11. Chapter 11
Sunday morning came quickly. But, the house was too quiet without her.
Heath hadn’t expected Maddie to be here when he showed up, but some part of him thought maybe he’d catch her. Maybe she’d swing by between shifts, maybe she’d left some kind of sign she’d been around.
But from the looks of it? She hadn’t been here since Friday.
Not that he was watching the place or anything.
He knew very well what night shifts looked like. The exhaustion. The brutal hours. The way they ate at you until you had nothing left but muscle memory and caffeine. He’d seen plenty of guys burn themselves out on ops. He’d seen how too many nights in a row could strip you down to nothing.
And yet—he still didn’t like this.
Heath sighed, rubbing his neck before making his way into the kitchen. If she wasn’t here, she sure as hell wasn’t eating.
He opened the fridge. Bare. A few bottles of water, some yogurt that might be expired, half a bag of shredded cheese.
Cupboards? Not much better. Some rice, an unopened jar of peanut butter, an old box of crackers.
He shook his head, exhaling sharply.
She wasn’t taking care of herself. No one was.
He should pick up some groceries before he left today. Something that wouldn’t rot before she had time to eat it. Something easy.
But for now? Work.
He grabbed his tools from where he’d left them in the hall and headed to the master bedroom.
This was his chance to make progress on the tough stuff while she was gone.
With Maddie around, it was hard to stay focused. The back-and-forth, the banter, the way she flushed when she got frustrated, the way she smelled like faint perfume and soap and something uniquely her.
He needed to get ahead while he could.
By the time the afternoon crept up on him, Heath was wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm, stepping back to take in the room.
The transformation was stark.
It had taken hours—long, exhausting hours between Saturday and Sunday—but it was worth it.
When he’d first stepped into the master bedroom yesterday, it had looked like a lost cause.
The wallpaper had been peeling in long, curling strips, the drywall underneath pocked and uneven from old patch jobs.
The crown molding had been chipped, paint cracking along the edges.
The floorboards creaked in places, and the overhead light fixture had been an outdated brass monstrosity.
Now?
Now it looked like a goddamn home.
Heath had spent half of Saturday stripping the walls down completely, pulling away decades of bad decisions and getting to the bare bones of the room. He’d patched the drywall where it was uneven, sanded down rough spots, and smoothed the surface.
By the time he’d finished priming, his arms had been burning.
The painting had taken most of Sunday morning. A soft, modern white with warm undertones, fresh and clean, brightening the whole space.
The old brass ceiling fan? Gone. He’d installed a sleek, matte black fixture with dimmable recessed lighting, the kind that felt high-end without being excessive.
The floors had needed love, too.
Maddie had been worried about replacing them, worried about the cost, the time.
But Heath had taken one look at the original hardwood and known they were salvageable.
He’d buffed out the worst scratches, deep-cleaned the planks, and sealed them with a satin-finish polyurethane.
The grain popped beautifully now—rich, natural, timeless.
The ensuite?
Not perfect. But getting there.
He’d re-grouted the tile where it was cracked, replaced the leaky shower head with a sleek black fixture to match the bedroom light.
The vanity was still a problem.
The old oak cabinets had to go. He’d made a mental note to replace them, maybe swap the outdated countertop for something quartz or marble if Maddie gave him the go-ahead.
Would he have time to pull it off?
Hell yeah.
He stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest, letting the progress settle in. Fresh. Modern take on a vintage beach house. Ready to be lived in.
“Not bad,” he said to himself. “I like it.”
* * * * *
Maddie was running on fumes.
Her body felt like lead, her brain a sluggish mess of half-formed thoughts and medical jargon that had blurred together somewhere around hour twenty-four. She’d finished her last post-op rounds, checked on her patients, and stifled at least six yawns during her conversation with Dr. Zaire.
He’d barely glanced up from his clipboard when he dismissed her. “You’re back tomorrow night. Night shift again. You’re on-call tonight, but go home and get some sleep before you kill someone.”
Not exactly comforting, but hey.
She mumbled a “Yes, sir,” peeled off her scrubs, and grabbed her bag, practically sleepwalking to the parking lot.
The sun was way too bright, and as she dug for her keys, she barely heard the footsteps catching up behind her.
“Jesus, McAuley, you look like a corpse.”
Maddie didn’t even turn around. “Thanks, Sandra. Always a pleasure.”
Sandra fell into step beside her, dark hair spilling out of the bun she had tied it into hours ago, her eyes sharp and tired but still full of that trademark mischief.
“You heading home?” Sandra asked, digging in her own bag for her keys.
Maddie sighed, rubbing her temple. “Technically. But let’s be real—I’ll get halfway there, end up parked outside a Starbucks, and have an existential crisis about whether I should just live at the hospital.”
Sandra snorted. “Relatable. I swear I blacked out during my last surgery. Like, I think I did everything right, but if my patient ends up missing a kidney, just look the other way.”
Maddie shook her head. “I’ll be sure to cover for you in the wrongful death lawsuit.”
“Now that’s friendship.” Sandra grinned, pressing the key fob for her car. The lights flashed, but she didn’t move yet.
Instead, she turned, studying Maddie for a second too long.
Maddie narrowed her eyes. “What?”
Sandra shrugged. “Nothing. Just… take care of yourself, okay?”
Maddie huffed, shoving her hair out of her face. “I’m fine.”
Sandra smirked. “You’re full of shit, but I like that about you.” She nudged Maddie’s arm. “Between the two of us, we can watch your back.”
Maddie’s chest tightened, just a little.
She wasn’t used to that. People looking out for her.
She forced a smirk. “You? Watching my back? Aren’t you the one who gave a patient two left gloves last week?”
Sandra gasped, dramatically clutching her chest. “I will never live that down.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it.”
Sandra grinned, stepping toward her car. “Go home, McAuley. Get some sleep. Or, I don’t know, do something other than fall apart in a hospital hallway for once.”
Maddie rolled her eyes, unlocking her car. “I make no promises.”
But as she climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled out of the lot, she felt it linger.
The exhaustion. The doubt. The weight of everything she’d been carrying.
She needed sleep.
She needed something.
And for the first time all weekend, she pulled out her phone and realized exactly what she wanted.
Forty minutes later, as Maddie pulled onto her street, she knew in her bones that she should have stopped at Starbucks. Or a gas station. Or anywhere that sold food and caffeine and something resembling human energy.
Instead, she was pulling into the driveway of her mother’s dark, empty house with her stomach twisting in hunger and exhaustion creeping into her bones.
She killed the engine, resting her head against the steering wheel for a second.
The house loomed in front of her—quiet, still, unsettling in the way places become when no one has truly lived in them for a while.
She knew exactly what it was going to feel like inside. The air would be stale. The floors would creak in all the wrong ways.
She was too damn tired for this.
Her phone rang, vibrating against the console.
She glanced at the screen, and just when she thought this night couldn’t get worse—
Laurie Kim.
Her lawyer.
Maddie sighed so hard it hurt.
The absolute last thing she needed.
She pressed the answer button anyway. “Laurie.”
“Maddie.” Laurie’s voice was sharp, direct—the voice of a woman who won arguments for a living. “Are you somewhere you can talk?”
Maddie shut her eyes. Fought back the urge to slam her head against the steering wheel. “Just pulled into my driveway.”
“Good,” Laurie said, like she’d been waiting for this moment all day.
“Listen to me carefully. David is moving fast. My source tells me he is pushing his narrative at the hospital, and it’s not just professional.
He’s making it seem like you are having a mental health crisis and this situation is temporary. ”
Maddie clenched her jaw. “It’s not.”
Laurie sighed. “I know that. You know that. But the way he’s framing things? He’s leaving room for doubt. He’s trying to manipulate you back to him—and if you don’t obey, he’s building a sympathetic case for himself to reduce his alimony.”
Maddie’s stomach twisted harder, this time for an entirely different reason.
“Fuck,” she muttered, gripping the steering wheel.
“Control, Maddie. That’s what you need now.
” Laurie’s tone was clipped, urgent. “If you don’t formally separate your finances and put legal distance between you now, he’s going to drag this out for months.
Maybe years. And if you’re not careful? He’s going to make it look like you’re the one who’s fucked up, not him. ”
Maddie’s pulse pounded in her ears.
This was exactly what David did. Never outright. Never obvious. Just enough to create a narrative that served him.
“Okay,” she said, voice hoarse. “What do I do?”
“First, you need to formally sign off on the financial separation paperwork I sent yesterday. And second?” Laurie hesitated. Then, with a sharpness that told Maddie she wasn’t going to like what came next—
“You need to move the divorce forward. Now.”
Maddie pressed a hand to her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut.
She had barely been holding herself together at work. Barely keeping up with the house, with everything.
And now this?