Worth the Wait (McKinney_Walker #1)(27)

“Not Adam,” he growled, hoping.

She tightened the arm draped across him and soothed with a quick kiss to his chest. “No. Not Adam. You didn’t have to hit him, you know.”

“Yes. I really did.”

“There’s nothing, there’s never been.”

“I know. I just had to make sure he knows.”

She smiled against him. “Did it make you feel better?”

“Yes.” Then he needed her again. Forget waiting until morning. He covered her mouth with his, and she sighed, opened, and gave.

They spent that night in the small apartment she shared with two other girls near the hospital, their bodies flush together in a tiny bed barely big enough for the two of them.

The next morning, they took a train to New York. He wanted to get her out of Boston, wanted the two of them away from any and all work. Thirty-six hours they’d have together, less than that now, and he’d make the most of every single second. He didn’t do enough of that. Didn’t send her flowers or call her and wax poetic words of love. He didn’t tell her how empty he felt when he crawled into bed without her every night or that a part of himself was missing, a chunk of his heart gone with her so far away.

He didn’t know how to say it or what good it would do. He didn’t want her to give up what she wanted or to make her feel guilty for wanting it. He could wait. He had no other choice. He would focus on Hannah and work, and he would breathe, and in a few more years she’d be with him again every night. He hoped. God, he hoped. Maybe that’s what hurt so much—the fear that she might never come back to him. So for now, for these next hours, he would keep her as close as possible, make her smile as brightly as he could, and dig deep to show her how he felt.

He got an expensive room in a small boutique hotel just a few blocks from Rockefeller Center and a short cab ride from Central Park. They walked and talked and slipped into an interesting little hole in the wall for dinner. She told him about the cases she’d had in the ER and the lives she’d saved.

“You love it.”

“Yes. I really do. I think I’ve found my niche with emergency surgery. The controlled chaos, the team calling out numbers and demands. Going from hopeless to hopeful in seconds.” When she paused and looked into her soup, he covered her hand, knowing her well enough to know that look in her eyes.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I know I can’t save them all.”

He was so damn proud of her. Had he told her that? “But all the ones that can be saved, you save them.”

Her grateful smile warmed her face even though he hadn’t said exactly what he meant to say. Why couldn’t he say what he meant to say? What he felt?

“Hannah told me you wouldn’t let her wear lip gloss to school.” Mia eyed him over her glass. “Really, Nick?”

“She’s twelve.”

“It’s lip gloss. Shiny ChapStick.”

“It’s not the gloss, it’s why she wants to wear the gloss.”

“Ah.” She rubbed her thumb over the frown between his brows. “Do you know how much I love you?”

“Because I won’t let her wear lip gloss?”

“No.” She leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “Because you’re you.” She smiled. “Just maybe give on the little things.”

“Well, there’s one thing that’s not so little.”

“What’s that?”

He sighed. He hadn’t meant to bring it up during their time together, but he did want to talk to her about it. “Hannah’s teachers are suggesting that she skip a couple of grades.”

Mia listened intently. It wasn’t such a surprise. Hannah had tested at genius level in early elementary school, and it had been suggested then. When she could read at an eighth-grade level and work basic algebra problems at seven years old, the school counselor had brought it up. Nick had nixed that idea. He didn’t want her with older kids. She was in the enriched program and pulled out for certain classes; that would have to be enough. The school didn’t seem to think that was enough anymore.

“There’s one other kid her age that’s moved to the high school. He takes regular high school classes—biology, chemistry—and the school counselor says Hannah is miles ahead of him. She said I need to think about Hannah’s future, that she could be in college by the time she’s fifteen. Why the hell would I want her in college at fifteen?”

Mia listened, weighing it all like she did, and he waited. “What? Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking… that if I had gone to college when I was fifteen, I would already be done with med school. I’d be well on my way to doing the work I love before I’m thirty.”