After Midnight (21 page)

“Great,” Benny said.

“Then get to it,” she said. She waited until the seven-year-old skated out across the ice before finding herself a seat. She'd set Benny's broken bone three months before, after Benny had gotten slashed with a hockey stick. After removing the cast a few days ago, Benny had invited her to his game and promised he'd dedicate his performance to Dr. Olivia.

“Liv?”

She glanced over to see Elly Winthrop making her way to a nearby seat. First Will and now Elly. Considering her personal life had been impossibly dull this winter, she wondered if it was about to take a turn. “Elly. Hey there. How are you?”

Elly made her away along Olivia's row, then plopped down beside her. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm here to see a patient. Benny Johansson. I set his broken arm.” Olivia laughed softly. “This is my social life—peewee hockey.” She paused. “I ran into Will earlier at the post office. It was kind of...odd.”

“Well, it's about to get even more odd,” Elly said. “He's here.”

“Here? Where?”

“Right back there,” she said, pointing over her shoulder.

Olivia twisted around and found Will standing near the doorway, staring at them both. Olivia drew a deep breath and stood. “He doesn't look happy to see me. I'd better leave.”

“Why? He'll just have to get over himself. Talk to him. He could use a friend. He's been hiding out in our grandfather's cabin for the past three weeks.”

“I'm not sure I could—”

“Try,” Elly said. “Please?”

Olivia waited as Will slowly made his way down to their seats. The moment he sat down, Elly jumped up and crawled over Will to the aisle. “I'm going to go check on the boys,” she said.

A long silence grew between them, and Olivia waited for Will to say something—anything. She finally decided to break the ice. “If I didn't know better, I'd think you were stalking me,” she teased.

She thought she saw the tiniest hint of a smile twitch at the corners of his lips. “If I wanted to stalk you, you'd never see me coming,” he replied. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm here on a date,” she said. He seemed taken aback and glanced around. “Benny Johannson. Age seven.” Olivia pointed to the boy. “Number seventeen for the Hawks.”

“You like them younger now?” he asked.

“Yes. I've run through all the six-year-olds in town and moved on to the seven-year-olds.”

Will laughed softly. “I should probably go find Elly.”

Olivia reached out and placed her hand on his arm. He glanced down, his gaze fixed on her fingers, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath he took. She knew he'd probably refuse the invitation, but she couldn't help herself. He was wounded, and not just physically. “Would you like to get some dinner with me?” Olivia asked. “Maybe we could...talk?”

As he considered her offer, she silently prayed that he would refuse. She wasn't ready to dredge up the past. And yet there were so many things that had to be said, so many injuries that had never healed. She felt compelled to set things right before he left again, which could be any day.

“No,” he finally said. “That would probably be a mistake. I—I'm pretty bad company these days.”

“Fine,” she said in a bright tone, standing up. “Of course. I understand.” She nodded, then reached into her pocket and grabbed her gloves. “It was lovely seeing you. Say goodbye to Elly for me?”

“I'll do that,” he said.

For a long moment, she stared into his eyes, trying to read the emotion behind them. But she couldn't find even a tiny crack in his icy blue gaze. “Take care,” she finally said.

As she turned to leave, she felt her knees go weak. He wasn't the boy she remembered. Back then, they'd been playing at passion, pretending to understand the desire that moved them. But now she understood the dangers, and there was no doubt—Will MacIntyre was a dangerous man. Though he resembled her teenage sweetheart, there was a hard edge to him, as if all the warmth and affection were now hidden behind an impenetrable facade.

There'd been many times over the past nine years when Olivia had wished she'd ripped up that Dear John letter and changed the course of their history. He would have come home after one tour. They would have been together and made a life and a family. Instead, he'd put a half a world between them and she'd had to find other dreams.

She pushed open the door and stepped out into the cold. Snow had begun to fall, dusting the cars in the parking lot in a soft blanket of white. She found her SUV and circled it, brushing the snow off the windows with her hand.

When she came back around to the driver's side, Olivia stopped short. Will stood next to her car, blocking her way. He had such a pained look on his face, she was afraid to say anything. And then, without speaking, he crossed the distance between them, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

This kiss was filled with every emotion she could imagine—anger, desire, regret, affection. Olivia couldn't tell what it was supposed to mean, but when he pressed her back against the driver's-side door, she stopped wondering and simply surrendered.

No, he definitely wasn't a boy anymore. This was a man, sure of what he wanted and determined to take it. A man who was testing the limits of her passion with the heat of his mouth on hers.

He ravaged her with his lips and his tongue, as if searching for a deeper connection. He held her face between his gloved hands and molded her mouth against his until the last shred of Olivia's resistance melted.

How could it still be this way? So much time had passed. But this wasn't the same passion they'd shared so many years before. This was new and frightening in its power and intensity. He was a stranger and yet she knew him intimately.

As suddenly as the kiss had begun, it ended. He stumbled away and shoved his hands in his pockets, his breath clouding in front of his face. Olivia waited for him to say something, but he didn't. Instead, he spun on his heel and strode back toward the front doors of the ice arena.

She collapsed against the car and pressed her hand to her chest.

Mild tachycardia and disequilibrium. Early symptoms of hyperventilation.

It had been over a year since a man had kissed her and even longer since she'd had sex. Her strong physical reaction shouldn't have come as a surprise. And yet it had.

For years, she'd looked back on her breakup with Will and felt nothing but regret. It had plagued her in those moments when she'd tried to imagine the life he lived, the dangers that surrounded him daily. And she'd sworn to herself that if she ever had the chance to set things right between the two of them, she would. She'd apologize and find a way to make him understand what had driven her to write the Dear John letter. And then she'd be able to finally let him go.

Before she could start after him, she heard a shout.

“Dr. Eklund!” Marcy Mackie was running toward her. “Thank God I caught you. Can you come back inside? One of the boys has been hurt.”

“Let me grab my bag,” Olivia said, wiping an errant tear from her cheek. She unlocked the car and pulled her bag from its spot behind the driver's seat, then hurried inside.

The hockey game had come to a halt and both teams were gathered near the bench. When she reached the rink, she found Benny sitting on the ice, tears streaming down his cheeks. He was holding his arm, and his left hand dangled at an awkward angle.

“Oh, Benny. Again?” He nodded and she squatted down next to him. “You might want to take up soccer. You don't need your arms for that.”

Benny laughed, his nose runny and his eyes red. “My mom is going to kill me,” he said.

“No, she isn't,” Olivia said. She glanced over her shoulder at Marcy. “Is his mom here?”

“She's on her way,” the coach said.

“Let's get him off the ice and I'll splint his wrist before we take him over to the emergency room. Can someone—”

“I've got him.”

Will appeared out of the crowd of kids and bent down to scoop Benny up in his arms. Olivia followed them off the ice, and when they reached the locker room, Will set the boy down on a counter next to the sinks.

“It doesn't hurt as much as the last time,” Benny said. “Maybe it's not broken after all.”

“Do this,” Olivia said, flexing her wrist. Benny tried and failed. “It's broken.”

“How long will it take to heal?”

“We're going to take an X-ray and see about that. But I don't think you're going to be playing hockey this winter.”

Benny turned to Will, who was watching them both from a distance. “Did you ever break your arm?”

“I did,” he said. “And my leg. I've even been shot. Twice.”

Benny's eyes went wide. “You're the army guy. Kyle's uncle. Kyle is my best friend. One of my best friends. He said you got blown up in the war. Is that true?”

“Not exactly. And I'm a marine. That's different than army.”

“Cool,” Benny said. “Can I see your bullet hole?”

“It's in a place that I can't really show right now,” he said. “I'd have to take my clothes off.” Will nodded his head at Olivia. “And there's a girl in the room.”

“Oh, right,” Benny said, grinning.

They continued to chat about Will's military career, Benny asking Will brutally direct questions and Will answering as best as he could. By the time Benny's mother arrived, Olivia had splinted Benny's wrist and given him a grape Tootsie Pop to keep the boy from dwelling on the pain.

“Take him to the emergency room,” Olivia said to Benny's mother. “I want to take X-rays and then we'll probably put a cast on it.”

“Another cast?” Benny asked.

“It's the only way to fix it,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, I know,” the boy said, nodding.

“All right. I'll meet you there, buddy.” She watched as Benny walked out with his mother, then she glanced over at Will. “Thanks for the help. And for distracting him.”

“No problem.” He leaned against the wall, observing her coolly. “You really are a doctor, aren't you.”

“I 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.

* * *

T
HE
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.