16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T he funfair was just that—fun.

So many kids ran around with long strands of raffle tickets clutched in their sweaty little palms. The green tickets would get them entry to a game, bouncy castle or the cake walk. The pink tickets were what they earned if they won a game. Then they could trade those tickets in at the prize table. Lots of tickets for bigger prizes and a few tickets for smaller prizes.

Vendors from all over the island were there with food trucks and stalls, and anybody who could, contributed to various raffle baskets you could pay and enter to win.

Justine dug into her purse and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill, then wrote her name on fifty slips of paper before stuffing them into the different buckets for the different baskets. Her hand was cramping by the time she was done, and she wasn't sure her phone number was even legible.

She didn't actually need anything in any of the baskets, but it was fun and for a good cause.

"You know you can just come back to the winery and have more wine," came a familiar voice behind her as she shoved two dozen slips of paper into the bucket that corresponded with the wine and charcuterie board basket.

Spinning around, she grinned at Naomi, who once again wore denim overalls, this time over a white tank top. Her thick, brunette hair was in a single Dutch braid down her back and gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses covered her green eyes. "Naomi, how are you?"

Naomi stepped forward and tugged Justine into a hug Justine wasn't prepared for. So it was a touch awkward. They both knew it too, and Naomi chuckled as she pulled away. "Sorry, should have mentioned that I'm a hugger. I'm good. How are you?"

"Well, after I left the winery, I went back to my cabin to find it flooded."

Naomi's mouth dropped open. "No."

"Yeah."

"So … so where are you staying now?"

"A travel trailer has been rented for me and arrives today."

"But …" Naomi paused and her brows bunched beneath the frames of her shades. "But where are you staying until then?"

"Um … one of the McEvoy brothers offered me a room in his house."

"Oh!"

"They're all about customer service."

And Bennett definitely knew how to properly service her.

"I'll say." Naomi's mouth curled up into a small, playful smile. "Which brother?"

"Um … Bennett?"

"Mr. Serious."

"You're the second person to call him that today. Why?"

"Because he is dour and, like, never smiles."

Justine frowned. Bennett wasn't dour. And he smiled all the time. What were these women getting at? A part of her wanted to dive into this more and ask what gave Naomi that impression, but Aya and Talia ran up to her with another little girl similar in height to Talia. They all had different colored snow cones in one hand and fists full of green and pink raffle tickets in the other.

"What flavor is that?" Naomi asked the girl. They had the same shade of green in their eyes, as well as smiles. And of course, thick, dark, curly, brown hair. This had to be a daughter, or a niece, or some relation.

"Blue raspberry," the girl said, tipping the bright blue cone toward Naomi.

Naomi made a face that said, "No way."

The girl shrugged.

"Justine, this is my daughter, Honor. Honor, this is my friend Justine. She—"

"Lives with us," Aya announced with pride. "And it's been great."

Naomi and Justine shared a look that sent curious tendrils of heat, and maybe embarrassment, careening through Justine's belly.

Honor shrugged again. "Cool." She focused on her mom. "Austin asked me to come find you. He wants to know if he's allowed to go in the dunk tank. He's in line but I told him he better ask first."

Now it was Naomi's turn to shrug. "Sure. Tell him to take off his shoes first though."

Honor nodded. Then Aya, Talia, and she all ran off, raffle tickets flying behind them like handlebar streamers.

"So … you and Bennett are—"

"He has been very gracious opening up his home to me. I booked my vacation here, away from the busy city, to unwind and find some perspective. I was devastated when I thought I'd have to leave because of the flood."

Naomi's mouth curled up on one side into a cheeky smile. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her overalls and rocked backward on her heels. "Whatever you say."

"We need a doctor! Is there a doctor here? Help! He's choking!"

Naomi's bright green eyes went wide. "You're a doctor, aren't you?"

Justine and Naomi looked around for the distress call. So did others, the panic around them rising like an incoming tide.

Then they spotted him. It was a small boy, maybe six, and he was turning blue over near the popcorn machine. Two other boys stood staring at him in a frozen state of fright. They were only four yards away.

But Justine couldn't move.

Just like the boys watching their friend turn from sky blue to cobalt, she was frozen.

All she could hear now was the pounding of her pulse in her ears as her heart thundered against her ribcage. The world around her turned into a colorful blur. Nobody had a face. Then someone ran past her, knocking into her shoulder and jarring her out of her catatonic condition.

When she came to—not that she'd blacked out—she found someone else hammering the heel of his palm into the middle of the child's back. Out flew the popcorn or whatever he was choking on just as a woman with a flowy skirt and possibly a million bangles on her arms, ran up and scooped the boy into her arms. "Oh, Barnacle. Oh, Barnacle. Are you okay?"

Barnacle ?

The man who saved the kid dipped his head when people started clapping. He waved them off, his eyes lasering in on Justine. Or at least she thought he was laser-focused on her. Turned out it was Naomi. His smile grew wider the closer to her he got.

"That was incredible," she breathed as he stopped in front of her.

He dismissed her praise with a small frown and a headshake. "It was nothing. He is fine now." Ooh, the man had a thick Italian accent, and the most intense dimples Justine had ever seen. He even had one in his chin. But, of course he did. Three dimples, a lush, thick head of dark hair with plenty of silver, and expressive, hooded, brown eyes. He was a walking, talking, definition of an Italian Stallion. He also appeared to be at least ten years older than Justine and Naomi. Probably late forties. But he looked good. All the women in earshot were gaping at him.

"Ciao, Bella," he said to Naomi with another, more gallant dip of his head. Then he swaggered off.

"Who was that?" Naomi asked, her mouth open like a codfish.

Justine lifted a shoulder. "By the way, he was looking at you, I thought you knew him."

Naomi shook her head. "Never seen him before in my life."

The drama surrounding the choking boy disappeared, but that didn't mean Justine's shame over not helping didn't sucker punch her in the kidneys the moment Naomi cocked her head and twisted her lips, giving Justine a curious look.

"Soooo … what happened back there?" Naomi asked.

Justine dropped her gaze to the grass. "I froze."

"Yeah, I saw that. You are a doctor, right? Or is it like a PhD doctor? Do you have a doctorate in math? Are you Dr. Algebra?"

"I was a doctor," Justine said nearly under her breath.

"Oh!" Naomi frowned. "But … you still know stuff, right? Like you don't just forget how to put in an IV, or stop someone from choking to death?"

It wasn't Naomi's fault. She was only asking the questions that a lot of people were probably asking. They were questions that Justine was asking herself. But they were tough questions. Questions she didn't know how to answer.

And thank god she didn't have to, because before she could open her mouth—not that she knew what she would say—a soaking wet little boy, maybe ten or eleven, ran up to Naomi with a huge smile on his face. He looked an awful lot like Honor.

Naomi's face split into a big grin. "You have fun?"

He beamed at her. "It took six people to finally get me in the water."

She rubbed his wet head. "You remembered to take off your shoes first?"

He nodded, then shook himself like a dog, causing water to fly off in every direction.

"Austin, hey. No thank you," Naomi said with motherly disapproval. "Not cool, dude."

"I thought you might want to cool off," he replied, undeterred by her chastising.

"Where's your sister?"

"Over with Aya, Talia, and Emme at the bouncy castle."

"Are you guys hungry for food more filling than snow cones?"

He nodded, still grinning from ear to ear. "Yeah. I want pizza. Have you seen the size of the slices they're selling from Slice of Heaven?" His eyes expanded. "They're, like, as wide as my face."

Naomi snorted, squeezed Justine's arm and smiled. "I want to know more when there's time. You have a secret, Justine, and I want to know it." She winked.

Dread coated the inside of Justine's belly.

"Until then, I'm off for pizza the size of my face." Then Naomi allowed her son to haul her off toward the bouncy castle.

Hanging her head in shame, Justine closed her eyes for a moment. But she couldn't descend into too deep of a spiral before a familiar voice roused her from her free-fall. "Hey, everything okay?"

Opening her eyes, she found concern etched across Bennett's face. "There was commotion. I was busy chatting with Carnation's parents to discuss the incident of the girls fighting, and when I looked over, I saw you. What happened?"

Her bottom lip wobbled, so she bit it hard with her top teeth to keep her emotions in check.

Shove that down.

Surgeons. Doctors. Brazeaus didn't let feelings control them.

With nausea in her belly and the taste of sick on the back of her tongue, she tossed on the fakest smile she'd ever mustered and nodded. "Yeah."

"Bullshit."

Well, that wasn't the response she expected.

"What happened?" His brows narrowed beneath his black frame and lensed sunglasses.

"A … a kid choked." And then I choked.

"So you helped him?"

She didn't say, or do, anything. She just stared straight ahead until the trees lining the field melded into a deep green blur.

"Justine?" A firm, but gentle hand landed on her shoulder.

She flicked her gaze to him, and an angry heat filled her chest. "I'm. Fine. I need to go." Then she shook him off and stormed away, not stopping until she reached her SUV—because she insisted on driving herself—and her heart threatened to punch a hole through her ribs.

Leaning against the driver's door, which thankfully faced away from the funfair, she pressed her hand to her chest. Her breathing was ragged like she'd just sprinted the quarter-mile, but all she'd done was walk briskly.

Stupid emotions.

Stupid feelings.

They got in the way of everything.

She choked.

She freaking choked.

A kid nearly died, and she just stood there like an idiot, allowing it to happen.

It was the right choice to step away from medicine. Clearly, she wasn't fit to be a doctor anymore. She couldn't even step up and stop a child from choking.

Climbing into her SUV, she gripped the steering wheel like it threatened to fly away. She was in no state to drive, but she also couldn't be around people anymore.

So she did what she could do, which was rest her forehead against the steering wheel and breathe.

Time stood still. She had no idea how long she sat there in that position, but when there was a gently rap at her window, she jumped a little in her seat and opened her eyes. The sun was behind the trees and her vehicle was encased in shadow.

She expected to find Bennett at her window, but it wasn't him.

Rather, it was an older woman, probably mid-eighties. Her hair was snow-white and pinned up in a smooth, flawless knot on the top of her head. She wore turquoise earrings the size of quarters on her large, stretched-out lobes and her smile jostled a bit as she waited for Justine to roll down her window.

"H-hello," Justine rasped past a still tight throat.

"You okay?" the woman asked, her voice equally as raspy.

Justine swallowed. "Just … not a huge fan of crowds."

The older woman nodded. "Me either. Can I sit with you?"

Justine glanced at her empty passenger seat. "I was actually thinking I might head home."

But the woman was already toddling around the front of the SUV and opened up the passenger side door. "Do you mind taking me home, dear? I'm done with the crowd too. My ride wants to stay longer."

This was weird. A stranger just hopped into her vehicle and asked for a ride. Was this an island thing? Because never in a million years would Justine do this back in Seattle. Or anywhere else she'd lived, for that matter. Nowhere felt safe enough.

Except maybe here.

The woman buckled her seatbelt, looking pleased with herself. She knitted her gnarled and dirt-stained fingers in the lap of her flowy, tie-dyed dress. "I'm Keturah Katz."

"Uh … Justine … Justine Brazeau."

"Oh, I know who you are. You're staying in one of the McEvoy Cabins. Or at least you were until it flooded. Now you're staying in Bennett's house until the trailer arrives."

Justine's mouth hung open, and she gaped at the woman. "Uh … yeah. How did you—?"

"Not a thing goes on, on this island that I don't know about." She said it with pride, then nodded her head at the push-start button. "Let's go. I need to take my pills."

Blinking for a few seconds at how direct this little woman was, Justine snapped back to reality, hit the "start" button and pulled out of her parallel parking spot.

"Mind you, I didn't know about Brooke Barker staying with Clint McEvoy. That came as a shock to everyone. They really did a marvelous job keeping it a secret. I was a bit ashamed I didn't know sooner." Keturah glanced out the window. "But you know, with age not only comes wisdom, but also forgetfulness. It's why I take gingko biloba and do sudoku every morning."

They reached the stop sign. "Where am I going?" Justine asked.

"Left, dear."

Justine turned left. She was still really confused about what had just transpired, but she also welcomed the distraction from her own feelings.

"You're a doctor, right?" Keturah asked.

"How did you—?"

Keturah faced her and tapped her temple. "I know everything. Remember?"

"Right. Um … yeah. I mean, at least I was."

"You can never stop being a doctor. You just stop practicing. So why'd you stop?"

"Long story."

"I live on the far-north side of the island. We have time."

"I … I don't even know you."

The older woman's gray eyes twinkled between all the hard-earned wrinkles. "Who better to tell your secrets to than a stranger?"

"You just confessed to knowing everything that goes on, on the island. Doesn't that mean you're a gossip?"

Keturah's barely-there pale brows shot up nearly to her hairline. "It certainly does not. People come to me with information. Doesn't mean I give it away."

"Fine. Fair point. But I'm still not comfortable airing my dirty laundry to a hitchhiker."

That made Keturah snort. "All right. Then tell me why you froze when Barnacle was choking."

" That is the kid's name?"

Keturah waved her hand. "Terrible name. We all know. His parents are both idiots. Common sense was chasing them, but they were faster when it came to naming their child. But why'd you freeze when he started choking on the popcorn?"

Justine was quiet for a while.

"Turn right here," Keturah said, pointing her crooked right index finger with the big, turquoise stone ring.

Justine did as she was told.

"Hmmm?" Keturah probed.

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

"No. I don't. I know what I was supposed to do. Now . But in the moment, all I heard was this voice in the back of my head telling me that the last patient I touched died. That I wasn't fit to be a doctor and shouldn't touch people, because my touch—my doctor's touch—causes more harm than good."

Fresh tears burned the back of her eyes, so she bit down hard on the inside of her cheeks to allow that pain to mask the pain in her chest. Her throat grew tight again.

"I can't trust my own instincts anymore."

Now it was Keturah's turn to be quiet. She merely pointed which direction she wanted Justine to turn.

The silence pounded between them.

"So you lost a patient and now you think your touch is fatal?" Keturah finally asked.

"I don't know."

"You don't know if you lost a patient?"

"No. I did. I let my personal life and my emotions infiltrate the job, and I screwed up and a man—a man I really liked—died on my table."

"How'd you screw up?"

Justine shook her head. "It doesn't matter."

"I was a coroner for twenty years, dear. It does matter."

Justine's mouth dropped open again, and she pivoted to face Keturah, but that caused the SUV to swerve and Keturah's eyes widened.

"Uh, eyes on the road, please."

"Shoot. Sorry."

"How did you mess up?" Keturah pointed to a long gravel driveway lined by thick evergreen trees. "Here."

Justine slid her gaze to Keturah for a moment. "This doesn't leave this vehicle."

Keturah had the decency to cross her boney finger over her heart. "Of course."

"I was in the bathroom before surgery and I was in the stall. Two nurses walked in and started talking. I don't know why I stayed in the stall to eavesdrop, but I did. A part of me wishes I hadn't. But I did. They started talking about how one of them was pregnant and the other said she was going to start showing soon so people would wonder who the father was. The pregnant one said it was complicated because the father was engaged to another doctor here. That he was a doctor, and he'd been promising her that he would call off the engagement and end the thing with his fiancée for weeks, but he hadn't."

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you were the fiancée?"

Justine pressed her lips together.

"Go on, dear. It's therapeutic to let it out."

"Yes. I was the fiancée. They used their names while talking. I recognized the non-pregnant one, but not the pregnant one—apparently she was a scrub nurse, usually in the pediatric wing, but was picking up extra shifts in the cardio wing, which was why I didn't recognize her name. But they used my fiancé's name. There aren't too many people with his name in the hospital either. It's not that common."

Keturah merely nodded. They'd reached her house now, a cute little shake sided bungalow covered in wisteria and flanked by wildflowers on all four sides.

"So, I waited until they left before I came out of the stall. I was …"

"Devastated."

"Yeah. But I had surgery. So I needed to leave those feelings on the other side of the OR and do my job. I needed to save Mr. O'Malley like I promised him I would."

"But something happened in the OR"

"She was my scrub nurse. I'd never had her before—because she was picking up shifts in the cardio wing—when my resident asked her for the bovie, using her name, this icy feeling filled me from the nape of my neck all the way down to my toes. It was like someone poured glacier water down the back of my shirt."

"So now, your feelings weren't on the other side of the OR. They were in your OR, because she was in your OR."

Justine nodded. "And I couldn't ask her to leave. That's not professional. I'd be reprimanded for creating a hostile work environment. For putting my own personal needs ahead of my patient's."

Keturah nodded, causing the loose skin around her neck to wobble.

"My hand shook—and it never shakes. My nerves claimed me and … I froze. A man was open on my OR with his heart exposed and I froze. For the first time in my career, I didn't know what to do. People looked at me like I was having a stroke. Several of them said, ‘Doctor, what do we do now?' But I couldn't answer. Then that stupid little pregnant nurse said, ‘Oh shit. You know.' My eyes went to hers and rather than fear staring back at me. Rather than shame or embarrassment, I saw triumph. Like she was glad I finally knew. But she was too stupid to figure out that I only learned of her homewrecking status a moment ago. That I didn't know sooner. I tried to rally. I tried to focus on the patient, but when she passed me a scalpel and handed it to me with the blade down and into my palm, cutting the glove and causing me to bleed, I lost it."

Shame swept through Justine with the force of a thousand winter storms until her ribs became too tight around her lungs and she struggled for breath. She unclipped her seatbelt, opened the driver's side door, leaned out, and vomited.

A warm, reassuring hand rubbed her back as she expelled the pizza from earlier. And it'd been such good pizza. A slice really was the size of your face.

"It's okay," came Keturah's gravelly voice. "It's okay."

Justine reached into the side pocket of her door for a tissue and wiped her mouth. "After I re-scrubbed …" She sat up and faced Keturah again. "After I re-scrubbed and re-gloved, I thought she would have left the OR out of human decency. But she was still there. Still wearing that smug smile—or at least her eyes were smug. You can't see a person's mouth because of the—"

"I get what you're saying."

God, now Justine was rambling. She never rambled.

It did feel good to get it all out though.

"It felt like one mistake after the other after that. We couldn't get the bleeding to stop. The tumor around his heart was connected by too many blood vessels. I thought I could—" She swallowed. "I thought I could excise the tumor and—"

"It's okay." Keturah rubbed her back, offering her an encouraging smile.

"I don't even remember doing it, but I must have nicked the aorta, and he bled out on the table."

Keturah's mouth dipped into a frown so deep it seemed to pull the skin on her entire face downward. "That wasn't because you brought your emotions into the OR. It was because he was gone before you opened him up. Admit it. It was a long shot saving him, wasn't it?"

Justine shook her head and bit her lip as the tears fell with abandon. Oh, her mother would be so disappointed in her right now for getting emotional over a patient. Brazeaus didn't do that. "I could have saved him. Or at least given him more time with his family."

Pulling in a deep breath through her long nose, Keturah squeezed Justine's shoulder. "As long as you keep telling yourself that, you'll never move on. Until you forgive yourself, until you let that patient go, life will continue to feel like this. Your heart will continue to feel like this. You won't be able to open it up to anyone or anything. Not properly anyway."

Exhaling through thinly parted lips, Justine nodded. "You're not the first person to tell me that."

"I bet I'm the oldest though. I bet I'm the only one who has seen more people die, unable to forgive themselves than you. And most of the people I met as a coroner were already dead."

That made them both laugh.

"Are your parents in your life dear?"

Fresh guilt swirled in Justine's belly enough to make her possibly vomit again. She swallowed down a bunch of saliva and told herself to be tough. "Yeah. They're doctors, too."

"Then talk to them. I'm sure they've experienced similar situations … at least regarding lost-cause patients and losing patients."

Justine shook her head. "I've been avoiding their calls and text messages. I can't face them. I can't tell them … not yet anyway. I don't know how. My mother is the queen of leaving her personal life outside the hospital." That made a snicker of irony rumble in her nose. "She's the queen of leaving her personal life outside of her personal life." She glanced at Keturah. "She's not the warmest woman. And I don't think she'd understand how I'm feeling. My dad might. But not my mom. And they liked Tad. He's from a good family and is a neurosurgeon. On paper, he's the perfect son-in-law. I don't know how to tell them about my patient, about my doubt in myself and my career, or about the end of my engagement. So … like a coward, I've just been avoiding them. Which just piles on more guilt, of course."

"That's a lot to carry around when you're supposed to be on vacation and finding some clarity. How can you find any peace through all that pain and guilt?"

What a loaded question.

The truth was, Justine couldn't find much of anything these days. Besides the joy that Bennett and his daughters brought her, anyway.

"I'm not an easy fix, I guess."

"The good ones never are, dear."

Justine huffed a humorless laugh.

"Come in for a drink?"

"Raincheck?" Justine asked. "I'm ready for bed." The taste of vomit lingered in her mouth and embarrassment hit her hard. "Oh god. I just barfed in your driveway. Do you have a hose? Let me clean it up." What was the proper protocol after you barfed in someone's driveway?

Keturah shook her head. "Oh, don't worry about it. I'll spray it off when I water the garden once it's a little cooler out." She removed her hand. "Don't be a stranger, dear. I have nothing to do but feed the birds, garden and talk. And the birds and flowers don't really answer back." Her warm smile eased some of that tension in Justine's chest.

"I will. I promise. Thank you."

"Thank you for the ride home and the lovely chat."

Justine huffed. "Not sure it was a lovely chat. I spent the entire time dumping my emotional baggage on you."

"Because I asked you to."

"Still …"

"Still, you need to forgive." Then she squeezed Justine's hand before opening the passenger door. "Don't be a stranger. Otherwise, I'll send one of the many ghosts I'm friends with to haunt you."

Justine chuckled as Keturah slammed the door.

It was only polite to wait until the older woman was safely inside her house before Justine backed up and headed down the long driveway back toward the road.

There was still plenty of light out, but the sun was sinking fast. The clock on the dash said it was nearly eight o'clock. Not late, but her heart and head were as heavy as boulders and she needed to get home.

Home.

How weird was it to consider Bennett's house home?

Would the trailer be there when she got back? Did he expect her to sleep in it tonight?

Maybe if she put herself to bed early enough in his bed, he wouldn't wake her up and kick her out.

She drove the twenty minutes across the island and let out a deep sigh of relief when none of the brothers' trucks were parked in front of their houses after she made it through the gate. And thankfully—yes, thankfully— the trailer wasn't there either.

Her heart remained heavy and her ribs squeezed it with no remorse as she opened the door to Bennett's house. In less than a week, this place felt more like home than her own apartment back in Seattle. She was more at peace than she had been in ages, and the fresh air and calm, safe vibe soothed her tattered soul.

All she wanted to do right now was have a shower and go to bed.

She knew Keturah's words to be true. Bennett said them, too. And she wasn't an idiot. She knew what she needed to do, but knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things. You can try to tell yourself not to think about something anymore, but that just makes you think about it more. She could try to forgive herself for what happened to Mr. O'Malley—and she could try—but deep down in her heart, in her very soul, she wouldn't feel it.

Her trudge up the stairs was dramatic and slow. But nobody was around to see her wallow, and she tuned out her mother's criticizing voice with a carousel of lamentations from her own conscience about how she froze today on that field and the little boy nearly died.

The tears flowed in the shower, mixing with the warm water and flowing down the drain.

The shower was the only place she'd ever been allowed to cry at home as a child. Not that her mother gave her permission to cry there. But it was the only place her mother wouldn't catch her doing it.

By the time she wrapped herself up in two big, white towels, the squeeze of her ribs wasn't as tight and she could breathe deep enough that no fuzzy black spots clouded her vision.

She was just pulling on her pajama bottoms when the front door opened and closed and the house filled with the sounds of little girls hopped up on sugar and excitement.

The pain in her chest returned as she walked over to the door and made sure it was closed, then turned the lock.

She was a failure. A fraud, and a former physician who froze. This bright and beautiful family didn't deserve her drama and pain. They didn't deserve anything but rainbows, sunshine, puppies, and unicorns.

Even if the trailer didn't arrive tomorrow, she would leave.

She was too much for their world, and she knew it.

So she finished getting her pajamas on and crawled under the covers, allowing herself one more night in this beautiful home filled with love and people she didn't deserve. Before tomorrow when she would take her drama and pain, and leave for good.