Grumpy Doctor’s Holiday Twins (Forbidden Doctors #17)

28. Ethan

28

ETHAN

T he numbness started to wear off about the time I got to the doctors’ lounge. It was quickly replaced with shock, then rage, and with my already oversensitive emotions lately, I lost it. I stomped into the lounge and shoved a few chairs so hard they slammed against the wall. One tipped sideways and a foot fell off it.

The lockers were my next target. I balled my hands into fists and beat on them, pounding my fist into the cold metal over and over as if I were a boxer in a ring fighting for my life. My senses were so dulled by the anger I felt, I hardly noticed the pain until I hit a vent on the locker and busted my knuckle open. The energy I had inside me felt like it would never cool down. I went to town and I didn't even know how long passed before I heard my name on a man's voice and turned in anger to see John staring at me.

"What the heck are you doing?" he spat at me, and I had half a mind to use my fists on him. I charged at him and grabbed him by the shirt collar and slammed him against the wall with such force I heard the exhale of air from his lungs.

"You knew, didn't you! You knew and you didn't tell me at all." I pulled back and slammed him against the wall again, and he gripped both of my wrists and shoved me away, but I came back swinging, planting a right hook to his ribs. His reactions were quick, planting both hands on my chest and shoving hard. So hard I slammed into a table behind me and it toppled, taking me along with it.

"I just found out myself, Ethan. And this is no way to react." He touched his side and shook his head at me, then his eyes scanned the room.

I climbed off the floor and put my foot on the seat of one of the chairs near me and kicked it hard. It slid across the floor violently until it, too, smashed into the wall near the broken chair and tipped over. I was so angry, so hurt. I wasn’t thinking straight.

"Liar. She's your sister. You're covering for her. You knew and you never told me, and I just want to know why." Our voices were so loud, there was no way everyone on this entire floor hadn’t heard us screaming. He was the dean of medicine and this was so far beneath his professional standard, and I didn't care that I was probably humiliating him. All I could think about was how angry I felt, how betrayed.

"I'm not lying, and you have room to talk." Now John was enraged too, rolling up his shirt sleeves as if he were going to fight me. "You kept a relationship from me for how long? You were sleeping with her before, and what? You just pick right up where you left off as soon as she comes back to town?"

He stood his ground, but I'd had enough of his mouth. I walked back over to him and stood toe to toe, my nose almost touching his as I told him off.

"How can you say you never knew? How could you even look at those kids and not see they look like me?" I was fuming and my chest was heaving. John didn't relent either. He puffed his chest out and his nostrils flared. He was really going to square off with me.

"Melody lived in Chicago and you ran off to God only knows where. How was I supposed to see that resemblance? My mom died. I was grieving." I wanted to stay angry and hold onto this surge of rage-induced energy, but John was right.

So much had happened. I did leave. I was all over the world and not where I should have been to even accept an announcement like that. And they lost their mom, so it was logical that he wouldn’t be thinking of things like that. He might not even have known Melody was pregnant until his mother's final days. My God, I couldn't even think straight.

"You need to get out of here. This is my hospital, and you're out of control." He didn't lay a hand on me, but his words were firm enough for me to know he was serious. "And get your act together. Melody and those twins need a man who controls his emotions, not this erratic, disgusting mess of a display."

I backed away and heaved out a breath, then stormed out. I was glad I had a habit of putting my keys in my pants pocket with my cell phone, not in my coat, because I wasn't going back into that room until I knew I had the words to express how I felt.

I went straight to my car and climbed in. The cold didn't even faze me. I was too upset and outraged. I tore out of the parking lot, slipping on ice and accidentally running over an evergreen bush near the entrance, and all in a fit of rage. I was out of my mind with emotion I didn't know how to handle. Nothing in my life had ever hurt me this badly. I needed to think. I needed silence and space and the open road, so I turned out of town and drove.

The highway was lightly snow covered, dusted from the snowfall earlier this evening. I not only exceeded what was safe for the conditions, but I blew past the speed limit and didn't care. My foot was to the floor and I was releasing frustrations until red and blue lights flashed behind me and I knew it wasn’t just a Christmas decoration.

I slammed a fist into the wheel and slowed, pulling to the side of the highway. I sat there with my car in park waiting for a good few minutes before the officer approached on the passenger side. My window went down slowly and he leaned in, smiling broadly.

"What's the hurry tonight, Mr. Sinclair?" The way he chewed his gum with his mouth open and a full smile on his face annoyed me. I scowled and rolled my eyes.

"Got somewhere to be," I grumbled, but I knew the only place I wanted to be was in Europe boarding a plane to Africa. This entire town, this entire season, had almost killed my mental health.

"It would be a ho-ho-horrible thing if your car slid right off the road so close to Christmas." I cringed at his bad joke and then he continued. "These roads are slippery, son. You'd better slow down. Now I know your folks, so I'm just gonna give you a warning, but if you get your bell rung, you're gonna be sorry."

While I appreciated that he wasn't going to be a stickler, I couldn’t wait for the man to get off my car and let me go. The last thing I wanted right now was some small-town cop to sing Merry Christmas to me on the side of the road and remind me why I hated this town so much.

"Thank you, officer," I grumbled, and he tapped the windowsill.

"Now, go on home. Slow down. You don't want to miss Christmas morning because you're in a morgue."

He ambled back to his car, and I put my car in gear and pulled out, though I did take his advice. Not because I felt it was safer. I only did it so he wouldn’t pull me over again. I drove all the way to neighboring Kewaunee County before turning back and making my way to the center of town.

I found myself parked in front of the town square where the large Christmas tree had been erected and glowed with twinkling lights. I stared up at the symbol for what was supposed to be the happiest time of the year and felt my eyes welling up. For years, it hadn't been happy at all, not anything close to resembling it. Now, with the violent rollercoaster my life had been on for weeks, it felt even farther from that than ever before.

I climbed out of my car and walked up to the bench situated by the tree where I could think. The snow had stopped, and someone had brushed the bench off, but it was still cold. I wished I had taken my coat from Holly's room, but when I stormed out, I was in no condition emotionally to think rationally. Now I was paying for it.

I rubbed my hands together and felt a few tears trickle down my cheeks. Being a father had crossed my mind at times, but I'd never put any real thought into it. I hadn't even dated anyone seriously enough to consider it an option except Melody, and we had unprotected sex so few times I didn't think it was possible. Obviously, I'd been wrong about that, and now I had major life decisions to make. I pulled my phone out and dialed the number for Doctors Without Borders. I was so upset, I'd made up my mind to go.

No one answered, but I left a message for someone to call me immediately. I wasn't even planning to stay and keep my word I gave to John that I'd cover his position until Christmas. This was all just too much, too quickly. Melody was willing to let me walk out of her life again and never say a word, and that hurt me more than the fact that she'd kept them a secret to begin with.

"Hey honey," I heard, and I looked up to see a woman probably fifteen years older than me pulling a cigarette out of her pocketbook. She wore an elf costume and I assumed she must've come from Santa's workshop on the other side of the square.

I grunted, but I said nothing. Though I did scoot over to avoid the stench of her smoke when she lit the cigarette and parked herself next to me. She sucked on her tobacco, and I stared at the tree, wondering how my life had come to this. How had I allowed myself to be lied to for so long, and how could I fall so deeply in love with the woman who had done it and not know a thing?

This should have been a happy moment for me. I should have been excited to learn I was a father—of twins, no less. But not like this. Not in a way that destroyed my faith in humanity, my faith in Melody and our relationship.

I was so lost in thought that when the woman next to me started coughing, I jumped. Then I looked over to her and rolled my eyes thinking what a bad role model she was being for any child who might happen by on their way to see Santa.

"You're going to get cancer," I told her, and I was really snarky when I did.

"Yeah, well running away never fixed any problems, you know?" She blew out a steady stream of smoke and raised her eyebrows at me briefly. "Better go back and fix things, buddy."

I got chills as she said that and decided it was time to move on. She creeped me out. Besides, I didn't want to smell like cigarette smoke and I was shivering pretty badly. I stood and strolled to my car, but her words hung in the air. I didn't know if it was a sign or just a random stranger who knew my family.

My heart was too broken to go back and fix things, but if I didn't at least get closure, I would never be able to move on. I had to go back.