Page 18 of Twice in a Lifetime

“Don’t do that. Don’t call me that. Just... don’t. Please.”

He dropped his arm, his hands clenching into white-knuckled fists at his sides. When he spoke, his tone was like gravel. “I’m sorry.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice not to betray every little thing I was feeling. We worked in silence for a while, side by side. I rinsed the dishes and passed them to him to be loaded into the dishwasher. The tension in the air was so thick it could have been cut with the knife Rhodes just loaded.

It took a while, but I finally managed to muster up the courage to ask the question that had been weighing on my mind all evening. Hell, if I was being honest, it was the question I’d had on my mind for days.

“Have you, um, have you found . . . anything?”

Rhodes let out a breath that had me turning my head in his direction. It appeared it was his turn to avoid eye contact. “I thought it would be better if Linc took lead on that. I didn’t...”Those amber eyes of his landed back on me. “I thought you might prefer if it was him.”

I didn’t have the first clue how to feel about that. There was relief, then there was disappointment that I couldn’t even begin to understand. Instead of saying anything, I nodded, and we went back to silence.

It was the easiest way with us.

Chapter Ten

Blythe

The morning at the clinic had been packed with back to back clients, and things had been moving at such a fast pace there hadn’t been a chance for me to speak with Merritt. I’d been trying to talk to her more to see if I could get her to come out of her shell. Truth was, I was worried about her. I could have sworn I saw a bruise on her hip the other day. She’d been reaching up to slide a file back into place on one of the higher shelves, causing her scrubs top to ride up a bit, but before I could be certain it was a bruise and not just a shadow, she jerked it back in place.

The mechanical chime of the door sounded, and I looked up as Ivy Young came through, followed closely by her boyfriend, Connor. The two of them were much more touchy-feely now than they had been when she first started coming to see Dr. Shaundry. I hadn’t asked, not wanting to dig into business that wasn’t mine, but it was clear that the pregnancy had been an accident. As the big man placed his hand on the small of Ivy’s back and guided her to the reception desk, all while lookingdown at her like she was the very thing that hung the moon in the sky each night, I was glad to see they’d made it through the rough patches and appeared to be going strong.

Ivy smiled brightly as she stopped across the counter from me, placing a palm on the swell of her belly. She hadn’t been showing the last time she came in, but now it was obvious that her rounded belly was more than just an extra-large burrito for lunch.

“Hi,” she greeted me, looking happy and healthy and so much brighter than the last time I’d seen her.

I returned her smile with one of my own. “Wow, look at you.”

“I know.” Her hand caressed her stomach affectionately. “It was the weirdest thing. I just kind of popped overnight.”

“Yeah, it’ll happen like that. But it looks good on you.”

Connor drew closer to her like he couldn’t stand even the smallest distance between them. Looping his arm over her shoulder, he pulled her into his side to press a kiss to her temple. “Didn’t think it was possible for her to get more beautiful than she already was, but then she went and proved me wrong.”

The genuine adoration in his eyes as he gazed at her was beautiful and painful to witness at the same time. I was so incredibly happy for Ivy that she was happy. She was a good person. She’d reached out more than once not long after I returned to Hope Valley, but I hadn’t been in a very good place then. She deserved her happily ever after, and I did everything in my power to stomp down the pang of envy trying to spring to life at the realization that, not only had I lost my happily ever after, but it had all been a lie in the first place.

“Have a seat and I’ll let them know you’re here. Heather will be out to take you back in just a minute.”

“Thanks, Blythe.”

Ivy took the hand Connor extended and let him lead her to one of the cushy chairs lining the walls. As I swiveled my chairaround to face my computer, I caught Merritt looking out into the waiting room, sadness chiseled into the plains of her face and glistening from her eyes.

My ribs squeezed tight in my chest as I watched her watching Ivy and Connor. If I hadn’t already suspected something was very wrong in her marriage, the way she looked just then would have been all the confirmation I needed.

She blinked, her eyes clearing and the mask falling back into place. A small, shaky grin pulled at her mouth when she caught me staring. “They’re a cute couple,” she said with a sniffle before whipping back around to face her computer screen.

I reached over, placing a hand on her arm. “Honey, are you okay?”

She nodded a bit frantically. “Yeah. Sure. I’m all good.”

There wasn’t an ounce of truth to those words. “Okay, but you know, if you ever need to talk, I’m here.” It was a pitiful offer, one so much smaller than what I really wanted to give her, but if I pushed too fast, I knew she’d lock down, then there’d be no chance of helping her.

The rest of the day was uneventful and a bit dull, only livening up once I picked up my kids from school and daycare. Listening to them chatter on about their day was always a highlight of mine. Hearing them talk about their friends gave me a small glimmer of hope that I hadn’t screwed everything up by uprooting their lives and moving them out here so soon after losing their father.

“Look!” Adeline’s arm shot between the front seats as I turned my SUV into the driveway. “Uncle Tris is home!”

Sure enough, his truck was parked in the driveway, marking the first time in weeks he’d been home before the sun went down. We’d been living with my little brother for months, but with his work schedule and the havoc in my life, I felt like Ihardly saw him. We’d been separated by states for years, but recently I’d missed him more than I had in all that time.

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