Letting Hue navigate them through the hospital, she had no strength to tell him he was going too fast until she stumbled. She would have hit the floor if he hadn’t caught her and steadied her. The action made him finally stop.
His arms were still holding her waist as she stood panting for air. She needed to exercise more since she was very obviously completely out of shape, or maybe he took her breath away with how good looking he was in those tight blue jeans and soft gray flannel he wore beneath his bulky jacket.
“Are you okay?” Hue was looking down at her, still holding her around the waist.
He had to be over six feet, she realized.When had he gotten so tall?she wondered as she looked up at him. Of course, he had been taller than her for over twenty years. She was thirty-six, and he was her brother’s age at close to thirty-four, and he had probably outgrown her by the time he was fifteen. Maybe she hadn’t stood close enough to him that she had to look up to him.
Over the last twenty years, she had seen him hundreds of times. Weddings, funerals, her brother’s kids’ birthdays, random gatherings, and football parties. In fact, she had been to more gatherings with him than without him. But until the summer before she moved home, he was always with his wife, Krystal, and Amanda had never been able to stand that woman.
Now she saw him even more regularly than before. He was her neighbor, her only neighbor in the apartment above her clinic. They even got together alone to watch sports on the weekends when they were both free but nobody else was. He was like another brother to her, always had been.
Not answering the question, she said, “Thank you. I needed out of there.”
“Me too.” He let go of her waist but took her hand and walked slower this time. He must have realized that she wasn’t able to keep up with him.
Amanda wondered if he thought that she was fat after holding her around the waist. She had always been thicker, but with the pregnancy, she was even more so. Why did she suddenly care what Hue thought of her? It didn’t matter what he thought of her weight—it didn’t matter what anyone thought.
Once out the hospital doors, Amanda saw that it was snowing lightly. Feeling the cold flakes melt on her face made her feel better. She loved winter and all the snow and cold it brought. Summer was hot and windy. Winter was her season. It was November in North Dakota, and snow was not unusual in the early days of the month—it usually just melted as it hit the ground. That was what it was doing today.
Getting into Hue’s red pickup, she was thankful to be out of the hospital and on her way home. Another few minutes might have broken her. Her emotions were frayed as it was.
“Do you want to grab something to eat before we leave town?” Hue asked as he pulled out of the parking lot. Landstad was two hours away, with nowhere to eat between the two towns.
“No,” she said. She just wanted to get home, curl up in bed, and cry. But knowing if she didn’t eat, she would be sick, she changed her mind. “Yes. I think I need something.”
“Sit-down or fast food?” Hue didn’t look at her as he drove.
“A drive-through is fine, unless you want to sit,” she answered, then demanded herself to be polite. He was driving, it was his choice, but she hoped he opted for fast food.
“Fast food,” he agreed.
By the time they were leaving town, they each had a burger, fries, and a pop for the trip. Glancing over at him as she ate a fry, she decided he turned out pretty good for the skinny red-haired kid she tutored in science in high school. He had filled out nicely with broad shoulders and muscles he’d not had back then. Though he still had the red hair, it was a darker shade now and looked really good when it was a little longer than it should be, like now.
He must have noticed she was looking at him because he turned to her and raised an eyebrow in question. In response, she threw a fry at him that bounced off his chest. Picking it up from his lap, he tossed it in his mouth with a grin as he chewed. “What went on in there, Nordskov?”
Taking a bite of her sandwich so she couldn’t answer his question, she realized he always called her by her last name. Ever since she had returned to town, he hadn’t called her Amanda or Mandy or any other nickname. Just Nordskov. Swallowing, she said, “I could ask you the same thing, Hue. What went on it there?”
“I don’t do babies,” he informed her.
“Me neither,” she lied.
“I think the first time I met you, you had a baby in your arms.”
“Probably Kit. She was born when I was six.” Shrugging, she didn’t even remember that day, but he was probably right.
“And you work with babies all the time,” he reminded her, because they knew too much about each other.
“I don’t know. Just couldn’t today, that’s all.” She hoped it was enough of an explanation.
“Why didn’t you and Seth have any kids?” His words made her choke on her fry.
At her coughing, he started pounding on her back, more like shoulder, because her back was resting on the seat back. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. That was too personal.”
Taking a drink of her pop, she countered, “Why didn’t you and Krystal?”
“Fertility issues. It just didn’t happen.” He looked back out the windshield at the landscape. They had been married for over a dozen years when the marriage broke. Amanda had never heard the reason behind it, but it may be that she didn’t ask. She didn’t pry into everyone’s lives.
Or maybe she was happy Hue was finally free of that woman—the reasons behind it didn’t matter. It hadn’t helped that all of her siblings felt the same way. Krystal had been a piece of work.