Drawn Deeper (2 page)

We loaded into my Range Rover, and I backed out of the garage. I’d made it halfway down our long driveway when Jordan asked, “Dad, did you remember to put Hagrid in his kennel?”

I groaned and hit the brakes. “I left him outside.” I pulled back into the garage, and Jordan volunteered to get the dog and put him in his kennel. That was the only way to avoid coming home to every shoe in his reach being chewed up or pissed on.

Jordan ran back outside and we set off, only two minutes behind schedule. The drop-off line in front of the school was short today, so we made up the time.

“Love you guys,” I said, turning around to look at them. “Have a good day at school.”

“There’s no brown spot on my apple, right?” Eric asked.

“I gave you a tomato instead of an apple so you wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

He scrunched his face with indignation. “Dad! Gross. You know how—”

“I’m kidding, E. Have a good day.”

They both said quick good-byes and took off. I turned up Kings of Leon to get my head clear for the day of surgery ahead.

My hometown of Lovely, Missouri was pretty small, so the hospital couldn’t keep specialty surgeons on staff. I was a general surgeon, and I’d been handling general surgery and emergency surgery for years by the time Kim left. I’d been working long hours, but within a few weeks of being a single dad, I knew something had to go. My mom had been picking up the boys and keeping them on the evenings I had to work, which she didn’t mind, but I did.

I’d gone to the hospital’s CEO and told him he needed to hire more surgeons to cover the seven p.m. to seven a.m. shift. I couldn’t do it all anymore and be the dad I wanted to be to my boys.

He’d thrown a fit until I told him I was willing to leave the hospital over it. And I’d meant it. Jordan and Eric needed to know they came first for me. It had taken me too long to become the father they deserved, and I didn’t want to lose any more time.

Two new emergency surgeons had started a couple weeks later. When I pulled into the physicians’ parking lot at Lovely Hospital, the Corvette one of them drove was double-parked.

Brad Tenleigh was an asshole, though I couldn’t find any fault with his abilities as a surgeon. But I’d known from the first time I saw his double-parked bright red sports car with the license plate “ER DOC” that we wouldn’t be grabbing a beer outside the hospital.

As soon as I walked into my office, my scheduling secretary, Marla, smiled brightly at me.

“Good morning, Dr. Lockhart. You have three procedures starting at nine, and then you’re rounding until lunch.”

“Morning.” I took the tablet she held out to me and glanced down at it. “Okay. Did my lab reports come in?”

She turned to her computer to check, and I felt my cell phone buzz in my pocket.

“Kyle Lockhart,” I said in answer.

“Dr. Lockhart, it’s Hallie from the school.”

I’d just dropped the boys off fifteen minutes ago . . . surely one of them wasn’t feeling sick already?

“Hi, Hallie.”

“Jordan forgot his permission slip for basketball open gym. It starts today.”

I held back my urge to swear with frustration. I’d seen it on the kitchen island and forgotten to remind him about it.

“All right, let’s see . . .” I said.

“You want me to call your mom?”

I rolled my eyes. Small-town life. “No, I’ve got it. I’ll, uh . . .” I considered my schedule for the day. I was having lunch with some medical students, and I didn’t want to blow them off. “I’ll actually run home and get it right now.”

“Okay, we’ll see you soon,” Hallie said.

“I have to run something to the school,” I said to Marla. “I’ll be about fifteen minutes late with my first patient.”

“Got it.”

Marla had been with me since I started at Lovely Hospital, and she’d taken to my becoming a single father quite well. She knew how to slide this and that around on my schedule to make things work. She was a grandma who knew how to be sweet but firm with everyone, and I knew I’d be lost without her.

She also never offered to help with things concerning my kids, and I appreciated that. Somehow, she intuitively knew it was important to me that I do that stuff myself.

I broke into a jog as I headed back to my Range Rover. Some days my best efforts to get it all done and be on time still weren’t enough. But as long as the balls stayed in the air, I didn’t worry about how I looked trying to juggle them all.

Meredith

I didn’t have any tears left. My head pounded with a heavy ache caused by hours of crying. I’d been unable to sleep last night because I was too consumed with worry.

The surgical gown had to be open in front, but for now, I was holding it closed protectively around myself. I’d spent the past few days coming to grips with many things, including past mistakes.

I’d left Reed Lockhart at the altar. That was my biggest regret. Not that I’d called off our wedding, but that I’d done it so ungraciously, in a way that left him hurt
and
humiliated.

The twenty-one-year-old I’d been back then could only think of getting away. I’d pushed back my growing worry that Reed and I weren’t meant to be, telling myself I was crazy. He was a Lockhart. They were pretty much Lovely’s First Family. Reed was one of five handsome, charming brothers loved by everyone in town.

As the door to the small exam room opened, I sighed as a reminder of what I’d done to Reed walked in.

“Hey, Meredith,” Kyle said.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Dr. Lockhart.”

A smile played on his lips. “Kyle.” He pulled up a stainless steel stool and sat down. “So we’re doing a biopsy on your left breast this morning.”

I nodded morosely.

“You okay?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Not really. I’m scared.”

“That’s understandable. Who’s here with you? Your dad?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want anyone to know unless it’s . . .” I sighed deeply, unable to even say the word. “I don’t like to stress out my dad, you know?”

His brown eyes softened, and he nodded. “Yeah. But you won’t be alone, okay? I’ll be with you the whole time.”

My eyes flooded with hot tears. Even after what I’d done to his brother, Kyle was being compassionate. I didn’t deserve it.

“How’s your dad doing?” he asked.

I took a deep breath, pushing back my urge to cry. “He’s doing pretty well since the triple bypass. I can’t get him to stick to the diet, though. He sneaks food into his desk drawers at the office.”

“The diet’s on him. You’re not responsible for that.”

“I know, but I can’t help trying.”

It had been eight years since my mom was killed in a car accident. My dad and my sister Lena became my only family that day, and it made me even more protective of him when I saw how crushed he was after losing my mom.

“How’s Lena?” he asked, putting on a pair of rubber gloves.

“Good. She loves California.”

“Okay if I take a look?”

I loosened the hold of my arms around my midsection, my cheeks warming. It was time to flash Kyle. I was a tiny bit sheepish about it, but so sick with worry over the lump in my breast that I couldn’t bring myself to care.

When I opened my gown, his gaze went to my left breast. “All right,” he said, looking back up at my eyes, “Once we’re in the operating room, I’m going to give you a local anesthetic before I start. Then I’ll insert a fine needle into the breast and draw out a tiny sample of the mass for a biopsy.”

I nodded.

“Any pain or discomfort in that area?” he asked, sitting back down and adding, “You can close your gown back up.”

“No. I felt the lump in the shower last week and went to my doctor, but no pain or anything.”

“Okay. Any questions for me?”

I shook my head, fighting back another urge to cry. I couldn’t believe I was getting a biopsy. My dad relied on me to run the business and accounting side of his car dealership. I was only twenty-nine years old. I had a hope in the back of my mind that maybe, one day, I’d find love again, though it was unlikely given my reputation as the wretch who’d ditched Reed Lockhart at the altar.

Kyle stood up. Damn, he was tall. All the Lockhart boys were tall with dark hair and brown eyes, but he was the tallest. He’d gotten with Kim in high school and never so much as looked at another woman after that.

“Hey,” I said, looking up at him, “I’m sorry about Kim. That whole thing, I mean.”

“Thanks. It was for the best.”

“How are your boys?”

He smiled. “They’re good. I was late to our appointment because Jordan forgot his permission slip, and there may or may not be dog hair in Eric’s peanut butter sandwich today, but . . . we manage, you know?”

There was such warmth and pride in his eyes that I was taken aback for a second.

“It’s really amazing, what you do,” I said. “Being a single dad and a doctor.”

He shrugged. “I’m far from perfect. I fell asleep in the middle of Eric’s reading homework last night.”

I laughed at the image. “Was he reading to you?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m surprised his teacher assigns that sort of homework,” I said, adding, “You remember I was planning to be an elementary school teacher, right? Before I found out my dad needed me at the dealership.”

Kyle’s eyes lit with recognition. “Yeah, now that you mention it, I do remember. Eric’s been having trouble with his grades since Kim left. His teacher thought reading out loud might help with comprehension.”

“That’s a good idea. And hey, if you ever need a tutor, I’d be glad to help.”

“Yeah? He could use some extra help. I’d pay you, of course.”

I waved dismissively. “Don’t even think of it. I love teaching. I’d enjoy it.”

“I might take you up on it.”

He smiled again, and I realized I wasn’t on the verge of crying anymore. I took a deep breath and tried to thank him with a smile of my own.

“I’ll see you in there,” he said.

“Okay.”

As soon as he was gone, my worry came back. I was alone. Not just here, but in other ways. When I’d moved back to Lovely after a quickie marriage that ended in divorce, I’d been too embarrassed by my behavior to reach out to old friends. I heard the talk. After what I’d done to Reed, a lot of people never wanted to speak to me again.

I understood. My work at the dealership had become my life—I knew every profit and expense down to the last penny. I’d also taken up running, yoga, and baking. I only occasionally wished for more.

It didn’t take long for a surgical nurse to come prep me for the procedure. Kyle talked me through it, his warm, familiar voice putting me at ease. And when it was over and I got dressed to go, I realized the biopsy wasn’t even the hardest part. The waiting was.

Kyle

We could hear the laughter inside my parents’ house through the screen door on the back sunroom.

I opened the door, and Jordan and Eric walked in beneath my arm. As we made our way into the kitchen, I saw we were the last to arrive for dinner this Friday night.

My nephew Noah was chasing my niece Alana around the kitchen. My brother Reed and his wife, Ivy, were talking to our dad. Another of my brothers, Mason, was carving a roast, his girlfriend April drying her hands on a dish towel. The last of my brothers who lived in Lovely, Austin, was chasing after Noah and Alana while his wife Hannah looked on with amusement.

“There you are,” my mom said, walking into the kitchen and hugging me.

Jordan and Eric gave her hugs before running off to the backyard.

“How are you, honey?” Mom asked me.

“Good.”

She looked at me for a second, gauging whether I meant it. My parents knew I’d struggled to get my shit together after Kim left.

“I’m good, Mom. Really. You need help with anything?”

“No, everything’s just about ready.” She leaned against the counter and smiled up at me. “Have you heard that Gretchen Palmer’s divorce is final now?”

“Nope.”

“I always liked her.”

“Maybe you should ask her out,” I said wryly.

She gave me a pointed look. “I just think it would be good for you to get out. All you do is work and take care of the boys.”

I shrugged. “I don’t want to date, Mom.”