The Winner Takes It All. Alison Roberts

eyes, making her heart dance a jig. So not the reaction she wanted to have when she was fighting for her freedom. Independence. Work.

      “That sounds like a perfect solution,” Cullen said.

      Maybe for him. In Bellingham she had access to the institute and her own place to live. Down here in Seattle, she had…nothing. But what choice did she have? Sarah swallowed her disappointment. “I suppose. As long as I have my laptop and access to data.”

      Dr. Marshall adjusted his wire-framed glasses. “Many SNFs have Wi-Fi.”

      Might as well look on the bright side. “That’s better than dial-up.”

      “Your concussion will make it difficult for you to concentrate for any length of time.” Cullen sounded so doctorlike. Totally different from the man who had helped her back to her room this morning. “If you push too hard, you may experience vision problems and headaches.”

      “I’ll use a timer to limit my computer usage,” she offered.

      “No symptom is a one-hundred-percent certainty, but Dr. Gray is correct. You don’t want to do too much too soon,” Dr. Marshall said.

      Something about his tone and eye movement raised the hair on her arms. “What exactly am I going to be allowed to do?”

      “Rest and recuperate,” Dr. Marshall said, as if those two things would appeal to her.

      R & R was something a person did when they were old. Not when the second-most-active volcano in the Cascades might erupt. “The SNF sounds like my only option, but you might as well put me out of my misery now, because—”

      “You’ll die of boredom,” Cullen finished for her.

      In their one-plus year of marriage—over two if you counted the time they’d been separated—he’d figured her out better than anyone else in her life. That unnerved Sarah.

      Dr. Marshall adjusted his glasses. “A few weeks of boredom is a small price to pay.”

      Small price? The SNF sounded like an institutional cage. She’d be locked away and forced to sleep or “rest.” She stared at the cast on her arm.

      Lucky to be alive. Maybe if she kept repeating the words she would believe them. Because right now life pretty much sucked.

      “There is another option,” Cullen said.

      Her gaze jerked to his. The room tilted to her left as if she were standing in a mirrored fun house. She closed her eyes. She must have walked too far earlier. When she opened them everything was back where it belonged, and Cullen was staring at her with his intense gaze.

      She swallowed the lump of desperation lodged in her throat. Anything would be better than a nursing facility. “What other option?”

      “Come home with me to Hood Hamlet.”

      Her mouth gaped. The air rushed from her lungs.

      “I have Wi-Fi,” Cullen continued, as if that made all the difference in the world. “I promise you won’t be bored.”

      No, she wouldn’t be bored. She would be struggling to survive and keep her heart safe.

      Here at the hospital, people came in and out of her room. She and Cullen were never alone for long. He left each night to go to his hotel. What would it be like if it were only the two of them?

      Dangerous.

      Sarah tried to speak, but her tongue felt ten sizes too big for her mouth, as if she’d been given a shot of Novocain at the dentist’s office. But she knew one thing… .

      Going home with Cullen was a bad idea. So bad she would rather move into the SNF and die of boredom or stay in the hospital and die of starvation or go live in a cave somewhere with nothing but spiders and other creepy-crawly things for company.

      Having him here made her feel warm and fuzzy. Taking walks reminded her of how comfortable they’d once been together. But she couldn’t rely on him to be her caretaker. She’d been vulnerable before they’d separated. She would be totally at his mercy in his care. If she found herself getting attached to him, or worse, falling in love with him all over again…

      He would have the power not only to break her heart, but shatter it. She couldn’t allow that to happen.

      Cullen wore a digital watch, but he swore he heard the seconds ticking by. He braced himself for Sarah’s rejection. He’d offered her a place to recover, but she’d reacted with wide-eyed panic, as if she was about to be sentenced to life in prison.

      Stupid. Cullen balled his hands with a mix of frustration and resentment. He should never have made the suggestion. But she’d looked so damn miserable over the idea of the SNF, he’d had to do something. A good attitude was important in a patient’s recovery. He didn’t want her to experience any setbacks. Skilled nursing facilities had their role in patient recovery, but Sarah was better off elsewhere. He knew that as a trained physician. He knew that in his gut.

      But no one was going to step up and offer Sarah an alternative. No one except him.

      And she hadn’t even cared. At least not according to her anything-but-that reaction.

      Might as well get the word sucker tattooed on him. He’d let their pleasant walks and hand-holding soften him up.

      A buzzing sound disturbed the silence.

      Dr. Marshall checked his pager. “I have to go. Tell the nurse your decision and have her relay it to me and the discharge planner.”

      The surgeon strode out of the room without a glance back.

      The minute the door shut, the tension in the air quadrupled. Cullen had faced challenges working as a doctor and as a mountain rescuer, but he’d never felt more out of his element than standing here with his wife, a wife who didn’t want him for a husband. Not that he wanted her, either, he reminded himself.

      Sarah toyed with the edge of her blanket. Her hands worked fast and furiously, as if she were making origami out of cloth.

      The silence intensified. Her gaze bounced from her cast to the colorful bouquet of wildflowers from MBVI to everything else in the room. Everything except him.

      Hard to believe that at one time they were so crazy about one another they couldn’t keep their hands or lips off each other. Now she couldn’t bear to look at him.

      He hated the way that gnawed at him. Time to face the music, even if a requiem played. “I’m only trying to help. Give you another choice.”

      “I’m surprised you’d want me around.”

      Her words cut through the tension with the precision of a scalpel. He was about to remind her she had been the one to ask for the divorce, but held his tongue because she was right. He didn’t want her around because she messed with his thoughts and his emotions, but he had to do the right thing here, whether he liked it or not. “I want you to recover. Get you feeling better and back on your feet in the shortest amount of time possible. That’s all.”

      She studied him as if she were trying to determine what type of volcanic rock he might be. “That’s nice of you.”

      Her wariness bugged him. “We’ve been getting along.”

      Her lips parted. She pressed them together, then opened them again. “It’s just…”

      He hated the hurt lying over his heart. “Would it be that awful for a few weeks?”

      “No, not awful,” she admitted. “Not at all.”

      Her words brought a rush of relief, but added to his confusion. “Then what’s the problem?”

      “I don’t want to be a burden.”

      A burden was the last label he’d use for her. “You’re not.”

      “You’ve put your life on hold this past week.”