LITMIR.BIZ

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too painful for anything more.

      “Eliza...”

      But that was all her mother said, and the silence stretched between them, filled with the ghosts of past mistakes and family secrets too long hidden. Liz wasn’t surprised by her mother’s inability to articulate whatever it was she wanted to say. Heart-to-hearts and speaking about emotional subjects weren’t “done” in their family.

      Things might be a damned sight better if they were but, after all these years, they wouldn’t know where to start.

      She was gripping the phone so hard her fingers were beginning to ache, mirroring the pain in her suddenly roiling stomach. She didn’t have time for this. Not right now. Probably never.

      “I have to get back inside, Mother. I’m still on duty. I’m glad you enjoyed your trip.”

      “Thank you, dear.” Her mother spoke softly, almost wistfully, and Liz wondered if she, like her daughter, wished things could go back to the way they used to be. “We’ll talk again soon.”

      Disconnecting the call, Liz thrust the phone into the pocket of her coat and turned her face up toward the murky sky, taking a deep breath, trying to relax.

      It was actually funny, in a twisted type of way. She’d always been an outsider in the family, set apart. While she loved her parents, she’d often felt emotionally distant from them, while Robbie, three years her junior, had been the affectionate one, the glue holding the family together. The fact that he was adopted hadn’t mattered. She’d been too young when he’d arrived to care, and had loved him, unconditionally, ever since.

      Perhaps it was the thought of settling down with Giovanna and starting a family of his own that had prompted Robbie to ask for information about his biological parents. Whatever the reason, neither he nor Liz had been prepared for the answer, delivered one summer’s evening last year while the family had spent a couple of days together at the beach house.

      Robbie was Brant Prudhomme’s biological son, conceived when Brant had had an affair not long after Liz’s birth.

      “We went through a bad patch,” Lorelei had said, her still-beautiful face pale, her eyes damp. “But, in the end, we decided to make it work. And when Brant told me Robbie’s mother was dying...”

      “Your mother is a wonderful woman,” Brant had interjected, in the tone Liz had known from experience meant the conversation was all but over. “I don’t think either of you would argue that point.”

      Too stunned to say anything, or ask questions, Liz had watched her father walk out of the room, his back stiff and straight. Lorelei had looked suddenly more fragile but, as usual, it had been Robbie who’d gone to her, hugged her, and reassured her everything would be fine.

      Liz hadn’t shared his optimism. From that moment, her world had felt off kilter, and she doubted it would ever be completely put back to rights again. Knowing that her father, who Liz would have sworn was a good husband, had betrayed her mother’s trust like that had devastated her.

      What little faith she’d had in men had practically been destroyed.

      Since that day, anger had lain like a rock in her chest. Why the situation affected her this way was something she was loath to look at too closely. All she knew was she couldn’t deal with being around or speaking to her father yet. Maybe the anger would fade over time and she’d relent, but not yet. Sometimes that anger spilled over to her mother too, but Lorelei, for all her bustle and chattiness, had somehow always struck Liz as being in need of protection. Being careful not to let her know the extent of the rage her daughter felt was important.

      Suddenly realizing her face tingled from the cold, Liz took one last deep breath and twisted her head from side to side, trying to work out the stiffness in her muscles. It was time to get back to work, to lose herself in the job she loved more than anything else in the world, at the hospital that held a special place in her heart.

      Liz’s great-grandfather had been one of the founding fathers of Hepplewhite General, which eventually had been named after him. When she’d completed her residency and applied there she hadn’t revealed her connection to the hospital, which had made winning the position that much more satisfying.

      She was sure that somewhere, in the afterlife, her great-aunts had chuckled.

      Her Great-Aunt Honoria had wanted to study medicine, but her father had refused to allow it. And when Liz’s father had expressed reservations about his daughter going into what he’d described as “a grueling, heartbreaking profession” Honoria and her sister, Eliza, had paid for her schooling.

      “Do what you want in life,” Aunt Honoria had said. “Be useful, and don’t allow your father, or any man, to dictate to you. Eliza and I wish we’d had the courage to do that ourselves.”

      The advice had been sound, and in line with what her nursemaid, Nanny Hardy, had taught her as a child. Heeding their collective guidance had led to her success, while the one time she’d not followed it had led to disaster and heartbreak.

      No, she loved her work and Hepplewhite, with its associations with the past, and had made it the main focus of her life. Never had she been more grateful for how busy the ER kept her than now.

      There was nothing like a full workload to keep the chaotic thoughts at bay. This winter had seen a particularly active flu season, still in full swing, and with the waves of snowstorms hitting New York City had come an uptick of heart attacks, slip-and-fall injuries and the like. The hospital staff wasn’t immune to the flu either, and there were a few out sick, which increased everyone’s workload.

      As she swiped her badge to open the door, Liz’s stomach rumbled. She’d been heading for the cafeteria a couple hours ago when a commotion in the ER waiting area had caught her attention. Four clearly frightened young men had been at the intake desk, supporting a fifth who’d appeared to be unconscious and bleeding from a facial wound. They had all been talking at once.

      “He fell—”

      “Momma’s gonna kill us—”

      “He won’t wake up—”

      Lunch forgotten, Liz had grabbed a nearby gurney and hit the electronic door opener, not waiting for an orderly. Even from a distance she had been able to see the youngster had needed immediate treatment.

      As it turned out, the teens had cut school and somehow found their way past the protective fencing surrounding the hospital’s ongoing construction project. Once there, her patient decided to use the equipment and building rubble to practice his parkour skills. Probably not the best of ideas, given the slick of ice that still covered some surfaces. It had cost him a broken jaw, a concussion and the kind of laceration that, without plastic surgery, would leave a disfiguring scar.

      By the time she’d examined him, made sure he was stable and sent for the oral and plastic surgeons, she’d only had another two and a half hours before her twelve-hour shift would be finished. Rather than bother with a break, and cognizant of the full waiting room, she’d only taken enough time to call her mother.

      Striding down the corridor toward the ER, Liz put her family drama, and its attendant pain, aside. There was no place for it here in the hospital, where all her attention had to be on her patients’ well-being.

      That was what was truly important.

      On the way home she’d stop at her favorite diner and treat herself to an everything omelet with home fries. Just the thought made her mouth water and her stomach rumble again.

       CHAPTER TWO

      AFTER TAKING OFF her coat and making her way back to the ER, Liz noticed a certain buzz in the air that hadn’t been there before she’d gone outside. Before she could ask one of the other doctors what was going on, she was called away to deal with a patient brought in by ambulance.

      Paramedics

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