Page 234 of Screwged for Christmas

But the more lights she flipped, the more he killed.

“Will you stop already?”

“They hurt the eyes. Tell me what you meant.” From across the room she felt his heated stare.

She flushed with anger and balled her fists by her sides. Her heart constricted and she looked at anything in the room besides the man she spoke to. “I killed someone on the job two days before I came here. Not directly but I failed her and the children that depended on her. I know how that sounds, but that’s only the first half of the story. I went digging for information and discovered she was in recovery and trying to pull her life together for her kids. She had almost two years clean.” Her heart hurt. “Then she relapsed. The pressure of being a solo parent, the weight of yet another Christmas… I don’t know.” Her arms fell to her sides.

Ivy held her breath, waiting, watching as silence filled the small apartment. With the drapes closed everything seemed smaller, the walls closer, the space constricting. Dots floated in front of her face and the tiny kitchenette twirled in slow circles.

“Whoa, angel.” Warm arms wrapped around her and for the briefest of moments the world seemed right. “Breathe…you’re having another panic attack.”

Then reality bitch-slapped her.

“No kidding.” Blackness swallowed everything and she let her guard down long enough to bury her nose in his neck for one lungful more of his scent. She could afford that. Hopefully. When she landed in Houston in ten hours she’d forget all about Damon Savage and the penetrating way his eyes held her captive and the pine scent she wanted to rub all over herself until she could smell nothing else. Damn man.

She pushed him away slowly and fought to find a new rhythm to her breathing.

“Everyone, even my hard-ass supervisor, said it was a good call on my part and that I couldn’t do anything to save the mother.” She pressed a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. “I fought, but I hesitated before I administered the right counter medicines to block the heroin overdose. In the end, nothing worked. But what if I hadn’t hesitated? What if I’d been faster?” She crashed and the sound of her heart monitor flatlining still rings in my ears.”

Damon stroked her cheek. “What did your supervisor say?”

“She’d like nothing else than to see me fail, but in this case she told me I made the right call and she supported it when I went in front of the board.”

“It seems to me you have your answer right there.”

“Don’t you see, Damon?” Her voice broke and sounded ragged to her own ears. She hated weakness. She slammed her hand down on the counter but the sting of pain did nothing for the frustration and hurt that burrowed deep in her heart.

“No,” he whispered softly. “You’ll need to spell it out for me, Ivy. Because the only thing I see is you killing yourself emotionally over something that was entirely out of your hands. You didn’t shoot that woman up, make her use drugs or tell her the drug should mean more to her than her kids.”

“I quit,” she stated flatly. “So many years, sleepless nights and so many odd jobs I’ve lost count. And there’s Zahara too. She’s done so much for me and I walked away because I hesitated. What happens when I’m in the operating room and stall? Oh my God. It scares me. All I could think about was my own stupid screwed up mom and it cost three kids their mother.” Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Some Christmas miracle I performed. I’ve been stumbling through the last year and a half of med school and rotations, to be honest. As soon as it became something more than books I couldn’t hack it, apparently. Only I didn’t have the balls to let my sister down.”

Propped up on the kitchen counter beside her, Damon considered. “So what now, Ivy? Run and hope your problems don’t trail after you?”

Fury burned like a hot poker in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t know, Damon. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know I can’t be here to figure it out. I thought I could come, spend time with my sister and find some answers, and now I only have more questions.”

Her heart ached. “I know what you are thinking. I see it in your eyes and how you keep eyeing that door. There’s no reason you can’t be a part of that family, Ivy.” Damon unhooked his ankles and crossed the room to here where she stood by the couch.

“Zahara will worry about me when she needs to focus on the babies.” She plucked up the few items she had strewn across the apartment and pulled on the sweater Damon tossed over the back of a chair and a pair of gloves from the counter. She swiped her guidebook too and passed Damon who stood in the middle of her little borrowed apartment, arms crossed and putting a lot of energy into the broody gaze he should own the copyright to.

“Now, I’m outta here.”

“Ivy, wait.”

“No, Drake said he had one last run tonight to pick something up from Fairbanks. I’m leaving.”

“You asked why no one has been behind the bar with me for the past four years. The answer is my wife, the one I thought would be with me until the day I died, left me. She thought being married to a cop was hot, but once the danger set in and reality took hold, she left. People leave, people hurt you, Ivy, but I’ve learned only we have the power to say when enough is enough and retake control over our lives.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and rubbed at his eyes with a long-drawn-out sigh. “Back then with the woman I thought would be mine for life, it didn't feel like this.Ididn't feel like this. Maybe fate knew she wasn’t my soul mate.”

“Like what, Damon?”

“Like my life would end without you in it.”

Her mouth went slack. The sex was good. No, mind-blowing fantastic, but forever?

She paused by the bedroom door and turned to meet his gaze over her shoulder. “I think you need to go, Damon.”

“As you wish.”

And with that, he was gone.

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