“Some friend you are!”
“He’s interesting,” Anne said to Hannah, her twin sister, the next evening. Hannah was now confined to bed as much as possible as she was nearing her due date and she’d been diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Anne perched herself on the side of the bed with a carton of ice cream and two spoons, ready to eat their favorite—vanilla fudge. Even at the age of thirty-five, they were still identical in every way that counted, right down to the clothes they picked out and the food they liked and disliked.
“Jason said he’s pretty bitter.”
“I suppose I would be, too, if that had happened to me. I mean, I deal with returning soldiers every day who come back just like Dr. Rousseau … like him and worse. I was lucky. All I had to come back to was …”
“How is Bill, by the way?”
“Even though the divorce is final, he’s still fighting me just as hard as ever.” Anne wrung her hands nervously, then continued on in a shaky voice, “For two cents, I’d just hand it all over to him and walk away, but my attorney believes I’m entitled to my share since I was the one off fighting for my country while Bill was spending his time on the golf course and in our bed, so he’s not going to let Bill go back and amend the settlement.”
She shrugged, then patted her sister’s enormous belly. “Glad we never had children to enter into the mix. Don’t know how I would have handled having to have interaction with him because of a child. This way, I don’t ever have to deal with him again. I just refer him to my lawyer.” She let out a ragged sigh. “It’s better that way.”
“But children are going to be nice.”
“For you. And I predict I’m going to make a great aunt. Spoil the baby rotten, then send her home to her mother.”
“Instead of dating? You know, going out, having fun. Have a life. It’s been a long time coming.”
“But I’m not really going to do the dating thing for a while, if ever.”
“You may change your mind,” Hannah said as she scooped a spoon of ice cream from the container. “When you meet the right man, or realize you’ve already met him.”
“Who? Marc?”
Hannah shrugged.
“Ha! Those pregnancy hormones have gone to your brain and left you with an imagination as big as your belly.”
Hannah shrugged again. “Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re not.”
“You’re the acquiescent one, Hannah, and I’m—”
“The stubborn one,” Hannah supplied. “I know. But relationships don’t always make sense. Don’t follow a logical pattern.”
“Tell me about it. Look what I fell for the first time around.” Anne winced. She’d fallen head over heels in days, maybe in minutes. Had married in mere weeks. “Yeah, well, next time, if there is a next time, I won’t be looking for perfection as much as compatibility. Too bad Jason is taken, because I think you got the last good man. He doesn’t happen to have a secret brother hidden somewhere, does he?”
Hannah laughed. “Men like that don’t stay available too long, sis. I’m lucky I got Jason when I did because it was only a matter of time until some other fortunate woman would have plucked him off the market.”
Anne couldn’t help but wonder if Marc had been married or engaged or near the plucking stage prior to his accident. “Well, right now I have a nemesis who’s going to fight me every step of the way and that’s the only man I want to contend with for a while. And, trust me, that’s enough for anyone.”
“He’ll come round,” Hannah said, taking another bite of ice cream. “Once he gets settled into the routine, you’ll persuade him. Or let’s say out-stubborn him. Poor man doesn’t even know what’s headed his direction.”
Anne jabbed her spoon into the ice cream. “I think he’s equal to it. And I think he’s going to be lots of fun,” she said with a sarcastic grimace on her face to Hannah. “About as much fun as a sticker bush with large stickers.”
HIS APARTMENT WASN’T much in the way of square footage, but it didn’t matter because there wasn’t much that he needed in this world and that included space. But he did have to admit that his office was everything he could have wanted, and more. It was spacious, accessible. Larger than his apartment, actually.
“You like it?” Anne asked as she followed him in through the door.
“Are you my appointed keeper now?”
“In a way, I suppose you could say that. We’re the only two with offices and treatment rooms at this end of the building, and physical rehab has enough space it’s practically a wing unto itself, so I’m appointed by proximity.”
“Don’t need a keeper, don’t need the proximity either.”
“Not your choice, Marc. This is the way the hospital is laid out and, as it stands, our offices are back to back. If you don’t like it, well …” She shrugged her shoulders. “Too bad. Because I don’t think they’re going to rearrange an entire hospital wing to suit your needs. It is what it is, so get used to it.”
“Look, Doctor, I know you’re probably only following orders, but I’m perfectly capable of managing this department on my own. Tell your brother-in-law that if he believes I need a keeper, he can have my keys back.” He fished his set of keys from his pocket and held them out for her. “Take them. I don’t want this job after all.”
Rather than taking the keys, she merely stood back and laughed at him. “You really are full of yourself, aren’t you?”
He looked like he’d been stung by a bee, the words shocked him that much. “I came here to do a specific job, and I’m good at it.”
“When you don’t let yourself get in the way. Which probably is too often,” she quipped.
“And you know what it’s like?”
“To be you? No, I don’t. I can’t even imagine. But I do know what it’s like to be the new person in the door where everybody’s watching you and waiting for you to mess up. I was there not that long ago, and it was as if every time I turned around someone was staring at me or whispering. Probably because I’m Jason’s sister-in-law who came in here with her own set of problems. The difference between you and me was that I wasn’t so thin-skinned on my way in the door. Nor was I so defensive. I just came to do a job and so far that’s what I’ve done.”
“You’re calling me thin-skinned?”
She shrugged. “Maybe not thin-skinned so much as overly sensitive. You’re adjusting to a new life, where everything is different, and it seems like every little thing bothers you.”
“So I’m either thin-skinned or overly sensitive?”
“Maybe a little. I mean, I had my divorce going on when I got here and it was a struggle not to let it follow me in the door. But I succeeded.”
Marc spun in his chair to see her. “I don’t think you can compare yours to mine.”
“No. I got out in one piece.”
“Out of what?”
“The war. Afghanistan. Three tours. I was a major in the army, which outranks you as a captain.” She smiled. “Just in case you’re interested.”
“You served?” he asked, totally stunned.
“Three times overseas, would have gone back for four. I ran a field hospital.”
“Sorry, I had no