2
Zander
Neighbourly Duties
I BECAME A DOCTOR BECAUSE I FELT hopeless as a kid when my dad passed away from cancer. My mom followed him not long after from a hit-and-run when she was leaving work.
I’d been eleven when my two sisters and I moved in with my grandparents. Thanks to them and their unconditional love and acceptance of our losses, I managed to retain my hope in helping people rather than turning to the dark side and getting revenge.
I watched all the superhero movies. I commiserated with the villains as well as the good guys. I read every book I could about men with magic over life and death, yet I could never bring my parents back or stop death.
The closest thing I could get to that sort of power was to wear scrubs and wield a scalpel. And I achieved that goal with a sheer-minded dedication that came at the cost of everything else.
I didn’t care that my profession of choice was gruelling on my sleep, love life, and existence in general. I didn’t care that medicine and my patients consumed my every waking thought. I’d gone into this career not for money, but to serve, and I’d vowed the Hippocratic Oath with every drop of sincerity I possessed.
Yet now?
Now, I’d give anything to take a life instead of save one.
Milton Rild.
The bastard who’d almost killed her.
Not that she was mine to avenge—we’d only ever shared helloes and how are yous—but she was my responsibility in a roundabout way. Her well-being and happiness had been tasked to the six-year-old version of me by Sailor’s grandmother on the day of Sailor’s birth.
I didn’t get to meet her for a few years as her parents never visited, but I had photos shoved in my face and suffered through many a tea-date where my grandmother Mary gossiped with Sailor’s grandmother, Melody, about how we’d grow up and fall madly in love and finally join our two houses together.
Needless to say, I wasn’t a fan of my unofficially betrothed baby bride who was six years my junior. The first time I met Sailor, she’d been four, and it’d been the first visit Melody’s son made. The grumpy bastard brought his equally grumpy wife and painfully shy daughter, and the visit had gone as well as expected.
I knew that’d hurt Melody’s and Rory’s feelings—that their son didn’t want to spend any time with them, let alone share their only child. And I’d taken one look at Sailor Rose and dismissed the annoying request of looking out for her, then flatly refused to marry her—at any age. By the time I was thirteen and she was seven, she came for another visit and scampered behind the shed when I’d shouted hello through the fence.
After that, I didn’t see her often. Every couple of years, at the most.
I’d seen her growing up in skips of time. Snippets of skinned knees and braces. Ugly dresses and different hairstyles. With six years between us, she was just the skinny little girl next door.
But that was before she moved back to look after Melody.
Before she started dating that asshole a year ago.
Before I’d taken my responsibility for her a little more seriously now that our grandmothers were gone and their wishes were all that were left.
It was also before my annoyance toward her turned into something else. Something I didn’t want to name and would flatly deny if anyone asked me. Something that had always been there, slowly building as the years passed by, getting harder and harder to ignore, especially on those lonely nights when I spied her through the window.
But then he’d tried to kill her.
He’d tried to hurt the girl who was supposed to be mine, even if I was too busy, too stubborn, and too exhausted to claim her as my own.
My hands curled into fists again.
I’d first met Milton as he sneaked out of Melody’s house at five a.m. I was heading for a shift at the hospital. Not that it was Melody’s house anymore—she’d died of a broken heart, leaving yet another hole in my life after I’d lost my own beloved grandparents from various sicknesses over the years.
Dammit, enough!
Shaking my head, I focused on why I’d snuck into the staffroom on my way to see yet another patient. Pulling long shifts always made my mind a mess; my thoughts scrambled with patient data, to-do lists, along with the past and all the promises I’d made and hadn’t kept.
At least I could keep this one.
Pulling my phone free, I scrolled to the number Sailor had given me. Pressing call, I paced the small break room.
The scents of coffee teased me with promises of fresh energy as the ringing suddenly switched to a chirpy feminine voice. “Hello? Who’s this?”
I stopped pacing and sat in one of the worn vinyl-covered chairs clustered around a crumb-covered table. Considering every doctor and nurse in this place lived in a world of sanitiser and cleanliness, the staffroom was a disaster.
“Is this Lily?”
“Yes…?”
“My name’s Zander North. I’m a surgeon at Cedars Hospital.”
“Oh my God. Is it my dad? I told him he shouldn’t have had that white bread. He knows he’s celiac but just doesn’t listen! He’s going to kill himself through wheat!”
Resting my elbow on the table, I nudged up my glasses and pinched the bridge of my nose. Damn, it’d been a long day. “I’m not calling about your father. I’m ringing on behalf of your friend, Sailor. Sailor Rose. She gave me your number to—”
“Sails? Oh no! What happened? Is she okay? What on earth? Ahhh , I’m coming right now. I’ll get in my car and—”
“She’s fine. She suffered a few injuries and…” I paused. The programming that’d been drilled into me to stick to the facts and never give more information than necessary couldn’t override the sudden burning violence in my veins. “Do you know her boyfriend? Milton Rild?”
The line went quiet. “Yes, I know him.” She sucked in a wary breath. “What did he do to her?”
This was the part where I gave the hospital address and shut down how I truly thought about the patient under my care. But tonight, I just couldn’t do it.
Sailor was my neighbour. My shirked responsibility. My childhood destiny if my grandmother had anything to say about it. And I’d had to watch her date that bastard for a full year. I’d had to hold my tongue when she let him move in with her. I’d had to keep my distance even when I had my suspicions of the type of man he was. I’d also come face to face with the awful knowledge that I’d wanted her for years and was too late.
What if Jim’s dog, Biscuit, hadn’t heard her screaming?
What if Jim hadn’t been agile enough to swing that cast iron pan and knock out the bastard?
Sighing heavily, I struggled to contain the growl in my voice. “Milton Rild tried to kill her. She’s okay, and he’s been arrested, but she could do with a friendly face.”
I waited for another river of words, but she was eerily quiet. Finally, she said, “I always knew he didn’t deserve her. I’ll be there in an hour. I’ll swing by her house and grab some things.”
Didn’t deserve her?
Fuck, that was the understatement of the century.
I hung up before I could tell her exactly what I thought of Sailor Rose, her choice in men, and just how fucking lucky Milton Rild was that Jim had found him instead of me.
* * * * *
Staying in the shadows by the nurses’ station on the sixth floor, I peered into the room across the hall. Conveniently, Sailor had been moved into the bed visible from where I stood unseen, the other four beds empty.
However, she wasn’t alone.
Lily—her friend who I’d seen popping by quite often over the past two years—sat on a pulled-up chair and laughed as she passed her iPad to Sailor before reading whatever she’d written with the stylus. Patting Sailor’s hand, Lily said, “I’ll break you out the moment you get the all clear.”
Technically, Lily shouldn’t be here. It was way past visiting hours, but I’d instructed the nurses to let Sailor have the company. After all, Lily might not be family, but I happened to know that a friend was as close to family as Sailor would get these days. Her parents had died on some excursion in the Middle East after abandoning their teenage daughter at college. For her entire life, they’d acted as if they would have rather never had a kid, and now she didn’t have parents.
At least I still had my two sisters—pain in my ass that they were. Sailor truly was an orphan, and that pulled on the part of me that was the ultimate sucker for the hurt and helpless.
Sailor pulled a face, stole the iPad back, then wrote furiously.
Lily read the screen and shook her head. “No, definitely not. We discussed this. You’re coming home with me. You can bunk in my room. My roommate won’t mind. I don’t think you should be alone right now. Especially in that house where he—”
Sailor threw up her bandaged wrist and winced in pain as she tried to speak. She gave up as her swollen throat prevented her vocal cords from making sound. With a huff, she wrote something and shoved the iPad at her friend.
Lily’s shoulders slouched as she read it. “I know it’s your safe place and it’s your home, but…he attacked you in it, Sails. You can’t seriously think you can go back and live there after this.” Lily shuddered. “You should sell it. Use the inheritance your nan left you and move somewhere else.”
Move somewhere else?
The thought pinched like a trapped nerve.
Ever since Melody passed away and left everything to Sailor, I’d expected this day to come. I’d hated the thought of Sailor moving away because whoever bought the quaint two-story home would upset the dynamics on our street. I’d have new neighbours. Strangers who might not be quiet on the days I needed to sleep for graveyard shifts. People with screaming kids or noisy teenagers or annoying pets.
But that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was hidden beneath a lifetime of gaslighting myself that I felt nothing for her.
However, when Sailor showed no signs of selling, she condemned me to live a life of constant torture seeing her everyday instead of just sporadic visits. Each time I saw her, I had fought the very real knowledge that my grandmother had cursed me, and I had an unbearable crush on my neighbour.
I’d even contemplated leaving. I had my own house a few suburbs away that I’d bought when I first moved out. I’d deliberately bought close by to change light bulbs, fix internet issues, and generally keep an eye on my grand folks as they grew older.
When they’d died, I’d found myself spending more and more time at their place until I decided to rent my house out and renovate theirs. I was supposed to do it up in my spare time— what spare time?— and then sell it.
But…time had a habit of going too fast, and years ticked by far too quickly.
And now I was hopelessly fucking addicted to spying on the girl who was supposed to be mine and each time I convinced myself I should move on…I couldn’t.
“We’ll discuss this when you’re feeling better.” Lily sniffed, passing back the iPad.
Sailor scrunched up her nose and scribbled. Tapping the screen with the stylus, she arched her eyebrows. The black eye that the bastard had left her with glowed even from here. Her sandy-blonde hair was knotted and tangled from fighting for her life.
My hands balled. I had a good mind to call the local police and ask for Milton’s location. He deserved to have his throat so bruised he could barely swallow. He deserved to have a lacerated wrist and contusions all over his body.
Sailor’s skin recorded every second of the abuse he’d delivered. Every time he’d hit her, thrown her, and kicked her now existed, right there, for anyone to read.
My temper steadily climbed.
How fucking dare he hurt her? How dare he steal her sense of safety by—
“Zander?”
My eyes snapped from Sailor and Lily. I struggled to focus on a fellow doctor slouching on the nurses’ station desk.
My heart rate picked up at the thought of Sailor catching me watching her. Clicking my fingers, I beckoned my colleague and friend to follow me farther down the hall.
Colin Marx—prosthetic genius and all-around amazing doctor—scowled but obeyed.
I didn’t stop until we were well out of earshot. Ignoring the nurses giving me a strange look, I crossed my arms and looked him up and down. “What are you doing here so late?”
He matched me, his biceps popping beneath his black scrubs. “Could ask the same about you.” Glancing over his shoulder, he frowned. “Spying on a patient, Zan?”
My initial reaction was to lie and deny, like I usually did when it came to Sailor, but he knew me too well, and it would only arouse his highly suspicious, annoyingly perceptive nature. “Just checking up on someone. She’s my neighbour. There’s a slight conflict of interest in me treating her, but I wanted to make sure she was recuperating alright.”
I had front-row seats to his brain whirring.
He hadn’t become the leader of the prosthetic department before his thirty-third birthday by being stupid. I swear he had an eidetic memory most days. It came in useful with patient cases yet downright irritating in everything else.
“Sailor’s here?” he asked.
The fact that he knew her name irked me in ways I didn’t want to unravel.
Resisting the urge to fidget, I shrugged. “You remember seeing her around whenever you visit?”
“Of course, I remember.” He smirked. “She reminds me of a fragile little beanstalk. All legs and no substance.”
“No substance?” I bared my teeth, falling right into his trap. “What—”
“Gotcha.” He snickered. “I knew you watched her more than you let on.” Unwinding his arms, he patted me on the shoulder. “Whenever I’m around at your place, you stiffen if you see her through the windows. In fact, I clearly remember that time when she’d forgotten to close the bathroom blinds, and—”
“Whatever you’re about to say, don’t.” I flicked a look at the nurses still watching us under the guise of sorting paperwork.
“Aw, come on. I know you didn’t perve. After all, the window fogged up real quick.”
“And how would you know that?”
“Because I’m a man, and I sneaked a peek. Just like I’m sure you’ve sneaked many a peek because you live next door to a beautiful woman who makes you act like a teenage boy who doesn’t know how to speak to girls.”
I couldn’t win with him.
I’d never been able to. Didn’t matter I’d graduated with top honours and was the most promising surgeon in this hospital, every brain cell decided to go on the fritz. After such a long shift and a few sleepless nights, I knew better than to even attempt to take him on.
“I’m leaving.” Striding down the corridor, I rolled my eyes as he fell into pace with me.
“Going home, huh?” He grinned. “But your sexy neighbour won’t be there. What will you watch when her house stays dark with no snippets of her walking from room to room?”
Irrational anger chose that moment to slip free. Snatching his collar, I yanked him into the stairwell and growled. “She’s in the hospital, asshole. By the guy who tried to murder her. I will never be able to ‘sneak a peek’ again. I feel guilty enough as it is.”
“Hey, Zan, it’s okay, mate.” He threw his hands up in surrender, all signs of needling me switching into compassion. “I didn’t realise she meant that much to you. I’m sorry. Truly—”
“She doesn’t mean anything to me.” Smoothing out the collar of his scrubs where I’d yanked him, I backed up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to grab you like that. I’m just…it’s been a long day.” Pushing my glasses up my nose, I shrugged. “She’s the granddaughter of my gran’s best-friend, that’s all. I’ve told you this. I feel…responsible for her. Just like I felt responsible for Melody in her later years.”
He pursed his lips and wisely said nothing.
Raking a hand through my hair, I huffed. “Whatever. I need to go to bed. I’ll catch you around. Sorry again for my outburst.”
“No need to apologise. I get it. You on shift tomorrow, or are you free?”
“I’m free. I actually have forty-eight hours off. Provided I don’t get called in, of course.”
“Great.” He grabbed the door handle to return to the corridor. “In that case, I’ll bring some beers around. I think we both need to remember how to relax a bit. This job is rewarding, but it sure isn’t healthy when we take on the pains of others. Do yourself a favour and stop thinking about who you’re responsible for. In fact, do whatever it takes to knock yourself out for eight hours, and then I’ll pop round in the afternoon to chill. We’ll have a barbecue, some beers, and some sun. That work for you?”
No, that didn’t work for me.
What would work was returning here at ten a.m. tomorrow to be the physician to give the all clear to Sailor and take her home.
After all, we lived side by side. It wouldn’t be a hassle to carpool.
I needed to see how she’d react stepping back into the scene of her crime.
Would she cope?
Would she freak out?
But…Colin was right.
She wasn’t my responsibility—no matter the promise I’d made as a kid or the twinge in my heart as an adult—and I wasn’t on shift. Besides, it already sounded as if Lily was abducting her for the time being.
She isn’t mine to worry about.
A couple of beers to remind me to let shit go was definitely needed.
“You’re on.” I forced a smile. “See you there.”