Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 230

Chapter 230 Up a Tree

Cordelia let the sentence hang there.

Finished

Nora just looked at her and waited. When nothing else came, she asked on purpose, “Otherwise what? If you don’t spell it out, Dr. Blithe, I won’t understand.”

Cordelia glared at her viciously. “Otherwise, I’ll stop treating him. For the sake of his health, you should step aside and leave. If you won’t, then you don’t really love him, and you don’t deserve him.”

Nora laughed out loud. “You really are the famous miracle healer, Dr. Blithe. You’re using a man’s life to threaten me into a divorce.

“And you’re good at gaslighting too. You tell me I don’t really love him, that I don’t deserve him. So what.

Nora paused and looked Cordelia over like a queen sizing up à peasant. “You think a dying old woman covered in age spots, who smells like a nursing home, is the one who deserves him?”

“You! That’s disgusting!” Cordelia raised her hand in a fury and swung at Nora’s face.

Nora was quicker. She caught Cordelia by the wrist and stared at her coldly. “Cordelia Blithe, you’re an old woman. The only reason I won’t hit you is that you’d fake an injury and sue me.

“But I’m warning you. Don’t you dare use his treatment to threaten me. Whatever you can treat, I can treat too! And whatever you can’t, I can!

“Other people might believe you’re the Snowbell Healer, but I don’t. Who knows how you really got that title? You’re so guilty about it that you won’t even use it!

“And stop watching me and coming after me all the time. It makes you look like a creep. At your age, trying to be the other woman in my marriage to Julian? It’s disgusting!

“Go tell Olivia that if she really wants Julian, she can come be the other woman herself! And tell her to stop sending her grandma to do her dirty work. You’re only embarrassing yourself!”

Gideon came out and saw Nora gripping Cordelia’s wrist like she was about to hit her. He rushed over and shouted, “Nora, let go of her! What are you doing? Are you trying to hit my mentor?”

A few people standing by the door heard him and craned their necks to look.

Nora flung Cordelia’s hand away and looked coldly at Gideon. “Her hand cramped up. I was just massaging it for her.”

She smiled at Cordelia, who had stumbled back a couple of steps. “Right, Dr. Blithe?”

Gideon steadied Cordelia. “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.

Cordelia looked at Nora, so beautiful and so arrogant, and forced a smile. “I’m fine. Nora and I were just having a little chat.”

Nora looked down at her hand and frowned, not even trying to hide her disgust. “My hand’s dirty now. I’m going to go wash it.”

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09:23 Tue, Oct 6 MT

Chapter 230 Up a Tree

Finished

It was the hand she’d grabbed Cordelia’s wrist with. Nora’s disgust was so obvious that Cordelia looked sourer than week-old milk.

Gideon watched Nora walk away, then turned to Cordelia, who looked grim. “Dr. Blithe, what happened between you two?”

Things had been so tense just now that he’d honestly been afraid Nora would slap Cordelia to the floor!

Nora had made her angry enough to scream, and Cordelia took a moment to pull herself together. Then, she looked up with a kind smile. “We were just talking. Her hair was a little messy, so I tried to fix it for hey, but she said I smell like an old lady and wouldn’t let me touch her.

“It’s fine. It’s no big deal. Let’s go back in.”

Gideon was outraged. “Nora’s gone too far. Doesn’t she have any grandparents? How can she treat you like that?

“You were young once too. You got old giving everything you had to your patients. She might not even live long enough to get old.”

Everyone was young once, but not everyone got the chance to grow old.

But a war of words could no longer satisfy Cordelia’s fury toward Nora.

Inside, she was seething with cold, vicious intent, but on the outside, her smile only got warmer. “She didn’t grow up with the Sinclairs. She had no father to raise her and no mother to keep her in line, so she just says whatever she thinks. It’s no big deal. Don’t get upset with her.”

That didn’t calm Gideon down at all. It only made him angrier. “You’re too forgiving.”

If Nora had heard what Cordelia just said about her parents, she wouldn’t have cared if one slap killed Cordelia. She’d have hit her hard enough to knock out every last one of her teeth.

*****

Nora went to the nearest restroom to wash her hands, but it had an out-of-order sign on the door, so she walked a little farther to find another one. It gave her a chance to get some air on the way.

After washing her hands, she came out onto a shady path lined with tall oak trees.

“Don’t be scared, sweetie. Hold still, okay?” someone said, and a kitten let out a shrill mew.

Nora heard leaves rustling overhead, and a few of them drifted down onto her. She frowned and looked up toward the sound.

About 10 feet up, a fluffy little white kitten was dangling from the tip of a branch.

And at the other end of that branch, a silver-haired old woman in a khaki top and black pants was lying flat on her stomach, inching her way toward the kitten! It was Augusta, though Nora had no way of knowing that.

For a second, Nora thought she was hallucinating. A woman in her seventies or eighties had climbed 10 feet up a tree and was crawling out along a branch thinner than her own arm.

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