Heal Me, page 1
Heal Me
The Bridge Street MDs, Book 1
Linda Seed
This is a work of fiction. Any characters, organizations, places, or events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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HEAL ME
Copyright © 2022 by Linda Seed
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This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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Linda Seed may be contacted via e-mail at linda@lindaseed.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LindaSeedAuthor. Learn more about Linda Seed’s novels at www.lindaseed.com.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter One
Shane Brody was acting like an ass, and he knew it, but he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. The harder he tried to dam up his bad mood, the more it seemed to squeeze out around the edges, leaking onto everyone around him. He was a professional, so he managed to maintain a positive tone around his patients.
His brothers were another matter.
“Brittany’s here looking for you,” Rowan, Shane’s younger brother and a pediatrician in the Brody family’s medical practice, called to him from behind the reception desk. “I told her she needs to dump you and try a real man for a change.”
“Sure, but where would she find one?” Shane shot back. “Surely you wouldn’t know.”
Shane had just emerged from an exam room, where he’d been counseling an elderly man about his diet. The guy had diabetes, yet he refused to adopt any lifestyle changes. He was going to kill himself with neglect, and there wasn’t a damned thing Shane could do about it. The devastation to the man’s family, the grief—and all of it preventable. It was just one of the things pissing Shane off right now.
Usually, after a remark like that, Rowan would come right back at him with some cutting comment about Shane’s sexual prowess or his penis size. Instead, he looked at Shane with concern, his brows furrowed.
“Dude, are you okay?”
How could he be okay? It was nearly February eighth. He was never okay on or around February eighth. The fact that his family expected him to be fine mystified him. The fact that all of them seemed like it was just another day confused and hurt him.
Shane scoffed. “What do you think?”
“I think Brittany’s been waiting half an hour, and she doesn’t look happy.”
Shane and Brittany had been dating for a while now. It had gone fine until it hadn’t. He liked her, and she liked him. But when the New Year had come and gone and February had drawn closer and closer, his mood had darkened, and Brittany didn’t understand why. Of course she didn’t—Shane didn’t want to talk about it, with her or with anyone.
He’d known she was about done, so when he went to the waiting room to greet her and saw her grim expression, he knew what was coming.
“Shane, we need to talk.”
“Fine. You want to come back to my office?”
She spun to face him the moment the office door was closed behind them. “Shane, this isn’t working. You know it and I know it. Maybe it’s time we just walked away.”
Brittany paced in front of him on the hardwood floors as Shane leaned his butt against his desk, his arms crossed over his chest.
“If that’s the way you want it,” he said.
“Of course it’s not the way I want it! None of this is the way I want it!”
“Could you lower your voice, please?” he asked. “This is my place of business.”
Brittany stopped and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, let it out, then started again in a voice that was quieter but no less intense. “I don’t want any of this, Shane. But it’s where we are. Unless you want to tell me what’s wrong. If you’d just let me in—”
“I do let you in. You’re in.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
He did know it. He hadn’t let her in about anything real—anything that mattered to him—in the entirety of their relationship. At first, he’d deflected because he didn’t know her well enough to tell her his deepest secrets. Then he’d deflected because it seemed kinder to shield her from all of it. And then, it was just habit.
Now it seemed to him that she was about to abandon him when he needed someone most. That wasn’t fair, but feelings weren’t fair, were they?
He checked his watch. “I have a patient in five minutes.”
“Fine. I’ve said what I needed to say. I’m finished. With this conversation and with our relationship. I hope you and your … your weird, free-floating misery will be very happy together.”
When she turned and left the room, all Shane felt was relief.
Lily Hart had thought her new life in Cambria would be more relaxed and slow-paced than the lifestyle she’d had before, but that hadn’t turned out to be the case.
Before, she’d had only one job. Now she was juggling three: freelance editing, the online newsletter she’d launched to provide local news to a community that had next to none, and, of course, the novel she was writing.
Just because she was technically unemployed, that didn’t mean she wasn’t busy as hell.
She sat at the desk in the corner of her bedroom, her laptop open and a cup of coffee next to her, copyediting a book on essential oils for one of the publishers who regularly sent her freelance projects. The book was a mess, both in terms of organization and the quality of the writing, but Lily told herself to stay in her own lane. Her job was to correct grammar, punctuation, and factual errors, ensure consistency, and impose a coherent style for things like capitalization and hyphen use. Her job wasn’t to ponder the sense in the publisher paying actual money to produce a piece of crap like this in the first place.
In any event, she didn’t have time for the bigger questions. Her deadline was looming, and she’d still barely gotten through the first four chapters.
“Lily?” Her sister, Brittany, knocked softly on her bedroom door.
“Working!” Lily called out.
“Um … oh-oh-okay.” Brittany’s shuddering voice sounded like she was near tears.
Lily got up from her desk and opened the door to find her sister red-eyed and wet-cheeked. She burst into tears, and Lily pulled her sister into her arms. “Oh, Brit. I guess you must have told him, then? I’m so sorry.”
Lily had only lived with Brittany for a few months, and she didn’t know Shane well. What she did know was that he had been friendly, pleasant, and generally lovely—at first. But over the past month or so, he’d grown more and more surly until, finally, Lily had started avoiding him whenever he came to the house.
Brittany had been telling Lily for a while that she was tired of Shane’s sullen moods, but apparently, that hadn’t made it any easier for her to break things off.
“Come on. I’ll make us some tea and you can tell me about it.” Lily, her arm around her sister, ushered Brittany out to the kitchen, sat her on a barstool, and went to put water in the kettle. Lily boiled the water, poured it over tea bags in two mugs, and brought Brittany her drink. Then she sat down on a stool next to Brittany and faced her sister.
“So, what happened? What did he say when you told him you’re done?”
“He said, ‘If that’s what you want.’ Then he said he had a patient in five minutes. Like it was nothing. Like he didn’t even care.”
Lily rubbed her sister’s upper arm in a circular motion she hoped was comforting. “Oh, Brit. I know it hurts. But this relationship was never right for you.”
“I know it wasn’t. But this still sucks.”
<
“You didn’t love him,” Lily said. “Not really.”
“And he didn’t love me,” Brittany said. “I wanted to think he did, but …”
“Well, this is a good thing, then.” Lily smiled and tried to look encouraging. “It means you can move on and find someone who really is right for you.”
“I know.” Brittany nodded and took in a shuddering breath. “God, I wanted it to work. He’s so …”
She didn’t have to finish her sentence. Lily already knew what the so meant. Shane was what? So smart. So accomplished. So wealthy. So damned hot. All of those things were why Lily had a hard time making coherent conversation with him whenever he was around.
They were also the reason Brittany was a mess, even though she really did want out—really did want it to be over.
“Oh … crap.” Lily’s eyes widened. “I’m supposed to interview him and his brothers next week about their practice. Is it okay if I still do that?” A new medical practice in Cambria—which had always had a shortage of doctors—was a big deal. Lily planned to write an article for her newsletter.
Brittany waved her hand in the air. “Of course it is.”
“Are you sure? I’m not being disloyal?”
“The Brodys are doing a good thing with Bridge Street Wellness. That doesn’t change just because Shane is my ex.”
The term ex sent Brittany into a fresh bout of crying, and Lily hugged her and rubbed her back. “It’s going to be okay,” Lily murmured.
“I know. I know.” Brittany pulled away, grabbed a napkin from a holder on the counter, and wiped her eyes. “I know it is. But I’ll tell you what: even if we’re not together anymore, I’m still worried about Shane. I don’t know what’s wrong, but it’s something. And if he won’t tell me, I hope he’ll tell someone.”
Once Brittany had taken her tea into her room to brood over Shane, Lily considered what she knew about him and about Bridge Street Wellness.
The Brodys had come to town several months before, bought a big Victorian house on Bridge Street, and spent considerable time and money renovating the house to turn it into a medical office.
Five brothers, five specialties. But the interesting thing was their payment model: cash only, no insurance accepted. And they claimed never to turn anyone away for lack of ability to pay.
There had been a lot of buzz in town about the Brodys, some of it simply curious and most of it good. Lily’s instincts as a reporter made her want to peel back the layers of the onion to find out what was underneath. Was Shane harboring some kind of secret?
Just because Lily had been laid off from her job at the San Diego Union-Tribune, forcing her to move in with her sister until she found something else, that didn’t mean she was any less of a reporter. It wasn’t the kind of thing that went away just because she didn’t have anyone paying her.
Shane Brody’s personal issues are none of my business.
If he were still dating Brittany, Lily would feel compelled to get to the bottom of things for her sister’s sake. But he wasn’t, so digging around to find out what was going on would just be prying.
I will not pry.
And, okay, it was true that for Lily, that was much like saying I will not breathe or I will not exist. Still, she could at least try to behave herself.
Chapter Two
On the morning of her interview with the Brodys, Lily dressed in a professional-looking pants suit, took time with her hair and makeup, gathered her notebook, pens, camera, and digital recorder, and looked over the list of questions she’d prepared.
It felt good to be going through the routine again as though she were back in San Diego, heading out to research a school board story or an examination of a new city ordinance.
She’d loved reporting. It wasn’t a surprise when she got her layoff notice—how could it be, when journalists all over the country were experiencing the same thing? But it was a shock nonetheless. At first, she hadn’t known who she would become if she couldn’t be a journalist.
Only after a great many tears and phone calls with her sister had she decided to see this change as an opportunity to decide where she wanted to live and how. To try new challenges. To be her own boss. To reinvent her life.
And to finally find someone to build that life with.
The long and unpredictable hours of her newspaper job had made it hard to date anyone, so she hadn’t really tried. And when she did try, she was unbearably awkward with any man she found truly attractive. So she’d just let it slide. And now here she was, well into her thirties and still single.
Time to change that, but first, she had a job to do.
She packed her things into her bag and set off for Bridge Street Wellness.
Shane was in a terrible mood, and he didn’t want to be doing this interview, especially on what was supposed to be his day off. And especially when Brittany’s sister was the one conducting the interview.
But his brothers had insisted, arguing that the practice needed more publicity in the community. So here he was, on a Saturday, when he should have been sleeping in or watching Netflix or walking on the beach, for God’s sake.
“It’s not even a real newspaper,” he grumbled as he and his brothers assembled at the big Victorian on Bridge Street.
“It’s got real subscribers,” Nolan said. “About a thousand of them. Are you too busy to tell a thousand locals about what we do here? Because I’m not.”
“He’s just pissy because Brittany dumped him,” Rowan said.
“That’s not why he’s pissy.” Finn said it in a gentle way that made Shane want to punch him. And Shane was a pacifist.
“No. It isn’t,” Aidan agreed. “Shane, if you’d just talk to someone …”
“I don’t even want to be talking to you,” Shane said. “When’s she getting here? I just want to get this over with.”
The five of them were assembled on the second floor of the building, in the office suite where Finn saw his psychiatric patients. It was homier up here and it looked less like a doctor’s office—the decor was designed to be soothing—so they’d decided to talk to Lily here instead of downstairs.
Finn checked the clock. “She’s still got five minutes.”
“Well, shit.” Shane fidgeted on a leather sofa Finn had chosen from Pottery Barn. Shane knew he wasn’t acting like himself. Hell, he didn’t feel like himself. But he never did this time of year.
“You got somewhere to be?” Rowan got a bottled water out of the refrigerator in the unit’s kitchenette and came to sit down on the opposite side of the sofa from Shane. “I’d ask if you’ve got a date, but what woman in her right mind would want anything to do with you when you’re like this?”
“Rowan.” Finn gave his brother a warning look.
“I’m just saying.”
“Seriously, Ro. It’s not cool to kick a man when he’s just been dumped,” Aidan put in.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Rowan was not the least bit chastened. “All I’m saying is, he wouldn’t have been dumped if he’d just deal with his shit once and for all.”
“Fair point,” Nolan said.
“I’m right here.” Shane waved a hand to demonstrate. “I can hear you.”
