It made him want to rage, to bargain with God, to cry. He’d give his own hand if she could have hers back.
“Great job, Dr. Golding,” Mina said as the young doctor was applying the negative pressure bandage. “You’ve got good hands.”
John looked up, his eyes gleaming. “And thank you, Dr. Haraldson, for guiding me so expertly.”
By the time they met up again, once more in street clothes, Mina looked a totally different person. Euphoric. Grinning.
“That went well,” she said as they headed for the car. “There were a couple of times I wanted to grab the instruments and do it myself, but it wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be.”
“Is this where I get to say I told you so? Because you know I’ll be all over that,” Kiah responded, earning himself a swat on his arm.
“Don’t you dare.”
“You’re a natural-born teacher,” he said. “I didn’t realize how good until I saw you in action.”
Mina shrugged. “I’ve never had a problem instructing others. I guess that’s why Toronto South asked if I’d consider staying on as a lecturer. I said no, because I couldn’t fathom not having my own practice, or being unable to operate anymore.”
Shock brought Kiah to a halt. “They offered to have you stay on, and you refused?”
Mina kept walking, not even looking back as she replied, “Yep. Couldn’t see it happening.”
But she probably could now, Kiah realized, his heart sinking at the thought of her leaving even sooner than he expected she would.
CHAPTER SIX
THAT EVENING, AFTER DINNER, Miss Pearl said, “The two of you should go out, since you didn’t get to go to the beach this afternoon.”
“I was planning to help Charm with her homework,” Kiah said.
Mina knew he’d felt a little guilty, being away and leaving all the parenting chores to Miss Pearl, but the old lady just flapped her hand at him.
“She did it at Mrs. Gordon’s house this afternoon, and I checked it when she got home. Besides, it’s Friday night. She deserves a little rest from schoolwork.”
“And Granny said she and I could watch a movie tonight,” Charm added.
Kiah wrinkled his nose. “One of those sappy romances the two of you love so much?”
Charm turned to Mina and said, “I don’t know why you hang out with him, Auntie. He doesn’t know the first thing about romance.”
“Oh, really?” Kiah narrowed his eyes at his niece in mock anger. “I’ll have you know I’m very romantic.”
“I’ll ask your girlfriend,” came the pert reply. “If you ever get one.”
Mina almost choked with mirth, and even Miss Pearl seemed hard-pressed to stop herself from laughing. Though the old lady had the wherewithal to reprimand her great-granddaughter for sassing her uncle, she also had to press her lips tight to stop from joining in with Mina’s laughter.
Kiah pounced, tackling Charm on the couch, tickling her and saying, “Apologize to your favorite uncle!”
“My only uncle!” she shrieked while laughing, trying to avoid his fingers, which had unerringly found her ribs.
Eventually, Miss Pearl said, “That’s enough, Hezekiah. You’ll make the child throw up.”
“Ah, sah,” he said, flopping back against the couch cushions and tugging a still-giggling Charm against his side. “You see what I have to put up with?”
Charm laid her head on his chest and snuggled in close. “Uncle, how come you didn’t pick me up at school today? I thought you would.”
“Auntie Mina and I had to help with an operation at the hospital.”
“Oh. That’s cool, but I didn’t think you’d be back at work so soon.”
Mina could hear the disappointment in the young girl’s voice, but there was no reproach in her tone. The two of them there, together, looked perfect, and Mina felt a warm, sweet glow watching the interplay. Kiah may have fallen into parenthood through tragedy, but it was obvious he was doing a good job of it.
“I didn’t plan to be, but I got called in unexpectedly. How was school?”
“Good. We have a new boy in class. His name is Ramesh, and he just moved here from India. The other kids laughed when they heard his name, but I told them not to. Told them that our names probably sound weird to him, too.”
The correlation between what Charm described and Mina’s first meeting with Kiah was unmistakable, and the wave of nostalgia sweeping through her made Mina smile.
Then Kiah looked up, his gaze colliding with hers, and in his gleaming eyes she saw something she’d never seen before. Something powerful and raw that stole her breath and turned the previous warm glow to heat, which raced out from her belly into her bloodstream.
Time slowed, stopped. Everything faded away, leaving just her and Kiah, caught in a moment for which there were no words, no explanation easily found.
Still holding Mina’s gaze, Kiah dipped his head and kissed Charm’s hair.
“My sweetheart,” he murmured. “That’s the most beautiful thing you could do.”
Mina looked away first, unable to hold that intense gaze a moment more.
Shaken, she got up, saying, “If we’re going out, I should shower and change.”
As Mina got to the passageway leading to the bedrooms, she heard Charm ask, “Are you really going out, Uncle Kiah?”
It made her pause, waiting to hear what was said. While she got no sense that Charm resented her, Mina could understand why she might not want her uncle to go back out. After all, not only had he not picked her up from school that day, but he’d also just got back from his trip to Canada.
“Don’t you want me to?” Kiah asked in return.
“Yes, I do want you to. If you stay here, you’ll just make rude comments and ruin the good parts of the movie.”
Chuckling quietly to herself, Mina continued on her way, as Kiah appealed to Miss Pearl for help.
“Granny, are you going to let her talk to me that way?”
“Huh. I’d chastise her, but we all know is the truth she’s talking.”
But by the
