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  I get a brave nod in return and spend the next several minutes examining Sam's hand. Tim tells me that he fell while playing outside with a dog, so I go ahead and do a quick range-of-motion exam on his wrist, elbow, and shoulder. When Sam assures me that nothing else hurts, I take a few moments and splint his hand up, explaining to Tim how to apply the wrap around for a secure but not too tight fit.

  "All done," I tell Sam with a quick squeeze to his shoulder. "You'll be as good as new in a few weeks."

  Turning to Amy, I tell her, "Go ahead and remove the IV and get the discharge paperwork done."

  "Yes, Dr. Reynolds," she says briskly.

  I turn back to Sam. "It was good meeting you, Sam. Take care of yourself."

  Then I turn to Tim, and I'm met with that same impassive look he has been wearing since I walked past the curtain into the room. Disappointment fills me as I realize that Tim truly doesn't want to talk to me... at least, not outside of my medical expertise.

  I take in a breath, square my shoulders, and give a polite smile to him. "Well... it was good seeing you again. Take care."

  He doesn't say a word. Doesn't move a facial muscle in response. Just stares at me with those amber eyes until I turn away and walk toward the curtain to, once again, leave Tim behind.

  Chapter 3

  Tim

  I'm still reeling from seeing Holly.

  When she walked through that curtain and my brain first recognized her, I felt every cell in my body respond to her beauty.

  She looked exactly the same as she did ten years ago.

  Long, blonde hair, more of a golden tone, that's thick and wavy. Crystal-green eyes with mile-long lashes and lips that look perpetually swollen by hard kissing. She's still the most beautiful woman I've ever known, a true fact that caused me to be tongue-tied around her.

  Which was fine, because it's not like this is the best place to re-open old wounds. Because that is what would happen if Holly and I actually had a moment to talk.

  Instead, I was happy to see her concentrate on Sam. She was so gentle... so patient and kind with him, that I could tell he was immediately at ease. She was efficient in her expertise, and I'm grateful for her care of him.

  And then?

  Then she was saying good-bye and walking past me out of the small, curtained room.

  My hand shoots out and grabs her around the wrist. She jerks in surprise and for a brief moment, I focus on my fingers clasping loosely onto her. My dark skin against her pale, and a haunting image of my body covering hers as I made love to her sizzles through my mind.

  "Wait," I say as I drag my gaze up to hers.

  Holly tilts her head slightly... in curiosity, and I clear my throat. "Do you have a moment to talk?" I ask her.

  "Sure," she says with a smile. "I just got off the night shift. It's going to take a few minutes to get Sam discharged."

  Turning back to Sam, I see him talking to the nurse as she takes his IV out. "Sam... buddy... I'm going to step just outside this curtain a moment to talk to Dr. Reynolds. Is that okay?"

  "Yeah, Dad," he says with a toothless but brave grin. "I'm good. Amy promised me some stickers."

  I give a wan smile to the nurse. Moving my hand from Holly's wrist to her elbow, I steer her outside of the curtained room.

  "We can step in here," she says and actually leads me over to a small office across the bay.

  I follow her inside and she shuts the door, turning back to me with her hands tucked into her lab coat. Her smile is warm, her eyes open and searching.

  "It's really good to see you, Tim," she begins, her voice quavering slightly.

  I scrub my hand over my head, feeling the prick from the short bristles of hair as I keep my head shaved almost to the point of baldness. It's just easier to take care of. "Yeah... you too," I say distractedly.

  "I didn't think you'd want to talk," she murmurs, her gaze dropping to the floor.

  A brief moment of anger surges through me as I remember the last time I talked to Holly. It was just before our high school graduation. All the students were congregated outside, waiting to get herded into our auditorium for the commencement ceremony.

  Holly had grabbed my hand and pulled me off to the side, far enough away from the other students so we couldn't be heard. It was the first time I had seen her since my disastrous meeting with her father four days earlier. Since then, I hadn't heard from Holly and she wasn't responding to my calls or emails.

  "Are you okay?" I'd asked her quickly, searching her face for any signs that her father had done something extreme.

  Her eyes wouldn't meet mine and her bottom lip trembled. My fingers came up under her chin, and I raised her face and made her look at me. "Holly... baby... are you okay?"

  She gave an almost urgent shake of her head, and tears welled in her eyes. "Tim... I can't... um," she started, and then a tiny sob came out of her mouth.

  This had me pulling her hard into my arms, and I kissed the top of her head. "Tell me. Tell me so I can fix this for you," I urged her.

  Again, she shook her head and actually brought her arms up to break my hold, stepping away from me. She took in a deep breath and blinked her tears away. "I'm sorry, Tim. But I can't see you anymore."

  Rage exploded within me. "What the fuck? Because of what your father said?"

  That bigoted bastard forcibly threw me out of his house four days ago when Holly decided it was time for me to meet her parents. She was nervous, and apparently rightfully so, but was convinced the only way to go about doing it was to pull the Band-Aid off quickly so to speak. So she told her parents she wanted to invite her boyfriend over for dinner... and they happily agreed.

  When Holly brought me inside the living room to meet the esteemed Dr. Philip Reynolds and his socialite wife, Marielle, I knew the moment her father's eyes landed on me that the evening had just taken a terrible turn. He exploded with offended rage, snarling that his daughter was not going to date "someone like me". A quick glance at Holly had told me that she was utterly and completely stunned by her father's outburst, seemingly shocked into absolute stillness. Only when her father latched on to my arm and started hauling me toward the front door did Holly jump into action, screaming at her father to let me go.

  I was only eighteen years old, but I was already pretty much filled out. A six-foot linebacker for our high school football team, I outweighed Dr. Reynolds by a good forty pounds, but I didn't make a move to fight against him. I couldn't do that out of respect for Holly.

  The rest was sort of a blur. Holly grabbed ahold of her dad. He shoved back against her, and she went falling to the floor. Then I was pushed out onto the front porch, and the door was slammed in my face.

  Four days later, Holly told me she couldn't see me anymore, and I became one of the sad statistics where my first love broke my heart and pretty much ruined me for any other woman.

  Blinking away those bitter memories, I look at Holly now standing in front of me. I'd lost all track of her after graduation and, despite everything, I am immensely pleased to see she fulfilled her dream of being a doctor.

  "I'm not exactly sure what to say," I tell her truthfully. "It's a little surreal running into you here... in New Orleans of all places."

  "I've been here for nine years," she says. "Transferred my sophomore year from Columbia to Tulane. Did both my undergrad and medical school here."

  I blink at her in surprise because Holly had her life all mapped out when we were in high school. She was going to go to Columbia and then follow in her father's footsteps to be a cardiovascular surgeon. She was going to join his practice where they'd work side by side to save people together.

  "Your plans changed a little," I comment.

  "Just a little," she says with a wry smile. "But what about you? What are you doing here?"

  "Just visiting my sister for my vacation. I work for the New York City Fire Department in Brooklyn."

  "Denise," Holly says with delight at the mention of my sister. "How is she? She
was always so nice to me."

  "She's good. Fantastic actually," I say, and it starts to feel like old times again in the way we are lapsing into easy talk.

  "And Sam," Holly gushes. "God, he's adorable. What's your wife do?"

  "We're divorced," I tell her, not feeling an ounce of awkwardness that Holly is asking about my ex. It didn't seem solicitous, just curious in a friendly way. "Just about a year after Sam was born. But we've maintained a good friendship. She's a teacher."

  Holly doesn't say anything for a moment, cutting her gaze down to the floor and back. When she looks back up at me, her eyes are apologetic. "I'm really sorry, Tim. For everything. Just... I feel terrible and my father was just horrid... is horrid... and if I could go back--"

  I cut her off. "Holly... it's okay. It wasn't your fault."

  "Wasn't it?" she says bitterly. "I didn't fight for us. I didn't stand up for you. At least... not until it was too late."

  The melancholy tone of her voice causes the hair to stand up on my arms. "What do you mean, 'not until it was too late'?" I ask her, my hand automatically coming out to grasp onto hers.

  She squeezes my fingers. "My father and I--"

  The door to the office opens abruptly and Holly drops my hand, leaning sideways to look past me. Amy has Sam by the hand, his other arm in a sling. "Sorry to interrupt, but I have Sam all ready to go."

  I smile at Amy, who hands me the discharge paperwork and turns to leave. I squat down in front of Sam. "How you feeling, buddy?"

  "Fine," he says with a coy smile, his eyes cutting back and forth between Holly and me.

  "Good," I say as I stand up. "Let's get you home."

  Sam turns toward the door, but I hold him back with a hand on his shoulder. My head turns back to Holly. "When is your next night off?"

  Her eyebrows rise in surprise. "Um... I have the next two days off, and then I pull a double."

  "Dinner tomorrow night?" I ask her. "We can catch up and you can tell me about your father."

  "Okay," she says with a smile, her eyes round and warm as they rest upon me.

  "Okay," I tell her and return the smile.

  Chapter 4

  Holly

  My doorbell chimes, and my nerves fire up hard. Giving a last fluff of my hair in the mirror, I look at myself sternly and mutter, "Tim is just a friend. This is going to be a nice, friendly dinner where we catch up and nothing more."

  My reflection sneers back at me. "Yeah, right. You're just as attracted to him as you were in high school. You're still in love with him for that matter. Just give in, baby. Your fate is sealed."

  I stick my tongue out at myself and turn off the bathroom light. The doorbell chimes again so I hurry my pace to my front door, take a deep breath, and open it.

  And holy hell... men shouldn't be allowed to be that gorgeous. Tim shouldn't be allowed to be that gorgeous, because it makes me squirm and itch. He's six feet of solid muscle, something I didn't appreciate the other day in the hospital. He's wearing a dark gray t-shirt that's molded to his chest and abdomen with well-fit, dark jeans. His arms and shoulders are ripped, and he clearly has continued his stringent workouts that he followed in high school. His right arm is covered in a sleeve of tattoos, the detail of which I can't see easily because of his dark skin.

  It's not lost on me, or Tim, that I'm perusing his body and when my eyes finally drag up to meet his, those amber irises are looking at me intently with just a slight quirk to his lips in amusement. Then Tim gives it back to me, slowly raking his gaze down my body. I'm pleased with my choice to go with a peach-colored blouse that hangs off one shoulder and a white denim skirt that showcases my legs. I left my hair long and loose, because I could never forget the way Tim constantly used to run his fingers through it.

  "You look beautiful," Tim says, his voice husky.

  "You do too," I whisper, and with that mutual acknowledgment that our attraction for each other still exists, an electric current seems to sizzle between us.

  "Our dinner reservations are in fifteen minutes," he murmurs while his eyes do another pass down my body. "You ready?"

  I swallow hard and, before I can talk myself out of it, I say, "Or... we could just stay here... I'm sure I can whip something up or we can order a pizza."

  Tim reaches both arms up and grasps the edges of the door casing. He leans his upper body in closer to me and murmurs, "If I step foot in this house--right now--you know dinner is the last thing either of us are going to be thinking about."

  "And we need to talk," I finish his thought.

  "We need to talk," he agrees. When he holds his hand out to me, I place mine in his, immediately reconnecting to his warmth and security.

  ***

  Tim takes me to a creole restaurant I suggested that's not too far from my house. We decide to just order several appetizers and over charbroiled oysters, fried green tomatoes, and crab cakes, I ask Tim to update me on his life since we graduated high school.

  I was surprised over his career path. The Tim Davis I knew and loved had his heart set on college so he could pursue a law degree. I was stunned that he dropped out after his sophomore year at Syracuse and chose to become a firefighter instead. It becomes quickly apparent to me that this is what he was supposed to do with his life, because the joy and passion when he talks about his job is deeply touching to me.

  "So, what happened to Columbia?" he asks as he cuts a fried green tomato in half, putting a piece on my plate and take the other for himself. "You said you transferred to Tulane the other day."

  I nod, using a knife and fork to cut my slice into equal bites. This gives me the excuse to look at my food instead of at him. "Yeah... um, my father and I sort of had a falling out over what he did."

  I take a peek at Tim. He's gone still, his eyes dark with interest. He sets his silverware down and rests his elbows on the table, steepling his hands before his face. "What happened?"

  Setting my own silverware down, I clear my throat. "I could never reconcile what he did to you. The terrible things he said to you. I tried to argue with him and for the first time in my life, my father hit me. It was more like an open-handed slap across my face, but he called me a dirty whore for being with a black man."

  "Jesus fucking Christ," Tim growls.

  I hold up a hand to stop him. "He tried to make me feel dirty for loving you, but I just couldn't. There was nothing wrong with it. It was so right. I was so sure of my feelings for you."

  "Yet you broke up with me," he says quietly, and I don't miss the tiny bit of bitterness in his voice.

  I nod, lowering my eyes in shame. "He made me. Threatened to kick me out of the house after graduation with nothing but the clothes on my back."

  "Fuck me," Tim mutters, but I don't dare look back up at him.

  "I was scared, Tim. I had my whole life mapped out... college, medical school, a career helping people. And here I was, on the verge of being homeless and penniless."

  "Holly," Tim whispers, but I still won't look at him.

  "I don't know if he meant good on his threat, but I was too afraid to stand up to him. I was too weak. I chose to let you go instead."

  Tim is utterly silent. Although those were some really hard words to get out, I feel a weight lifting from my shoulders now that he knows the whole truth. I finally dare a glance at him, and I'm stunned to see sympathy swimming in his beautiful eyes.

  "Oh, baby," he murmurs, reaching a hand across the table to take mine.

  "I'm so sorry," I tell him, my voice quavering with emotion. "I'm so sorry that I couldn't be stronger."

  Tim's fingers squeeze hard against mine. "No," he says harshly. "It's not your fault. You were fucking eighteen years old and scared out of your mind. You did what you had to do, and if that meant cutting me loose, then you had to do that to keep yourself secure."

  "I don't deserve that from you," I choke out.

  "Don't, Holly," he tells me firmly. "You need to let it go. You did nothing wrong. You hear me? You. Did. Nothing.
Wrong."

  I nod, not really accepting what he's saying, but no longer having the strength to argue against his forgiveness.

  "How did you end up in New Orleans?" Tim asks as he gives me a final squeeze and releases my hand. He then nods to my plate and adds on, "Eat."

  I take the small reprieve he gives me in the heavy conversation and pick at a crab cake. "My relationship with my father was broken. I took his roof that summer and then his tuition money, but the day he kicked you out of our house... I broke emotional ties with him. I spent my freshman year at Columbia applying for scholarships to other universities so I could get out from his hold completely. I got several offers, but Tulane was the furthest away from New York. I left after my freshman year and never looked back."

  "You cut ties with your father?" Tim asks incredulously.

  "He was my hero, Tim," I defend my actions. "And then he completely violated my trust in him. And I'm sorry... but I just can't accept his views. They aren't me. He made me feel bad for having feelings for you, and I just couldn't forgive it."

  "I don't know what to say," he murmurs, taking a sip of the wine we had ordered.

  "I still talk to my parents, but it's stilted... impersonal. I think I've been back home maybe three times in the past nine years. My mother still pretends like we're a family, but we're not. Haven't been for ten years."

  "I'm sorry," Tim says.

  I give him a wry smile. "Nothing for you to be sorry about."

  "There is," he says quietly. "I'm sorry for thinking the worst about you for so long. I just assumed that you prescribed to your father's way of thinking. That maybe I was just a novelty to you... rich, white chick dating the ruggedly handsome, black football player."

  I snicker over the imagery, but then I turn serious. I hope he understands when I say, "I loved you, Tim. You were my first love. It was true. My father never changed that. He just made it impossible for me to see it through."

  The muscles in Tim's throat work as he swallows hard. His eyes are deep pools of sadness and lost time. "What am I going to do with you?" he murmurs.

  I cut my gaze over to our waiter, who is hovering nearby. With a motion of my wrist, I silently ask for our check. Picking up my napkin from my lap, I dab at my mouth and then lay it across my plate. "How about taking me home? I'm sure you can figure out something after that."