“All right, then,” Mrs. Ethel confirms, removing her reading glasses. “Lucky for you, it’s been a quiet evening, and our bestattending physician just started his shift. So he’ll be coming through any minute now.”
“Thank you,” I mumble before Claire and I are left alone in our curtained quarters.
“Well, this is turning out to be pretty efficient,” Claire muses. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to know someone so quickly. I might take all of my dates here from now on.”
“Feels a little one-sided, though. I shouldn’t be the only one having to answer all the questions,” I grumble after she mentions other dates.
“You know what I do for a living now, don’t you?”
The corners of my lips turn up at that. “So you really are a teacher?”
She nods.
“You must like kids,” I venture.
“I do,” she says with a wistful sigh. “You?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “I’m definitely looking forward to having a family one day.”
“I could see that for you,” she agrees, and I detect a hint of sadness in her tone.
“Do you … want a family?”
She lifts a shoulder. “I used to. But things didn’t pan out,” she says quietly. “My ex and I never had any kids,” she adds when she notices my curious stare.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
She shrugs again. “It is what it is, you know.”
“How long were you together?” I ask carefully.
She sucks in a deep breath. “Just over ten years, but we were only married for the last few.”
My heart skips a beat when she mentions being married. “And you split up … recently?”
“It’s been a while. We had to be separated for at least six months before we could get a divorce,” she explains, her voice sounding smaller than it has all night. And even though my brain automaticallycounts her being divorced as another point against our compatibility, I’m more consumed by an unexpected surge of possessiveness and the need to protect her from anyone or anything that could hurt her again.
The monitor beeps when my pulse spikes, but I’m grateful when she ignores it and forces a more cheerful tone. “Have you ever been married?”
“No, but I’d like to be,” I tell her with a smile.
“Earlier, you said you’d been feeling sorry for yourself because you were alone. Is it because you’ve gone through a recent breakup, too?”
I scrunch up my nose in embarrassment when I realize how pathetic I must sound. “No, not really. Actually, it’s kind of a long story.”
“I’ve got time,” she assures me, tucking her legs beneath her.
“I honestly don’t even know where to start,” I say with a soft laugh. I hand her the thin blanket from the foot of the bed when I notice her arms are lined with goosebumps again. She accepts it gratefully, and I’m also thankful for a temporary reprieve from the temptation to check her out.
“The guy on your emergency contact list, your brother-in-law, is he the doctor-brother you mentioned before?” she prompts me.
“Ah, no. But he’s kind of the main character, ironically enough.”
She glares at me. “Go on.”
I hesitate for another second before deciding I might as well trust her with this, too. “He was my college roommate and my closest friend, and I recently found out that he and my baby sister kind of eloped in secret.”
Her brow shoots up. “The plot thickens.”
