Page 69 of Sawyer
“All right, Doc.” Madison took his arm and started leading him to Nanine’s. “You’re going inside with me. We’re going to calm you down and make a plan. Because you have totally lost your shit, and clearly so have they if they’re here the minute after you resign from your fancy professor job.”
“But I can’t?—”
She shoved him inside gently but firmly and locked the front door after Fabian came in behind them. “Yes, you can. Now, into the kitchen.”
He stood there, black spots reappearing in his vision, and bent over at the waist again. “But I need to?—”
“In a moment, Doc.” A chair scraped, and he was suddenly sitting. “Deep breaths. In and out.”
Then something sour was wafting over him as she shoved a bottle near his nose. “Ugh! What is that?”
“Vinegar. I’ve seen Marcel revive freaked out chefs with it. Take another deep breath.”
“I can barely breathe as it is,” he protested, but gave a shallow inhale.
“Good.” She murmured something in French to Fabian, whose steps quickly faded. “Now we’re going to get you something to drink.”
She patted his back before disappearing and returning with a brandy snifter filled with cognac. He gripped the stem and took a healthy drink, coughing hard as the fire and smoke exploded in his tight throat.
“There you go.” Her hand was rubbing his back again. “Have another swallow.”
There wasn’t as much fire this time, but the smoke remained. It felt like it was wafting from his burnt-up happiness. “My mother is going to kill me for quitting. I’d plannedto tell them after the holiday. I didn’t expect my dean to snitch on me.”
“Lovely pack of wolves you found yourself with in your old life. I’ve seen a lot of pieces of work in my life. But your mother? She tops the list. After all these years of you talking about her, I didn’t fully appreciate how kind you were being. Sorry, Doc, but she’s a Class A, stone-cold bitch to the core. Your dad isn’t much better.”
“He doesn’t really care about me. My mother thought they needed to spawn at least one child to look good as a power couple. So they could play thatmy kid’s so much smarter than yoursgame. I hate that. Shit! I hate them. God! I’ve never said that out loud.”
She clapped him on the back. “Then let me be the first to congratulate you.”
He hung his head. “It’s lowering—to realize it. I hate that I feel it. And I was having such a great holiday.”
“You’re still going to.” Madison sank to a knee before him, a dark angel in black with tender eyes. “I am not letting you see those people alone—if you choose to meet with them. I’ll bet everyone is going to feel the same way. Because you have done nothing wrong here. You know that, right?”
He nodded slowly, his head feeling like it weighed a million pounds. “I do, but I don’t feel it right now.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re in reaction mode—fearing the proverbial smackdown from a parent after years of abuse—and that’s never good.”
Psychology from Madison? He knew she was right, so he took more than a few healthy swallows of the brandy.
When she dragged another chair closer to him and put her hand on his knee, he knew she was trying to settle him down.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Don’t piss me off, Doc. You have nothing to apologize for here.”
Fabian returned with a cold hand towel filled with ice and handed it to Madison.
“Put that on the back of your neck,” Madison said, giving it to Sawyer. “You’ve lost blood flow to your head. We need to get that blood back. This is an old trick of mine. Works like a charm.”
The makeshift ice bag was freezing, but he held it to the back of his neck anyway. “When did you need to do this?”
“Not important now. You are. Take another drink of brandy.”
She took his pulse after he finished the sip, her face a study in motherly rage.
“You’re pretty good at this,” he muttered after sucking in a few more calming breaths. “Maybe you missed your calling?”
“As a nurse?” she asked with the quick curve of her mouth.
