Page 31 of Stuck with Doctor Grump

Chaos.

Light.

Heart.

I dragged a hand through my hair and stood, walking to the window. Outside, Cedar Springs slept under a blanket of mist. The streetlamps glowed amber. Eleanor’s bakery sign flickered gently across the square.

This place had a rhythm I hadn’t understood at first.

It pulsed slowly—like a heart at rest. Like recovery.

And somehow, without meaning to, Ruby had become the beat that kept it going for me.

I wasn’t sure when it had shifted. Maybe it was when she fell apart in that riverside moment and didn’t hide it. Maybe it was when she said she didn’t need rescuing but still let me stand beside her.

Maybe it was the way she made me laugh. The way she challenged me without fear. The way she looked at me like I was more than just a man who used to hold lives in his hands.

I hadn’t smiled like that in years.

Not in New York. Not at the hospital.

Certainly not in a lab.

I turned from the window and looked back at my laptop.

The cursor blinked in the reply box. Waiting. Expecting.

I could type three words and launch the next phase of the life I used to want.

Let’s do it.

Instead, I closed the lid and sat back down.

Because the truth—the one I didn’t want to admit but couldn’t ignore—was this:

I didn’t want New York.

I didn’t want sterile rooms and conference talks and endless nights chasing a version of myself I didn’t even recognize anymore.

I wanted the flower shop on Main Street that smelled like wild lavender and hope.

I wanted the chaotic woman who spilled glitter and opinions like confetti and somehow made me want to be better without saying a word.

And that terrified me more than any surgery ever had.

Because I could control a scalpel.

But I couldn’t control her.

And maybe that’s exactly what made her worth it.

…

The clinic was nearly dark when I heard the soft knock.

I’d just finished locking up, the last of the patient charts tucked away, when the front door creaked open and Ruby stepped inside with a pastry box balanced on one hip and a bouquet in her hand.

“Bribery,” she said, lifting both with a hopeful grin. “In the form of carbs and color.”

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