Rescuing Dr. Marian (Made Marian Legacy #1)

by Lucy Lennox

“So you want to settle down and have a family?” His eyes met mine, and I saw a vulnerable kind of yearning in them. “Yes,” he said simply. “Family’s everything to me.” My heart rate kicked up. He seemed as devoted to his as I was to mine. “Same,” I murmured.

“When he touched you,” Ella asked carefully, “how did it feel?” I swallowed hard, remembering the sensation of Foster’s hands on my bare skin, of his lips on mine. While he’d been touching me, it hadn’t occurred to me that it should feel strange because Foster was a man. I’d been too consumed with how right it all felt. “Like waking up,” I admitted quietly. “Like breathing mountain air after years in city smog.”

“Someone who wants kids. Someone who shares my sense of humor. Someone who’s passionate about things but who can also sit quietly with me and just be. Someone who likes The Great British Baking Show but also likes…” I stopped and wondered if my long-standing obsession with Captain America and his spandex suit meant something different than I’d always thought. “Superheroes,” I finished lamely.

“Tommy,” I said blandly, as if I hadn’t tasted the back of his throat last night with the tip of my tongue. “You left out a few details when we were… talking last night. It seems congratulations are in order. Who’s the lucky woman?”

When Foster walked out of the conference room, I wanted to both vomit and sob.

The trick, I realized in that moment, was that in order to fight for something, you had to care about it. Truly care. Care enough to make yourself uncomfortable and vulnerable. Care enough to make yourself known.

“Foster,” I said slowly, my voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t get married.”

Touching him, being with him like this—it hadn’t felt temporary. It had felt like coming home.

Like it was safer not to try than to fail and have someone get hurt.