Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
BOWEN
“What are you doing here?” I croaked, heart in my throat.
Before she could answer, the door flew open behind her, narrowly missing her shoulder. She stumbled forward, slamming into my chest. I steadied her, my good hand slipping around her back.
Good grief, I forgot how good she smelled.
Her eyes were wide, staring up into mine, as…my mom’s ex-husband tripped through the door.
Magnolia jumped back, slipping between the open door and the wall.
“Are you kidding me?” Billy’s nasally voice grated on my nerves every time I heard him talk.
Thankfully, it wasn’t very often. Only when we ended up at Food Lion at the same time and one of his patients stopped him partway down the aisle, wanting free medical advice.
“No Duprees allowed in this clinic unless they’re dying. ”
I huffed, still unable to believe my mom had ever willingly married this moron. “I’m the new junior architect for Slate and Timber,” I said in a tone that told him he was not my boss but yes, I belonged in this building.
He peered around the door at Magnolia. “What are you doing back there? Get out here!”
She slid along the wall, face in full blush. Dang, I forgot how beautiful she was. Okay, not forgot—buried maybe. But seeing her again was like light breaking through stained glass, flooding every dark corner I’d boarded up.
Billy’s eyes widened like he’d just put two and two together. “Ah, I see.” He saw nothing, but with the way Magnolia was cowering, you’d think he had. “I don’t have time to babysit two horny teens—”
“Horny teens?” I snorted. “I graduated. From UVA. With my master's.” Magnolia blinked, like the news surprised her. “And Magnolia is a third-year med student,” I reminded him. Her eyes widened a little more, like she couldn’t believe I knew what year she was in school.
Of course, I knew. I could do basic math, for crying out loud.
Billy sneered. “I noticed you didn’t address the horny bit.”
“M’kay. Says the man who cheated on my mother with a barely legal gas station attendant the same day my aunt was buried.” Yeah, I went there. “Horny indeed.”
His eyes bulged and a vein in his forehead threatened to explode. Not gonna lie. It was fully satisfying.
Magnolia snickered.
Billy righted his face, all calm and cool. “That was a great interview you did on the Breaking Curfew show. My wife kept it on in the background for weeks.”
Magnolia’s eyes shut tight, like she could block out the whole room if she just tried hard enough.
Billy’s cunning expression told me he knew exactly what he’d done.
The only reason he’d be bringing up an interview I did two years ago was to hurt Magnolia.
Or me. That’s the problem with being part of one of the most famous families in America and living in a small town.
Even if your well-connected uncle keeps the worst decision of your life from airing on Netflix, a stranger will inevitably get it on video.
The reel they post might not go viral, but one person back home will see it, twist it, and before you know it, the whole county’s running their mouths like it’s breaking news.Billy smirked, so proud of himself.
“Which wife?” I asked, ticking off my fingers like I was trying to remember them all.
I’m pretty sure if he hadn’t been so terrified of my dad—and my mom, for that matter—he would’ve throttled me.
Magnolia clapped a hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh. Her tiny, adorable nostrils flared in and out.
Billy’s eyes flashed to her, then to the mess on the carpet. “Hollis, why are the surgical packs all over the floor?”
“We kind of had a run-in.” She winced. “Literally.”
Finally, he saw the cut on my hand. It was not lost on me that I’d been dripping blood for the last sixty seconds and this doctor, who should’ve been able to smell hemoglobin from a hallway away, had just noticed.
He swore. “Just great. That better not stain.” He glared at me. “And you better not sue.”
Another snappy retort queued up in my brain—mostly about how I didn’t need to sue. My extended family’s net worth would short-circuit his calculator. But Billy looked like he might have an aneurysm on the spot if I pushed him any further, so I restrained myself.
“Well, don’t just stand there gawking,” he barked at Magnolia. “Stitch him up before he ruins the Berber.”
She stared at him, frozen.
“I don’t need to be stitched up.” I swallowed. “Just put some of that glue on it.”
“Glue? On your palm?” Billy said, like I was the biggest idiot alive. “Dermal adhesive isn’t strong enough for a high movement, high-tension area like your hand. Every time you use it, the skin is going to stretch and the adhesive will rip open.” He looked pointedly at Magnolia. “Hop to it.”
“You want me to stitch him up?” she asked, not making me confident that she could handle this at all.
“I’m certainly not doing it,” he snapped. He looked back at me. “And don’t even think of passing out. Your mom would murder me.”
It took all my self-control not to say that I’d pay to see that. I let my smirk say it for me. He stalked off, muttering something about blood-borne pathogens and lifelong regret.
Magnolia stepped inside the room I’d just come out of, glancing over her shoulder, her big green eyes urging me to follow. She closed the door and it fell painfully quiet. Except for my heartbeat, which was pounding so loudly, it sounded like an oncoming freight train in my ears.
“Hold on.” She pulled the end of the crinkly paper that covered the exam table and laid it in place. “Have a seat.”
She turned away, hands pressed to her cheeks, like she didn’t know where to begin. I let myself take her in. Even in scrubs, she was stunning.
Unbidden, memories flashed across my mind.
Being her Spartan Race partner meant I now possessed an all-day highlight reel of my hands all over her.
Can’t reach the top of the six-foot wall?
Let me hold your waist and give you a boost. Foot slipped on the inverted wall?
Let me grab your thigh to stop you from falling.
Can’t get a grip on the rope climb? I’ll steady your hips while you regroup.
Can’t quite make it across the Olympus? No worries.
I’ll use my hands as a seat to hold up your very toned, perfectly shaped butt as you make your way to the end.
And all of it happened with her wrapped in spandex shorts and a tank so tight I could feel the heat of her skin through the fabric.
By the time we reached the Beater and she put her lips on mine, my stockpile of willpower was shot.
No wonder I’d lost my mind and kissed her back the way I did.
But then, an image of her shivering in my arms, nearly naked, lips turning blue, reminded me that I’d held her curves long before the Spartan Race.
She turned to face me, hands still on her cheeks.
“I’m not really supposed to stitch people up yet?
Do you just want to run over and let Anna do it real quick?
” The only vet in Seddledowne, Anna was the official Dupree family stitcher-upper.
If the choice had been between Anna and Billy, I’d have already been halfway to the vet clinic.
But I didn’t want to leave this room now that Magnolia was here.
We looked at each other for a couple of seconds. Something in the way she held herself looked like she might fold if I so much as breathed wrong. What she needed right now was to know I was confident she could do this.
“Nah.” I grinned. “I’ve heard about how steady and straight you are in those suturing simulations—” Because Griffin used to brag about it all the time.
Her fingers curled and she swallowed visibly, telling me she was thinking of him too.
She opened a cabinet and grabbed a kidney-shaped pan and a syringe. For a few seconds, it was just the sound of her opening the paper wrapper.
She didn’t look at me while she snapped on a pair of gloves, but I couldn’t stop looking at her.
Her blond hair was a couple of inches longer, enough that it wouldn’t be considered a bob anymore.
It looked like she’d gotten some highlights, and she was really tan—like maybe she’d recently taken a trip somewhere tropical—her freckles smattering over the apples of her cheeks.
She clicked on the overhead lamp. “I’m going to irrigate your wound with saline,” she said impersonally, like I was an actual patient and not a guy she used to have feelings for.
It hurt worse than the cut across my hand.
This whole stilted interchange was uncomfortably painful.
“This might sting a little, so I apologize in advance.”
I scooted onto the table, wishing her thigh would move an inch closer and brush mine.
Just one inch. But she put careful distance between us.
Her top teeth tugged on her bottom lip as she concentrated and, even though I shouldn’t have let my mind go there, all I could think about was what those lips had tasted like.
Until the saline hit my wound. It burned like she’d poured hot sauce into my cut.
“Tsss—ah.” I stifled a curse word, forcing a chuckle instead. “Sheesh, you weren’t kidding.”
“Sorry.” Her chest heaved in and out like being near me was causing her pain. Then she said three words that sliced straight up my chest and across my heart. “How is he?”
All the hope-filled oxygen in my lungs vanished, and just like that, the question that had haunted me for two years—who was she more upset about losing, me or Griff—was finally answered. Which wasn’t a surprise. After what I’d done on Breaking Curfew, she probably loathed me.
“He’s good.” I cleared my throat. “He loves it out west. Says he was made for the dry air.” I despised it every time he said that.
If Mom’s hopes were balloons strung up on a wall, he just kept tossing darts—one “life’s better out west” comment at a time.
The more he loved it there, the more air leaked out of her dream of him ever coming home.
“They just wrapped up a wildfire they’ve been fighting for two months—” I sucked in a gasp as pain seared across my palm “—in the Sierra Nevadas.”
“I saw him…at Hollister,” she said in a hush. “I didn’t even know he wanted to model.” She patted the cut with the gauze, taking some of the sting out. “I didn’t recognize him at first. Can you believe he buzzed his hair?”
That’s right. Not only was Griffin a daredevil firefighting hotshot now, he was a professional model.
“Doesn’t even look like him,” I said. “Gained forty pounds of muscle, got lighter colored contacts.” I sighed.
“Nothing like going to grab a pair of jeans and you come face to face with a life-sized poster of your brother’s abs.
” I smiled when she looked up. But she didn’t return it.
I’d never seen her this solemn in all the years I’d known her.
“You should hear the way Sophie talks to Model Griffin whenever she sees him. ‘Blink twice if they forced you to wear skinny jeans and pretend you read books.’” I made my voice high-pitched like my sister's.
But Magnolia didn’t laugh. Not even a little. Her expression remained carefully guarded.
Her laughter was oxygen, and I was suffocating without it.
It sharpened colors and softened edges, making the whole world feel good again—so I kept trying.
“Last time we were there, Sophie slaps him on the cheek—or at least she tried—hard to do when he’s two-dimensional—and says, ‘Mom says hello. And also, she wants her cheekbones back.’ Then she turns to the entire store and hollers, ‘Y’all, that’s my brother.
Look at that jawline. God really said, ‘Let me waste this on someone who still eats Dino Nuggets.’”
Finally, Magnolia gave me a quick giggle before reining herself back in.
“Oh, Sophie,” she said quietly. "I miss her.” She peeked up at me. “Does he still eat Dino Nuggets?”
I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Her expression was downcast. “He doesn’t talk to you?”
I gave a slight shake of the head and made myself smile. The ache of not having a relationship with my brother hit me like a rogue wave. Same as always. I doubted I’d ever get used to it.
She stared at my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Bowen,” she said, as if kissing me was the worst mistake of her life. “You’ll never know how sorry.”
I’d never heard an apology that hurt more.