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hospital. In the hospital, he’d enjoyed knowing she was nervous; he’d enjoyed knowing she was in pain. There was no sugarcoating it. If it made him an asshole, a monster, a lousy fucking doctor, fine. He’d had plenty of his own pain, and he didn’t much care if she endured a bit of it. What he found most perplexing wasn’t that he wanted her hurting. That made sense. It was that he kept wanting to reassure her. He didn’t, wouldn’t give her that, but the irrational desire to ease her in some way kept cropping up constantly, and he didn’t understand it. How could he go from wanting to hurt her in one second to wanting to comfort her the next?
    He gave up after a while trying to figure out what was wrong with his brain, and he hollered for Macy as he stood from the rocks and started the long hike back up the wooded hillside to his home. It was over a quarter mile of rugged and difficult terrain to his rocky backyard, and as Macy ran out in front of him, barking and bouncing like an idiot, he followed. Macy literally ran circles around him as he pushed himself up the steep incline in a near jog, and eventually, he saw his towering home.
    He grabbed an armful of small branches and a few small logs and carried them up the deck stairs. He started a fire in the chimney on the back deck, grabbed a beer from his fridge, and flopped down on a lounge chair by the fire. The sky was fading to pink, and before long the pink had turned to purple and then finally to black. His next shift started early the next morning, and it was going to be an early-to-bed night for him. He just had to get his brain to stop spinning. It was her. She wound him up in a most inconvenient way. Always had to some extent. She’d always gotten to him—always—and while her effect on him was something completely different now, she was still so effectively pushing his buttons.

    The next night he left the hospital exhausted after a busy fifteen-hour shift. It should have been twelve, but that was just the way it worked. He was also leaving in scrubs after his slacks and dress shirt were ruined by a gushing wound made by a rather large chunk of wood flying off a man’s table saw and into his gut. He spent more money on clothes than most teenage girls did.
    He was fortunate to have a retired couple who lived a half mile down the winding gravel road that ended at his home who rescued Macy from monotony whenever he worked long shifts. They would walk over a few hours after his shift would start, let themselves in, and take Macy back to their place with them. They professed to be too old to have a pet of their own, and Darren was infinitely happy they enjoyed his so much. He’d swing by their house on his way home to collect his girl, and he’d offer them payment, which they’d politely refuse. It was their routine, and it worked.
    He neared his SUV, stretching his neck as he walked, and that’s when he heard it. That voice he couldn’t seem to shake, couldn’t seem to let go of, couldn’t seem to just plain forget.
    “How dare you!” He looked back to see her hopping off her shabby-looking fat tire bike and dumping it in a grassy area near his car. He took a steadying breath as his heart started racing. “I lost my fucking job because of you! Not to mention the visit from my parole officer.” He crossed his arms across his chest as she walked to him. She was wearing her own pair of scrub pants and a gray T-shirt. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun, and there wasn’t a stitch of makeup on her face. She looked furious. Of course she was furious; she’d apparently lost her job.
    “Perhaps you should have been a bit more honest about your criminal record, Bailey. Not really my problem you hid your past from your employer.” He forced himself to turn from her and back to his car. He didn’t really want to. He wanted to square off with her for some strange reason, but he wasn’t willing to get into it in the hospital parking lot. What he