Flawless (Chestnut Springs #1) (76)

Rhett leans in and presses a kiss to my forehead, the stubble rasping against my skin making my hair stand on end. He spins on his heel and strides out through the swinging doors. All the eyes in the room follow him.

Mine included.





28





Summer





Rhett: I am so fucking sorry.





“If I hadn’t already had a heart attack today, that might have given me one.”

I tip my head back against the back of the uncomfortable armchair angled in the corner of my dad’s room and let my eyes flutter shut. “That isn’t funny.”

“Are heart problems contagious? Because I think you infected me.”

I shake my head, lips quirking up at the corners. He’s never let me live down asking that when I was young. I was worried about him getting too close or spending too much time around me, just in case my congenital heart defect was somehow contagious. “Still not funny.”

“Do you think Rob’s nose is broken?”

I sigh heavily. “I don’t know. I’m not the doctor in this family.”

“Does hoping it is make me a dick?”

I bark out a sad laugh now. Kip and I have this father-daughter relationship that borders on a friendship, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. “You were already a dick.”

“Yeah. That’s true,” he muses from the bed beside me. I peek an eye open at him. His dark hair is a little more mussed than usual, possibly even sporting a few more silver streaks than I remember. My dad looks . . . older. In a way I hadn’t noticed until recently. I guess that happens when you creep up on your sixties.

But his mortality strikes me hard right now, laid up in a hospital bed, not looking like the suit wearing, tongue-wagging, shit disturber in a glossy office that he usually does.

My eyes sting as I study him. I roll my lips together to keep them from wobbling, to keep the shaky breaths inside.

When he looks over at me, I clamp my eyes shut. Squeezing them tight and willing away the tears building behind my lids.

“Summer, baby, come here. I’m okay.” His voice is soft, so soothing. It tosses me right back into the long days spent in the children’s ward with him at my side.

A sob lurches out of me, and he lifts an arm, gesturing me toward him. And as the tears spill out over the apples of my cheeks, I shuffle over and crawl into the narrow hospital bed and under my dad’s arm. Even over the terrible plain scent of hospital sheets, I can smell him, that intrinsically comforting scent.

“I was so scared, Dad. I . . . As soon as I found out, I came. I should have been here earlier.”

His broad palm rubs up and down my arm as he tips his cheek onto the top of my head. “No, you shouldn’t have. It’s not your job to take care of me. I asked Winter not to call you earlier. She wanted to. But I didn’t want you worrying.”

That just makes me cry harder. I nuzzle into his chest, rubbing my wet tears against the rough hospital gown he’s still wearing. “Dad, I really fucked up.”

“Yeah.” He keeps rubbing my arm. “I saw.”

“I didn’t want it to come out that way. Winter. I didn’t want her to . . .”

His voice goes deadly even as his fingers squeeze tight. “Did that fucker force you into anything?”

“No. He . . . I, well, you know, I always had a crush on him. Even when it turned into just check-ups.” My dad grunts. It was a running joke, really. I wasn’t subtle, and it’s hard not to be starry-eyed over a handsome young doctor who saved your life like he saved mine. “It was around when I turned eighteen. I was legal and went out with friends to have some drinks. I ran into him at the bar and rather than partying, we ended up driving around all night talking. Things took off from there.”

“For how long?”

I blow out a raspberry and turn my head to stare at the ceiling. “Two years.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kip mutters. “Then what?”

“Then . . .Winter.” I swallow heavily, letting myself feel the excruciating pain I felt when he told me he was going out with her. I couldn’t wrap my head around it back then. But I can now. I was young, and so fucking willing for a man with no professional boundaries. I don’t know how I didn’t see it that way. Winter started at the same hospital, and he was instantly taken.

And I was instantly forgotten.

He didn’t love me, he used me and discarded me. And now it makes my skin crawl.

“I promised him I would never tell anyone. I didn’t want to ruin his career. I mean, he’s clearly good at what he does. But . . .”

“But what?” Kip sounds downright murderous.

“He just always kind of strung me along. The odd call, or text. A conversation at a family event. He was careful to never cross a physical line once Winter was in the picture, but he always kind of kept me thinking that maybe, maybe, things might change.”

I bark out a sad laugh. Saying it out loud it seems so obvious.

“Because he wanted to keep you in line,” my dad provides.

“Yeah. It seems so blatant now. So manipulative. To think of how my personal life has played out these past years, I just . . . I guess that’s why they say hindsight is 20/20.”