Page 2 of Fierce-Dane

“Yet it’s still not enough?” he asked. Dane ran his hands through his hair. His sister, Chloe, told him this, but he’d never admit it.

Chloe had told him when Tiffani was born that he shouldn’t be wearing himself out because in the end it wasn’t going to matter, that it would never be enough for Mel

He hadn’t wanted to believe her. She was right.

He did everything he could and it hadn’t made one ounce of a difference.

“I had this vision in my head of our life. It’s not there.”

He snorted. He’d heard this more than once. It was what she saw and wanted and she didn’t always care to ask for his feedback or whathecould possibly want.

Where did he go wrong? Did he just want a family so badly that he allowed himself to be stormed over?

Did he wonder if his biological parents gave him up because he was too hard to handle and the fact made him weigh all his decisions in life?

That’d be stupid for a smart guy.

Yet he was starting to believe that might have been the case.

“We were young,” Mel said. “Or I was. I had rainbows in my eyes and now there are clouds. I’m sorry. I love you, but I can’t live like this.”

“Like what?” he asked desperately. This wasn’t about his marriage as much as holding his family together now. “If you love someone enough you make it work.”

Failure had never been an option in his eyes. He never wanted that.

“I know you’re working less, but it’s still more than I hoped for. You’re on call all the time and work weekends and nights. You go in early and come home late. We can’t plan for anything as a family it seems. Not even family dinners work out right. I’ve got the kids by myself all the time when I get out of work. Sometimes I’m tired and need a break or a soak in the tub and I can’t get that if I’m alone.”

His eyes went wide. “This is because you wanted to take a bath last night but Tyler was cranky and wouldn’t go to bed on time?”

He’d gotten home at eight. He’d been on call, finished his appointments at the office, then did his rounds in the hospital. He got held up like it happens when talking to some parents. Easing their worries. Doing the job he was paid well for and that provided the life his wife always envisioned.

He cared about his work. The kids he saw.

It was why he loved his job so much.

When he walked in the door last night, Tyler was crying. He was overtired and didn’t want to go to bed. Mel was sitting on the couch looking like she’d been run through the washer and hung out to dry in the middle of a storm. Tiffani was sleeping already.

Tyler came running over to him in his pajamas, his nose running. He’d picked his son up, said some soft soothing words to him, rubbed his back and the kid was out on his shoulder in five minutes snoring softly.

He’d told Mel that was all it took and she knew that, but she’d admitted that she didn’t want to rock their son. She just wanted him to go to bed so she could read her book in the tub and if he’d been home on time, he could have done that for her.

Like always, he didn’t lose his patience, but put Tyler to bed and told her to take her bath then.

Nope, she said it was too late and turned the TV on and sat there and stewed.

He expected a fight, but he got nothing.

What he didn’t expect was his wife to send his kids to her parents when he had the night off and then hit him with this when he walked in the door.

“It’s not just last night,” Mel argued. “It’s all the time. I thought once you started to work it’d get better.”

“It is,” he said. “I’m not working nearly as much as when I was in my residency and you know it.”

“I know!” Mel yelled. “But I just thought maybe it’d be more like eight to five. That we’d have dinner together and the kids in bed at seven and you and I would have the rest of the night to ourselves.”

“Two weeks a month that is close to the case,” he said. “It won’t be much longer.”

He was home close to six, by the time he got out of the office. When he wasn’t on call, the nights were theirs. But two weeks a month, he didn’t get that luxury because they were down a doctor right now. Once Dr. Johnson was back from her medical leave, he’d do it once a month.

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