SHE’D meant to put the folder away before he arrived, but had forgotten. She looked at his face, but saw nothing there, just a tight jaw and empty eyes.
“My contract with the clinic is only for a year. You knew that.”
“If they don’t extend it, I assumed you’d return to Alaska Regional—”
“No. I won’t go back there.” Not with the relationship with her mother the way it was. Not with Gary being there. She’d wanted a clean break, and she’d gotten it—loved the feeling of being her own person at last. If this job fell through, she’d be forced to move somewhere else. Even though everything she’d come to love was here in Unalaska.
Everything she loved…
An ache settled in her chest.
Blake dropped the papers onto the coffee table, not seeming to notice that the top sheet slid back onto the floor.
He moved to stand in front of her, not touching her. “What if I asked you to stay?”
The breath she’d been releasing caught in her throat and guilt flooded her. She couldn’t think of an answer that would make sense to herself, much less to him. “I’m a doctor, Blake. What would I do here if I didn’t practice medicine?”
“Maybe the clinic could hire you outright.”
“They barely have enough funds to cover their month-to-month expenses. I can’t justify asking them to pay me on top of that. Sammi is living on a pittance as it is.” She stared at him, trying to come up with a solution, but her mind didn’t seem to be functioning. She touched his face instead. “We still have almost eleven months, Blake.”
“And after that?”
She dropped her hand. “I don’t know.” She studied the growing anger in his eyes and said quietly, “What if I asked you to give up your job? Give up what you love doing?”
“You wouldn’t be the first one.” The bitterness in his voice came through.
“Exactly. I don’t want to be that person. Do you?”
He dragged a hand through his hair and turned away, swearing. He stood there, hands propped on his hips for a long time, ignoring Samita when she rubbed against his leg. When he finally turned back round, the anger was gone. In its place was a sense of quiet resignation. “No. I don’t.”
The second he stroked the back of his fingers across her jawline, the touch as soft as silk, she knew how this was going to end.
No. Don’t do this!
“Goodbye, Molly.”
The front door clicked shut behind him as he let himself out. Molly pressed both hands against her mouth to hold back the scream that bubbled up in her throat, the words whispering through her skull instead. Please don’t go.
* * *
Blake leaned against his plane for what seemed like ages. He’d gone to the bar and sat there with two shots of whiskey lined up in front of him. But if he drank, he couldn’t fly. And that was what he needed to do right now, fly as far away from Dutch Harbor as he could.
What the hell had he been thinking?
He’d been a fool. Thought he could have the rosy image of love—sitting on a mountainside, watching the sunset day after day.
But he wasn’t his parents. There was no happy ending in sight. No retirements in Florida, no growing old together.
He should have learned his lesson the first time around.
Damn if Mark wasn’t a whole lot smarter than he was. His friend didn’t get involved, didn’t hang around long enough to get hurt.
On some level he knew that wasn’t exactly true, but his buddy had figured out a system that seemed to work. That was what Blake needed to do as well. Work out a system all of his own. He gave a hard laugh. Until then, flying off into the sunset was the best he could do.
Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, he found the lollipop he’d put there days ago. Looked like he wouldn’t need to frame this thing after all. He’d finally learned his lesson. Had finally stopped digging.
Blake walked over to the trashcan and dropped the piece of candy inside. Then he turned toward his plane, climbed inside the cockpit and started his preflight check.
* * *
“Molly, slow down. I can barely keep up with you.”
Resetting the length of her strides, she wound back her speed until she was jogging beside Sammi again. “Sorry. Where are all those endorphins you promised I’d start feeling?”
In reality, Molly didn’t feel anything. A numbness had settled over her when Blake had walked out of her house three weeks ago that nothing had been able to penetrate.
“They…take time to kick in.” Sammi’s voice sounded strained. Molly had a feeling it was from more than just the running they’d been doing.
“Really? How long?”
The other woman laughed. “I don’t know. I haven’t actually experienced them myself either.”
Molly stopped in her tracks. “Why the hell are we running, then? I could have been sleeping instead.” She’d been doing a whole lot of that lately. Sleeping. The one place the numbness didn’t matter. Molly knew it wasn’t healthy, knew she was wading dangerously close to the line between a normal dose of grief following the end of a relationship and something more serious.
“Because it’s good for us? That’s what we tell all our patients, anyway.” Sammi put her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.
Molly hadn’t seen Blake since he’d left. Hadn’t even tried to. And Sammi, sensing something was seriously wrong, had taken up the slack, going to the EMS department herself whenever they needed something. Blake must have felt the same, because the one medevac she’d done in the interim had been with another pilot. Someone named Ronny. She’d told herself it was for the best, that the frisson of disappointment that had gone through her was normal.
Normal.
Yeah. If she said the word enough times, that had to make it true.
She walked alongside her friend to cool down, hands on her hips. It was still early, and a thick fog had descended during the night. She knew the ocean was to her left, but she couldn’t see it. She just heard the crashing of the waves as they beat against the rocks. “Can I ask you something?”
“Mmm.”
“What would you do if the clinic closed?”
There was a minute or two of silence, then Sammi stopped and looked at her, water droplets from the mist clinging to her dark hair. “I don’t know. Why?”
“Blake asked me to stay. Even if my contract isn’t renewed.”
The other woman’s eyes widened. “He did? What did you say?”
“I told him I couldn’t.”
“So that’s why…”
Molly eyed her. “Why what?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Do you think I did the right thing?”
“I’m sorry, Molly, but I’m the last person you want to take advice from.” She pulled her braid over her shoulder, wrapping it around her hand a couple of times. “I will say this, though. The one time I didn’t listen to my heart, I made the biggest mistake of my life.”
Listen to her heart.
What was it telling her to do?
She had no idea. It was numb like the rest of her. Molly looked deeper, the beating in her chest growing stronger, rising within her. No, it wasn’t numb. She’d just tuned out its cries. It was telling her to do something that filled her with fear…and a strange sense of hope.
“I have to go to the EMS station.”
Sammi blinked. “Why?”
“I have to tell Blake I’ll stay. Somehow. I’ll find a way.”
“Oh, honey.” Her friend’s teeth came down on her lip. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Blake’s not at the department.”
The tiny spark of hope sputtered. “What do you mean? Where is he?”
“He flew to Anchorage three weeks ago. No one’s heard from him since.”
What?
It was unfathomable that he would go away—leave the island. He loved it here. Loved his job.
And now he’d left it all behind.
Because of her.
Oh, God.
Her jaw firmed. No. No more crying. She had to make this right. She would make this right.
Somehow.
“Can you watch Samita for a day or two?”
“Sure, but what—?”
Molly turned around and started jogging back the way they’d come. “I have to go to Anchorage.”
She’d only made it a few yards when Sammi’s voice came through the fog behind her. “Call Mark. He’ll take you.”