Page 107 of Doctor’s Forbidden Match

I’m re-organizing my tackle box when my phone rings. Putting the last lure away, I pick my phone up from the shed’s counter.

My dad’s name is on the screen.

I almost let it go to voicemail out of habit, but I pick up instead because I forgot to call him back last time when he asked me to. Avoiding him again would just be another thing to feel guilty about. “Dad?”

“Hey,” he says calmly. In a way I haven’t heard before. “How are you doing?”

I brace myself for the real questions—how’s the investigation? or have you talked to the board—but they don’t come. There’s just silence like he’s waiting for my answer. It throws me off more than if he’d led with the interrogation I expected.

“Bored out of my mind.” I close the box. “Supervised practice means I’m basically shadowing my own patients. Can’t operate alone. Feels like being back in residency, except worse, because everyone already knows I’m capable and they’re just watching me anyway.”

“That sounds miserable.”

“It is.”

I put the tackle box away and wait for him to actually ask about the case numbers, mention some colleague’s recent publication, find a way to make this about something other than just me being unhappy. But he doesn’t.

“You doing okay otherwise?” he asks instead.

I almost laugh. “Define okay.”

“However you want to define it.”

Taking a deep breath, I rest back against the counter. “I don’t know. It’s a lot right now.”

“Yeah.” Just that. No advice attached to it, no silver lining offered. Just an acknowledgment.

We talk for another few minutes about me heading to fish with the guys and him playing golf. Surface-level conversation, but it’s better than the alternative. I do wish I’d speak up and ask him if it’s true that he told Peltz I’m too arrogant for my own good. But his calm personality has me off balance.

When I hang up, I stand there for a second, phone still in my hand, turning it over.

He just called to ask how I am? No agenda. No comparison to anyone else. I don’t fully trust it yet. There’s a piece of me waiting for a call back with the other version of him to resurface, the one who measures everything in achievements and titles. But so far, he hasn’t. And I’m not ready to examine too closely what that might mean.

Chapter 36

Hannah

Brooke’s hug nearly knocks me off my crutches the second she gets out of the rideshare, her suitcase falling over beside her as she wraps both arms around me.

“Okay, you look annoyingly good for someone who’s been falling down constantly,” she says into my hair.

“I have a very dedicated skincare routine and a doctor on speed dial.” I laugh, pulling back to look at her properly. Same energy she’s always had, like she just walked in from somewhere more interesting. “I missed you so much.”

“Obviously. Show me this town before I lose my mind from the flight.”

I take her to Genevieve’s first. “You have to try the pie.”

She practically melted after the first bite. Then we head to the grocery store for movie night supplies. It’s my last week before LA, and I promised her this trip the second I knew the schedule.

“Okay, what’s our poison tonight?” she asks, grinning, grabbing the basket through the doors.

She fills it with every variety of chocolate we don’t have in LA, along with chips and cookies. I point out the butter pecan ice cream, and she tosses a pint into the cart.

It’s been a hard few days. Zac and I are keeping our conversations to text, and there’s a hollowness where a spark used to be.

“Okay, tell me everything,” Brooke says, looping her arm through mine as we head to the checkout.

But I pause on my crutches, unable to hold back the news I got from Candace this morning.