Chapter 10 Chosen
More Than Recovery
Finn had kissed patients before.
Not professionally, obviously.
He wasn't that kind of doctor.
But before medical school.
Before residency.
Before Willow Ridge.
There had been relationships.
Dates.
People he'd cared about.
People who had mattered.
The difference was that none of those kisses had followed him into every waking moment afterward.
None of them had left him standing in the middle of a grocery store smiling at absolutely nothing.
None of them had made him replay the memory over and over until he could remember every detail.
The thunder outside.
The candlelight.
The way Deck had looked at him before closing the distance.
The way the mechanic's hand had trembled slightly when it touched his face.
The memory lived inside him now.
Constant.
Warm.
Dangerous.
Three days had passed since that night.
Three days of pretending everything remained normal.
Three days of discovering that normal no longer existed.
Because everything had changed.
Not dramatically.
Not visibly.
The changes lived in the small moments.
The glances.
The smiles.
The quiet awareness.
The feeling of constantly being drawn toward each other.
The farmhouse seemed smaller lately.
Not because of its size.
Because every room contained Deck.
And Finn's attention kept finding him.
The realization made professional boundaries increasingly difficult.
The problem wasn't that Deck remained his patient.
Technically he did.
The problem was that Finn stopped seeing him as only a patient weeks ago.
Long before the kiss.
Long before late-night conversations.
Long before movie nights and shared coffee and all the little moments that somehow became important.
The feelings had arrived quietly.
Now they refused to leave.
Finn sat in his office one afternoon trying unsuccessfully to focus on paperwork.
Patient charts covered his desk.
Emails waited for responses.
A rehabilitation schedule required updating.
Instead, his thoughts drifted toward a mechanic working twenty minutes away.
The realization felt ridiculous.
He sighed.
Closed the file.
Opened it again.
Still couldn't focus.
A knock interrupted his struggle.
Rebecca stepped inside carrying a folder.
The nurse immediately noticed his expression.
Unfortunately.
"You look distracted."
Finn looked up.
"I'm working."
Rebecca stared.
Then looked at the untouched paperwork.
Then back at him.
The silence felt judgmental.
"Sure."
The doctor rubbed a hand across his face.
The nurse laughed.
"Still the mechanic?"
The question landed directly.
Painfully directly.
Finn groaned.
The reaction answered everything.
Rebecca looked delighted.
Which felt unfair.
"You're impossible."
The nurse shrugged.
"I told you this was happening."
The doctor remembered that conversation.
Unfortunately.
"You were supposed to be wrong."
"I never am."
The confidence sounded alarming.
Mostly because it wasn't entirely inaccurate.
Rebecca dropped the folder onto his desk.
"Just don't do anything stupid."
The warning sounded casual.
The meaning underneath wasn't.
Finn understood.
Because she wasn't talking about romance.
She was talking about responsibility.
The professional relationship still existed.
The reality complicated everything.
The nurse eventually left.
The office fell quiet once more.
The warning lingered.
Because she wasn't wrong.
The situation remained complicated.
Yet every time Finn thought about creating distance, his chest tightened.
Every time he imagined leaving the farmhouse, something inside him resisted.
The realization felt significant.
Terrifyingly significant.
That evening, he arrived home later than expected.
An elderly patient had suffered complications.
Paperwork took longer than planned.
Life happened.
The sun had already disappeared by the time he pulled into the driveway.
The farmhouse glowed warmly against the darkness.
Home.
The thought arrived automatically now.
The realization still surprised him.
Finn stepped inside.
The familiar scent of dinner greeted him.
Along with something else.
Relief.
Actual relief.
Because Deck was there.
The mechanic sat at the kitchen table reviewing paperwork from the garage.
The moment he looked up, something softened in his expression.
Only briefly.
Still there.
Finn noticed immediately.
The sight warmed him more than it should.
"Long day?"
Deck's voice carried genuine concern.
Not politeness.
Not obligation.
Concern.
The doctor smiled.
"Very."
The mechanic nodded toward the stove.
"Dinner's ready."
The words sounded simple.
The meaning underneath didn't.
The realization followed Finn through the evening.
Every small kindness carried weight now.
Every shared smile.
Every quiet moment.
Everything felt different.
After dinner, they moved onto the porch.
The weather had cooled slightly.
A soft breeze drifted through the darkness.
The stars looked unusually bright overhead.
The town felt distant.
The world felt distant.
For a while, neither spoke.
The silence felt comfortable.
Safe.
Finn had always liked silence.
Most people rushed to fill it.
Deck understood how to sit with it.
The realization remained one of his favorite things about the mechanic.
Eventually the conversation drifted toward recovery.
A topic neither could avoid forever.
The doctor's stomach tightened immediately.
Because recovery meant progress.
Progress meant independence.
Independence meant endings.
The realization settled heavily between his ribs.
Deck noticed.
Of course he noticed.
The mechanic had become frighteningly good at reading him.
"What?"
Finn looked away.
Toward the dark fields.
The truth felt complicated.
Dangerous.
Nothing about this situation followed normal rules anymore.
"You've been improving."
The statement sounded professional.
Safe.
The mechanic remained silent.
Waiting.
The doctor continued.
"Your mobility's better."
Still waiting.
"Your strength is improving."
The silence stretched.
Neither pretending they were discussing therapy anymore.
Finally Deck spoke.
Quietly.
"You're worried."
The observation landed perfectly.
Finn laughed softly.
The sound carried little humor.
The mechanic understood immediately.
As usual.
The doctor looked down at his hands.
Thinking.
Searching for words.
Finding honesty instead.
"The closer you get to recovery..."
His voice trailed off.
The rest remained obvious.
Deck stared at him.
The realization moved between them.
Unspoken.
Powerful.
The closer recovery came, the closer this arrangement came to ending.
The truth hurt more than it should.
Much more.
For several moments neither spoke.
The night wrapped around them.
Crickets sang somewhere in the darkness.
The porch creaked softly beneath their chairs.
Finally, Deck exhaled slowly.
The sound carried something heavy.
Something important.
The mechanic looked out toward the fields.
Not at Finn.
Not yet.
When he finally spoke, his voice sounded rougher than usual.
More vulnerable.
"I don't want you to leave."
The confession settled between them.
Simple.
Honest.
Devastating.
Finn's breath caught instantly.
Because there it was.
The thing neither had said aloud.
The truth hiding beneath weeks of stolen glances and growing feelings.
Deck wasn't talking about recovery anymore.
The mechanic finally looked at him.
Gray eyes meeting blue.
Open.
Unprotected.
Terrifyingly sincere.
And for the first time since arriving in Willow Ridge, Finn realized he wasn't the only one struggling with where this was leading.
Because somewhere along the way, recovery had become the least important thing connecting them.
And neither man wanted to imagine a future where they weren't part of each other's lives.
First Place
Finn didn't sleep much after that conversation.
Not because of anxiety.
Not because of uncertainty.
Because hope was proving surprisingly difficult to manage.
For most of his life, hope had been dangerous.
Hope created expectations.
Expectations led to disappointment.
The lesson had repeated often enough that eventually he'd stopped expecting much from people.
It was easier that way.
Safer.
Unfortunately, Declan Harlan had never shown much respect for safety.
The mechanic had a habit of stepping directly into places other people avoided.
Even emotional ones.
Especially emotional ones.
The realization followed Finn through the next several days.
Through patient appointments.
Paperwork.
Recovery sessions.
Everything.
The memory of Deck's confession remained impossible to ignore.
I don't want you to leave.
Simple words.
Honest words.
Yet nobody had ever said them to him quite like that before.
The difference mattered.
More than he wanted to admit.
Friday evening arrived quietly.
The clinic had finally emptied.
Most staff members headed home hours earlier.
Finn finished his last patient note and shut down his computer.
The office fell silent.
Outside the windows, the sky had already darkened.
The drive back to the farmhouse felt familiar now.
Comfortable.
The roads.
The fields.
The distant lights scattered across Willow Ridge.
For months, he'd thought of the farmhouse as temporary.
A place to stay during recovery.
A practical arrangement.
Nothing more.
Somewhere along the way, it had become home.
The realization still caught him off guard.
The truck rolled into the driveway.
Warm light glowed through the farmhouse windows.
The sight immediately eased something inside his chest.
Home.
The word felt dangerous.
Yet true.
Finn stepped inside.
The scent of coffee drifted from the kitchen.
Deck sat at the table with a stack of garage paperwork spread in front of him.
The mechanic looked up immediately.
Always immediately.
The sight warmed him in ways it probably shouldn't.
"Hey."
The greeting sounded soft.
Natural.
The doctor smiled.
"Hey."
For a moment, neither moved.
The silence felt familiar.
Comfortable.