Lucas
Ismell her before Mary says a word.
I’m in my office between patients, updating charts, when it drifts through the crack under my door. Faint at first. Then unmistakable.
Honey and citrus.
My pen stops. My breath catches.
She’s here. After ten years, she’s here, and I’m frozen at my desk like I’m eighteen again.
The memory surfaces before I can stop it.
Ten years old. Walking home the long way because Tommy Reese called me a nerd and I don’t want to pass his house.
There’s a girl by the creek.
I know her. Not personally, but I’ve noticed her. Hard not to. She’s in Mrs. Henderson’s class, always surrounded by people, always laughing. She gives her apple to Ben Wilson every day because he’s always hungry. She talks to the shy kids when no one else does.
She’s not laughing now.
She’s kneeling in the mud, school clothes ruined, cradling something small and brown in her hands. A bird. Its wing is bent wrong.
I should keep walking. I’m not good at this. I never know what to say to crying people. I never know what to say to anyone, really.
But she’s talking to it. Soft words I can barely hear. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay.”
She knows it’s not okay. She has to know. Even I can see the bird is dying.
But she’s saying it anyway. Kneeling in the mud for a bird that can’t be saved.
Something in my chest cracks open.
I walk over and kneel down next to her, mud soaking through my jeans immediately.
She looks up, startled. Her cheeks are wet.
“I found a bird,” she says. “I think it’s hurt.”
“I see.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
I should say something helpful. I’m supposed to be the smart one. But all I can think is that she’s beautiful, even with mud on her knees and tears on her face.
“Maybe we can find a box,” I hear myself say. “Keep it warm.”
Her whole face changes. Like I’ve given her something precious.
“You think that’ll help?”
No. Probably not.
“It might.”
We spend an hour trying to save it. Find a shoebox. Line it with tissues. I hold the bottle cap while she tries to get the bird to drink.
It dies in her hands anyway. She cries harder, and I feel useless.
“I wanted to help,” she whispers.
The words come out before I think. “You did help. You made it not alone.”
She looks at me. Really looks. And smiles through her tears.
“I’m Cara.”
“Lucas.”
“Thank you for staying, Lucas.”
I walk home with mud on my knees and her smile stuck in my head. I want to make her smile like that again. Want to be the kind of person who stays.
I’ve been trying ever since.
A knock pulls me back.
“Dr. Price? Your next patient is ready. Room one.”
I blink. The chart in front of me is smeared where I’ve been pressing too hard with the pen.
“Who is it?” I ask, even though I already know. Even though her scent is still curling under my door, unmistakable. Part of me hopes I’m wrong. Hopes my mind is playing tricks on me after all these years.
“Cara Donovan. Twisted ankle.”
My stomach drops. Not a trick. She’s really here.
I’ve known she was back. Theo saw her through Eileen’s window days ago. Nate came back from her grandmother’s driveway yesterday smelling like her, went straight to his room and didn’t come out until morning.
We’ve all been holding our breath. Waiting.
Apparently my turn is today.
“I’ll be right there.”
The walk to exam room one takes forever.
I can do this. I’m a doctor. I’ve treated hundreds of sprained ankles. Professional. Calm. She’ll leave and everything will be fine.
I reach for the door handle.
Her scent hits me before I even open it. Stronger now, flooding my senses. And underneath the familiar sweetness, something sharp. She’s nervous.
I push the door open.
“Ms. Donovan.”
She’s on the exam table, paper crinkling beneath her. She looks up.
Ten years. Ten years since I’ve seen her face, and I thought I was prepared. Theo’s warning, Nate’s haunted expression—I thought I had some idea what to expect.
I was wrong.
She’s still Cara. Still the girl who knelt in the mud for a dying bird. But she’s different too, and my eyes trace every change like I’m trying to memorize her all over again.
Her face has lost that soft roundness from high school. Cheekbones sharper now, more defined. There are faint lines at the corners of her eyes—laugh lines—and I feel a pang that I wasn’t there for the smiles that made them.
Her hair is longer, darker, tumbling past her shoulders in waves I want to bury my hands in.
She’s wearing a blue sweater that brings out the warmth in her skin, and she’s thinner than I remember.
Not unhealthy. Just different. Like life has carved away some of the softness and left something leaner behind.
She looks tired. Shadows under her eyes, tension in her shoulders. Like someone who’s been carrying something heavy for a long time.
Like someone who’s been as wrecked by this as I have.
But her eyes. Her eyes are exactly the same.
Deep brown, warm and expressive. They’re watching me now with uncertainty. Like she’s waiting for me to hurt her.
Her lips part like she’s about to say something, but I don’t give her the chance.
I force myself to move, crossing to the counter and setting down my tablet.
“Let’s take a look at that ankle.”
I pull up the stool and sit in front of her. She’s so close. Close enough that her scent fills my lungs with every breath, and I’m eighteen again, stupid in love, willing to do anything for her.
“May I?”
She nods.
I reach for her boot.
The second my fingers brush her ankle, heat floods through me. My heart slams against my ribs as I focus on the laces, pulling them loose and easing the boot off, then her sock.
Her ankle is swollen, a little bruised. Mild sprain. She’ll be fine in a week.
I should be relieved. Instead I’m thinking about all the other times I’ve undressed her.
“When did this happen?”
“Half hour ago. Outside the bakery.”
Her voice has changed too. Still warm, still her, but there’s a roughness now. A guardedness that wasn’t there before.
“Can you rotate your foot for me?”
She does. My fingers are still on her skin and I should let go. I don’t.
“Tell me if this hurts.”
I press gently along the bone. She inhales sharply.
I look up—and our eyes meet.
Up close, I can see more. The faint freckles across her nose that I used to kiss. The tiny scar on her chin from when she fell off her bike at fourteen. The way she’s biting her lower lip the way she always did when she was nervous.
She’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Her scent shifts. Deepens. Goes warm and rich in a way I remember too well.
She’s getting aroused. From me touching her ankle. Her body still knows mine, even after everything.
And mine is responding. My cock stirs in my slacks, thickening against my thigh. My skin feels too tight. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to lean closer, breathe her in, put my mouth on her throat and taste the pulse hammering there.
I stand up fast, putting distance between us.
“Not broken. Mild sprain. Ice it tonight, keep it elevated.”
I grab a bandage from the counter. Need to wrap her ankle and get out of here.
“I’m going to wrap it.”
I sit back down. Pull her foot into my lap.
Her calf is warm against my thigh. And her scent is everywhere now—that sweetness going slick and ready, and I can smell it. Can smell how much she wants this, wants me, and my cock is fully hard now, straining against my zipper.
I start wrapping. Focus on the bandage. Anything except the way my hands want to slide up her calf, her thigh, find the source of that slick heat.
“Lucas.”
I don’t look up.
“Lucas, I’m sorry.”
“Dr. Price.” Too harsh. “In this room, I’m Dr. Price.”
Her breath catches. I hear the hurt in it.
I want to take it back. Tell her I forgive her, that I never stopped loving her.
But I can’t. Because I did love her, and she left without a word, and I spent three days thinking she might be dead.
I tie off the bandage and stand.
“Lucas.” She’s not giving up. “I want to explain—”
“Ice and elevation.” I’m at the door already. “Stay off it for a few days.”
I leave her sitting there with tears in her eyes.
The supply closet is dark and quiet.
I lean against the shelves and try to breathe.
She looked so tired. So different and so exactly the same. I wanted to ask her everything—where she’s been, whether she missed us, whether she ever thought about what she left behind.
Instead I wrapped her ankle and ran.
And the worst part—she was getting slick for me. I could smell it, rich and sweet, soaking through the clinical antiseptic of the exam room. My body is still responding, still hard, still aching for her.
I close my eyes, and the memory comes.
Senior year. Her bedroom. Afternoon light through the window.
She’s underneath me, bare and beautiful, looking up with those eyes. Trusting me. Wanting me. Her dark hair spread across the pillow, flushed and breathing hard.
“Lucas.” Breathless, squirming. “Stop overthinking.”
“I’m not overthinking.”
“You are.” She touches my face. “Just be here with me.”
So I try.
I kiss down her neck. That spot below her ear that makes her shiver. She tilts her head back, and I take my time. I want to remember this forever.
“I love you,” I murmur against her skin.
“I love you too. Now stop talking.”
I kiss down her body. Her collarbone. The swell of her breast. She arches into me when I take her nipple in my mouth, making sounds that go straight to my cock.
“Lucas...” Impatient now, hips shifting. “Please.”
I kiss her stomach. Her hip. The inside of her thigh, and she trembles. Her scent is going thick with arousal.
“You’re so beautiful.”
“You’re stalling.”
“I’m savoring.”
“Lucas—”
I lower my mouth to her.
She cries out, back arching off the bed. I grip her hips and lose myself in her. Sweet and warm on my tongue. I groan against her because she’s perfect. She’s everything.
“Oh god.” Her fingers find my hair, tugging hard. “Lucas—”
I don’t stop. I want to memorize every sound. The way she moans when I circle her clit with my tongue. The way her thighs shake when I slide a finger inside and find her dripping with slick.
“More,” she gasps, hips rocking against my face. “Please—”
I add a second finger, curling to find the spot that makes her cry out. She’s so responsive, her slick coating my fingers as I work her open. I feel her getting close, her walls starting to flutter.
“That’s it.” I seal my lips around her clit and suck. “Let me hear you.”
“Don’t stop—please, I’m so close—”
I give her everything. Mouth and fingers and all the love I don’t know how to say out loud. I lick and suck and fuck her with my hand until her thighs clamp around my head and her back bows and she comes with my name on her lips, pulsing around my fingers.
I work her through it. Gentle now. Until she’s boneless and panting.
“Come here,” she whispers.
I crawl up her body. She pulls me down and kisses me, tasting herself on my tongue.
“I love you,” she says against my mouth. “So much, Lucas.”
“I love you too.” I brush her hair back from her face. “Always.”
“Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Promise we’ll always have this. You and me and Theo and Nate.”
I kiss her forehead. Her nose. The corner of her mouth.
“I promise.”
She curls into me. I’ve never been so sure of anything.
Six months later, I drive six hours to her college. Spring break. I have her favorite flowers in the passenger seat. I’m going to tell her I want to transfer. That I can’t stand being this far away.
Her roommate opens the door. Looks confused.
“She’s gone for the week,” the roommate says. “I don’t know where. Didn’t she tell you?”
I sit in my truck for two hours, calling her phone over and over. It goes straight to voicemail every time.
She never calls back.
I open my eyes.
The supply closet. Her scent still clinging to my coat.
I can’t keep doing this.
That night, I sit on the porch until the cold numbs my fingers.
Theo brings me a whiskey without being asked, sitting down next to me without saying anything.
We stay like that for a while. The silence isn’t uncomfortable. It never is with Theo.
“She looked so tired,” I finally say. “Different. But the same, too.”
He nods slowly. “Maeve said she’s been helping Eileen around the house. Keeping to herself mostly.”
Above us, Nate’s footsteps pace his bedroom. Back and forth. Back and forth. He’s been up there since dinner, hasn’t said a word to either of us. Nate’s always been the stoic one, the one who keeps it together no matter what. But Cara’s been back a week and he’s coming apart at the seams.
“I couldn’t let her talk,” I say. “She tried to explain and I just—” I take a drink. “I shut her down and walked out.”
“Maybe we should hear her out.”
I look at Theo sharply. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m not saying forgive her. I’m saying...” He stares out at the dark yard. “Ten years is a long time to wonder. Maybe knowing is better than not knowing.”
“And what could she possibly say?” The words come out harder than I mean them to. “What explanation makes it okay that she disappeared? That she let us think she was dead for three days? That she never once reached out—not a call, not a letter, nothing?”
Theo doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have one. None of us do.
Above us, Nate’s pacing stops. Then starts again.
Part of me wants to go to her. Show up at Eileen’s place, let her say whatever she needs to say. But every time I think about it, I remember sitting in that parking lot with wilting flowers, waiting for someone who never came.
I did the right thing today. Keeping my distance. Protecting myself.
But I still wonder what she would have said.
“I need more time,” I say finally. “I’m not ready.”
Theo doesn’t push. Just squeezes my shoulder and heads inside, leaving me to the cold.
I’m about to follow when my phone buzzes.
Tessa Lang: Reminder - Valentine’s fundraiser is Saturday. I still need your bio for the bachelor auction program. Please send by tomorrow. And make it good - “town doctor” isn’t enough to get bids.
Right. The fundraiser. I agreed to be in the bachelor auction weeks ago, back when Tessa was desperate to fill her lineup. Stand on a stage, smile, let some nice woman bid on a dinner date for charity. Easy enough.
I type out a quick response about sending the bio tomorrow and pocket my phone.
At least it’s something to focus on. Something normal. Town doctor does his civic duty, raises money for the community center roof, makes small talk over dinner with whoever wins him. I can do that.
I head inside, past Nate’s door where the pacing has finally stopped, and lie in bed staring at the ceiling.
Four days until the auction. Then back to my regular life. Patients and paperwork and pretending I’m fine.
I can do this.
I have to.