The Best of Us (Sullivan's Crossing #4)(49)

“I love you,” she whispered back.

“I’ll walk you out,” Maggie said.

“Where are the MacElroys?” he asked.

“They were in a small office behind the nurses’ station talking with the surgeon who scrubbed in with me about post-surgical instructions and things to watch for. They’re going to be hard to get rid of tonight even though they can only see her for a few minutes an hour. Visitors take their toll. She’ll be released in five to seven days, probably. That’s on the whim of the doctor.”

“She looks great but her lips are too dry,” he said.

“She hasn’t been able to lick them in ten hours,” Maggie said. “They’ll be back to their beautiful softness in two days.”

“She doesn’t have to be beautiful for me. I just can’t stand to think of her uncomfortable.”

“She’s going to heal with every hour that passes. She has staples closing her incision—they’ll come out in about ten days. The incision won’t fully heal for a month to six weeks. She’s going to be weak and fatigued. But she will get her strength back.” Maggie stopped walking. “And without that little fucker in her head.” She smiled.

“You like what you do, don’t you?” Finn asked.

“On days like today, I love what I do.”

“Do you remember the moment you knew it was what you wanted?”

“Exactly. Precisely. My stepfather, a neurosurgeon, took me to his big Chicago hospital on a Saturday night to see the carnage in the emergency room to teach me an important lesson about my poor driving decisions, such as speeding. He took me into the operating room. He had a young man on the table with head injuries and Walter got right inside his head, saved his life. I had scrubbed to go in with him but I was edging so close the scrub nurse kept moving me back and scolding me. But I wanted to see what Walter was doing. Walter expected me to faint or throw up or something, not try to assist with the surgery. He was magnificent. Walter is retired now but was one of the finest neurosurgeons in the Midwest. I knew in that moment what I wanted to do. I wasn’t sure I was good enough or smart enough but I was sure I wanted to try.”

Finn looked at her in some awe. “That’s very cool,” he said. “After today it’s going to be hard to just hand you a hamburger at the bar. Now that I know this you.”

“We had a good day, Finn. And thanks for being so brave and encouraging. I really think it helps.”

“She’d do that for me,” he said.

“You and your dad should get some dinner and head home. Trust me. I’ll take good care of Maia.”

Rob thought it might be for the good of all if he had an honest talk with Leigh and explained that he should get his head together before they got any more serious. He texted her in the morning and asked if he could buy her lunch and she jumped on the opportunity. My house? she texted back.

That was perfect. He had a couple of sandwiches made to go and was in her driveway at noon. He’d decided they’d sit at the table with their lunch and talk. Really, he was no good to her if he couldn’t even walk into a hospital and her life’s work was in a clinic. Okay, he was doing all right with the clinic, but what if she got sick? What if she had to be hospitalized and he had to do laps around the outside of the hospital for fifty minutes out of every hour?

He held the front door so she could enter. Before it was closed behind them, she was in his arms, their lips locked together.

“I take it Aunt Helen is away?” he said.

“Yep,” she said, her arms around his neck.

Thirty seconds later they were on her bed, naked and wrapped around each other, and he was making her moan with pleasure.

He’d had one wife and his share of women but never had he experienced anything like this. The second he touched her he bolted into action. Hell, the moment he realized they were alone, he was ready. He hadn’t been this spring-loaded since he was about twenty.

I’m screwed, he thought. Then he buried his face in her neck to keep from laughing out loud. Screwed indeed.

He knew you don’t make crazy love to a woman and then explain why you should back off a little. You don’t have that conversation on the phone. You don’t do it in a public place. So, since today was not the day to talk about it, he went after her with lust and power, then he held her with loving affection while she caught her breath.

He decided to rethink everything because the fact that he could deliver this pleasure to her made him feel like the world’s greatest lover. Of all the feelings he’d had lately that was way up there. She responded to him with such intensity that it filled him with testosterone pride. And when it was over she always said something about never having experienced anything like that in her life.

He feared he was going to find it impossible to back away. So he held her for a few minutes, told her how wonderful she was, then he took her again.

Lying satisfied in his arms, she whispered, “Oh God, please don’t let this ever end.”

He felt a pain in his chest.

They only had a few minutes left to talk and eat. He told her about Maia, told her Finn slept all the way home, exhausted to the bone. And then it was time for her to get back to the clinic because there were patients who needed her. She slid the other half of her sandwich into her purse to eat if there was a break in the action.