Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Madison
"The pinot noir thing," Tom said, his voice as smooth as the wine in his hand.
"Last weekend of the month. Two nights at the vineyard, a private tasting, and the gala dinner on Saturday.
" He shifted on the leather sofa, leaning into my space just enough to be inviting. "Don’t check the board, Madison. Don’t consult the gods of the OR. Just say yes."
I looked at him over the rim of my glass. The wine was expensive—the kind of vintage that left a complex, earthy trail on the tongue, worlds away from the rot-gut prosecco I used to buy in brown paper bags. Tom lived in a world of fine vintages and scheduled joys.
"Can I at least look at my calendar?" I asked.
"You always say that."
"Because I always need to look at my calendar, Tom. People have a habit of staying in the hospital longer than they planned."
He smiled, a slow, easy expression that didn't hold a hint of resentment. He reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear, his thumb grazing my temple. "One weekend. The world will keep spinning if Dr. Clarke takes forty-eight hours off."
He let it go after that, which was Tom. He didn't push; he just waited for you to realize he was right.
On the television, a man in a tactical vest was sweating over a tangle of wires, trying to defuse something that the plot wouldn't allow him to finish until the final seconds. Tom had put it on an hour ago as background noise, a low-stakes distraction we weren't really watching.
That was the primary draw of Tom’s apartment—it didn't require anything from me.
It was a space designed for comfort, all neutral tones, high-end finishes, and a climate-control system that hummed so quietly you forgot it was there.
There were no drafts here. No stuffed dish towels in the window frames to keep out the Colorado winter.
I’d brought a bag this time, a weekend’s worth of clothes squeezed into a duffel.
I’d decided to stay here through Sunday, unable to face another night like Tuesday, when I’d stared at my own ceiling until two in the morning, listening to the silence of my apartment turn into an interrogation.
I needed the sleep, but more than that, I needed the presence of another person to drown out my own head.
I tucked my feet under me, sinking into the oversized cushions.
After a while, Tom reached over and put his hand on my ankle—easy and warm, a simple gesture of proximity that didn't ask for a thing.
I leaned my head onto his shoulder, breathing in the scent of his detergent and the expensive soap he used.
The movie went on. The thing on the screen got defused or it didn’t; it didn’t matter either way.
The apartment was quiet except for the cinematic explosions, and outside, the rain was blurring the streetlights into orange smears against the glass.
I was almost there—that elusive edge of actually switching off—when my phone buzzed on the cushion beside me.
I looked down. It was marked as an unknown number, but as the digits scrolled across the screen, the air left my lungs.
I hadn’t seen that sequence in twelve years. I’d deleted the contact a lifetime ago in Baltimore, but my brain had never stopped holding onto it. It was his number. The one I used to call when the world felt too big.
"Hello?"
"Hey—sorry. It's, uh—" A long, ragged pause followed, the kind that sounded like someone catching their breath after a fall. "It's Jack. Henley. Sorry to call this late, Maddie."
The sound of my name in his voice, even through the digital haze of a cell signal, felt like a cold hand on my neck. I sat up, the warmth of Tom’s shoulder suddenly feeling a thousand miles away.
"Is everything okay?" I asked. My voice was already shifting into professional gear—clipped, steady, prepared for data.
There was a beat. The directness seemed to catch him off guard. "Lily's got a fever."
"Okay," I said, reaching for the notepad Tom kept on the side table. "Talk to me."
"I don't—I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do," he said.
His voice was flat, stripped of the usual grit, like an engine running on empty.
This wasn't a plea; it was just a report from the wreckage.
"Whether I take her in or call someone. I was going to head for the ER, but I found an insurance card.
I don't know if that changes things. If there’s a process for this. "
He stopped. I heard the sharp, metallic click of a lighter or a pen—something for his hands to do.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he said. The words were quiet, blunt. An honest accounting of a man who had finally found a problem he couldn't solve.
Tom glanced over, his brow furrowing as he sensed the shift in my posture. I stood up, the movement abrupt enough to spill a few drops of wine onto my coaster, and walked toward the far window. The rain was drumming against the glass, a frantic, uneven rhythm.
"How high?" I asked. I didn't wait for him to find the words; I just started the checklist.
"Hundred and three point two," he said. "Checked it twice."
"Breathing?"
"Fast. But even. No wheezing."
"Is she responsive? If you say her name, does she open her eyes?"
"She groans. Turns away from the light. She’s... she's deep under."
I ran the diagnostic in my head, a mental whiteboard filling with possibilities. Lethargy, high fever, no respiratory distress yet. He mentioned the park—the pink cheeks he’d mistaken for the wind. It was a classic misstep.
"Any rash?" I asked. "Check her torso. Her legs."
"Nothing. Just red in the face."
"Vomiting? Stiff neck?"
"No. She just won't wake up properly."
I looked out at the streetlights. Ten-thirty on a Friday. Clear Creek was a forty-five-minute drive on a dry night, and the roads out here turned into black ice the second the temperature dipped.
"Check the medicine cabinet," I directed. "There should be children’s Tylenol. It’s a red liquid, probably. Or chewables."
"I found it," he said, the sound of a plastic bottle rattling against a sink. "It’s... it’s basically empty. Maybe a teaspoon left. I don't think Cassie had time to get more."
"How does she look to you?" I said. "Not the numbers. Just—how does she look?"
A pause. "Small," he said. "She looks small."
I stood at the window with the rain on the glass and the orange of the streetlights below. The answer hit me lower than I expected. It wasn't a clinical statement; it was more like a confession.
"Okay," I said, my hand tightening on the phone.
"Listen to me. Any twenty-four-hour pharmacy will have children's Tylenol.
CVS, Walgreens, doesn't matter. Get a cool cloth on her forehead, and whatever you do, don't bundle her up in blankets.
You need to let the heat out. Try to get her to take some water if she rouses. "
"Got it," he said. "Thank you, I—"
I stopped. What was I saying?
He was alone.
It didn't matter if he had a car or not. He couldn’t leave a semi-conscious five-year-old alone in a house in Clear Creek to go hunt for a pharmacy, and he couldn’t drag a kid with a 103-degree fever out into a cold rainstorm just to stand in a checkout line.
"Ignore that," I said, already turning away from the window. The "Doctor" part of my brain—the part that valued boundaries and professional distance—was being shoved aside by something older and more urgent. "Don't go anywhere. Stay put."
"Maddie—"
"Stay put, Jack. I'll bring it."
I hung up before he could argue. Before I could argue.
Tom was watching me from the couch, the tactical movie still exploding in the background. His wine glass was still in his hand, but his entire body had gone still, wired for a different kind of tension.
"Everything okay?"
"The Henley girl," I said, my words coming out fast as I scanned the floor for my shoes. "Cassie's daughter. She has a high fever—a hundred and three—and her uncle... he’s out of his depth. He’s stuck out there with no medicine and no way to leave her to get it."
I spotted one flat by the door. The other had somehow migrated under the coffee table. I dropped to my knees to fish it out, my fingers grazing the dust on the floorboards.
Tom got up. He came over and put his hands on my arms, not stopping me, just—there.
"Hey," he said softly. "Madison. Look at me."
I looked up, a shoe in each hand, my hair falling into my face.
"You're shaking," he noted. His eyes were searching mine, looking for the cool, collected surgeon he knew and finding someone much younger, much more raw. "You sound... distraught."
"I'm fine. It’s a high fever, likely viral, but a child that age can't sustain that kind of heat for long. I just need to get some supplies out to Clear Creek."
"Right." He let his hands slide down to my wrists. He didn't ask why the uncle couldn't handle it. He didn't ask why it had to be me. He just stood in the space where my excuses usually lived. "So."
"I know." I pulled on my coat. "I know. It's just—it's Cassie's kid, and I—" I stopped. There wasn't a clean way to finish it. "I just need to go."
Tom looked at me for a long moment. He was a smart man; he could see the ghosts of a twelve-year-old life standing in the room with us, but he was also a kind man. He leaned in and kissed my forehead—a brief, warm pressure that felt like a goodbye to the quiet evening we’d planned.
"Go," he said. "Drive safe. The bridge over the creek gets slick when it’s this dark."