I step over to the computer and pull up Connie’s file, adding it to the email to the detective and shooting it off into the ether of computers.
I flop into the desk chair and turn it to stare out of the window, brutally pushing the pain back and clearing my head of everything but the mountains outside my window.
The phone rings and I pick it up absently. “Hello. Dr. Wright here.”
“Oh, honey. Why are you still at the office? Go home. It’s almost five and you know you’re not taking clients today.”
I clear my throat and whisper, “Why didn’t I try harder, Sage? Why didn’t I push her to get the hell away from that asshole before…” My voice trails off as I struggle to keep from breaking down all over again. My throat tightens and I can’t stop the sob that rips out of me. “Why the hell did I let her go back there?” I wail, tears pouring down my face and clogging my throat.
“I’m coming over there.”
“No. No. I just want to go home and take a sleeping pill and pray that I can get some damn sleep.”
“You need someone with you,” she argues, her soft voice firm in my ear.
“I do not. I just need some rest. This is my job. Sometimes it’s just not a nice job.”
“And sometimes you need to cut yourself a break. Even if you had told her to leave, she might not have gone. He had a hold on her that was hard to break. And what if she had managed to get out of there? You know how many battered women end up getting abused or worse later by the men they leave? Let’s just say the number’s way too high.”
I can hear the anger and pain in her voice and I know she’s remembering her sister. Both of us struggle every day with guilt and anger over not realizing what was going on until it was too late.
“You know there was nothing two teenage girls could have done for your sister. But we’ve both used that lesson to try and help other women.”
“We just don’t always win,” she whispers. “I won’t come over. But go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow’s another day to continue the fight.”
I nod. “Love you.”
“Love you too, bestie. Go home and get some sleep.”
I hang up the phone and sigh, feeling useless anger roll over me like a dark cloud.
“Why are you still here if you aren’t taking patients today?”
“Shit!”I scream and almost fall out of the damn chair. “What the hell are you doing here, Kade? Grey cancelled all my appointments.”
“Yes,” he growls, slamming the door closed behind himself. “What a lovely way to blow me off.”
“I blew everyone off. Not just you.” I stand up and back away until I’m up against the window, feeling the cool glass against my back. He stalks closer and my heart inches into my throat cutting off my breath.
“What the hell is going on, doc?” His big hands slam into the glass over my head and I feel it shudder at the impact. Matching the shudder that runs over my body when I smell his musky, spicy scent wrapping around me.
“Not everything is about you, dammit!” I scream, pushing at his chest, feeling the tears crowd my reddened eyes. He grabs my arm and I look up at him, pleading. “Just let me go and go home. I’ll reschedule your appointment for tomorrow. I just can’t deal with any of this today.”
“No, that’s not okay with me, doc. What’s going on?”
“I lost a patient today, okay?”I scream it, feeling the loss all over again. The anger and the stinking feeling of failure. I failed her. I drop to my knees unable to stand any longer.
“Shit,” he growls. But he catches me up in his arms and then I’m fighting another kind of fight. This one is a fight for my sanity. Because I want this man. I want his arms around me at night. Want to feel him above me. Want him to push himself inside of me. To rut into me until we’re both so damn sore and tired that we can’t walk the next day.
I shove at his arms and weep harder. I can’t do this. I can’t. Not today.
“I can’t do this today, Kade. I can’t fight you. You need to leave.”
“No,” he grunts and stalks over, settling both of us on the couch, his arms around me, cradling me to a chest that’s so damn hard it’s like granite under my cheek. I can hear his heart racing. Feel my own heart matching his beat for beat.
I struggle, trying to pull out of his arms, breathless. My hips wriggle and he groans and I instantly still, feeling his hard shaft poking at my backside.
Muddled and confused I stop moving, holding my breath, waiting for him to make a move.