3

Bennett.

What was he doing here? In Ohio? At the hospital?

Darcy stomped down the hall. Slamming the heavy metal door leading to the East Wing stairwell, she stretched her legs taking the steps two at a time. She climbed with little focus to where she was going, simply hoping her burning anger would settle to a simmer.

Bennett was here. Her baby brother by four minutes−Mr. Self-Righteous…rather, Dr. Self-Righteous. Darcy was certain he would somehow make poor Lulu’s accident about him and his savior complex. He would swoop in to fix Lulu.

Just as he did with Mom.

Stopping on the landing between the fifth and sixth floor, Darcy sucked in a deep breath and leaned against the cold cement brick wall. When their mother was diagnosed with lymphoma six years ago, Bennett was in his surgical residency. He insisted Mom be treated at his facility rather than the medical center where Darcy was in the first year of her research project. Darcy argued where she worked was just as good as where he worked and had the bonus of being near Aunt Lulu, their mom’s surrogate mother and their mother’s childhood friends. But Dr. I’m-Always-the-Most-Right Bennett was adamant. Mom listened to Bennett. She always gave in to what he wanted. From what to have for dinner to where they should live, Bennett always held the majority vote in the family of three. He was the baby. The chosen one. The real doctor.

Darcy graduated higher ranked from medical school than Bennett, but that held little weight with Mom. Darcy’s decision to pursue a calling into research, something her mother couldn’t understand, meant she wasn’t a real doctor. “We need to listen to Ben, darling. He knows what patients need. He knows what’s best for me.”

With a low sigh, she slowed her ascent to the final landing. In front of her was a wide steel security door plastered with a red and white sign: EXIT TO ROOF. NO REENTRY.

Pressing the crash bar with flourish, Darcy walked out into the December wind that whipped across her heated cheeks. A brick sat to the left of the door, conveniently waiting for the other rule-breakers in the hospital. She scooted the weight to keep the door propped open. She was new to the rule-breaker club and said a silent prayer of thanks to those who preceded her.

The wide roof, dotted with thick metal chimneys and electrical boxes created a maze beckoning her to wander through to the balustrade facing north. She leaned against the rough cinder block squinting in the general direction of her apartment an hour away on High Street in Columbus.

Sucking in a clean breath, she blinked against the harsh parking lot lighting. Lifting her gaze, the night sky seemed to be folded velvet, with rolling variations of midnight blue and dark gray speckled with bright pinpoints of shining light. A calm she only felt in open spaces flowed through her. She wrapped arms around her waist to warm against the icy chill flowing over the roof.

“God, I know You’re there.” She lifted her voice to heaven, feeling the safety of aloneness. “Please be with Aunt Lulu and her doctors. Help them to mend her bones. Give her the patience she’ll need to heal completely. She’s a wonderfully stubborn woman. Help her stubbornness to fuel her healing. Lord, help me to let go of my anger. Why did You let Bennett come? I don’t think I can do this with him here. I can take care of Lulu. I see now why my grant ended. Lulu needs me. I’ll take care of her. Help me make Bennett understand he needs to leave. Help me, Lord. Please.”

She closed her eyes to the beauty of the night sky, and drew another deep breath, feeling her anger settle. Losing her research grant and Aunt Lulu needing help was too perfectly timed for it not to be ordained. God was in this. He was giving her a different path.

“Excuse me.”

Darcy whipped around, fingers fisted, and a scream in her throat.

“Whoa!” His hands were raised in surrender. “No harm. I didn’t want to startle you, but I see I wasn’t successful.”

Her gaze stretched the length of the tall, lean frame moving toward her.

“Finn Tarrington,” he said, his voice low and slow. He stretched his long arm out, palm faced upward, and invited her into the greeting.

She slid her fingers into his wide grip and tried to ignore the tingle of what felt like sparklers burning her palm and wrist at his tender touch. “Darc...ahem…Darcy Langston.” Her words came through her lips sounding as if she had been sucking on the exhaust pipe of an eight cylinder for the last twenty years.

Finn’s smile twinkled in his eyes as he squeezed Darcy’s hand before gently releasing his grip. “I was sent to track you down. Your brother thought you might have escaped to the roof. Your aunt’s out of surgery and he thought you’d want to hear the doctor’s prognosis.”

Darcy struggled to comprehend his words as she took in the full beauty of the man. He had to be nearly six-foot-three, dwarfing her own five-feet nine-inches. A mop of dark waves haphazardly grew to his broad shoulders. An angled jaw was covered with a day’s growth of dark beard, hiding what she could guess were beautifully set cheekbones. His clothing was rather oddly put together for a man she guessed to be in his early thirties. A super hero T-shirt peeked out from an oversized fleece jacket emblazoned with the local bank’s logo, topping jeans she was fairly certain were created in the last century. Maybe he was one of Lulu’s strays? She did like to collect people.

“Darcy, do you want to see your aunt?”

His words yanked her from her unsubtle assessment. The heat from her cheeks burned against the chill of the December air. “Yes, yes. Of course.” She hustled toward the door, hoping Mr. Finn—the Hotty Stray—Tarrington missed her ogling. She rather doubted it. Blessings were rarely on her side.