Epilogue

Lauren

“Be good!” I called to Ruth.

She paused in the open doorway of her house. “Oh I will. Don’t you worry about that.” She winked at me.

She was still too thin but her color was good and she was slowly gaining back her weight. Her hair, which she’d shaved off during chemo, had grown back enough to cover her head in peach fuzz. She was wearing makeup and dressed sharply, leaving to go on a date with a man she’d met at the local gym.

Ryan still hadn’t talked to his father. I don’t know if he ever would.

Perhaps one day, but right now, he was too busy with his career, his mother, and our relationship to want to deal with it.

After a rough round of treatments, Ruth had beat the cancer and was well on the road to recovery. I’d helped her get to this point, having spent the last six months on sabbatical, which had given me the time to spend with her, but more importantly, I’d gotten to know her better as my boyfriend’s mother and not just as a patient. She was my family now, just as much as Ryan was, and my only regret about returning to Graton’s next week was that our time together would be much more limited.

“You be good, too. But not too good. Ryan likes your bad girl side, you know,” Ruth cooed, then shut the door behind her.

I smiled and shook my head affectionately.

After the investigation cleared both Ryan and I of the lies Samuel filed with HR before his heart attack, we sat down with Marcus and Maria and worked out a plan. To avoid any problems, I offered the idea of taking a sabbatical for the first six months of Ryan’s residency. Ryan tried to protest, but there wasn’t much he could do to convince me otherwise. It helped that I’d confessed the restlessness I’d been feeling before I’d ever met him. The desire to take a break from my career and focus on other things.

When I asked to be able to take care of his mother’s health during that time I could see the hesitation still in his eyes. We were working through our own fears and like Bonnie said change doesn’t come overnight. But he eventually nodded, even if his jaw was still tense.

I didn’t spend the entire six months caring for Ruth, of course. I simply supplemented the care Sharon and Ryan gave her. I took time to do other things. Read. Work out. Take a painting class. Things I normally didn’t have time to do given the intensity of my career.

I’d also had one last lunch with Samuel, about two months after his heart attack. Samuel hadn’t gotten the job. Instead the hospital had decided to hire two co-chief surgeons, one of them being my friend Raegan. Samuel had actually taken the rejection in stride. The heart attack had scared him enough that he appeared to be taking another look at his priorities. The day after his surgery, he’d shaken Ryan’s hand and thanked him for saving his life. And when we’d met for lunch, there’d been a sense of calm and humility about him that had reminded me of how he’d been during the early years of our relationship. He’d actually apologized to me again—this time for ratting on Ryan and I to HR, and although it wasn’t quite all water under the bridge, I was glad we’d had some closure. He’d moved out of Denver last week to accept a position in a small city in northern California and I wished him well.

Having closure with Samuel was just one more thing that had enabled me to enjoy my sabbatical, and I knew the break was only going to make me better at my job when I returned.

The first day of his official residency Ryan called just about every five minutes until I told him we were fine and hung up on him. Later that night, I heard the car screech to a stop outside the house and Ryan ran in breathless to see Ruth and I sitting quietly together in the kitchen nook reading medical journals.

It wasn’t always easy for me either. I had to deal with the strange looks I received from friends and colleagues when I explained what I’d been up to.

“Will this backtrack your career?” they’d ask.

“You’re not going to the conference this year? Your absence will be noticed,” they’d say.

“He’s how young?” they’d all ask after picking up their jaws from the floor.

Each time it made me flinch and each time I thought of what was more important than all of that: Ryan. Each time it got easier.

But now Ryan was firmly entrenched in his residency at Graton, under the supervision of another senior cardiologist. And I was ready to get back to work, what other people thought be damned.

I was returning Ruth’s pill bottles to the cabinet when I heard the car pull up outside and checked my watch. He was early.

I ran to the room we shared on the other side of the house and closed the door. As her battle with the cancer had continued, Ruth had given in to Ryan’s need to be closer to her but we’d be moving back into my house when I started work again. I flung off my t-shirt and kicked off my pants and snatched the nurse costume I’d hidden in the back of the closet.

I almost stopped with the skimpy little white dress half way zipped up. I looked ridiculous, way too old for role playing. But then I stood up straight and adjusted my tits in the tight bustier and ruffled up my hair a bit. No, I looked goddamn hot. I looked sexy and confident and I knew that was exactly how Ryan was going to see me.

As Ruth had so correctly stated, Ryan liked me good, but he liked when I was bad even more.

The front door clicked shut and I hopped onto the bed, taking the last few seconds before he walked in to arrange myself seductively.

“Hey, babe, you in he—”

Ryan stopped halfway through the door, frozen when he saw me.

“Hello, Doctor Castle,” I said with a sly smile.

He raised his eyebrow.

“Nurse Decker,” he said as he pulled off his coat and left it on the floor, moving closer to the edge of the bed, “what are you doing in here?”

I sucked in a breath at the sight of his naked chest as his shirt joined his coat.

“Do you want me to leave?” I whispered.

He crawled onto the bed and looked down at me. His hair fell across his eye and I reached up to touch his cheek.

“Never,” he said. “We’re in this for the long haul, Decker, and don’t you forget it.”

I wouldn’t. Not ever.

I wasn’t going anywhere.