She shook her head at me, smirking. I lifted my hand in a wave as I followed my father out the door. He put my suitcase in the trunk, and I got in on the passenger side of his cruiser. He didn’t say anything immediately, just pulled the car out of the parking space and headed for the house. When we got to the first red light, he said, “Did I hear you right? Did they offer you the job and you turned it down?”
I nodded. “I didn’t want it. I want to be Eggs’ partner and eventually run a local practice.”
My father scoffed. “Caroline, that is ridiculous. You are a world class pediatric surgeon. You can’t wipe …”
I finished the sentence for him. “Noses? But I can do that. Because that’s what I want to do, Dad. I love being a small-town doc. I love knowing all my patients and their kids and their grandkids. I love feeling familiar with their medical histories and their personalities. It makes me a better doctor. And I think I can grow something of my own here. I created a charity, and maybe instead of just donating the money, I can continue it, make it into something, use the money I raised and my skills to create something to support children in this community and the surrounding ones. Rural kids have just as many accidents as city kids.”
“No, no.” He shook his head dramatically. “It won't be enough. You're making a terrible mistake.”
“I’m not,” I insisted, trying not to be annoyed.
“You’ll be miserable. You won’t get the tough high-profile cases. You’ll be bored.”
“The people here in Conway need me, and I need them.”
“Don’t be so stupid. You are too smart,” he said bitterly.
“Dad!” I yelled, exasperated. “Can you please hear me? I’m happy here. I care about the people here. I want to take care of them.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Is this about that Morgan boy?”
I was a little taken aback by his question because I didn’t realize he knew about me and Wyatt. I started to shake my head no, but he kept talking.
“I saw you kissing him in the stables at the fairgrounds. Jesus, Caroline. It is, isn’t it? Do not make the same mistakes your mother made.” He smacked the steering wheel with the palm of his hand and grumble-yelled. “Dammit, I thought I got through to him.”
My mind snagged on his words and my jaw shook as I thought. Got through to who? Wyatt? Had my father spoken to Wyatt? “What?” I asked, needing clarification and trying to remain calm.
He looked at me and repeated the sentiment related to my mother. “If you stay here, you’ll wither. You’ll be sorry you made this choice. You’ll resent us all—Bev, me, even that Morgan boy. No, especially him. And then it’ll get ugly. I don’t want that for you.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard what my father felt. He was comparing me to my mother, who ran off and left us in the middle of the night because Conway wasn’t enough for her. He blamed himself. Maybe that was why he never really looked for her. Maybe that was why he pushed me so hard. But even as I heard all that, I couldn’t really take it in because I was stuck in the black tarry feeling that my father talked to Wyatt about me, that he interfered in my relationship in some way.
Still hoping he didn’t, I said, “Daddy, I’m not my mother. Now, please tell me you didn’t talk to Wyatt. That you didn’t have something to do with him breaking my heart.”
My father at least had the decency to sound repentant when he said, “He’s a good man, Caroline. But he’s not enough for you. Someone had to step in.”
My blood ran cold as rage flooded my system. I screamed. Not words or expletives. I just screamed. I screamed bloody murder, like you do on a roller coaster, and then I did it again.
Surprisingly, I shocked my father right out of talking.
When I was done screaming, I sternly spat at him, “Enough.”
He just looked at me.
I yelled, “Enough, do you understand?” I didn’t give him a chance to answer, but I regained a sense of calm. “I am a thirty-year-old woman. I have a genius level IQ and multiple degrees. I get to decide what I want to do with my own life. And if you don’t like it, too bad.”
He didn’t say anything. He just kept driving.
I added, “Also, if you ever interfere in my love life again ...” I trailed off because we were pulling up to our house and Wyatt was sitting on our porch steps. He looked up as the car pulled into the driveway and I could tell by the look on his face that he was surprised to see me. He thought I was in Seattle. My heart screamed, looking at him. I was desperate to jump out of the moving car, run to him, wrap myself around his big hulking form, and never let go.
Soon enough the car stopped but I didn’t run.
For the first time ever, I issued a command to the sheriff instead of the other way around. “Stay here.”
I got out and slammed the door. Leaving my father behind, I marched right up to Wyatt, mad as hell, and said, “What did he say to you?”
He also looked repentant. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Why not? How can you say that?” Now I was sort of yelling at him. “It was enough that you dumped me.”
“Only because I wanted to believe him,” he said simply. “And now I don’t.”
I felt my insides start to shake. I was going to cry. “What does that mean?”
Still sitting casually on my stoop, his big knees bent and his back straight, he pushed his hand through his dark hair and said, “Besides the fact that I’m a certain kind of idiot, it means I didn’t think I deserved you, so all he had to do was suggest that I wasn’t enough and I was willing to tuck tail and run. I think his intentions were good, but I was wrong and so was he.”
I closed my eyes and pulled in a trembling breath. “Please, tell me why you were wrong.”
“It’s layered,” he said sadly, like the air was thick in his mouth.
“Well,” I said, sarcastic and a little bitter, “I’m currently in the middle of disowning my father but I have a minute.”
He smiled a little half-smile at my dark joke before he said, “First of all, neither one of us should have been making choices for you. You’re clearly smarter than us both put together so … We should have been talking to you about how we felt.”
Exactly, I thought smartly but didn’t say the words out loud.
He continued. “Secondly, I hurt you. And I don’t ever want to do that. I’m never gonna do it again.” He looked right at me. I was standing on the ground and he was sitting on the stairs so for once we were basically level. Everything about his body language was pleading with me to believe him, to believe that he would treasure my heart if I would trust him with it a second time. Could I?
He sighed. “Finally, I don’t really know yet if I am smart enough to keep up with you. But it was wrong of me to let my fears of my own inadequacy trample our love.” He shook, overwhelmed by his emotions. “Fuck, Caroline, I’m a goddamn mess without you. I’ve been sitting here for at least an hour, trying to figure out how to tell your father that I was gonna chase you to Seattle. Usually, I have a plan but I don’t this time. I just know I love you and I know no one is ever gonna love you like I do. It’s just not feasibly possible and that's worth something.” He shrugged. “So, I figure even if I’m not enough, the only one who gets hurt someday is me—when you pitch my ass to the curb for some tech genius. And if that means I got a few years with you, then it’s worth it.”