Page 142 of Family Bonds- Gabriela & Luca

His thumb ran across her face on his phone. “I met someone. I know you’d really like her. Hell, you’d love her. She makes me laugh so hard.”

He knuckled a tear away. “I know you want me to be happy, Zoe. I was.” He shook his head. “No. I am. I can be again. I’m not giving up on hope. I just can’t. I hope you understand. And know how much I loved you, but it’s time I moved on.”

He kissed the picture of his wife, closed his phone and set it down, then shed another round of tears, knowing that it was a step that he needed to take.

One he never had before, and it was long overdue.

He had Gabriela now.

He’d make sure she knew it too.

41

HAD TO WAIT

“Gabriela,” Kate said before lunch. “You’ve got a call. I said you were with a patient, but she said she’d wait, hoping you’d be going to lunch soon.”

“Can you get a name and number and I’ll call them back? I don’t want someone to wait. I don’t know how long I’ll be with my next patient.”

Shouldn’t be too long. Just a college physical. It warmed her heart when she had them.

It wasn’t only the babies and cuddles that she looked forward to.

Sometimes it was the youth taking a leap into the world.

“I’ll get the information and text it to you,” Kate said. “I’ll make sure that she knows you requested it and will call right back.”

“Thanks,” she said, her hand going to her mouth to cover her yawn. It was going to be a long day and her lunch plan was a massive Diet Coke chased with the yogurt and handful of cookies she shoved in her bag before she left.

Sugar and caffeine.

“Philip,” she said, moving into the room.

“Hi, Dr. Gabriela.”

“How can you be going to college?” she asked, shaking her head in wonder, a grin on her face.

“Tell me about it,” Philip’s mother said. “My last baby is leaving the nest. He’s going early and starting with summer courses.”

She kept her smile in place. “You just want to get out and spread your wings.” She pulled up the release on her computer to fill out as she went. “Where are you going?”

“Clemson. My cousin is there. I’m going to live with him this summer and take two classes before I move into the dorms.”

“Sounds like a great plan to get a head start,” she said.

Philip’s mother clucked her tongue. “More like a head start to party, but my son says otherwise.”

She winked at Philip, went through the exam and sent them both on their way.

Back in her office, she pulled her phone out and saw the text to call Martha Brewer.

She was fumbling with her phone as she hit the blue link in the text.

Oh God, did something happen to Luca?

Why else would his mother be calling her?

“Gabriela?”