“Listen, I know I sound paranoid, but I think it’s serendipitous that all of our reservations canceled, so we now have all of these vacant rooms. There will be plenty of space for us to stay together to ride out the storm.”
“Or…,” Edie drug out the word, “I could stay at my own place literallyone house over.”
Camille looked at Edie like she’d suggested leaving the country. “Why would you do that?”
“Because Ilivethere.”
“But I can’t be certain you’re safe unless I can keep an eye on you at all times.”
Tabitha put an arm around her sister, drawing her close to her side. “Why don’t we see how things go as the storm rolls in? One step at a time.”
A vulnerable hiccup seized Camille’s chest. She leaned into Tabitha, voice low so only she could hear her murmur, “There’s a missing boat.”
“I know.” Tabitha sensed a lump starting to form in her own throat. She quickly swallowed it down. “They’ll find it.”
“They might not.”
She hugged her sweet sister tighter. “Theywill.”
“Coffee should be ready in just a few.” Cal reappeared from the kitchen. His eyes fell on the sisters. “Oh. Hey. You okay?”
“We’re fine,” Tabitha assured, waving off his concern. But were they? Between Tabitha’s dislike for storms—somethingshe’d struggled with since childhood—and the missing boat triggering memories of their parents for Camille, she couldn’t assertively say either woman was completely fine. Pretty far from it.
But they were together, and even if itwasoverboard to have everyone under one roof, it did create a semblance of peace that Tabitha wasn’t sure she would otherwise have.
And when Ben arrived an hour and a half later, even more of that worry sloughed away. The hug he gave her immediately was something she didn’t know she had craved until she was entirely wrapped up in his strong arms. Held tight. Bound in his protective embrace.
“I can perform surgeries on critical injuries, but somehow, all this talk of the storm has me tail spinning,” she admitted softly in his ear. “I don’t get it.”
“Tabs.” He held her at arm’s length to look her in the eye. “But you know why you don’t like storms.”
Did she? She wasn’t sure she could pinpoint the exact reason. It had been lightly raining when her parents went missing all those years ago, but nothing she would call a full-fledged storm. More of a drizzle, if anything.
But the thunder. The lightning. The torrential downpours. Just the thought sent a shiver racing down her spine.
“There was nothing you could have done.”
Her brows narrowed in confusion. What was he talking about? “What do you mean?”
“Maggie Billings?”
She gave him a blank look, scanning her memory to put a face to the name, but coming up empty.
“Tabitha, you really don’t remember the first patient that died on your operating table?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Even Camille’s ears perked up at the mention of the woman.
It didn’t seem possible that it could take so long for the name to register, but when Tabitha finally made the connection, her face paled a sickly shade of green, almost the color of seaweed washed ashore.
“Oh, Tabs.” Immediately, Ben steadied her, gripping her biceps to keep her upright. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you’d blocked that out.”
Camille understood why her sister would want to. Tabitha had been a brand-new surgeon at the time, conducting her first solo surgery. Even if she’d still required guidance, she likely wouldn’t have gotten any. It was an all-hands-on-deck sort of situation, trauma after trauma flooding the ER with patients and emergencies.
And maybe it was the literal flooding that caused it, but when paramedic Maggie Billings climbed down from the back of her ambulance to wheel out her patient strapped to the stretcher, there was nothing she could do to keep from being crushed by the incoming rig that lost control. It had slammed into her full force—pinning her between two pieces of steel—resulting in agruesome injury that left her fighting for her own life while she had attempted to save others.
In the post-operative documentation, it had been these unavoidable injuries that ultimately claimed her life, not Tabitha’s lack of trying to save it. She’d done everything and then some. But it had been on her watch. In her OR. Under her skilled hand.
