Sweet Salvation Read Free Page A

have created the most perfect walking wet dream, only to plant her on the earth over eight hundred miles away—might as well be fucking Timbuktu. He swore again softly, as his phone rang yet again, no longer to be ignored.
    Thumbing the screen, he barked at the unlucky caller on the other end. “Dr. Trent is on call, so this better be good.”
    Silence.
    “Hello?” Jared asked.
    “Rough day at the office, sweetheart?”
    “Fuck you, Trent.”
    The laughing voice on the other end belonged to his partner, Marcus Trent, and was annoyingly energetic considering Marc had already performed three surgeries that day.
    “You want to meet for dinner? I’ve got two more consults but I’m starved.”
    “I was just heading for the gym.”
    “You gotta eat.”
    “Yes, Mom,” he said with a long, drawn-out sigh. “It will have to be casual, though. I’ve already changed.”
    “How about the deli on Telegraph and Square Lake?”
    “I’ll be there in ten.”
    “Everything okay, bud? You sound distracted.”
    “I saw the most unbelievable woman just now.”
    “Hot damn, did you get her number?”
    “Yeah, but it was printed on Georgia plates.”
    “Shit luck, bud. You can tell me all about it over dinner. Trent out.”
    What a goofball , Jared thought, shaking his head as he thumbed off the phone and slammed the tailgate shut. At least he didn’t say ‘peace out’ anymore. His best friend since grade school, Marc was like a brother to him. They’d grown up together, gone through the trauma of puberty and high school together and played football; Jared’s tight end to Marc’s middle linebacker. After graduation, they headed off to Ann Arbor where they were roommates, chose the same major, and pledged at the same fraternity.
    Afterward, it was off to New York and Columbia where they attended medical school and completed their residencies. Except for the year they’d done their orthopedic surgical fellowships on opposite ends of the country, they’d been inseparable. Now, they were back home in West Bloomfield Hills and living out their dream of a thriving private practice together. Life was good, he thought as an image of sapphire blue eyes and a belly ring flashed in his mind, but it could definitely be better.
     
    * * *
     
    Watching the traffic flowing briskly on busy Telegraph Rd., Marc didn’t notice the waitress refilling his coffee cup.
    “Ready to order, hon?”
    He looked up in surprise. Lillian’s peeling and battered nametag had seen better days, and by the look of the bearer, so had she. To tell the truth, the poor woman looked dead on her feet, the same way he felt after a twelve-hour day in surgery. They had that in common, the only difference about $500,000 per year. He smiled kindly at her, taking in her frazzled appearance, the hair that had long since slipped from the bun that had most likely been neat and together when she started her day and the stained and wrinkled uniform which had been clean and neatly pressed at one time, he was sure. Judging her to be in her early fifties, he could see she still had a nice figure and her thick auburn hair was sprinkled with only a few grays. Her sky blue eyes, probably clear and bright in her youth, were dull and sad. He could tell that she had once been stunning, but that life hadn’t been easy for her. He wondered what she was like when she wasn’t bogged down with the stress of serving a diner full of demanding customers.
    “Long day?” Marc asked sympathetically.
    “Pulling a double, but that’s par for the course around here. The tips are good and with the hospital right around the corner, we get a lot of handsome young doctors like you, so who’s complaining.”
    Marc smiled graciously at the compliment.
    “My daughter just hired on at St. Joe’s. She’s a registered nurse. You might know her.”
    “Yeah? Is she as pretty as her mother? If so, I’ll need her name and number stat.”
    Lillian blushed, smiling at the unexpected