Loving Quinn Novel by North Rose

(Annora)

Some days I feel like a robot. I get up, get dressed, then make breakfast for my daughter. Then I take her to school, drive to the hospital where I work, then spend the rest of my day with sick or injured kids. I love my job. It is the career I have dreamed of since I was thirteen.

However, it is days like today that just make me feel…stuck.

The smell of antiseptic clings to my green scrubs as I exit the operating room. I was asked to scrub in on an emergency appendectomy for an eight-year-old girl. The girl and her family came into the Emergency Room late last night for help with pain. The E.R. was swamped with patients, so the little girl lay in pain for hours before a doctor could see her.

Now all I want to do is shower, change back to my street clothes, and go home to grab some much-needed sleep. Instead, I head back to my office to make a few calls. It disappointed my mother that I am rescheduling for the fifth time in a row. I am honestly surprised she isn’t used to it by now.

“Dr. Winters, do you have a moment?”

I glance over my shoulder as I am waiting for the elevator. A tall man I have never met before is walking towards me. From the suit he is wearing and the manilla envelope clutched to his briefcase, I can only guess that he is a lawyer. Something about this man doesn’t sit well with me.

“What can I do for you? Are you related to a patient of mine?” I ask. Then I lean forward and press the button to call the elevator.

“Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”

Without giving him an answer, I hop on the elevator as soon as the doors open. He follows behind me but waits for the doors to close before he says anything further. Being alone with him in the elevator is making my skin crawl, but I know I have no other choice now.

“My name is Marcus Drumond and I represent Kyle…”

Before he can finish his sentence, I hold my hand up to silence him. I pull my phone out of my pocket, then hit the button to call my attorney. Before I can hit the call button, he grabs my hand to stop me. The action causes me to drop my phone.

His eyes go wide as it hits the floor and shatters. “Oh, my god, I am so sorry. I just need you to listen to me. I will buy you a new phone.”

“Listen good, Mr. Drumond, because I am only going to say this once. I don’t care who you are, but I will tell you what to tell your client. Call my attorney. We are done here.”

When the doors open, I step out of the elevator to walk to my office. Marcus follows me as I hurry to my door. He is going on about how his client instructed him to speak to me. I ignore him until we reach my closed office door.

“You have two choices, Mr. Drumond. The first one is to leave on your own and take my message back to your client. Or you can continue to harass me in my place of work, which will prompt me to call security to have you removed from the building. Your client has been told multiple times that any further communication between us needs to go through our lawyers. Please mention this to him when you speak to him.”

I turn on my heels to open my door, then I close it promptly in his face as he tries to follow me inside. With swift strides, I walk to my desk to grab the phone. I call down to security at the front desk to give them the lawyer’s name and description.

Marshall, our head of security, answers the phone. He assures me he will escort Drumond off the property with a warning to not come back unless it is a medical emergency. I thank him, then hang up to make another call. This time to my lawyer, Lorelai Davon.

When her secretary answers the phone, he informs me she is in a meeting with a new client. I tell him what happened, and he assures me he will have her call me when she is free. I hang up the phone, then plop down into my chair.

Being a doctor, you would think I would be used to dealing with lawyers. However, I have not had that many encounters with unhappy patients that would require lawyers to get involved. I have saved, changed for the better, and helped more children and their families than I have lost.

My children’s practice has only been up and running for a year now. Two years earlier than planned. Normally there would be four years of residency, but I skipped the last two years when I was offered the position here to run their pediatrics department. I didn’t know until after I accepted the position that my father had pulled some strings to get me the job.

Part of me wanted to quit, but I stayed because of a little girl. My second patient, Chloe, came to the hospital with a severe burn on her leg. After examining her, I found evidence of abuse. Many healed fractures, which in most cases wouldn’t be alarming for a child her age, but it was the nature of the injuries.

Chloe pulled at something in me. Something that only one other person in my life has been able to. I stayed at Mercy General for her and the memory of the past. In all honesty, I stayed for myself, too. This has always been my dream.

Now that dream is being tainted by my nightmare ex-husband. Our marriage was a mistake from the moment I agreed to marry him. If I had known about his violent tendencies before we got married, I would have run.

I used to love my life. I have an amazing job, a beautiful home, and a daughter that makes me proud of her every day. Yet there is something missing in my life. My ex-husband was an abusive asshole, and I don’t miss being slapped, punched or kicked any time I displeased him.

He never loved me. Not the way I needed to be loved. I need the kind of love I had once but lost long ago. The timing was wrong, but the love was real. I miss that feeling.

My phone ringing makes me look up at the clock on the wall across from my desk. Thirty minutes have passed since I sat down. I answer the phone and hear Lorelai typing something into her computer.

“Annora, I just got off the phone with Kyle’s lawyer. He profusely apologizes for Drumond showing up at the hospital. Apparently, the eager man didn’t get the memo that everything was to go through me first.” Lorelai’s voice is calm as she gets straight to the point.

“Our divorce is finalized. What more can there be to discuss?”

“Kyle is under the delusion that he gets the house. He wants to know when you will move out.”

“The house was a gift to me from my parents. It is in my name only. It was also in the prenuptial agreement that if we divorced, he would have no claim to it.”

“You are not telling me anything new. It is in his divorce papers, which I assume he didn’t read. I told all of this to his new attorney. It was kind of sad to see that he fired Pensky. I was getting used to that little shit.”

I laugh at her accurate description of Albert Pensky. That man always made me feel like I needed a scalding hot shower after being in the same room with him. He was also immature for a man in his fifties. He acts like an over entitled frat-boy still in college.

Guess like finds like. Kyle hired him, after all.

“So, did you set them straight? Will they be bothering me again at work?”

“His lawyer had to find the paperwork to confirm, which he should have done before taking the case. When he called me back, he apologized again, then told me he dropped Kyle as a client.”

“Well, that is something in our favor. Can you make sure everything on my end regarding the house, my car, and Grace’s trust fund are all out of his reach?”

“Already done. He has no legal claim to any of that since it was all set up before you got married. We plainly outlined it in the prenuptial agreement he signed. He has no case to get access to any of that.”

“Thank you for getting back to me, Lori. Also, thank you for going above and beyond, as always.”

“It is my job, Annora. Besides, you are more than a client to me, and you know that.”

She has a point.

My pager going off in my pocket makes me end the call sooner than I planned. Looking at the number on it, I grab my stethoscope and my spare cellphone, then rush to the elevator to head back to the emergency room. I put my sim card from my shattered phone into the spare cellphone as the elevator descended.

I call my mother to ask if she will pick Grace up from school, then tell her I will swing by on my way home. I get the expected guilt trip from canceling our lunch date, but she agrees to my request. My mother never passed up the opportunity to spend time with her granddaughter.

What I didn’t expect to see when I arrived at my parents was my brother Max walking out of the house when I pulled up. Max lives in New York with his wife, who is either still inside or not with him on this trip. What has brought him to California?

“Well, you are a sight for sore eyes.” I ask as I get out of the car.

The look on his face when he sees me is briefly happy. Then he glowers as he looks away. That isn’t a good sign for Max. It means that something is bothering him. For him to fly to California to see our parents means that whatever is bothering him is bad.

“Hey, what’s going on, Max?” I walk up to him as he stands rooted in place, staring at the ground.

“Leita and I are getting divorced.”

That is a statement I never expected to hear from him. He met Leita when he was in college. They dated throughout college, broke up for a year, then got back together. When they got married, it was the happiest day of their lives. Or so I thought.

“What happened? I thought everything was going well with you two. Leita sounded so happy when I spoke to her last week. What about the baby?”

“If you two are going to have that conversation, I suggest you come inside so the neighbors don’t know our business.” My mother’s voice calls from the open front door.

Heaven forbids, what will the neighbors think of our family drama!

Max shakes his head at me. “Can I meet you at your house after you get Grace?”

“Yes, you can also take the spare room rather than stay in a hotel like I know you are planning on doing.”

He nods his head then rushed to his car. I hear a quiet sob, then a few choice words as he gets in his rental car. My mind is in a whirl, trying to figure out what happened to my strong, stoic older brother to have him close to tears.

Without waiting for my mother to call me inside again, I walk to the door. I can hear Grace’s laughter echo down the hallway. Ignoring my mother’s angry scowl, I walk back to the kitchen, where I can hear Grace talking to my father. His voice makes me remember all the times throughout my childhood where he sat in the kitchen doing crossword puzzles on his rare days off.

When he sees me, I can tell that whatever Max had to say wasn’t good. His eyes look sad, but he smiles as Grace cracks a joke. I will just have to wait until later tonight to get the truth out of my brother.

I catch the look that my father sends towards my mother’s back as she is making tea. The love that shines through his eyes when he looks at her is something I have only experienced for myself once. It makes me look back at my daughter as she lays her cards down on the table and lets out a peal of laughter.

Grace is the spitting image of her father. Quinn Greyson. Every time I look into her eyes, I remember them in another face. The face of a young man on the cusp of becoming a soldier. That face still creeps into my dreams at night.

That long ago summer still haunts me to this day. Every time I look at my daughter, I wonder where he is right now. Is he safe? Is he happy? Does he think of me the way I think of him? With longing, not just for the past, but for what could have been if things had gone differently.

What will I say to him if we meet again? Will I fall back into his arms like no time has passed? Twelve years is a long time to miss someone. Twelve years is a long time to still feel that rush of love when I think of him. Love that I thought would fade away as I got older.

It only got stronger as time went on. I miss him so much it hurts. I tried looking for him using my father’s contacts in the Army. Nothing ever came of my inquiries. Maybe now is a good time to try harder to find him. If not for my sake, but for the sake of the child we created between us.

The child that took me by surprise and changed my world for the better. She was conceived in love when nothing else in the world mattered but me and him. During a summer of exploration, budding romance, and the beginning of a love so pure and sweet that I have never been able to forget it.

Nor could I ever forget him.

Grace is my forever link to my one true love. The father that she has yet to meet because I don’t know where he is now. The father I robbed her of. What will he think of me if we ever meet again?

Quinn, my love, where are you?

Please come back to me.

I miss you.

I never stopped loving you.