“For pity’s sake, Elizabeth Jane,” Karen said sharply. “I want to slap you! Jess didn’t plan this as a piece of one-upmanship over you.”

“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Libby muttered.

Karen stood up. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this. I don’t like you when you’re like this. I don’t even know who you are anymore! Jess deserves to die with dignity. I’m going to talk to Alice and your father about how we can bring her home and give her that. If you wish to be involved then come to dinner tonight.”

“I’ll be there,” Nick said.

“Thank you.”

When Karen left the office, Libby wheeled on him. “You don’t owe that woman anything!”

“I owe her exactly what I owe any fellow human being: empathy, compassion and kindness. I have to live with myself when she’s gone and I regret enough already without adding more to the pile. When Leo’s older, I want to be able to look him in the eye. How can I do that if I let his mother die alone?”

“She won’t be alone,” Libby snapped. “She’ll be well cared for.”

His face filled with pitying sadness. “You might have forgotten the times you’ve cried when patients died with just you and Penny by their sides, but I haven’t. We owe Jess this.”

“We don’t. She’s not even family.”

“You considered her family for a long time and Leo has made it real. I know she’s not our favorite person, but I can’t in good conscience walk away from her now. Not when I know she has no one else to turn to.”

This was the honorable man she’d fallen in love with. The man who’d admitted his mistakes, worked hard to re-establish his integrity and, in the process, won her back. But right now, she didn’t want honorable. She wanted someone in her corner, someone to see things from her point of view. More than anything, she wanted someone to understand.

Why did she have to forgive when she was the one who’d been hurt the most?

Duty, heartbreak and self-righteous protection knotted like fishing line. “If she asks for my help to die at home, I won’t refuse her.”

“Can you live with that if she doesn’t ask?”

“I’m going to be living with the evidence of what she did to me for the rest of my life.”

Nick grimaced. “That’s not what I asked.”

“I know.”

But Libby didn’t have an answer to his question.

Chapter Twenty-Four

November