Page 6 of Never Too Late

Besides, I may have lost her, but she left me something. Something that no one, not even him, could ever take from me. The fact that he was no longer living in Hopeful was a big plus.

And it was time for me to leave Seattle, lighten up my load, and claim it.

It was time for me to come back home.

That day, I called my attorney, who then put a word out I was looking for a hospital in the Denver area. It wasn’t even twenty-four hours later that I received a call from Dr. Ashley. I couldn’t just give up my profession completely, I would go crazy if I did.

“As you can see, we’re one of the best hospitals in the US. Our cardiac department is one of the best in the world,” he said while strolling down the hallway like we were in a park, enjoying a nice day and a cup of coffee and not getting in the way of nurses.

I looked at him, trying to get a feel for what kind of a man he was.

Sure, he had all the right credentials and was one of the youngest chiefs of surgery that I knew of, but in the end, that didn’t mean anything if he wasn’t someone I could work with.

He was tall, had wide shoulders, strong arms, and a flat stomach.

He shaved his head. I couldn’t figure out if it was a fashion choice or if he started losing his hair and he shaved it off so as not to be ridiculed on his receding hairline. Unfortunately, that was something that happened often in our line of work.

Men were valued by the number of nurses they seduced and their hair. It was strange, but nevertheless, true.

And he wore black trousers that outlined his quadriceps nicely with every step he made.

Still, all of that didn’t mean shit when it came to medicine.

I was still undecided and was about to share that with him, when I focused more on what he was doing than what he looked like.

Since we stepped on the floor, he didn’t once look at me. Instead, his blue eyes tracked all the monitors we strolled past and even though his hands were in his pockets and he was strolling down the hall, he never once made a nurse go around him. Instead, he shifted ever so slightly so they didn’t have to veer off their path to the room or wherever there were going to. He also made contact with each of them, but not in the I know what you look like naked kind of way or with the promise of it. But no, he gave each and every one of them a slight nod of his head, like he was checking everything was under control.

It was that, that cemented it for me. One more meeting later and it was decided. I would work on some cases, not as a regular attending, and a few days later I got the privileges.

I resigned in Seattle to Amos’s despair, but he granted me privileges whenever I needed them or decided a case was interesting enough for me to come back. Which basically meant I worked in two hospitals, but only one was paying me on a regular basis.

I also jumped at the opportunity to work three days a week as a town’s doctor. My predecessor was retiring, and the council was looking for a replacement. Hopeful wasn’t a big city and the hours wouldn’t be that long, so they wouldn’t eat up all the free time I carved for myself.

In the last three weeks, I lost everything and my life was turned upside down, but I was also strangely at peace with all of it. Sure, I still cried, and the pain of losing my grandmother didn’t dull in the slightest. It was still as sharp as a butcher’s knife, but I was learning to live with it. I cried in the evenings when there was nothing to do except be, but I made a promise to her and to me that I wouldn’t give in to the grief as I did that morning ever again. I would feel what I needed to feel, then take a deep breath and my next step.

Which brought me to now.

Staring into Mrs. McConnell’s smug face.

God, I loved that woman.

“Well…” I said, tilting my head and taking her hands into mine, pretending to get a closer look. They were cold, the skin frail, which was of some concern, but remembering her age, the bad circulation was not that much of a concern. It was just that she knew I dedicated my life’s work to the mechanisms of a heart and lungs, so she took advantage and knew all the right things to say that would get her my immediate attention. But after a half an hour of interrogation, she settled on something that almost made me laugh.

She was done with waiting for me to come to her.

I knew I should have come to see her, she even said she needed to talk to me, to tell me something, but I was so tired. I was tired of everything, and I was sure she would approve of my decision of staying away when she heard all my decisions.

Yes, the last three weeks were a whirlwind, but still, the fact I didn’t go to see a woman who helped raise me, was poking in my mind. I knew I had to do it soon.

I just wasn’t ready.

And now, a month later, she lost her patience.

“I wouldn’t say that a runny nose and the need to have a nap in the afternoon is something to worry about, Mrs. McConnell.” I swiped my thumbs over the wrinkly, soft skin of her hands. Seeing her this close, having her in front of me, talking to me, just reinforced the fact, I missed this woman as much as I did my grandmother. “I’ll give you a vitamin shot.” I stood from where I was leaning on my desk, rounded it, and picked up my phone to call the nurse in. “And you’ll feel much better.”

Mrs. McConnell gave me a slight satisfied smile, but then it slipped away. She looked behind her to the door and when she looked back forward, she started wringing her hands in her lap. “Sophie, my dear, you should know…” She didn’t get to finish what she was about to say.

That was because the loud sound of the door crashing to the wall next to it boomed her to silence. The enraged man standing in them was what kept her that way and rooted me to the spot where I stood.