Page 75 of You Loved Me Once
“I promise. I don’t know how to be anything but me.” She looks up at the bag of chemo and back to me. “This disease has taken enough, I won’t let it destroy who I am and what I want.”
A part of me wants to wrap my arms around her and tattoo the words on her head, because I feel like that’s exactly what I did when my mother got sick. I allowed my grief and anger at cancer to overwhelm me. I let it break me to the point of no return.
But now I know one thing for sure. I won’t break again, even if everything crumbles around me.
Chapter 23
“You need all of this to see your dad?” Westin asks as I’m loading the car with cleaning supplies.
My brother called late last night. Apparently, my father locked the cleaning crew out of the house and has basically barricaded himself in his room. God forbid Everton actually manage things. No, he calls me to handle it.
Thankfully my surgery was postponed and my trial patients were all released today. Now I get to drive back out there and try to make my father stop being a stubborn ass.
“You have no idea,” I grumble. “You’re sure you want to meet them?”
“Are you trying to back out?” Westin asks.
“No, I’m just giving you one last chance to save yourself.”
He moves close, pushing a stray of blonde hair from my face, giving me an unfettered view of him. Westin has decided not to shave his beard again, and I like it. He’s rugged, a little mischievous, and irresistibly sexy when he doesn’t force himself to look perfect all the time.
“I’m not backing out.”
I smile. “I’m not either.”
He taps my nose. “Then let’s go.”
“All right,” I laugh. “Be ready to see my crazy in all its glory.”
We get in the car and make our way south to Normal, Illinois, where nothing about my life was normal. Westin asks questions about my childhood and I do my best to warn him about my father. Daddy is a protective man by nature, but when it comes to me, he’s a little past crazy and borders on insanity.
“Scared yet?” I ask as we’re entering the county limits.
“I’ve dealt with you for two years, Ren. Nothing scares me anymore.”
I slap his chest and laugh. “Jerk.”
“It’s fine, once I meet your dad, and he realizes how good I am for you, it’ll be just a matter of time.” Westin pushes back in the seat with a self-assured smile.
“Until what?” I challenge him.
“Untilyourealize how good I am for you.”
“Is that so?”
He looks over, grips my hand in his, and laces our fingers. “Two years of waiting for the perfect moment to make the move has me pretty damn sure. I’m a surgeon who would never make a cut I wasn’t sure would heal right.”
I roll my eyes and snort. “Surgical talk about relationships?”
“I figured you’d appreciate that one,” he laughs.
“You really know the way to my heart. Nothing says romance like scalpels and stitches.”
“Let’s be real, we both know that the idea of surgery is a turn on for people like us,” Westin challenges.
He’s not wrong. There’s a thrill in knowing you are in control of life and death in that moment. The patient can’t advocate, you have to make the tough calls, and if things go down a bad road, you fix it. I love the power I feel over myself more than anything. I can’t get excited or flustered. I need to be composed and ready to handle whatever gets thrown at me. I’m very good under pressure—well, at least in the operating room.
“So if I talk about the weight of the scalpel and the bright light that hangs above you,” I drop my voice to sound seductive. “Does that turn you on?”
