better be. Or the patients I’ve been seeing this past year are going to sue me.” She held up her hand to him as she pulled her cell phone from her jacket pocket. “Hang on, let me call this in.”
He watched her silently as she pulled up the number for the emergency room at the hospital in the neighboring town of Laurium. “Hey, Sarah, it’s Olivia. I have Benny Johansson, seven years old, coming in with a fractured left wrist. I’m going to want X-rays.” She paused. “And order a full blood workup, as well. And give him a Popsicle. He likes grape.” She hung up the phone. “I better go.”
“Why the blood test?” Will asked.
“Just routine,” Olivia replied.
Will shook his head. “No, it’s not. I’ve hung around enough medics in the last nine years. Witnessed enough shattered limbs. You don’t order a blood test for broken bones.”
“I can’t talk about it,” Olivia said. “It’s confidential. I—I shouldn’t have made that call in your presence.” She silently scolded herself. “I really have to go now. I’ll—I’ll see you around, Will.”
He didn’t reply, and the silence was only broken by the soft sound of her boots against the tile floor as she walked away.
Olivia had imagined them meeting again. She’d created fanciful dreams of how it might go, and it had always been impossibly grand and romantic. But this hadn’t been anything resembling her fantasies. It had been real and raw, painful and confusing, like pulling sutures from an unhealed wound.
And still, she had to see him again. She needed to find out if there was anything behind that passionate kiss. Was he still harboring feelings for her or had he simply reacted without thinking? The last thing she wanted was to start everything up again with Will. She had to stick to the plan—find closure, for both of them.
She pressed her fingers to her damp lips. While Olivia couldn’t deny the rush of emotion that had flooded her body when he’d kissed her, that was to be expected. He was handsome and a bit dangerous, and had he been anyone but Will, she might have considered a nice little affair.
But Olivia knew that any type of intimate contact between her and Will would be a mistake. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure that Will shared her opinion.
* * *
THE SUN HAD fallen below the horizon and the temperature hovered near zero. Will strode down the snow-covered street, his gaze fixed on the pavement ahead of him. He’d left Elly and the boys at the rink and told his sister he’d meet them at the pizzeria for dinner.
But first he needed the frigid air and snowy night to clear his head. What the hell had he been thinking? Running into Liv at the post office was bad enough. But then to chase her out of the rink and kiss her? He might as well shoot himself through the heart and be done with it.
He searched for ways to rationalize his behavior. His brain might still be a bit scrambled from his injury. Or maybe it had to do with the fact that he hadn’t slept with a woman in months. But Will suspected that it actually came down to the flood of feelings that raced through him when he looked at her.
He hadn’t really felt much of anything in years, not since that day he’d gotten the letter. In a war zone, emotion was something that could get a guy killed or permanently disabled. He’d forced himself to harden his heart and to lock his soul so deeply inside him that nothing he saw or did would affect him. It was the best way to survive his service and come out whole on the other side.
He’d seen so many friends struggle with PTSD, only to go home and find that home wasn’t a cure at all. It simply amplified the symptoms. Will was tough and he understood the pitfalls. But he’d always had the ability to put his emotions aside and focus on the job.
For now, his single focus was to get better, both physically and mentally, so he could return to the only place in the world that made sense: his unit in Afghanistan. Life there was lived in simple terms—black-and-white, good and bad, safe and dangerous.
Yet he couldn’t deny the attraction to a civilian life. He remembered a moment, sitting beside a bomb-pocked road in the Helmand Province. A butterfly had landed on the muzzle of his weapon and he’d watched it, its wings silently opening and closing in the dusty breeze. In that moment, he’d felt human again, certain that he still had a soul. Since then, the only time he’d felt the same was today, with Olivia. And though he knew he should keep his distance, he craved that feeling again.
He pulled his cap lower over his ears and rounded the corner. The town hadn’t changed much over the years. He wasn’t sure exactly where he was, but he’d find his bearings sooner or later, though the snow piled up in front of the buildings and the dim light from the streetlamps made it tricky.
He headed toward a bright light, and when he finally reached it, he stopped and stared up at the hospital. “Shit,” Will muttered. Was this where he’d been headed all along? He’d taken the most direct route, just a fifteen-minute walk from the rink.
It was as though some strange magnetic force had drawn him here. She’d left the rink a half hour before. She was probably still inside, setting Benny’s broken bone. He glanced around the parking lot and spotted her SUV.
There were things to be said, he mused. An apology, or maybe an explanation for his behavior. And there were things to be done—like kiss her again. He stared at the hospital and ruled out going inside. Over the past four months, he’d spent far too much time trapped by the sterile walls of a hospital, surrounded by the specter of death.
Will crossed to Olivia’s car and leaned against the passenger-side door, deciding to wait until she came outside.
The frigid wind bit into his face, and Will crossed his arms over his chest in an attempt to conserve his body heat. He’d weathered much worse in Afghanistan. Brutal conditions that wore a man down. But that had been before he’d been softened by days spent flat on his back in a hospital bed.
He tried the passenger-side door and found it locked, then circled the car, running his hands inside the wheel wells until he found what he was looking for—a magnetic key holder. He slid it open and found a spare key, then unlocked the passenger door and hopped inside.
As he stared out at the snowstorm, illuminated by the parking lot lights, Will thought about what he planned to say to Olivia. The military had taught him to always have a plan, a strategy, for every mission he undertook. A way in and a way out. But his brain just didn’t seem to work right lately. He’d never been impulsive or unpredictable—until now.
“What the hell am I doing?” he murmured, his breath clouding in front of his face. He reached for the door and at the same moment, the door locks clicked and beeped. At first she didn’t see him, but then she looked up and a surprised cry burst from her lips.
Will brushed his hood off his head and held up his hand. “It’s me. Will.”
Olivia pressed her hand to her head. “Good Lord, you scared me. What are you doing out here?”
“I didn’t want to wait inside,” he muttered. “How’s Benny?”
“He’s fine,” she said softly.
“Is he? Or are you just required to say that?”
“I’m required to say that,” she replied.
“Is
