Page 61 of Hudson
Blair got the reading, noted it on the chart and stepped back. “It’s good. I’ll send Dr. Workman in.”
“Are you married?”
Blair braced herself. “Divorced.”
“My niece, Sandy, married a good man. Took me a while to see it, but he grew on me.” She paused. “Still don’t like those tattoos though.”
“How many does he have?”
“Both arms, shoulder to wrist. I told him straight out I didn’t like them.” She cackled. “He didn’t seem to care one bit. That’s when I decided I liked him.”
Blair laughed. “I’ll get the doctor for you.”
She pulled the door closed, slid the file into the holder and went to find Dr. Workman. He looked up from his desk and rolled his eyes before she could say a word.
“She’s something,” Blair said.
“That’s being generous.” He pushed back from his chair. “Thanks, Blair.”
She walked to the front desk and checked the clock. Almost closing time, one patient left in the waiting room.
“Today flew,” she said.
Sara looked up. “I swear I blinked and it was noon. I blinked again and here we are.”
“I’m ready to go home and do absolutely nothing.”
“Same.” Sara started shutting down her computer. “Same.”
“Let’s get the last patient back and get out of here on time.” Blair picked up the file and called the name from the waiting room.
On the drive home her mind drifted to Hud. She wondered how the case was going, whether they’d found anything useful in Shelby. She knew enoughabout his work to know it wasn’t without risk, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that on top of everything else.
She didn’t know what to do about Saturday night. Part of her understood that he hadn’t lied to her. But understanding something and being okay with it were two different things. She wanted more than that. She’d thought maybe he did too.
Maybe she’d been wrong.
She turned into her driveway and sat for a moment with the engine running.
She was so drawn to him it was almost inconvenient. The way he looked at her, the way he’d been with her, none of that had felt casual. But if he wasn’t interested in anything real, then what was she doing? She wasn’t built for something that went nowhere. She’d been down that road before and she wasn’t going back.
“He should have told you from the start,” she said quietly to the windshield.
She shut off the engine and headed inside, dropping her purse on the hook by the door. Sneakers off, padding into the kitchen, opening the fridge out of habit, staring at nothing in particular, then closing it and opening the freezer instead. Microwave dinner. Sad, but it would do.
She got it going and headed upstairs to change, trading her scrubs for old leggings and a T-shirt that had seen better days. By the time she made it back down the microwave was beeping. She dumped the meal onto a plate, grabbed a fork and carried it to the living room.
She settled onto the sofa, tucked her feet under her and clicked on the TV. She ate without tasting much of it. Her mind kept drifting back to Hud nomatter how many times she tried to pull it away.
****
Hud stared at his laptop screen without seeing a word of it. His mind was on Blair. The look on her face when he said he wouldn’t stay kept coming back to him and he raked a hand through his hair. He’d really screwed that up. He owed her an apology, but explaining why he’d left was a whole other problem.
“Hud.” Creed’s voice cut through.
“Yeah?”
“Where did you go just now?”
