holly again that morning, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Interesting how she’d assumed he’d left because of the moment he’d sensed she’d been about to kiss him when in reality it had been his own response he’d run from. She couldn’t know how close he’d come to crossing the line that night, too. Stepping back from her had been one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.
Tom had been right during their argument on his wedding day. He had wanted Holly for himself. But that was then, and things had changed. He wasn’t just a single guy anymore, he had JT to think about now. The boy needed a home, stability. Besides, he wasn’t still hung up on Holly.
He’d moved on with his life, had been engaged to marry Jennifer before Claire had died. Their engagement had been broken off when he’d discovered that she hadn’t been at all willing to take JT in as their adopted son. She’d kept arguing that they needed to find JT’s real father, something he was trying to do. His plan all along, even once they found JT’s biological father, was to fight for sole custody of JT.
Forced to make a choice between Jennifer and JT, his young nephew had won hands down. And if the reality of living with a young boy day in and day out was overwhelming, he’d have to learn to deal with it.
He caught a glimpse of Holly leaving the ED and his pulse kicked up in awareness. He took a deep breath, trying to ignore his body’s reaction, telling himself it was only physical because he hadn’t been with a woman since Jennifer had walked out on him.
There were more important things to worry about than the last time he’d gone out with a woman. Right now, JT had to come first.
With everything that had happened in the past, he knew better than anyone that he and Holly could never be more than friends.
Holly spent the rest of the afternoon trying to keep her mind off Gabe and figuring out how to balance the stat calls with the scheduled patients she needed to see. At three-thirty, her mother called to let her know she was finished with dialysis. Holly had just finished seeing her last patient, so she readily agreed to drive her mother home.
The outpatient dialysis unit wasn’t far from Children’s Medical Center, so it didn’t take her long to get there. She tucked her mother into the passenger seat, and then headed to her mother’s house.
Hemodialysis treatments usually left her mother feeling exhausted, but that didn’t stop her from asking questions. “How was your first day at work?”
“Pretty good. Busy,” Holly answered as she negotiated rush-hour traffic. She cast her mother a quick glance. “I really like my job. I have many interesting cases.”
“I’m glad.” Her mother smiled faintly, her face pale. “I hope I didn’t take you away from anything important.”
She thought of Mark, the young boy whose condition was still so tenuous. “No, you didn’t. Although I do have a very sick young man in the PICU.”
“I’m sure you’ll help make him better.” Despite her mother’s reassuring tone, deep lines of fatigue bracketed her mouth. For a moment Holly felt a flash of resentment toward her father. Her father had been Dr. Kendall Davidson, the chief of neurosurgery and he’d died several years ago after a long night of surgery. Her parents had divorced when she’d still been in high school, a traumatic event when she’d discovered her father had been cheating on her mother. When his young lover had become pregnant, he’d filed for divorce.
She’d made peace with her past, except for rare moments like this, when resentment still burned. How ironic that by marrying Tom she’d made the same mistake her mother had.
Tom had seemed to want the same things she did, a loving home and family. Children in particular were important to her, she hadn’t wanted to put her kids through a painful divorce like she’d experienced.
After Kayla was stillborn, Holly had known there wasn’t anything left of her marriage to save. Wisely, Tom hadn’t bothered to put up a fight. To his credit, he’d made the divorce proceedings as painless as possible.
Pushing the memory aside, she pulled into her mother’s driveway and brought the car to a halt. After getting sick, her mother had finally given up her mausoleum of a house to move into the much smaller, more practical home located closer to the hospital. So close she could easily take a care-van to her dialysis appointments. Holly hurried around to open the car door. “Here, let me help you.”
Her mother leaned heavily on her arm as Holly guided her inside. After she’d got her mother settled on the sofa, covered in a warm, wool blanket, she went into the kitchen and threw together a light meal of scrambled eggs and toast, carrying everything out on a tray.
“Thanks, Holly.” Her mother’s grateful tone made her feel guilty for leaving during those years she’d been married to Tom. It was good that she’d come back home. Obviously her mother needed her.
“You’re welcome.” She leaned over to give her mother a gentle hug. “Is there anything else you need before I go?”
“No, thanks, dear.”
“All right, then. Call my cell if you need me.” Holly let herself out of the house, wondering if the time would come that her mother might need more full-time care. If so, she’d do her best to take care of her.
Family was important, even if her father and Tom hadn’t thought so.
Her pager went off and she paused in the driveway to glance at the display. The message wasn’t from work, as she’d expected, but rather from Gabe.
Please, call me when you have a minute, Gabe. He’d left his number on the text message too.
Was he still at work? Had something happened to Mark? With a frown, she flipped open her cellphone and dialed his number.
“Hello?”
“Gabe? It’s Holly. What’s wrong?”
“I
