Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
“To remember us by,” said Corrigan. He was grinning, but the emotion was thick in his voice. “He needs a good home.”
Rebecca clutched the rabbit to her chest and nodded.
Corrigan straightened up and slipped an arm around my back. He found my hand and silently knitted his fingers with mine, squeezing them hard for a moment as we watched the family walk away. When they turned the corner, he drew in a deep breath and I saw the pain in his eyes fade and clear.
We came to the window that looked out over the town. The news trucks that had swarmed the hospital when the story broke were gradually disappearing, but the town was still full of reporters and the impact of being on the national news was still being felt. After seeing how pretty the town was, tourists were flooding the place. Corrigan and I had done what felt like a hundred interviews each, telling and retelling the story to reporters from both coasts and even a few international news stations.
We’d also both been debriefed by the FBI. Colt was in their custody and they’d picked up the rest of his gang in Denver. They’d been relying on the bomb to get away without a trace. Armed with all the eyewitness reports from Mount Mercy, the FBI had identified the men and tracked them down within days. The gold had been recovered and was on its way to a new, undisclosed hiding place. Colt was going to be in prison for the rest of his life and his men were looking at very long jail terms.
All except one. Both Corrigan and I had given the FBI long and heartfelt testimonies about how Seth had saved numerous lives and given us the information we needed to stop the bomb. He’d serve some time—he’d been involved in an armed robbery, after all—but with good behavior he’d be out in five years.
And Taylor had made it clear that she’d wait for him.
Corrigan and I had decided that we needed a break from the cold and I’d told him about always wanting to go somewhere really hot, where the sun would warm us right down to our bones. So in a month’s time, when I was fully healed, we were flying off to the Caribbean to spend two weeks aboard a yacht called the Fortune’s Reward, soaking up the sun and learning to scuba dive.
The question was what to do when we got back. There’d been one unexpected consequence of all the media coverage: that morning, both Corrigan and I had had job offers from a hospital in New York. They had one of the busiest ERs in the country and they were looking for a doctor and a surgeon who were good in a crisis.
Corrigan caught my eye in the window’s reflection. “What do you think?” he asked gently.
I looked down at the town and took a deep breath. “I think,” I said slowly, “I’m happy where I am.” Bartell had asked if I’d be okay with being the first surgeon on the ER call list, instead of the last, and I’d accepted. Back in my burrow, but venturing down to the ER more. That was just the right balance of order and chaos. “But what about you?” I turned to look at him, suddenly worried. “You’re used to moving around. You never stay anywhere.”
He shook his head. “That wasn’t moving around, that was running. And I’ve stopped running.”
“But even before all that, you were used to cities. You were in Chicago. Mount Mercy is too quiet for you.” My stomach was churning, now. I was imagining a future where he got bored and restless. I wouldn’t want him to be unhappy, so I’d encourage him to leave, he wouldn’t want to make me unhappy by dragging me to New York so he’d tell me to stay, we’d split up—
“Beckett.” He said it in that voice, the one that made my brain stop panicking and sit up and pay attention. The one that sent a wave of heat sliding down to my groin. When he saw I was listening, he continued. “This place is quiet.” He put those big, warm hands on my cheeks. “But you know what?”
“What?”
He ran his thumbs over my cheekbones and then slid his hands back into my hair, knocking my surgical cap to the floor. “I’ve kind of got a taste for quiet.”
And he leaned down and kissed me.
The End