Читать книгу Medical Romance January 2017 Books 1 -6 - Marion Lennox - Страница 15
ОглавлениеLIFE SETTLED INTO a routine—sort of—but a medical house was never normal. As soon as the locals realised Tasha was available, the phone went all the time.
‘Do you spend all your time in the clinic?’ Tasha demanded at the end of the second week. She’d just finished an extra clinic and Tom had come to find her.
‘I can’t,’ Tom told her. ‘We have a huge elderly population. I need to do house calls.’
But Tasha was doing the house calls now, and was astounded by how many were needed. ‘You need two permanent doctors,’ she told him.
‘We do. Are you interested?’
He’d just returned from a long rehab session to which he’d had to go alone. Ray Desling had spilt his toe with an axe just as they’d been preparing to leave. It had nearly killed Tom to climb into a taxi and leave Tasha to clean and stitch, but her threat was still there.
‘You stop doing rehab, I stop being here.’
What was he doing? Proposing she stay? For ever?
‘What would I do in Cray Point?’ she asked, sounding astounded.
‘Live?’ He limped behind the reception desk so he could see the files she was processing. It felt good to stand beside her at the end of the day, figuring how much they’d achieved. That included how much he’d achieved. The left-sided weakness was lessening by the day.
‘Live?’ she said now, sounding puzzled. ‘Just live?’
‘Like everyone else,’ he told her. ‘That’s what we do in Cray Point. You could learn to surf and fill your spare time patching people up. That’s the story of my life.’
‘With ladies on the side,’ she retorted. ‘Which reminds me, I’ve been here for two weeks and nary a lady. Is there a problem?’
He managed a smile. Since his accident he hadn’t felt the least bit like dating. In truth, ever since Emily’s death his heart hadn’t been in it, and maybe the women he’d spent time with sensed it. But he wasn’t telling Tasha that.
‘Susie’s tossed me over for the guy who fixes her computer,’ he told her, and tried to look glum.
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Are you heartbroken?’
He forgot the glum and grinned. ‘How can I compete with someone who knows how to increase internet speed? In times gone by, legend says women found doctors sexy but I suspect they only found them useful. Geekiness now seems a strong draw card.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I don’t get involved. I never have.’
‘Because?’
‘Because I suspect I’m like my father and my brother,’ he said honestly. ‘I have no idea how to play happy families and I suspect it’s too late to learn. Now, about you staying...’
‘You’re offering me a job?’
‘If you’re interested.’
‘I’m not,’ she said, too quickly.
‘Then I guess it’s my turn to ask: because?’
‘Same reason. Because I suspect you’re like your father and your brother.’
He frowned. ‘Tasha, I’m offering you a job, not proposing marriage.’
‘That’s right,’ she agreed. ‘You are. But working together... It couldn’t work long-term. I don’t know if you’re aware of the tensions...’
And of course he was. He’d have to be an insensitive idiot not to feel them, but to talk about them out loud...
They’d been in the same house for two weeks now and the tensions she’d talked of were building. There was nothing tangible, just an undercurrent of awareness that couldn’t be avoided.
It was a big old house with a rabbit warren of rooms, yet somehow he always knew where Tasha was. When she walked into the room, tension escalated. When they cooked together, when their bodies brushed in passing, or sometimes at sunset when he sat on the veranda and she came out to join him, the tension was so great it felt almost a physical thing.
It wasn’t helped by the physio sessions. The water play was something he looked forward to more and more. He’d felt almost gutted today when Tasha hadn’t been able to come. He loved her skills and her excitement. He loved the way she beamed whenever he pushed himself to the limit and achieved more and more.
So what? She was a friend, not a lover. There was no reason for tension.
She was a woman without a home, without a base. She was a fully qualified medical practitioner. A colleague. It was entirely sensible to be offering her a job.
But she’d been feeling the tension, too, and the knowledge set him aback.
‘It’s hormonal,’ he said, trying to sound knowledgeable, trying to set things on a medical footing. ‘Two single adults, working closely together... But there’s nothing between us...’
‘There’s a whole lot between us, but attraction isn’t possible.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘You need to find yourself another Susie.’
‘That sounds insulting.’ He thought about it for a little longer. ‘It sounds like you’re afraid.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ she told him. ‘And I didn’t mean to be insulting. But I’m aware, and I don’t want to stay aware. I don’t intend to feel that tension for the rest of my life.’
‘Hey, we’re adults,’ he said, striving for lightness. ‘Surely we can get over a bit of physical attraction.’
‘Is that what it is?’
‘You’re hot,’ he said honestly.
‘Like Susie and Alice and the rest.’
‘Tasha...’
‘Too right, it’s insulting,’ she said flatly. ‘Don’t you ever call me hot again. This is an inappropriate conversation to be having with a colleague, which demonstrates my point. We can’t be colleagues. I leave in six weeks. You’ll be fit enough to drive again and take over here. I’ll get on with my life.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I have plans.’
‘Care to share?’
‘No.’ How could she talk to Tom about what she’d hardly faced herself? What she probably didn’t have the courage to face.
‘Because you don’t know?’
‘I’m a doctor. I can go anywhere I want in the world and get a job.’
‘Drift, you mean.’
‘It’s better than staying here and being seduced by you.’
Silence.
The words hung. And hung and hung.
Tasha closed her eyes. Beam me up, Scottie, she thought. What had she just said?
‘I wouldn’t,’ Tom said at last in a voice that didn’t sound like his own. ‘I have no intention—’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I have no idea where that came from.’
Another silence. And then...
‘Because we both want it?’ Tom asked.
She covered her face with her hands. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘This is a reaction from not having a Susie or someone like her around,’ she whispered into her hands. ‘It reflects badly on both of us.’
‘It has nothing to do with Susie. It’s the way you make me feel.’
‘Then don’t feel. We both know it’s impossible.’
‘Why is it impossible?’
‘Because I have no intention of being one of your brief flings and you don’t know how to do anything else. You’ve said it yourself. And me... I have no intention of being involved with another Blake boy.’
‘I’m not Paul.’
‘You’re not, but you’re like him in so many ways. I have no idea why he married me. He managed to stay by my side for our honeymoon but that was the extent of it. Then he was off adventuring, challenging himself, pushing himself to the limit. Heaven knows if there were other women. I only found out about the last, but looking back, he made our lives so separate there may well have been others.’
‘So why did you marry him?’
‘Who knows?’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe he reminded me of my parents. Maybe I’m genetically drawn to risk-takers, or maybe I’m just stupid. Persuading me to marry him must have seemed a challenge to Paul, but once the challenge was met he moved on. For a time I tried to keep up. I learned to abseil and we climbed in places I still can’t believe. I went caving and scuba diving, and we did it in some of the most dangerous countries in the world. I pushed myself to the limit but pretty soon I realised that no matter what I did I wasn’t important to him. It was the thrill of conquering that was important. And finally I discovered that included women... Who needed a wife? There could always be another Susie or another Alice.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘To who?’
‘To me. I’m not Paul.’
‘Of course you’re not,’ she agreed. ‘But you said yourself you don’t know about being faithful. And then there’s the fact that you threw yourself onto rocks in the surf on a day everyone knew it was stupid to be there.’
‘I—’
‘Please, Tom,’ she said wearily. ‘This is a dumb conversation. I never meant to say those things and I regret it already. I’m being rude and judgemental and I have no right to be either. I’m sorry. It’s my problem, not yours, but it is a problem and it means I can’t stay. So can we just go back to how we were fifteen minutes ago? I have Emma Ladley bringing her daughter in any minute. Megan has menstrual problems, which Emma thinks have been compounded by boyfriend woes. Women’s business. You need to leave.’
‘You don’t need me?’
‘Of course I don’t need you,’ she managed. ‘I needed you once and I’m very grateful but I have no intention of needing you again.’
‘Tasha, the job...we could help each other.’
‘We could destroy each other,’ she told him. ‘Please... Leave me be.’
* * *
He left and she shook, which was an entirely inappropriate reaction. She’d overreacted to the point of ridiculous, she told herself. Tom had offered her a job and suddenly they’d been talking about lust. They’d even talked of the impossibility of a long-term relationship, which was something neither of them had even thought of.
Except she had considered it. Of course she had. She’d been living with Tom for two weeks now and she’d been aware of him every moment. She’d acknowledged the attraction and she hadn’t been able to put it aside.
Tom was her friend. He’d helped her at a time when she had been most vulnerable. She even acknowledged that she loved him—as a friend.
Except it wasn’t quite as a friend, for every time he was near her, her body reacted in a way that was entirely inappropriate. She loved being near him. Tension or not, she loved sitting out on the veranda late at night and having him sit beside her. She loved his body in the pool, the vulnerability he exposed during rehab, the way he pushed himself to the limit and the exultation when he achieved the next step in physical fitness.
She loved the way he locked his gaze with hers as they passed the ball in their weird version of water polo. They were getting harder and harder to beat.
They were becoming a team.
‘But only for now,’ she muttered. ‘It’s transient. Long-term? No and no and no.’
But living here...
The thought was suddenly like a siren song. Living in Cray Point? Buying her own little cottage? Maybe taking courage in both hands, taking up that appointment for another attempt at IVF, using here as a base...?
Tom was her friend and she knew by now that she could depend on him. She could surely live here, work here, with Tom in the background.
She couldn’t because she felt...
‘Like I have no intention of feeling,’ she muttered. ‘Like I’d be nuts to feel. You don’t need to take risks—you know where that gets you. Get on with your life, Tasha Raymond, and go and greet your next patient. She has women’s troubles and boyfriend troubles. Who needs either? Not me, that’s for sure.’
* * *
Tom went home and pulled a casserole out of the freezer. How many casseroles had Hilda left? He stared at it for a long moment and then replaced it.
He rang for the taxi.
Five minutes later the taxi pulled up. Karen, the local cab owner, greeted him with cheer.
‘Hey, Doc. Got an emergency?’ In truth, Karen had been enjoying being on call for him. Until Tasha had arrived she’d been making a fortune.
‘I need to go to the supermarket.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Really? I thought Hilda had organised you everything. Casseroles, pies, deliveries twice a week. When she left she told me you wouldn’t need for anything.’
‘I don’t always need what Hilda thinks. I want a change for dinner tonight.’
‘Something special? I heard Susie’s going out with Donald. Hmm...’ She grinned. ‘I’m guessing...you and Tasha...’
‘Karen!’
‘Just saying.’
‘I’m only buying steak!’
‘Whatever you say, Doc,’ she said expansively. ‘Whatever you say.’
* * *
Tasha arrived back at the house half an hour later to find the house empty. Her footsteps echoed on the ancient floorboards.
It felt strange. Wrong.
‘How fast have I got used to company?’ she demanded of herself. Too fast. Apart from her brief, disastrous marriage she’d been a loner all her life, yet here she was reacting with a shiver of desolation because Tom wasn’t home.
She walked out to the veranda and the table was set. Two places.
Candles. Flowers.
She’d seen this set-up before, on that appalling night she’d arrived, eighteen months ago.
She’d hardly registered then but she did now. He must have had a date.
Did he think he had a date now?
‘You idiot,’ she said out loud and, she wasn’t sure whether she was talking to herself or to Tom. She’d have an egg on toast later, she told herself. By herself. And then she’d go to bed early.
She didn’t need this tension between them and she had no intention of escalating it.
But she couldn’t settle. She needed a walk and she knew where she wanted to go.
Five minutes later she was walking along the cliffs, up towards the headland.
Emily was waiting, and tonight of all nights it seemed imperative to talk to her.
* * *
His car was back. That meant Tasha was home—except she wasn’t.
Her coat was missing from the back veranda, as were her walking boots.
She was upset and that upset him. He still didn’t understand what had happened this afternoon. All he knew was that he’d messed with their relationship and it felt bad.
He took his gear into the kitchen and set it out. Salad, steak, fruit and cream. It wasn’t nearly as professional as the meals Hilda had prepared, but for some reason tonight it felt important to cook himself.
In truth, he wasn’t sure what he was doing. The ground under him felt shaky and it wasn’t just his weak leg that was the cause.
He opened an excellent wine. He checked the dining table on the veranda and decided to ditch the candles and flowers. Then he put them back again.
Then he ditched them again, dumping them in the trash so he couldn’t change his mind. He brought the place settings into the kitchen and set the table there.
Better.
She still wasn’t home.
The night was mild and clear. The moon was just coming up, hanging low over the eastern sky. The sounds of the surf and the call of distant plovers were the only things that cut the silence.
He thought of putting on music and decided not to.
What was he doing? He should be getting things back to a normal setting, except he wasn’t sure what a normal setting was any more.
Why had he asked her to continue to work here, and why had it escalated so fast?
He headed back out to the veranda. He knew where she’d be. He’d watched her walk up there many times since she’d arrived. There was a tiny grave...
He should let her be. Her time with Emily was not his to share.
But tonight he needed to share. He’d messed with something deeply important. Friendship?
Something more?
She’d made it quite clear she didn’t want more and he didn’t either.
Or did he?
How could he? The last thing he wanted was to hurt her. How could he promise not to?
He should leave her be. He should...
He didn’t. He shrugged on his jacket and took the walking pole he kept beside the door. His leg wasn’t up to climbing the headland without support and he had no intention of becoming Tasha’s patient.
What did he want?
He didn’t know. All he knew was that he was out the door, walking towards the headland with the intention of finding out.
* * *
‘Should I run?’
She’d lost Emily eighteen months ago but she’d spoken to her every day since she’d lost her.
‘You never completely lose a child.’ A midwife had told her that, some time in the dark days as Emily had slipped away. ‘A baby is part of you. You may lose her from your body but she’s carved a space inside you and that space will always be hers.’
She hadn’t believed it then. In those appalling first few months, all she’d felt had been an aching, searing loss that threatened to destroy her. But always at the back of the pain had been the slip of comfort, the remembrance of Emily in her arms, the sweet smell of her, the sensation of tiny fingers curving around hers.
And they’d stayed with her. Even back in England she’d felt them, and she’d known that Emily was still real, still a part of her life. So she’d talked to her, and now, high on the headland in Cray Point’s tiny cemetery where Emily lay buried, her little girl seemed closer than she’d been since she’d lost her.
‘I’m making a mess of things,’ she told her. ‘I came back because Tom needed me and I owed him.’ She took a deep breath. ‘The problem is, I’m scared of how I’m feeling.’
And there it was, out there, the thing she was most afraid of.
Surely she couldn’t. She’d have something deeply wrong with her to fall for another Blake boy.
She made herself think back to those appalling last few weeks with Paul. They’d had plans to go on vacation to Sardinia. After a gruelling two years of dreadful marriage, she’d clung to it with a final despairing hope.
Not only would it be a fabulous vacation, she’d told herself. It would also be a chance to patch up a marriage that was in real trouble.
And start a baby?
But then Paul had burst back into their apartment, beaming with excitement. ‘Change of plans, sweetheart. It’s the chance of a lifetime. There’s an Australian team heading for Everest next month and someone’s dropped out. They’ve offered me the chance and I can’t say no. I know we planned Sardinia but you could come to base camp, do a few easy walks while you wait for me. Tasha, this is amazing...’
‘You’re not experienced enough,’ she’d managed, stunned, and he’d turned angry.
‘I’m fit. I’ve done enough climbing to know the basics. I can do this. I’ll need to head back to Australia to organise visas and the like. I still have the apartment in Melbourne and the team will be leaving from there. You can come with me if you want. Stay in Australia or come to base camp.’ And then, as she’d said nothing, he’d turned away. ‘It doesn’t matter. Support me or not, babe, I don’t care.’
And then had come the phone call late at night, the call where she’d unashamedly stood in the dark and listened as her husband had talked to his lover.
‘She’s not coming to base camp—I knew she wouldn’t. She’ll stay in Melbourne. That means we can spend a few days in Nepal before we go. Yeah, it means we cut acclimatisation short, but you and me, babe... Everest together and the rest. You just need to peel off that husband and get your act together. Yeah, sweetie, love you, too.’
She hadn’t confronted him. She’d been too empty, too sad and shocked. She’d gone to Melbourne with him and helped him pack, all the time thinking this needed to be the last goodbye.
And then the day before he’d left he’d come back to the apartment looking triumphant.
‘It’s all fixed. I’ve been to the IVF place and made a deposit. I know you want a baby, sweetie, so if anything happens to me you can still have your baby. You can go to Sardinia, lie on the beach and dream of me.’
She hadn’t gone to Sardinia and when the call had come to say Paul and his other ‘sweetie’ had perished, the emptiness inside her had hardly grown deeper.
She’d thought she loved him.
‘What do I know about love?’ she asked Emily, and there was no answer.
There were seaside daisies growing around the edges of the cemetery. It was almost dark but the daisies were white and easy to see. She gathered handfuls and piled them around the edges of the little grave, and then sat there, soaking in the silence, trying to make her jumbled thoughts line up.
She was in so much trouble.
She should leave.
She couldn’t leave. She’d promised.
‘I’ll move to Hilda and Rhonda’s house,’ she told Emily. ‘It makes sense. Even if the cats make me sneeze, they can’t be as dangerous as Tom.’
‘I’m not dangerous.’
She jumped and when she came back to earth Tom was right beside her. He’d emerged from the dusk like a shadow. He stood in his dark coat, leaning on his cane, surveying her with concern. ‘Tasha, don’t make this bigger than it is.’
‘I... What?’
‘Me,’ he told her. ‘You sound afraid and I can’t bear it.’
‘I’m not afraid of you.’ Except she was.
‘Should I go away again?’ he asked. ‘I don’t want to disturb you.’
‘You’re not.’ That was another lie. But he was here and he was Tom and there were things she needed to say.
‘Thank you for doing this,’ she whispered. Because there was no concrete slab over Emily’s grave as there was over most other graves. Instead, there was a rim of sea-tough plants, carefully chosen to create a tiny island of protection from the blast of the sea winds. Within that island were flowers, hellebores at the moment, Christmas roses, flowers that would bloom in mid-winter. And when Tasha had dug down to pull a recalcitrant weed she’d found daffodils bulbs ready to spring to life in late winter, and what looked like tiny ranunculi and anemone bulbs for spring.
Tonight she’d set her daisies at the rim of the grave where there was a space, but she knew instinctively that when she hadn’t been here, that space would have been filled by Tom. He’d been tending her baby’s grave and the thought did something to her heart she couldn’t understand.
Sense or not, she had no defence against Tom’s caring.
And he was caring still. ‘I’m sorry I upset you,’ he said gently. ‘It’s the last thing I intended.’
‘It was me,’ she said. ‘I had no business to turn a professional proposition into something more.’
‘You don’t want it to be more?’
‘No.’
‘I guess that’s good,’ he told her. ‘Because, as you say, I’m a Blake and I didn’t learn relationships.’
‘You do a nice line in caring despite it,’ she told him, carefully focusing her attention on rearranging her daisies. ‘I love you for what you’ve done for us. For what you’ve done for Emily. But what’s between us... It must be because of Emily. We were thrown into a hothouse of emotions. It’s hardly surprising we’re in a place now we don’t recognise.’
‘I guess that’s right.
He stood back a little, saying nothing more, while she knelt beside Emily’s grave and tried to get her emotions under control.
Let him think it’s all about Emily, she told herself, but she knew it wasn’t.
Finally she stood, brushed herself down and turned to look out at the moonlit sea. There was a long silence, a silence, though, that didn’t feel uncomfortable. It was more...peace.
‘Thank you for sending me the photographs,’ she said at last. ‘I...I’m sorry I couldn’t respond...the way you deserved for sending them but they were important to me. I loved your emails, too. It sort of meant, even though I’d left, I hadn’t abandoned her. She was with a friend.’
‘That’s quite a compliment.’
‘It’s the way I feel. But I couldn’t write back.’
‘I understood.’
‘I know you did,’ she whispered, and then there was more silence.
And then: ‘Would you ever think about another baby?’ Tom asked.
The peace was shattered. It was as if the question had opened a locked door, and the space behind was so flooded with emotion that she almost staggered.
But Tom was beside her. He touched her arm, a simple gesture of friendship, and the chaos settled a little.
‘Don’t answer if you don’t want to,’ he said, but he was probably the one person in the world who deserved an answer.
‘I don’t think I’m brave enough.’
‘But you want...’
‘I don’t think I can want.’
He didn’t reply. His hand still rested on her arm, and the contact helped. They stood side by side, looking out over the sea while she tried to think of where to take this. While she tried to think of where to take her life?
‘So you don’t want to stay here,’ Tom said at last. ‘And you don’t think you can try for another baby? What do you want, Tasha?’
Why did the question seem so huge? Why did it seem so impossible?
‘Medicine’s good,’ she said at last, gripping to the one thing that had stayed constant. ‘I’m needed.’
‘Medicine can’t fill your life.’
‘Does it fill yours?’
‘In a way, yes,’ he said simply. ‘But medicine for me is more than caring for the next person who comes in the door. My medicine’s all about caring for this community. Cray Point took care of me as a kid. It fills something inside me that I can give something back.’ He hesitated and then forged on and she sensed he was warring with himself as to whether to say it or not. But then he said it. He asked it.
‘What fills that void inside you, Tasha Raymond?’
And it was all she could do not to sob. For there was such a gaping wound inside...
She should be used to it. For heaven’s sake, it had been with her all her life. Her parents had practically abandoned her at birth, leaving her with one carer after another. Then—and psychoanalysts would have a field day with this, she thought grimly—she’d fallen for a guy who’d been just like her parents. A man who’d said he loved her and had then betrayed her.
And then there was Emily.
The hole inside her wasn’t diminishing. She couldn’t fill it with work and it seemed to be getting bigger every day.
But she couldn’t fill it here, not with this man, not with this place. And not with another baby?
She’d run out of courage.
‘You would find the courage,’ Tom said gently, and astonishingly it was as if he’d followed her train of thought. ‘Tasha, I’ve cared for mums who’ve lost babies. In ten years of general practice I’ve seen it enough to know how massive that loss is.’
‘Tom...’
‘I’ve also seen it enough to sense that moving on is the hardest thing in the world,’ he kept on. ‘Having another baby seems impossible. But it’s the thought that hurts, not the baby that comes. You know you can’t ever replace Emily—why would you want to?—but the heart expands. There’ll always be a hole where Emily should be, but it can’t stop you living. It can’t stop you searching for joy and accepting joy when you find it.’
‘Tom, I can’t...’
‘I know,’ he said simply, and he touched her cheek, lightly, the faintest of brushes. ‘But if you ever feel you can and you need help to find the courage...Tasha, I accept that you can’t stay here. I accept we have a relationship that causes you pain. But I’ll always be here for you, Tasha. In the background. Egging you on every way I know how.’
‘Th-thank you.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ he said, striving for lightness. He managed a smile. ‘I can’t do families myself but, wow, I’m good at giving advice. But now... Time to go home?’
And there was nothing else to say. She nodded mutely and turned towards the path.
Tom fell in beside her. His words kept echoing in her head. She needed space to think about them. She needed space to think about what she was feeling.
About a baby?
About Tom.
They walked on in silence. She hardly needed to slow her steps to pace his now. With his cane he was almost as sure as she was on the rough path. He was improving so fast.
Maybe she wouldn’t need to stay for six weeks.
The thought was suddenly a desolate one.
But even as she thought it, his weak leg struck a tree root and he stumbled. Not enough to fall but enough for her to instinctively reach out and catch his hand. And hold.
He swore. She knew he hated showing weakness, hated being dependent—but he didn’t pull away. His fingers linked through hers with a strength and warmth that made her feel...like she had no business feeling.
Maybe he did need her.
But the Blake men didn’t need, and he was a Blake.
Stop it, she told herself. Stop categorising him. He’s just Tom.
Just Tom? That was a thought that almost made her laugh. He was so much more than just Tom.
His hand still linked to hers and it felt right. It felt good.
She found herself thinking of the pseudo water-polo games they played, where they teamed against Liselle. Where their gazes stayed almost constantly locked as they fought for a strategy to get the ball through. She loved those games. She’d hated missing this afternoon.
It was fun, but it was more than that. She and Tom were working as a team. They had no hope of scoring a goal by themselves.
Tom was better in the water than she was, stronger, more agile, a better swimmer when he wanted to move fast, but he was handicapped with a weak arm and leg.
He needed her.
On her own she had neither the ability nor the strength to get the ball through the goal net. She needed Tom.
Why did that mesh with the feeling of his hand holding hers?
Why was that thought such a tantalising siren song? To need. To be needed.
‘Friends,’ Tom said softly as they reached the final rise before the house.
And she thought, Yes. To lose his friendship would break her heart.
But then...friends?
She wanted more.
No. It was her body that wanted more. Her head said it was ridiculous, that she needed no one, that she’d been solitary forever and it was far, far safer that way.
She’d learned life’s lessons the hard way, and she had no choice but to accept them.
