Not Quite Forever (Not Quite #4)(32)
Author: Catherine Bybee

It was his turn to lie awake and watch the shadows on the wall. He’d missed this. A hookup, an occasional lover didn’t often result in overnight stays and weekends. Dakota was different. If Walt was honest with himself, that scared him. Her no-nonsense approach to life, her humor, her independence. Her ability to make Chinese takeout erotic . . . good Lord, he hadn’t expected that. His eyes drifted close and his mind started to clear. He smiled, on the inside, in a place that hadn’t felt this good in years.

Mary huddled over her coffee, her eyes wide open and ready for gossip. “I’ve seen his car here twice this week, and you were gone at least once.”

“You’re stalking me?” Dakota poured more java into her cup and sat down.

“Living vicariously through you. I’m jealous so give the details, baby.”

Details . . . were there details? “He’s nothing like I thought a doctor would be. I bet he can be serious when he wants to be, but most of his stories are just hysterical.”

“I can’t imagine his daily life at work. That has to be hard.”

“If it is, he doesn’t show it. Some of the things he talks about churn my stomach, but he talks about them as if he’s describing a walk through the supermarket.”

“Any more talk about his late wife?”

Dakota had shared that with Mary when she’d returned from Colorado. “Nothing. Every once in a while he stares at me and I want to ask what he’s thinking about. You know . . . what did she look like, how was it after she died. But I can’t. I want to know, but I don’t.”

“Do you think he loved her?”

“I think he did. He might not have been in love with her, but he cared enough to make sure she was taken care of in death. That couldn’t have been easy.”

Mary traced her fingers along the writing on the coffee cup. “So where do you think things are going with you guys?”

“Please, Mary. We’ve only been dating for what, two months?” Not that she hadn’t asked herself that very question. They led different lives, and yet when they were in the same room it felt as if they shared the same one.

“You’re right. Two months is too soon to think about forever. But after three we need to bring this up again.”

“What’s so magical about three months?”

“Three months is the honeymoon phase of dating. You show your best face, don’t let your annoying habits show. Chances are you haven’t fought . . . you haven’t, have you?”

“Does the stun gun count?”

Mary smiled. “No.”

“Pushing him into the lake?”

“That was foreplay. I’m talking a major disagreement.”

Dakota shook her head. “Nope. Not even his witchy mom could wiggle between us.”

“Any annoying habits that you can’t stand?”

Were there any? “He procrastinates.”

“That can be annoying. And we know how type A you are.”

“I’m not type A.”

Mary stood, moved to Dakota’s pantry, and opened the door. Inside there were supplies of food that would take care of her for at least six months. All the cans were lined up, the dry goods rotated with every purchase. The powdered milk was replaced every couple of months . . . and the water bottles . . . “Oh, damn. I am type A.”

“I bet Walt doesn’t know about this habit.”

“He knows I’m a closet prepper.”

“He probably thinks it’s cute. Now.”

Dakota felt the smile on her face fall. “You mean he’s going to hate it after three months?”

The thought of messing up her pantry just to make Walt happy waved a thin veil of anxiety over her.

“He might not hate it, but he won’t say a negative thing about it until next month,” Mary concluded. “And his procrastination isn’t a problem until he procrastinates with something important to you. That is when the fight will happen.”

“Geez, Mary. Sounds like we should just break up now and avoid any issues.”

“Don’t jump. How you fight will tell you how well you actually work together. It’s easy to work when the sex is hot and you’re both discovering each other. Adversity,” Mary said, pointing a finger at Dakota, “that’s when you see the guts of a relationship.”

What will our first fight be over? Why was she sitting here sipping coffee and spending any time worrying about an argument that hadn’t yet happened? “I feel like you just psychoanalyzed me.”

Mary grinned, spoke over the rim of her cup. “I did. The bill’s already in the mail.”

Walt stood in the trauma room with gloves already on, a full gown covering his scrubs. He heard one of the techs announce that the ambulance was pulling in with the patient. He knew she was in her early thirties, thrown from the car she rode in on the freeway. She was unconscious and in severe respiratory distress. The paramedics had already intubated her en route to the ER.

“How soon before Dr. Meeks is down here?” Chuck Meeks was the trauma surgeon. The two of them would work together to stabilize the patient as quickly as possible before Chuck took the patient to surgery to fix what he could.

“Five minutes, maybe less.”

Fair enough.

He heard the familiar shuffle of firefighter boots as the medics wheeled the gurney into the room. There was one medic on the Ambu bag, breathing for the patient. Two more helped push the gurney. They lined up to the ER gurney and started to coordinate the transfer, all the while one of them spouting off the patient report. Only Walt had a hard time hearing the man once he caught a look at the woman on the bed. Dark hair was matted with blood, her face stone white with high, cut-up cheeks and full lips that circled around the tube.

She looked like Dakota. It wasn’t the woman he was spending his off hours with, but this woman could be her sister.

“She was unconscious on scene with bystander CPR. She had a pulse when we arrived. Blood pressure is dropping 80 over 42 with a pulse of 135, occasional PVCs.”

Walt moved in once the patient was on the gurney. He listened to her lungs, didn’t like the gurgling he heard on the right. Was equally unhappy with the sound on the left. “We need X-ray to jump in. I need to see what’s going on inside her chest. John,” he called to the nurse. “Pull two chest tube trays.” Walt methodically moved down her body, her pulses were thready, her body looked like she was run over by a car and not just thrown. The laceration on her scalp went from ear to ear, exposing more of her skull than he cared to see. “Do we know how this happened?” he asked the medic.