Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Grier woke to the soft snick of her office door closing.
The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee stirred her senses as she lifted her head from the desk, where she’d stolen a few moments of rest during her lunch break.
Her vision was partially obscured by a crumpled paper airplane stuck to her face—apparently a casualty of her hasty attempt to nap.
Maren set the coffee in front of her, her expression etched with concern. So much concern, in fact, that Grier didn’t bother putting up her facade. She was too tired—too raw—to summon the strength for emotional barricades.
Instead, she looked up at Maren, knowing her friend could interpret her wordlessly—the precision and understanding only a friend could accomplish. Maren’s lip twitched into a half-hearted smile. It was the same smile everyone on the floor had been giving her all week.
Jonah’s fight had cast a shadow over the entire hospital. And everyone knew the trajectory. So, they wore their half-smiles like armor, a flimsy shield against the constant onslaught of tears, while time ticked slowly, painstakingly away from Jonah’s timeline.
“You need to go home and get some sleep, hon. Jonah’s stable, and Vanders is gone.
” Maren circled around the desk, her warm hand settling on Grier’s shoulder with a comforting squeeze.
“Everyone is rooting for him—he’s as safe as he can be.
But you’re killing yourself staying here.
Don’t let Vanders’s mistake create two casualties.
You have to take care of yourself, too.”
Grier started shaking her head in opposition. Her hand moved instinctively to the base of her throat, finding comfort and gathering resilience from Nora’s pendant. “Molly needs me…”
Maren’s grip on her shoulder tightened. “She has the entire hospital behind her. And Dr. Rhodes is having the same conversation with her right now. You both need to take care of yourselves, or you’ll be no use to Jonah.”
“So this is an intervention, then?” Grier stated blandly. She’d suspected it was coming, though she’d expected Dr. Miles to be the one delivering it. Maren was the better choice—at least with her, Grier didn’t have to keep up appearances and could react as herself.
But she wasn’t about to let anyone see her vulnerability—not even Maren. Not when Jonah lay comatose, fighting for his life, the very embodiment of vulnerability. No. Grier would not deign to show that kind of weakness.
She’d been in survival mode for days—trapped in a constant state of hyper-vigilance as she, Haleigh, and Dr. Miles worked to remove Vanders. The fight had shaken her system and brought her to the brink of what she had previously thought she could tolerate. And then she fought harder.
Once Dr. Miles had been updated—thanks in no small part to Haleigh and their unorthodox house call—the recourse unfolded with a certain degree of expediency. And in the stillness that followed, Grier was left both astonished and quietly proud.
The Peer Review Committee had convened two days earlier. Both Haleigh and Grier had been asked to recount the events as they experienced them, followed by Vanders’s opportunity for rebuttal.
He spoke eloquently of his evaluation of Jonah’s condition.
He choked up when he detailed his “discovery” of Molly’s alleged incompetence in seeking timely care for her son.
He painted himself a reluctant hero, driven by duty.
Stripping a mother of her rights had weighed heavily on him, he claimed, but he had acted within current medical standards for surgical intervention.
The amputation, while tragic, had been inevitable, he argued.
And, truly, he was working to undue the harm the mother’s failure to intervene had manifested.
All in all, it had been a beautiful, articulate, and completely bastardized version of events. And he might have walked away unscathed—if it hadn’t been for Jenn.
Vanders, having finished his canard, was feigning humility— though the smug smirk he failed to suppress whenever he glanced at Grier and Haleigh told another story.
The committee had begun to prepare for deliberation when Haleigh’s phone buzzed on the table.
She rapidly snatched it up, unlocked it, and within seconds, her expression shifted.
Relief softened her features; her shoulders relaxed on a visible exhale. Grier’s pulse quickened at the sight.
Haleigh looked at Grier, a victorious glint in her eye as she winked—then stood and strode to the door, ushering Jenn into the room.
The committee bristled at the interruption, but none so loud as Vanders. One look at Jenn and his entire demeanor changed. His composure crumbled as Haleigh addressed the room.
“I realize this is unorthodox,” she said, “but Jenn has information that may directly impact the committee’s decision—as well as make the hospital aware of a potential legal issue.”
Jenn revealed Vanders had known that Jonah had an active infection prior to surgery, and was, in fact, febrile at the time of surgery.
She explained that, aware that a documented fever would automatically defer the surgery, Vanders had threatened her and two scrub nurses with termination if they intervened or charted the vital signs.
Jenn revealed Vanders’s commission of medical fraud, for which the hospital had a zero-tolerance policy. It was currently his word against theirs, but it was enough to prompt the committee to place him on administrative leave pending a full investigation into Jenn’s claims.
“If that’s what it will take to get you to listen, then yes,” Maren’s firm voice brought her back to the present. But Grier sensed an edge of uncertainty in it. Like she had already accepted that her efforts were futile.
“Listen to what?”
A familiar, all-too-welcome voice lilted softly through the doorway where Tobin appeared, a gentle smile on her lips and a refreshing lightness in her eyes.
She paused, leaning casually against the doorframe to wait for Maren’s reply.
Grier noticed Maren’s posture shift—the worry evaporating at the sight of Tobin.
She couldn’t even be mad about Maren’s reaction—she felt her own body respond similarly.
She’d kept Tobin at arm’s length all week. After confessing she was in love with her, she had made the choice—maybe the mistake— not to let Tobin say it back. At the time, it felt right. She hadn’t expected Jonah’s world to unravel so quickly afterward.
Now was the time she needed Tobin most. She hadn’t realized just how much—until she was standing in her doorway.
That comforting smile. That air of authority.
And suddenly, Maren could yield her powers of persuasion—which were failing gloriously—to the only person likely to get her out of the hospital right now.
Grier watched as Tobin and Maren exchanged glances. If she’d been more alert, she might have caught the subtle “thank you” Maren mouthed before Tobin pushed off the doorframe and walked toward her. Grier felt Tobin’s confident hands reach for hers, gently pulling her to her feet—and into her arms.
With Tobin’s firm arms wrapped around her and holding her against her chest, Grier felt something unlock inside her. Her legs went weak, finally allowing her body to collapse into the safe, certain arms of the woman she loved.
Tobin held her securely, swaying slightly, rocking her with an air of maternal patience. The soft snick of the door behind them told Grier that Maren had slipped out, leaving them the quiet intimacy they needed.
She felt Tobin’s hand gently brushing through her hair, the steady rhythm of Tobin’s heart beating in her chest. The sound was reassuring, keeping her present, reminding her that she had this woman—this life—and it was important and necessary and right to be vulnerable in it.
So, Grier let herself break. She let herself shed the tears she’d been withholding for days. She cried for Jonah. For Molly. She cried for herself—and for all of Vanders’s other victims, patients and professionals alike.
She cried for the unfairness. She cried for the anger. She cried for the acceptance.
And she cried, mostly, for the love.
She hadn’t understood how a heart could feel so full and so broken all at once—but she understood that’s what she was feeling in this moment.
Grier didn’t know how long she cried. That wasn’t the important part. What she knew was that Tobin held her through all of it. She knew that Tobin rubbed her back, stroked her hair, steadied her breath, subliminally encouraging Grier to match pace. She knew Tobin swayed… and soothed… and stayed.
When Grier sighed—expelling the sadness and acceptance from her body with a determined finality—she felt that Tobin loved her.
When Tobin leaned back just enough to look at her, brushing tears from her cheeks with the backs of her fingers and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she felt that Tobin loved her.
When Tobin’s green eyes held her gaze—those ever-present roils alarmingly calm—Grier felt that Tobin loved her.
So when Tobin’s palm came to rest gently over her sternum, covering the pendant that anchored her, and when Grier saw the twitch tugging at the corner of Tobin’s lip—fighting an anxious smile—she sighed, yielding to the moment and the emotion and the certainty of what she could feel was happening between them.
She watched as Tobin caved to the determined twitch of her lips, letting them tentatively curl into a hesitant, hopeful smile.
And then the breath that had left her rushed back in, inhaling Tobin’s words as they left her lungs and filled her own:
“I love you, Grier.”
And Grier heard that Tobin loved her. And then she knew.