0373659504 (R) by Brenda Harlen

Author:Brenda Harlen [Harlen, Brenda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-03-24T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Justin slid his arm across Avery’s shoulders as they made their way down the walk toward his car. He was disappointed but not really surprised when she immediately tensed in response to his touch. But she didn’t shrug it off, which he took as a sign of progress.

He opened the passenger door for her and offered a hand to help her into her seat.

“Thanks for doing the dinner thing with me,” he said, when he’d slid behind the wheel of the car.

“I enjoyed meeting your parents,” she told him. “But you could have warned me that it’s a big deal for you to take a woman home with you.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he hedged.

She slid a look in his direction. “That’s not what your mother said.”

“I’m sorry you were disappointed to discover that I don’t take a different woman home every week.”

“I wasn’t disappointed,” she denied.

“But you were surprised.”

She nodded.

“What else did my mother say to you?”

“Before or after she pulled out your baby pictures?”

He looked at her, horrified.

She laughed.

“I can’t imagine your mother would ever embarrass you in such a way—if your baby pictures are even embarrassing, which I’m sure they’re not.”

“I was a pretty cute kid,” he acknowledged.

“Whoever would have guessed?” she asked drily.

He grinned. “Are your parents the type to pull out baby pictures when I meet them?”

“I don’t know that you’ll have the opportunity to meet my parents. It’s even more unlikely that they have any baby pictures.”

“You’re kidding.”

She shook her head. “I told you that my mother works at CDC and my father’s a cardiac surgeon at Emory. They married seven months before I was born and divorced seven years later.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t as simple and straightforward as you make it sound.”

She shrugged, but Justin wasn’t fooled by the gesture. “There really wasn’t a lot of drama—they both had very busy lives, demanding careers. Truthfully, I’m not sure how they decided that they wanted to live separate and apart, because I don’t really remember them ever being in the same place together.” She shrugged. “For whatever reason, they decided to split and share custody of me and Ryder. We spent one week with Mom, the next with Dad, and alternated holidays. It was all very civil and reasonable.”

And confusing, he imagined, for a child who might never feel sure where she belonged—or if there was anywhere she did.

“Did both of them being doctors have anything to do with your decision to go into medicine?”

“My brother thinks so. He claims it was a last and desperate attempt to get them to notice me—to finally do something that was worthy of their attention.

“I’m ashamed to admit that it might have been true, at least in the beginning. But once I started med school, I knew I’d found what I was meant to do. And I didn’t need their approval so much as I needed to succeed for myself, because I couldn’t imagine any other career.”

“It shows,” he told her. “The way you are with your patients and coworkers—there’s no doubt medicine is your calling.

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