The Vet from Snowy River by Stella Quinn
CHAPTER
43
Vera lifted her hand, wondering how on earth she was going to construct six dozen prawn and vermicelli rice-paper rolls with this bandage-swaddled club at the end of her arm. She felt as weak as a lettuce leaf. A drop of blood she could cope with, but watching a needle and thread stitch her palm back together?
Her stomach flipped. No thank you.
The doctor who’d stitched up her hand had insisted she take a seat and drink a cup of tea until her colour improved, but had then bustled off through swing doors and disappeared.
Should she get up? Find someone?
Sooner or later she was going to have to haul herself out of the recliner chair she’d been allocated and make some sense out of what had happened … but it was quiet in this little treatment room she’d been parked in.
She lay back against the vinyl headrest and closed her eyes.
Quiet and calm, like someone else was in charge and she could take a break from being Vera for a moment.
Aaron had lost his marbles, that was clear. To drive all this way to tell her she was mistaken, that he was really a great guy who could overlook her flaws? It was outrageous, and creepy as hell, which was why she’d texted the bare details to her lawyer on the drive in to the hospital.
Was asking for a restraining order an extreme reaction?
She wasn’t sure. She just knew she couldn’t face another scene like that alone.
But that moment when she’d finally had enough of being his victim, enough of feeling that he and Acacia View and the mistakes of her past were in charge of the shape of her future … she’d had a moment then. An epic moment.
Staring him down and pushing back at his bullshit had done more than shut him up. Seizing that moment had been like seizing back control, and the weight she’d been carrying for months had gone. She hadn’t seen the truth in her own words until she’d flung them in his face.
She’d been blaming herself, all this time, thinking she was a failure for not making better decisions, but now she knew. She took in a long breath and let it out, feeling the certainty build. She hadn’t been a failure; she’d made a mistake, and she was dealing with the consequences like a responsible adult. She’d had a valid reason for her actions: she’d been worried about her aunt.
What valid reason had Aaron had for dobbing her in to Acacia View? A fat deposit into the South Coast Morning Herald’s advertising account?
He’d used her for his own ends, and she’d been naive, yes, but she hadn’t been a failure.
What she was guilty of was letting her miserable history ruin her chance of a happier future when she’d pushed Josh away and kept the truth about Aaron from him.
A creak made her look up and there, holding open the hospital’s swing door, was the man himself. Josh. Her heart splintered into a thousand painful needle pricks. He was carrying flowers, a great messy bunch of … were they wildflowers? Billy buttons and triggers and daisies in pinks and yellows and silvers dizzier than Jill’s quilt.
‘Can I come in?’
A man with flowers. And not just any man, the man. The one who’d burrowed his way into her brittle lonely heart and made her feel again. Love and pain. Hurt and longing. And great deep swathes of want.
She tried to smile. ‘I thought you’d have had enough of me and my dramas by now, Josh.’
He shrugged a little in a way that made her realise he was feeling as unsure as she was. ‘Can’t a guy bring his girl flowers when the mood takes him?’
She frowned. ‘I wasn’t aware I was your girl.’
‘Well, shoot. Don’t tell Dr Dragon that; it took a thirty-minute question and answer session before she’d let me in here. Besides. I think we both know you could be. I know I want you to be.’
Crap. The tears she’d been fighting started leaking out every which way. ‘Oh, Josh, I want you to be my guy, too. I’m just so worried if I let you in, I’ll mess everything up.’
‘Vera, honey.’
She wanted this so badly, but she didn’t know what to say.
‘Vera? You’ve gone very still. You need me to call the nurse?’
‘Josh,’ she managed. ‘Would you do something?’
‘Anything.’
‘Squeeze your way into this recliner chair here and hold me?’
She opened her eyes and he was there, next to her, his eyes all soft and kind-looking, the way she loved them, and a smile on his face bigger than Lake Bogong.
‘Honey, I thought you’d never ask.’