Charli

“I SAW SHAME TODAY.”

Charli glanced at her brother over an order of garlic-parmesan fries, pausing for a moment before plucking a fry from the basket. The small restaurant located in Jeffersonville, Indiana, just across from Louisville, Kentucky had some of the best fries she’d ever tasted, and their drinks were top-notch. She was almost wishing she’d settled on this side of the river rather than in Germantown, but she did love her little train-car apartment.

After nearly two months, she’d almost adjusted to living away from the small town where she’d grown up.

She’d almost adjusted to the fact that she didn’t see Max a few times a week.

But she hadn’t adjusted to the fact that he’d chosen to forego treatment for a treatable kind of cancer.

Calmly, she met her brother’s eyes. “Con, I’ve told you. I don’t want to talk about him.”

Max had made it clear to Con and her that he wouldn’t treat his cancer and that left Charli with only one choice.

She’d had to leave town.

She’d lost too many people, and she wasn’t going to watch him die.

Maybe he was tired of hurting and part of her understood that. He’d dealt with too much shit in his life, and instead of ever getting help for it, instead of the adults around him encouraging the boy he’d been to get help, he’d bottled it all up. As an adult, he’d dealt with his issues through drinking, fighting and a sex life that would probably appall most sane people.

Charli chose not to think about the women he’d been with.

They had been...therapy, in a way.

He purged himself of the poisons his father had filled him with, and if the way he needed to purge himself was via sex with other women, Charli would let it go. They hadn’t been together at the time, and she’d convinced herself that once they were together, she’d be enough for him.

She’d lied to herself for so long, she’d believed her own lies.

But she was done with it now, and done with him.

Now, meeting her brother’s eyes, she stared him down and waited.

Con opened his mouth, then stopped, shaking his head. “You know, when you decide you’re done, you really are done, aren’t you? You’ve had a thing for him since you were a kid and then just like that, you cut him off.”

“He doesn’t want me, Con,” she said simply. “I can’t make him take me into his life, and I’m not going to stay around just to watch him die.”

Con held up a hand. “Look, I know how things have been between you two, but—”

“No.” Charli shook her head. “I’m done,” she said softly, but intensity made her voice shake. “I would have given up everything for him. Everything. But that bastard isn’t even willing to live for me.” She scoffed, wishing she could drink, but she’d agreed to meet her brother on her lunch hour and going back to work after having a drink was kind of...well, wrong. Since alcohol wasn’t an option, she opted for calories and dove into the fries in front of her. “The bitch of it all— You know what the real bitch is, Con?”

“What’s the real bitch, Charli?” he asked obediently, leaning back in his chair.

He didn’t even try to take any of the fries. He was a good big brother.

“The real bitch...” She heaved out a sigh and looked away. “I know he loves me. I can feel it. I feel it in the way he looks at me. I feel it here.” She touched a hand to her heart before letting it fall away. “I know he loves me, and if he’d let me, I could help him fix all those broken places inside him. But he doesn’t want to let me try. So...I’m done. I can’t let him break my heart anymore.”

* * * * *

BECAUSE SHE ABSOLUTELY believed that, when one of the hospital’s newer surgeons, a sexy piece of work with an Australian accent and the name Ryder, came sauntering up to her a day later with a certain look in his eyes, Charli didn’t give him the frosty glare that had sent dozens of men scurrying in retreat.

Dr. Ryder McKade was beyond delicious and Charli was female enough to appreciate that fact.

She was even female enough to appreciate the boyish grin he gave her as he asked to join her for lunch.

She was enjoying the few minutes she had off her feet before she had to be back on the floor, and normally she preferred to spend them alone. She was the youngest intern at the hospital and experience had taught her that age didn’t always come with wisdom. More than a few of her compatriots had given her the cold shoulder, and switching hospitals hadn’t changed that. There were actually more people from her graduating class here than there had been at the hospital back home.

She should have been prepared for it, but she honestly had had other things on the brain.

Dealing with people’s inferiority complexes, despite the fact that they’d all passed medical school and were all in the same residency program, was more crap than she wanted to put up with, so she just didn’t bother.

Sometimes, she hung out with a few of the ER nurses and they seemed to mesh with her just fine. Apparently, they weren’t concerned with the fact that she had an IQ that some considered freakish.

And if Dr. Ryder McKade had heard about it, he either wasn’t concerned or he didn’t see it as a hurdle, because as he eyed the chair across from her, the only thing she saw in his gaze was good humor...and interest.

His eyes were brown instead of blue, his hair blond instead of brown but he looked at her with a smile instead of a scowl and Charli had to admit, sometimes being alone sucked.

So when he prodded her, “Is this seat taken?” Charli answered with a shrug.

He dropped down and put his tray on the table. “There’s a bet running around that you’ll flay my skin from my bones for even thinking about asking you out,” he announced.

She ran her tongue across her teeth, amused despite herself. “What are the odds?”

“About seventy thirty, last I heard.” He paused a beat. “And no, I didn’t place a bet. Seemed crass.”

“Were you afraid you’d lose or certain you’d win?” she asked, leaning back in her chair as she studied him.

He had a killer smile, she had to admit.

He gave her one of them and echoed her position, practically lounging in his seat as he responded, “Neither. Like I said, it seemed crass. Should I have placed a bet?”

“No. You’re right. It’s very crass.” She reached for her drink and took a sip, cocking her head as she continued her perusal of him. “Are you over here to ask me if I really graduated from high school when I was fifteen?”

He winked at her. “I was sixteen. You beat me. Just barely.”

Charli burst into laughter and felt the last of her reserve melting.