The woman’s gaze skitters over me in the bed before snapping back to my face, clocking the bruises and gash one by one. Something registers, and horror envelopes the irises of her eyes.Greeneyes. Penetratingly beautiful green eyes.
“Steven?” her voice cracks as she takes a step closer.
“Yes?”
Jessee steps toward the woman and whispers something in her ear. Her eyes threaten to well up with tears, but whatever Jessee says causes her face to shift, more neutral and unreadable, as if she’s aware showing her emotions isn’t something she should do. And there’s something about it that gnaws at me. I’m filled with an odd surge to spring forward and tell this strangereverything is going to be fine.
“Steven, I’m your wife. Emma.” She clasps her hands together, letting them fall below her waist.
“Wife?” I repeat. The word feels foreign, like a new taste on my tongue.
Emma swallows hard, her lip quivering for just a moment before she bites it back. I think I see fear there, maybe sadness, but it’s gonebefore I can be sure.
“Dr. Jones, do you want Emma in here?” Jessee asks from the back of the room.
“Are you serious?” Emma scoffs.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Jones. I have to make sure the patient is comfortable.”
“Comfortable? Who brought you no-bake cookies after your knee surgery, Jessee?” Emma speaks over her shoulder, but her eyes never leave me. They’re captivating, and that flip in my stomach is…familiar.
“I know,” Jessee grimaces. “It’s policy.”
Emma rolls her eyes and gives me what I can only assume is acan you believe thiskind of look. I smile faintly; something about her sharpness makes my gut squeeze. She’s attractive—stunning, actually—and I’m instantly aware of how I look in comparison. Grungy, beat up, indisposed.
“Dr. Jones?” Jessee asks again. “Can she stay?”
“Yes, she can stay.” My response shocks even myself. The desire to keep this woman around wraps itself around me like a blanket. Something inside me tells me keeping her around is comforting and safe, probably even safer than the people who swore an oath to help me.
Emma gives her a knowing smirk as Jessee nods and leaves us. We stare at each other in silence for long a beat before I finally ask, “So you’re my wife?”
“In the flesh,” she tries to joke, but her eyes are glossy again, that emotion she was suppressing trying to bubble to the surface.
“How long?”
“Fifteen years.” A wistful look moves across her face as she motions toward my bed. I nod, and she sits at my feet, resting her hand hesitantly on my knee. The touch, even masked by a blanket, zaps me into awareness. Heat floods me as I take in the sight of her, the sight of her wedding ring sparkling back at me. Her body is soft, with the kind of graceful beauty that comes with age.
“We met your second year of medical school,” she adds.
I blink away from the soft spot near her collarbone that keeps stealing my attention. “Really? Where?”
“At one of Liam’s house parties.”
“So you know Liam?” This comforts me.
“Oh, I know Liam.” She doesn’t sound happy about this information, and a part of me isn’t surprised. Liam wasn’t the best at making friends. “One of my roommates dragged me. I didn’t know anyone there, so I was sitting all alone in the corner of the living room.” She laughs at the memory, and something flickers into mine. A crowded room and a dart board, a beautiful girl with green eyes and long brown hair. It’s a vague memory, but it’s there.
“Let me guess,” I start, trying to pull more of the memory from the corners of my mind, but nothing comes. “I delivered the best one-liner of your life.”
She belts out a laugh that hits me square in the chest, a sound I know I’ve heard a million times. One I begged to never lose.
“Something like that,” she says. “Then I mopped the floor with you in darts.”
“I think I remember that.”
“Really?” Her voice is so hopeful it flutters through my chest. She scoots closer, her hand gliding higher over my leg. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I remember studying for a final, I think. And I remember Liam hounding me to come to his place, and I almost didn’t go.”
