Page 19 of Where Are You Now
“Yeah. When I was seventeen.”
“Gosh. I wish I’d known.”
“We’d sort of slowed on our letters by then, and I didn’t want to send such a downer after not hearing from you for a while.”
He looked back at her. “You should have.”
She shrugged, although she recalled how much she’d wished for his arms around her to comfort her. “It’s okay. I managed.”
He peered back at his computer for a tick. “St. John. You’re married?”
“Not anymore.”
He nodded. After a moment’s silence, he took in a deep breath. “Well, I think we should probably get on with your cognitive testing.”
“Yes. To make sure I’m not crazy.”
The words came out as a joke, but she wanted to suck them back in when it occurred to her that she might have to divulge why, exactly, her mother thought she was crazy. She eyed his computer. Was her mom’s conversation about delusion in there somewhere? How would she ever explain herself?
To her relief, he laughed itoff.
Now that she’d found Lucas, what in the world was she supposed to tell him anyway? Given her mother’s response when Ava had divulged her experience while unconscious, he was sure to run for the hills if she told him the same thing. And despite the time they’d spent apart, after seeing him, she didn’t want him to run anywhere. A part of her wanted to stop everything, find a quiet place, and hear every detail about his life after he left Spring Hill.
Lucas scrolled on his laptop. “Let’s just see what the concern is here …”
She bit her lip.
“They’re calling for some general testing due to your fractured skull. They want to rule out brain injury …”
He leaned in toward the screen, reading.
Her heart thumped. She scrutinized the boyish features that had matured with age. He had small laugh lines around his eyes, reminding her of the time they’d fallen off the fishing boat in the pond, getting soaked. They’d laughed so hard, she couldn’t breathe.
“At Columbia-Presbyterian, it appears you’ve already had tests on immediate recall, delayed recall, and working memory, as well as sustained attention, divided attention, and selective attention assessments. Those all came out in the average or above-average range.”
He typed a few lines in one of the notes boxes. His hands were more masculine now, but his knuckles and the way he moved his fingers were similar to what she remembered as she pictured his grip on the branches of the crab apple tree.
“I don’t think we need to do any of the fluency or sentence construction evaluations.”
His Southern accent was barely audible anymore. But neither was hers.
He pushed away from his computer, those green eyes landingon her. “What I’d like to do today is a series of executive functioning tests as well as some visual and perceptual examinations, and then, when you can come back in, I’d like to do more global cognitive functioning, and then, emotional and psychological.”
He was all business, but her skin prickled with the idea of seeing him more than just today. God had only said to find him to live out the rest of her life. In true overachiever form, she’d not only found him, she was going to hang out with him for the week. That would definitely solidify God’s contract, and she could go back to her regular life, take her accounts back from Scott, and put all of this behind her.
“All right,” Lucas said, bringing her back to the present. He opened her paper file and pulled out an X-ray, then clipped it on the lightboard behind him. He flipped the switch, illuminating the image. “I just want to do a quick exam of your scalp and skull before we begin, to be sure there’s no swelling.” Lucas walked over to her. “Mind if I fiddle with your hair for a second?”
“That’s fine.”
He leaned in and lifted the strands with his finger, his scent of soap and cotton tickling her senses. Gently, he moved around the trauma area, inspecting it, his fingertips lightly caressing and tapping, his chest at her arm. She held in a shallow breath in an attempt to stay still. He moved her hair behind her shoulder, and she tried, unsuccessfully, to steady the involuntary pattering of her heart.
The only reason Ava could think of as to why she was reacting this way was that she hadn’t been this close to a man since her ex-husband, eight years ago. Had it been eight years?Good grief.And while a doctor checking her wouldn’t normally mean anything, this was Lucas—her first ever love. It didn’t hurt that he was even more handsome as an adult than he was back then.
She dug her nails into her thigh to remind herself that he had a fiancée and she’d better get her emotions in check.
“You’re healing nicely,” he said, coming around to the front of her. “Everything looks great.”
“That’s good.” She swallowed.
