Part 25 (2/2)
”Could you . . . could you see if my father is out in the waiting room?” she asked Dr. Ortiz, her pulse knocking against her throat. ”I'd like to talk to him.”
”Sure.”
The brief minute between Dr. Ortiz's departure and her father's appearance at her door told Emerson her father had been right there in the waiting room, and even though his expression was as cool and unreadable as ever, his rumpled dress s.h.i.+rt and the shadows smudged beneath his eyes registered louder than any words.
”How are you feeling this morning?” Her father stood, stock-still in the doorway. Once, she would have taken it as a sign of his detachment. But now that she'd checked her stalwart defenses and studied him closely, Emerson realized with a start that he wasn't unaffected at all.
He had plenty of emotion. He just didn't have a clue what to do with it.
Oh G.o.d.
”Better,” she whispered, realization tightening her throat. ”Is Mom here, too?”
”No.” A tiny thread of emotion skated over his face. ”She protested, quite loudly, in fact, but I sent her home for a bit of rest.”
Emerson nodded, gesturing to the chair next to her bed. ”Will you sit down?”
His light-brown brows rose. ”Are you sure that's what you'd like?”
Her defenses gave up a last-pa.s.s effort to make her ratchet down on the truth. But the words were past overdue, and she'd exhausted herself by keeping them inside.
She was tired of hiding. This was her reality, her life with MS, and she needed to own it, once and for all.
”It is,” Emerson said, her heart pumping faster at the words. ”I have multiple sclerosis, and I need to talk to you about it.”
Starting at the beginning, she told him about the last six months, from the first odd twinges in her legs to her move back to Millhaven to the crus.h.i.+ng relapse that had brought her full circle to the hospital room where they sat. Her father asked questions-most of them clinical, because emotions or not, he was still a doctor-but she answered each one, owning the truth about her body and her situation.
”I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner,” she said. ”But I knew you and Mom were already so disappointed in me for coming back to Millhaven and leaving my job at the Lightning-G.o.d, for even becoming a physical therapist in the first place. I was afraid that if I told you I have MS, you'd just jump in and try to control things. I didn't want you to think I wasn't good enough, like you did when I was younger.”
Her father looked genuinely startled. ”What . . . what on earth makes you think I found you lacking when you were younger?”
And now they were both startled. ”Um, you and Mom had pretty high expectations. You pushed pretty hard.”
”Because we knew you were smart enough to achieve whatever you wanted,” he said, his voice growing softer as he continued with, ”Not because we thought you weren't good enough to do so.”
Although she hated the question on the tip of her tongue, she knew she had to ask it. ”Even when I chose to be a physical therapist and not a surgeon?”
”Emerson.” He placed a hand on her bed, obviously struggling for words. ”I apologize for my part in this rift between us. I'll admit that when you chose physical therapy over becoming an MD, I was stung. I thought it was a mistake, and frankly, I wanted you to love medicine the way I do. But expressing my emotions has never been my strong suit, and I realize I can be quite . . . stubborn.”
Emerson bit her lip. ”I get it from you. I didn't help matters by pus.h.i.+ng you and Mom away.”
”I realize now we had a poor way of showing it, but your mother and I really did always want what was best for you.”
”I know,” she said, and G.o.d, she finally did. ”But I love being a physical therapist, Dad. The same way you love being a surgeon.” The thought of her job made her throat tighten, but if she was going to face this, she needed to face all of it. ”I don't know how my diagnosis is going to change my practice. I have some things to work out there. But I do know that being a physical therapist is the only thing I'm ever going to want as a career.”
”I understand.” Her father paused before adding, ”I understand and I'm proud of you.”
Emerson blinked, tears p.r.i.c.king at her eyelids. ”You are?”
”Of course. Your mother and I have always been proud of you. You're our daughter.” He reached for her hand, letting his fingers close over hers. ”It's going to take time for us to repair things, I know. We've got a lot of lost time to make up for. But I love you, Emerson.”
”I love you, too, Dad.”
After a minute that included a few Kleenex on Emerson's part, her father gave her a small smile.
”So am I to a.s.sume that Hunter will be driving you home later today?”
Just like that, the ache in her heart returned, twisting deep. ”No. I, ah. No.”
Her father's forehead creased, but thank G.o.d, he skipped the Q and A. ”Alright. I'm happy to take care of that. If you'd like,” he tacked on.
”I would. Thank you,” Emerson said, swallowing past the lump in her throat. Yes, Hunter might have thought he'd been helping her yesterday. But she'd believed him, she'd trusted him, and he'd gone behind her back to betray that. Plus, she had a debilitating illness, a permanent disease that was never going to let her go. There was a learning curve to taking care of herself that she hadn't even realized, let alone mastered. Expecting to have any kind of a relations.h.i.+p-with someone she'd told in no uncertain terms to b.u.t.t the h.e.l.l out of her life-was impossible.
Head up, eyes forward.
Moving on without Hunter was the only thing Emerson could do.
Hunter stood outside the hay barn, staring the d.a.m.ned thing down as if they were three steps away from a shootout. Although he'd volunteered for the most backbreaking tasks Cross Creek could spin up over the last twenty-four hours, the thought of setting even one toe in the barn made his gut want to head due south.
The last time he'd been here was with Emerson. And he was never going to bring her back here again.
I've got enough damage on my own that I'm not going to recover from . . . you can't fix this . . . you can't . . .
f.u.c.k. He needed more work.
”You want to do this, or should I just keep standing here looking pretty?”
Eli's voice reality-checked Hunter right in the sternum. ”Yeah, sorry.” He stepped inside the barn, forcing his boots over to the spot where Eli had parked his truck by the lead-in to the hayloft. The sunny smell of fresh-mown hay made his heart flex against his ribs, but he stuffed the emotion back. Letting his feelings rule his actions had wrecked the only thing he'd ever held sacred other than the farm. No f.u.c.king way was he going anywhere other than easy-does-it ever again.
Jesus, he missed Emerson.
”Okay, I can't stand the look on your face anymore. What the h.e.l.l is wrong with you?” Although his tone was ever joking, the press of Eli's work-gloved hands over his hips said Hunter wouldn't get away with dodging the question, and dammit, he supposed his brothers were going to find out about this soon enough, anyway.
”Emerson and I broke up.” The words left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. Not that he could change them.
”Shut up,” Eli said, his c.o.c.ky expression evaporating in less than a breath. ”Are you serious?”
”Wish I wasn't.” h.e.l.l, he wished for a lot of things.
Eli blew out a breath. ”I thought you said she wasn't feeling well. Is that why she hasn't been by, because you guys called it quits?”
Hunter's pulse thrummed. Not knowing what else to do, he'd stuck to the food poisoning story she'd given Doc Sanders to explain yesterday's absence from the farm. ”It's kind of a long story.” And not one he could tell without betraying her trust even further. ”Basically, she trusted me with something and I screwed it all up. I thought I was helping, but . . . I wasn't, so she told me to take off.”
”And you did?” Eli's disbelief was loud and clear, but Hunter met it with a joyless laugh.
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