Free Nash by Jay Crownover Page A

Instead of responding, or trying to stumble my way through a mumbled excuse, I’d rushed
    off the moment the Flight for Life info had come in bearing Phil Donovan’s name. I had seen the
    information on the chart, and I had the single-minded need to find Nash and see what was going on with
    him. I hadn’t exactly turned the doctor down, but whatever draw Nash still had was just more powerful
    than getting to know the handsome doctor better.
    “Come on, Sunny. I don’t really think I’m Bennet’s type and I don’t go out because I don’t really have
    time. I work, and you know how crazy things have been with my mom. I do live a good life.”
    “A good life is not the same thing as a fulfilled life, Saint. If the man is asking you out, then I would say
    you are most definitely his type. You need to buy a new mirror, one that accurately shows you what
    everyone else sees when they look at you. I’ll never understand how you can’t see that you’re pretty much
    every man’s type.”
    I wanted to tell her she was wrong, I did see what everyone else saw, but no amount of spectacular
    cleavage, a nice hourglass figure, or pretty hair could overcome the fact I had a hard time connecting with
    people, that trusting someone enough to let go and lighten up was nearly impossible for me, or the fact that
    trying to make small talk and just act like a typical girl was almost an insurmountable task for me. I was
    always so worried about saying or doing the wrong thing. I was saved from leveling more excuses, more
    justification at her, by my phone going off again. I could practically see my sister’s frustrated face on the
    other end of the call.
    “I have to take this, Sunny, but seriously, thank you for looking out for me.”
    “Sure thing, my friend. Someone has to … you’re too busy caring for everyone else to care for
    yourself.”
    As if to prove her point, as soon as I cleared the sliding glass doors at the entrance of the hospital,
    Faith’s voice rang shrill in my ear.
    “Are you ignoring my calls?”
    Faith and I were close. Since we were only a year apart, we had gone through school together until she
    graduated. Going away to college on the West Coast had been necessary for me, but it had also been hard to
    leave her behind. Now she was married to her college sweetheart. They had four kids under the age of
    seven and were expecting a fifth. She was the primary reason I had come back to Denver even though I
    loved the beach, missed the hospital and staff from my postgrad job in California, and had a really hard
    time returning to the town that reminded me of my younger self every day.
    “No. I had to work late and got caught up talking to my boss on the way out. What’s up?”
    I heard her sigh as one of the kids screamed in the background.
    “Did you talk to Mom this week?”
    Considering my week had been crazy and spent alternately punishing and berating myself over Nash,
    no, my mom has not been on my radar.
    “No. I was busy. Why, did something happen to her?”
    My parents had been married for over thirty years, twenty-five of them happily. At some point, while I
    was gone and Faith was starting a family, my dad had decided that being home alone with my mother was
    no fun. Unbeknownst to any of us, he had started seeing his much-younger dental assistant who worked
    with him at his practice. The marriage had struggled on until my mom couldn’t take the infidelity and insult
    anymore. As a result a seriously contentious and ugly divorce started two years ago. It was drawn out, filled
    with hate and bickering, and had turned my parents not only against each other but practically into strangers
    to Faith and me. That was the other reason I came home. I wanted my mom back.
    My mom wanted us to have nothing to do with my dad. She was angry, irrational, and all her focus had
    been on Faith and the kids. It was driving my sister bananas, and after one too many teary and desperate
    phone calls, I had applied