Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7) - J. R. Ward Page 0,41

arm. There had been nothing in the record about the infection, and Havers was as scrupulous about his notes as he was about the staff uniforms and the cleanliness of the patient rooms and the organization of the supply closets.

When she’d come back from the pharmacy with the drugs, Rehvenge had had his shirt on and done up at the cuffs, but she’d assumed that was because the examination had been finished. Now she was willing to bet he’d put it on right after she’d finished taking the blood.

Except…it was none of her business, was it. Rehvenge was an adult male well within his rights to make poor decisions about his health. Just like that drug overdose who had barely survived the night, and just like the any number of patients who nodded a lot when the doctor was in front of them, but who went home and were noncompliant about their prescriptions or their aftercare.

There was nothing she could do to save someone who didn’t want to be rescued. Nothing. And that was among the biggest tragedies in her work. All she could do was present options and consequences and hope the patient chose wisely.

A breeze rolled in, shooting right up her skirt and making her envy Rehvenge’s fur coat. Leaning out from the side of the clinic, she tried to see down the drive, looking for headlights.

Ten minutes later, she checked her watch again.

And ten minutes after that, she lifted her wrist once more.

She’d been stood up.

It wasn’t a surprise. The date had been so hastily thrown together, and they didn’t really know each other, did they.

As another cold breeze tackled her, she took out her cell phone and texted: Hi, Stephan—sorry to have missed you tonight. Maybe some other time. E.

She put her phone back in her pocket and dematerialized home. Instead of going right in, she burrowed into her cloth coat and paced up and back on the cracked sidewalk that ran down the side of the house to the rear door. As the frigid wind kicked up again, a blast hit her face.

Her eyes stung.

Turning her back to the gust, wisps of her hair feathered forward as if they were trying to flee the chill, and she shivered.

Great. Now when her vision got watery, she didn’t have the excuse of the stiff breeze.

God, was she crying? Over what could just be some misunderstanding? With a guy she barely knew? Why did it matter so much to her?

Ah, but it wasn’t him at all. The problem was her. She hated that she was where she had been when she’d left the house: alone.

Trying to get a grip, literally, she reached out for the handle of the back door, but couldn’t bring herself to go in. The image of that crappy, too-ordered kitchen, and the remembered sound of those creaky stairs going to the cellar, and the dusty, papery smell of her father’s room were as familiar as her reflection in any mirror. Tonight it was all too clear, a brilliant flashlight nailing her in both eyes, a roaring sound in her ears, an overwhelming stench bombarding her nose.

She dropped her arm. The date had been a get-out-of-jail-free card. A raft off the island. A hand reached over the cliff she was hanging off of.

The desperation snapped her into focus like nothing else could. She had no business going out with anyone if that was her attitude. It wasn’t fair to the guy or healthy for her. When Stephan hit her up again, if he did, she was just going to say she was too busy—

“Ehlena? You okay?”

Ehlena jumped back from the door that had evidently just opened wide. “Lusie! Sorry, just…just thinking too much. How’s Father doing?”

“Fine, honestly fine. He’s sleeping again now.”

Lusie stepped out of the house and closed off the escaping heat from the kitchen. After two years, she was an achingly familiar figure, her boho clothes and her long salt-and-pepper hair comforting. As usual, she had her medicine bag in one hand and her big purse hanging off her opposite shoulder. Inside the medicine bag there was a standard-issue blood pressure cuff, a stethoscope, and some low-level medications—all of which Ehlena had seen put to use. Inside the purse there was the New York Times crossword puzzle, some Wrigley’s spearmint gum she liked to chew, a wallet, and the peach lipstick she slipped across her lips on a regular basis. Ehlena knew about the crossword puzzle because Lusie and her dad did them