Dr. Brown flashed a partial smile and clicked into the images.

Matt moved closer and reached for her left hand.

“It doesn’t look like you took on any damage from today. Outside of the cut and what I’m sure will be a decent headache for a couple days. Soft tissue injury to your wrist that will feel better with an ace wrap and an anti-inflammatory.”

Erin felt a but coming. “So, I’m fine, then.”

Dr. Brown scanned through several pictures until he had one of the bone structures of her face. He started pointing. “When I asked about this car accident, you didn’t tell me about your other facial fractures. Left orbital and your nose. I’m guessing these happened at a different time, yes?”

Matt leaned forward as if trying to see what the doctor was seeing.

Erin didn’t need to look. Maybe she should have had Matt leave the room. “Yes. I didn’t mention it because those had happened long before the car accident.” She felt Matt squeeze her hand.

“Old arm fracture?” He pointed to the picture on the screen where bone had grown in a bump.

Dr. Brown looked at her in silence when she didn’t add more.

“I’ve been accident-prone.”

“The two most likely ‘accidents’ that cause facial fractures are vehicles and fists. Was there a second car accident?”

He closed the laptop and took a deep breath. She’d seen the look on several doctors’ faces in the past. Unlike any other time, when Dr. Brown shifted his eyes to Matt, Erin immediately understood the conclusion he was jumping toward.

“They’re old fractures, Dr. Brown. I got rid of my problem car long before I moved to this city and met anyone here.”

Matt closed her hand in both of his. She could feel him physically shaking.

“Glad to hear that. You need to follow up with your primary doctor in five to seven days to take the sutures out.” He turned to Matt. “If she has any neuro symptoms, vomiting, dizzy and lethargic . . . anything, I want you to get her back here,” he told Matt.

“You got it.”

“You know your way around an engine of a car, don’t you, Matt?”

Matt let her go long enough to stand. “You bet I do.”

“Good.” Dr. Brown looked at her, his eyes filled with compassion. “You said you’re new here. Do you have a doctor in town?”

“No.”

“We will give you a couple referrals.”

She smiled, accepted his hand when he reached out to shake hers. “Thank you.”

“Lisa will come in with your discharge papers. Matt, can I talk to you outside?”

Erin released a long breath while Matt and the doctor left the room.

She hung her head and closed her eyes. Matt heard too much, learned too much.

The nurse walked in and went through the motions of closing the glass door that shut off the sounds from outside the room. “You okay?” she asked.

Erin faked a well-practiced smile. “I’m fine.”

Lisa sat down beside her with a handful of paperwork. She repeated what the doctor had told her about following up and precautions. In addition to names of clinical physicians, the nurse handed her a list of local therapists and abuse centers. “Dr. Brown thought you might want these.”

She wanted to cry.

How many times had someone handed her a packet of information, or slipped her a phone number of someone who could help? How many times? Each time they’d pulled Desmond away and each time he smiled for the doctor, expressed concern for her misfortune, and then walked her out of the doctor’s office, clinic, or hospital only to take the paperwork away from her and burn it while she was forced to watch.

She blinked away tears that threatened.

Erin handed the hotline information back and kept the list of therapists. “I no longer need this,” she told the nurse. “But it might help that I talk to someone.”

It was as if the nurse was holding her breath. “Good, cuz I really don’t want to hate on your boyfriend.”

“Oh, no . . . Matt’s not . . . he didn’t.” This wasn’t good. “Please don’t think that for a second—”

Lisa lifted her hand in the air. “It’s okay. He seems like he cares, but you can’t always tell.”

For the next five minutes Erin did everything in her power to repeal any judgment on Matt. Ten minutes later they were back in his truck with the air conditioner blasting. It was only May, but the Santa Clarita Valley was pushing triple digits, and even if it wasn’t hot outside, the temperature in the truck was unbearable.

Matt sat behind the wheel; both his hands gripped the thing as if he were choking the air out of an enemy.

She owed him an explanation. “Did you have plans today?” she asked.

He tried to smile, but it was strangled at best. “I was going to surprise this girl I’m trying to date and see if she might like to take a hike with me. But that plan changed.”

So that was what he was doing at her house long before lunch.

“How about a walk on the beach? It will be cooler there and the doctor said to avoid anything strenuous.”

He reached across the seat and grasped her hand. Somehow hand-holding was becoming a norm with him. And Erin had to admit she liked it.

Matt looked over his shoulder and put the car in reverse. A few miles from the hospital they jumped on the freeway.

Erin took a deep breath. “I owe you an explanation.”

He pushed his lips together. “Much as I don’t want to stop the flow of what I hope is information, I’m going to ask that you wait until we see the coast. Because if you’re going to say what I think you’re going to say, I don’t want to be driving when I hear it. I won’t live with myself if we’re in an accident when I’m behind the wheel.”

There was no way to stop the tears behind her eyes. “Okay.”

He switched lanes and turned onto the highway that would take them to Ventura. Only then did he place his hand over hers, pick it up, and kiss the back of it.

There were plenty of places along the shore in Ventura where a couple could walk on the beach, swim in the ocean, or sit on a stone wall under the shade of a palm tree. That was where Matt took them. With the Pacific in front of them, and the temperature a good twenty degrees lower than it was at home, he occupied the space beside Erin and waited for her to talk.

After ten minutes of staring at the ocean, Matt was starting to believe that Erin wasn’t going to tell him anything.

“Would it make it easier if I told you what I’ve already figured out?” he asked.

Like a guppy, she opened and closed her mouth several times. Finally she placed both of her hands alongside her and locked her elbows straight. “The problem is I’m not supposed to tell anyone anything ever.”

“Is that what he told you?”

She blinked. “Yes. But that’s not why I’m silent. Not anymore.”

“Someone hurt you,” he started for her.

Slowly, she nodded. “You can’t tell anyone. Not your brother, your parents. No one, Matt. And if there’s a detail I can’t deliver, you just have to let it be. Okay?”

She fidgeted and then settled herself. “We met when I was an intern. My senior year of college.”