He says make it about her. Not about grand gestures. About what matters to her. Family. Purpose. Santiago.
Show her you see all of it. All of her. Women don't need diamonds and fancy restaurants. They need to be seen. Understood. Chosen.
Show her you choose her. Every day. Forever. The rest is just details.
I sit there with that, letting it sink in.
Choose her.
Show her I see her.
Make it about us, not about show.
Yeah. I can do that.
First step: convince Lena Cruz to become Lena Quinn.
Second step: everything else.
Chapter forty-eight
Her Power
Lena
Three months postpartum and I'm standing outside my mobile clinic—the one that's finally, impossibly, legally mine—and I can't quite catch my breath.
Cruz Medical Services.
Not fancy. Not elaborate.
Just real.
The van gleams in the Phoenix morning sun, properly equipped and officially licensed. Dr. Reeves's oversight makes itlegitimate. My years of experience make it powerful. Together, we're building something that shouldn't exist but does anyway.
Healthcare for people who fall through every crack.
Treatment for those the system forgot.
Hope on wheels.
"Ready?" Dr. Reeves asks, climbing out of his sedan. He's older, gray-haired, semi-retired but still passionate about serving underserved communities. The kind of doctor who actually gives a shit.
"No," I admit. "Santiago's only three months old. I've barely slept. My brain feels like it's made of exhausted mush. What if I forgot everything?"
"You're a trauma nurse who's treated gunshot wounds in parking lots while nine months pregnant. You can handle this." He hands me a coffee. "Besides, I'll be here. Physician oversight means I sign off on everything. You do the hands-on work. I provide the medical license. We're a team."
"When you say it like that, it sounds almost easy."
"It won't be. But you've never needed easy."
He's not wrong.
Three months of motherhood. Three months since I pushed Santiago into the world. Three months of healing, adjusting, surviving on love and stubbornness.
The first patient arrives before we're fully set up—young woman, maybe twenty, with an infected wound on her arm that screams "I can't afford the ER and I'm terrified of what they'll ask."
I slip into the familiar rhythm without thinking.
