“I can’t believe you almost cut your finger off,” Emily said, arms crossed over her chest, pacing the tiny curtained-off area in the emergency room where Becky lay on a bed, inclined to almost sitting. Brad towered over her, holding Jack, who was more impressed with the blood, the trauma, than Becky was.

When she’d come to, she’d been on the floor of the kitchen. Her dad had wrapped her hand with a towel, and her mom had been yelling. She hadn’t been able to make sense of anything other than the fact that she’d been lifted and carried outside to her mom’s minivan and then belted in back before she could gather herself. Her dad had been behind the wheel, driving, and her mom had been in the back beside her, holding the towel around her finger, putting pressure a little too hard. Jack, for the first time, had been quiet.

Becky was grateful this time that Brad Friessen was the kind of man he was, the kind her friends teased was the last of a dying breed of men who knew how to be men, not asking but making things happen. Thus, she was in a bed and not stuck in a waiting room with dozens of other people waiting for hours. This time she was okay with it, maybe because she was lightheaded and it had hit her like a ton of bricks that the sight of blood freaked her out, so she could cross off any job in the medical field.

“Emily, calm yourself. Sit down. Your pacing is only making it worse.” Her dad had a direct gaze, and it wasn’t lost on her that he was likely the only one who could reason with her mom, calm her sometimes. Her mom touched her dad’s hip a little too close to his butt, which bordered on intimate, and Becky had to roll her eyes, considering the number of times she’d walked into the house and caught her parents kissing, touching, laughing in each other’s arms, behaving like newlyweds instead of like the typical couple, who never held hands, kissed, touched, or shared anything bordering on intimacy anymore. Brad and Emily were not the typical couple who just occupied space in a room. It was embarrassing at times how intimate they were around people. Here they were, a touch, a look.

Jack was now sitting at the foot of the bed, reaching up to touch the bloody towel wrapped around her hand. She noticed the blood that had dried on her favorite blouse, an image she’d never get out of her head. Great, it too was now ruined.

The curtain swung back, revealing a young doctor in green scrubs with a five o’clock shadow and deep brown hair with a hint of red. “Becky Friessen, I’m Dr. Tom Campbell,” he said. “It says here you cut yourself—”

“Her finger is hanging off!” Jack interrupted, sounding so excited.

The doctor took in her dad, mom, and little brother as he rested the chart, which had to contain her details, on a hook at the side of the bed. Then he glanced her way. She took in his eyes, blue, so deep and vibrant she felt awkward lying so prone and vulnerable, even if the bed was inclined so she was almost sitting. Still, her first thought was how she looked, but he was more interested in her hand as he unwrapped the towel. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“A little squeamish, are you?” he teased.

“Yeah, well, blood’s not really my thing,” she said. Her finger hit air, and instantly there was a rush of pain.

“How’d this happen again?”

“A knife,” Brad said. “She was chopping—you were chopping vegetables, right?”

It would be really nice if everyone could let her speak. She opened her eyes, seeing her mom beside her dad, his hand now around her waist. Jack was too busy trying to get a closer look at her almost severed finger, which she still hadn’t looked at.

“Yes, I was making a salad,” Becky said—the one her dad had said her mom insisted she make. She knew that was likely not the way of it, but she wasn’t about to throw that bit in as she remembered the call from school and the good news her mom had yet to learn. “I guess I wasn’t really paying attention when I pushed down with the knife, and my finger was there. I felt it, and then—”

“We found you on the floor. You fainted,” Emily said. Becky could see now the worry she had caused. “Maybe you have low blood sugar. Did you eat all the lunch I packed for you? You should do a blood test to check her levels.”

Now she was horrified. Her mom was telling a doctor what tests he should be ordering. The doctor paused and glanced her way. It was a look that had her suddenly feeling five years old. Her dad cleared his throat. Could this moment get any worse?

“Emily, just let the doctor work,” he said.

“Mom, seriously, I fainted because of all the blood. I don’t like blood. It kind of freaks me out. Ignore my mom, please. She’s never happy unless she’s doing something for all of us. You’ll be happy to know I’m not helpless, thus making the salad which got me here. I was distracted over some good news.” She turned to Emily. “I’ll be off to college sooner rather than later and will be out of your hair.” Becky glanced back to the doctor, to her dad, and finally to her mom again as she tried to save whatever dignity she could. The moment it was out of her mouth, she wanted to take it back.

“What!” her mom snapped, and the pointed look her father leveled on her had her wanting to sink back into the bed. When she looked over to the doctor, who was taking in all of them, she wondered whether it could be any worse. There was humor and something else in his expression she couldn’t make out.

“Okay, first things first. This is deep, to the bone. I’ll stitch it up, and I want to give you a tetanus shot and order a round of antibiotics.” He snapped off the latex gloves she hadn’t known he’d put on.

“Her shots are up to date,” her mom added as if she were a dog at the vet’s office, so she stared up at the ceiling, horrified and wanting to remind her mom she was all of nineteen, an adult, and didn’t need her parents here speaking, handling things for her.

“Great,” Doctor Campbell said. “So how about this? Since this is such a small space and it’s getting a little crowded in here, how about everyone wait out in the waiting area while I stitch up Becky’s finger. Then I’ll have you out of here in no time.”

She lifted her head and took in her dad as he ushered her mom out, Jack following on the ground. Brad stopped just inside the open curtain and took in the doctor, something in his expression that was…what, a warning that he wasn’t amused? She couldn’t say for sure. Then Brad softened as he took in his daughter.

“We’ll be in the waiting room,” he said and then left, his boots scraping the floor.

She took in the hot doctor, who appeared ready to laugh as he pulled up a stool with a covered tray, prepping everything. He pulled on fresh gloves and scooted closer, holding up a needle.

“So how about we get that stitched up?”

She stared at the syringe, the size of it, huge and steel. He was going to jab that where, exactly? It was moving closer to her hand, her finger, which he was holding now on the draped tray.

“Hey, look at me,” he said. “Tell me about school.”

She jerked her head to his face, this handsome doctor who didn’t have a ring. She was now alone with him. He jabbed her with the needle.

“Ow!” she snapped, and he smiled brightly, dropping the needle and then getting ready to stitch up her cut.

“Sorry. I’m usually a lot gentler,” he said as he dabbed away some of the blood still oozing. “Whatever would have distracted you so much that you cut your finger like this?”

She took in the calm of this handsome stranger, who had a touch that was somewhat welcoming. “Well, she just left the exam room, and I’ll give you two guesses as to who it was.”

He said nothing as she took in his concentration, then the smile again as he glanced her way. “Let me guess, your mom?”

Oh, wow, those eyes. She’d never seen any like them. Everything in them seemed to reach inside her and make her feel special, wanted, and she thought she could have sat there all day with him, just talking and looking into those eyes.

“Yeah, but it’s more about the news she now knows,” she said. Then her gaze went right to the smaller needle he was now holding, about to stick into her finger, ready to stitch. She felt her chest tighten as if the air had thinned, and she just stared at the steel, the surgical thread, the tools, and her bloody finger. Then she did something she’d never have expected to do: She yanked her hand away.