The silence between us stretches tight. Charged.
“But I’m trying not to screw this up. For you, for me, for a hundred different reasons.” I hold up my hands in acceptance.
A slow smile blossoms in clear blue eyes, like the sunrise glittering across the bay. “That right there? That’s hot.”
Of all the possible answers in the world, that was one I least expected. I find myself chuckling.
“My discomfort turns you on?”
“Nope. But honesty does. I dig it.” Lucy dips her chin, smiling even harder. “I appreciate your vulnerability, Doc Gruff. And to show my gratitude, I’ll stop poking the bear. Promise.”
It’s late. My shift was long. My body’s tired but my brain’s wired. Lucy’s asleep in the guestroom and I should be, too. Tomorrow’s early shift won’t be made easier by exhaustion, that’s for sure. But my thoughts won’t shut down long enough to make that happen.
They circle every aspect of the last four weeks with Lucy, annotating, dissecting, questioning. Trying to sort things into labeled boxes that makes sense.
But there are too many pieces I just can’t label.
From the moment we met, she affected me in a way that no one everhas.
Sure, I like to help people in need. Of course, she’s pretty. Yes, I find her independence and self-reliance really freaking cool.
But there’s more to her than that. Like part of me saw her andknew.
Knew what? I’m not sure. Which is yet another piece I can’t label, which is frustrating as hell. Before I know it, I’m up and out of bed, reaching into my closet and pulling out the guitar I’ve had since I was ten.
The wood is cool beneath my fingers. Familiar. Wrong, somehow, but not unwelcome. This guitar knew me before medicine did. It smells like old pine and dust. Like summer nights on the porch. Like something I meant to come back to.
I perch on the edge of the bed and set the guitar on my lap, smiling gently as I slide my fingers along the fretboard, enjoying the whine of the strings under my touch. The snapped string still curls like a scar across the bridge. I ignore it.
My thumb brushes the lower strings. A rough, warbling vibration shudders in the hollow body. It’s out of tune. And I’m out of practice. But I shift my grip and try again. Something soft. Melancholy.
A minor chord. It echoes longer than it should.
I don’t know what I’m playing. Maybe nothing. Maybe a shape my hands remember. Maybe a song I started and never finished—like a lot of things in my life.
I keep going, barely pressing down. One note bleeds into the next. Then fades.
I stop.
The silence settles in again, but something still hums in my chest.
Not a song. Not yet. Just the echo of steel biting into soft skin.
My fingertips sting with it.
Like they remember what I tried to forget.
I put the guitar down, then, after a few minutes, open my phone to shop for guitar strings.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Lucy
I swing open the truck door and lower myself to the ground, thrilled to be out and about without crutches for the first time in weeks.
“Careful!” Nash calls from the other side of the cab. “That boot can only do so much to protect you from yourself.”
“I’m fine, Nash. I’m more than fine. It’s a gloriously clear Florida afternoon, my armpits aren’t rubbed raw from crutches, and I get to see your mom and the guys for the first time in… what? Fourteen years?” I stare out at a view I used to know by heart, now blurred by time. For a moment, I feel bad that I’m here to see Nash’s family when I’ve barely even talked to my own since that day at the coffee shop. I promise myself I’ll text Mom when I get home and reach inside the truck to grab a tray of brownies I made—the famous Kincaid recipe Violet serves at the bakery and Nora herself taught me when I was young.
