Page 3 of White Collar Rancher

He stopped in front of the incubator they had Isaiah in. The nurse rattled off more instructions. He’d have to ask later what the hell she’d said.

As he gazed at a perfect little body and the cries reached his ears, he couldn’t pull himself out of his thoughts. He wasn’t just hanging around to help Maisy with his son and fight for every visit he could get. He was raising his son. Intuition told him that Maisy’s parents wouldn’t fight him. At least not initially. They had a daughter to bury. But he’d have to have a tough discussion with them about their expectations for their grandson. Sooner rather than later.

He reached through the circular door of the incubator and threaded a finger through Isaiah’s five perfect little digits. Wires were attached to his son’s chest and a line went through his umbilical stump. The tiniest diaper Justin had even seen wound around him.

The nurse was talking feedings now, but Justin wasn’t listening.

You and me, big guy. We’re going to get through this together.

Chapter 2

Her bedroom was dark. Quiet. Priya sat on the edge of her bed in her pajamas. The silk bottoms matched her camisole top. She’d managed to dress the part of a stable adult, but her clothing didn’t match her state of mind. Mismatched. Distracted. Darting.

Maisy was gone. Her best friend. Though that status had been questionable ever since Priya had moved home to work at her dad’s clinic. The ten years she’d been away had felt like twenty-five when she hung out with Maisy. After her friend had gotten pregnant, their relationship had turned more professional and less personal.

What Maisy had done was unconscionable. Lying about being on birth control was ugly, and giving Justin a condom that was well past its expiration date had only compounded the deception. But then the way she’d tried to manipulate Justin with the baby? That had been despicable. But Maisy had been in a bad place mentally, and Priya hadn’t had the heart to cut the woman completely out of her life. They’d stayed together for the same reason they’d been attached at the hip in high school: no one else understood them.

Priya with her social shyness and aspirations for an Ivy League medical school. A willingness to devote her free time to studying and activities that’d make her application shine. Debate team. Volunteer work. Part-time work at the hospital.

Then there’d been Maisy and her mood swings that drove away anyone who got close to her. Except for Priya. Priya’s straitlaced personality hadn’t been a deal breaker. No, instead it had been a reason Maisy could feel better about herself. She was the older, wiser wild child to Priya’s studious innocent.

It had worked then. At almost thirty, it had failed to stand the test of time.

But now it didn’t matter. Maisy was gone.

Priya sighed and let her head fall back, staring at her white ceiling. “Why didn’t you just go to the doctor, Maise?”

She knew the answer without needing a reply from the great beyond. Maisy’s parents had urged her to go to the clinic, and that had been enough to make her stay home. Normally, it would’ve been fine. Priya could’ve even recommended an over-the-counter medicine. Maisy had been far enough along. But this infection had been different. Unusual, but not rare enough for Priya to write a medical paper on it. Not that she would. Not for a case that still gave her restless “what could I have done better” nights a month later.

Her friend just lying there in the surgical suite. As pale as the white blanket she’d been draped in. So still.

Priya shook herself. Her first year out of residency, and she’d lost a patient. The image was one she’d have to live with. Her instructors always said that if she had a long and prosperous career, no matter how successful, losing a patient would be inevitable.

She thought back on her career trajectory. All those nights studying to finish college early. Attacking med school admission to get into Stanford—and making it on her first try. And coming home to work in a rural hospital and give back to the world for all her good fortune.

All that, and she couldn’t save a girl she’d known better than anyone. Maisy should be here with her own son. She should be learning life’s lessons through raising her kid. She shouldn’t have died.

Priya blinked back tears but failed to stop the trail they left down her cheeks. If she’d been a better friend and a better doctor, maybe Maisy would still be here.

She wept quietly. Living with her parents while she got settled was a blessing and a curse. Her dad was a doctor in town and pushing close to retirement. Her mom was a nurse, one he’d met during his own residency. Mom had been born and raised in Moore. Dad had followed her back home.

Together, they were a well of support and understanding without stifling her. Though right now, she could do with a little stifling. Some concerned glances. A few more questions, like “How are you doing?” But they reserved all their parental concern for her younger sister, Devya, as she traipsed across France in the name of art.

A buzzing sound filled the silence. Her phone. She wasn’t on call and it was after eleven at night.

Justin’s name popped up.

She’d wrapped her own turmoil in a tidy package when she was around him in the hospital and at the funeral. The magnitude of being a single dad and losing someone he’d known his whole life had hit him like a raging bull. Flattened him. Each day she was on rounds, she’d sought him out in the NICU. Each day of the two weeks Isaiah had been admitted, Justin had been there, holding Isaiah’s tiny hand or foot or sometimes rocking the baby in a chair by the isolette.

Isaiah had been released a couple weeks ago, and she missed those morning chats. Two friends talking about everything other than what had happened. But those moments had made her feel better.

She answered her phone, speaking low though her parents’ room was situated across the house. “Is everything okay?”

What if he asked her the same question? How would she answer? The temptation to overmedicate every mom who complained of a cough or fatigue hounded her. She second-guessed every decision and stayed late after work checking up on patients. She was becoming a helicopter OB and it’d burn her out in no time if she didn’t get her act together.

“Sorry to bother you.” She fluttered her eyes closed at the deep rumble on the other end of the line. The secret crush she’d nursed since middle school never failed to resurface at the most inappropriate times. Like when Maisy had squeed that he was back in town and had finally returned one of her calls. Or when his face had filled with awe and wonder during the very first prenatal ultrasound.

The way she’d just wanted him to hold her and tell her everything would be okay after she’d delivered the healthy baby of her dying friend.

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