by Amy Ruttan
Ryan ran over to the woman and Emily followed him.
“Help!” the mother cried as she tried to hold her child. “I don’t know what happened!”
“Has your child had a seizure before?” Emily asked as she peeled off her jacket and folded it, slipping it under the little girl’s head as Ryan helped roll the child on her side.
“No. She was fine and then she just started staring off into space before she collapsed. Are you doctors?” the frantic mother asked.
“Yes,” Ryan said.
Emily watched the little girl go through the shaking, the rigid muscles of the seizure and timed it. She’d seen these types of seizure before, but if someone was unfamiliar with them, they could be scared by them. Tonic clonic seizures were scary.
“Her lips are blue! She’s not breathing.” The mother tried to reach for her child, but Ryan held her back.
“It’s okay,” Emily said calmly. “She’s having a tonic clonic seizure. She has stopped breathing and it’s super-scary, but it’s only for a moment.”
It was a matter of seconds before the little girl began to breathe again and her movements began to lessen, and as the seizure ended Emily could hear the distant wail of an ambulance approaching. The little girl wasn’t responding and Emily frowned.
That wasn’t a good sign. Emily reached down and unbuttoned the child’s shirt as the paramedics came into the bistro with their stretcher.
Ryan stood up and began to tell the paramedics what had happened.
“Where are you planning on taking her?” Emily asked the paramedic.
“Seattle General,” the paramedic answered.
“No, you’re not taking her there. You’re taking her across the road to SMFPC. I’m the head of pediatric surgery and Dr. Gary here is a neurosurgeon. This is our patient,” Emily said firmly.
The paramedic nodded and Ryan helped her to her feet.
“You’re supposed to go home and rest,” Ryan whispered.
Emily shrugged. “This is my patient who just had her first seizure, according to her mother. I’m going to need a neurosurgeon to help me.”
“Fine, but once we have this patient settled I’m going to make sure that you get home and rest.” Ryan left then to pay the bill, while Emily checked on her young patient, who was just starting to come to.
She picked up her jacket off the floor.
“What happened?” the little girl asked.
“You had a seizure,” Emily said.
“Who are you?” the girl asked, confused. Her voice sounded a bit slurred, which was also not a good sign.
“A doctor. You’re going to come to my hospital and I’m going to check out everything before I can let your mom take you home. Is that okay?”
The little girl nodded.
“Thank you,” the mother said. “I’m so glad you were here.”
Emily nodded. “We’ll take good care of her. Dr. Gary and I will see you in a few moments.”
The mother nodded and followed the paramedics out of the bistro.
Emily sighed and rubbed her belly. Her baby was going crazy, her feet ached and there was a part of her that wished she could have a strong espresso too.
You can power through this.
“You ready?” Ryan asked as he slipped on his coat.
Emily nodded. “Let’s go.”
She’d get to sleep eventually, because she was more than ready to put this emotional, long, drawn-out day to bed.
CHAPTER FIVE
RYAN HAD BEEN up for hours. Usually it didn’t bother him, but it had taken him a while to travel from San Diego to Portland to Seattle and he was exhausted. Jason had been stable the last time he’d checked on him in the ICU.
Now his concern was Raquel, the little girl who’d had the tonic clonic seizure in the bistro the previous night. Ryan glanced at the clock. It was one in the morning and he hoped that Emily had made her way back to her home and bed. She needed rest.
Ryan took another sip of his now cold coffee as he waited for the MRI images of Raquel to come up.
There had been no history of epilepsy, but he wasn’t going to rule that out just yet. Still, something bothered him about her seizure. It was the length that it had lasted and the fact it had taken the girl a long time to regain consciousness.
Emily had timed the seizure and it had lasted for more than five minutes.
Please, don’t be a tumor. Please, don’t be a tumor.
The coffee tasted bitter and he wished he could warm it up, but he wasn’t going to leave the MRI room until he had the image.
“The image is loading now, Dr. Gary.”
Ryan leaned over the technician as the scan loaded. And the moment it loaded, Ryan’s heart sank as he saw exactly what he didn’t want to see.
Dammit.
“Can you send those to my email?” Ryan asked the technician.
“Of course, Dr. Gary.”
Ryan nodded and left the MRI lab, letting the nurse take care of Raquel. He wanted to talk to Emily before he talked to Raquel’s mother. Raquel was already under observation, so he would talk to them in the morning. He had to formulate his next steps.
Yes, there was a growth in the little girl’s brain, but that didn’t mean that it was malignant. It could be benign. He had to get a biopsy of the growth and that would determine whether he attempted surgery, or if it was even possible.
This was the worst part of working with children, when they were critically ill and faced the possibility of dying.
That was hard for him.
It made him think of the child he’d never got to hold.
The child that was lost to him.
Ryan stopped and took a deep breath. He couldn’t think about that. Right now, he had to focus on that little girl, who was scared.
He stopped at the main nurses’ station.
“Do you happen to have Dr. Emily West’s phone number? I need to send her a message.”
“She’s still here, Dr. Gary.”
“What?”
“She’s in on-call room four.”
“Thanks.” Ryan cursed under his breath. What was she still doing at the hospital? She was supposed to go home and get some rest. He was annoyed, but not really surprised. Surgeons liked to push themselves and a pregnant surgeon was no different.
A doctor or a surgeon would tell their patient to take it easy but wouldn’t always listen to their own cues to take a break. How many times had he gone without sleep or food because of a patient? He couldn’t let Emily put that kind of strain on her body.
He knocked gently on the on-call room’s door, but there was no answer. He turned the knob slowly and peeked inside the darkened room. In the light from the open door he could see her curled up on her side, sleeping peacefully.
All the annoyance that he was feeling toward her for not going home to rest melted away as he watched her sleeping peacefully in the dark. He walked over to her and knelt down beside her. She was really beautiful, stubborn, smart. There was so much he liked about her.
It was why he’d been so drawn to her the first time he’d met her.
He reached out and gently touched her round belly. There was a tiny movement under his palm and his heart skipped a beat. He felt a rush of emotion. What made him think that he could be a father? He couldn’t be a father. It was better that he just sign the divorce papers and let it go.
He’d been hurt when Morgan had terminated her pregnancy eight years ago. She hadn’t wanted to be a mother and she hadn’t believed he had what it took to be a father because he had never been around. She’d respected his career and Morgan had wanted a career more than family. Perhaps Morgan was right. He loved his career over everything. He didn’t know how to be a father because he hadn’t had one to learn from.
Get a hold of yourself.
&n
bsp; She moaned in her sleep and he took his hand back.
Ryan stood up and moved away. He didn’t want her to wake up and see him hovering over her in the dark.
He knocked on the open door and she stirred, opening her eyes.
“Ryan?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I thought you’d gone home.”
Emily sat up and rubbed her eyes. “I was going to, but I was worried about Raquel.”
Ryan sighed. “There’s a mass in her brain. I won’t know until I do a biopsy.”
Emily’s face fell. “Oh, how awful.”
“I’m letting them rest tonight and I’ll do the biopsy tomorrow.”
Emily glanced at the alarm clock on the table. “It is tomorrow.”
“Okay, then later today,” Ryan joked.
“After the mother of the conjoined twins arrives. We need to meet with Dr. Samuel, the OB/GYN on the case, in an online session with Dr. Ruchi to talk about when the babies will be delivered and how we’ll proceed.”
Ryan nodded. “I understand that and in order to do that you need to go home and get some rest.”
Her shoulders drooped. “I can sleep here. It’s fine.”
Ryan shook his head. “You’ll be more comfortable in your own bed. Let me take you home and we can discuss Raquel’s case on the way.”
She opened her mouth like she was going to argue with him, but then let out another exhausted sigh. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he asked in shock. “You’re actually agreeing with me?”
She gave him a look like he was crazy. “Don’t make me change my mind.”
He chuckled. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”
Ryan grabbed her coat and his. They left the hospital together. It was drizzling and damp, completely different from San Diego, where he’d returned to after his spell in the Middle East, and also completely different from Wyoming.
Wyoming was cold and dry. At least where he’d lived, where there were vast open spaces and buttes from the badlands. It was like Mother Nature had scoured everything good away to the harsh, cold rock beneath. Growing up, he’d always felt lonely there.
Because you were lonely.
He shook that thought away. Right now, he didn’t want to think about his mother. But, then again, he never wanted to think about his mother.
“My car is over here.”
“Do you want me to drive?” he asked.
Emily cocked an eyebrow. “Do you know where I live?”
“Good point.” He opened her door and then went around to the passenger side.
“I don’t live far and I really need to be back at the hospital for nine.”
“I want to be back for rounds at seven,” Ryan said. “I’ll just take a taxi back to the hospital once I make sure that you’re settled in for the night. It’s been a long day.”
Emily nodded. “That I can agree with.”
Emily was right, it wasn’t a long drive to her apartment. Ryan followed her inside and made sure she got up to her apartment. It was late at night and there was no doorman at her apartment complex.
She opened the door and flicked on the lights. Her apartment was sparse, like she was barely home, but it had beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the Space Needle and the sound.
“This is a great place.”
“Yeah, it’s okay. It’s just an apartment.” She took off her coat. “You wanted to talk about Raquel?”
Ryan nodded as he shut the door and locked it. “I did.”
Emily sat down on the couch and he took a seat in the chair next to the couch. “The MRI showed a tumor pressing on the occipital lobe.”
“So it could be a meningioma?” Emily asked. “That is the most common in a primary brain tumor.”
“I’m hoping that’s what it is. Something that I could easily handle.” Ryan scrubbed a hand over his face. “I won’t know until I get in there and do a biopsy. I hate having to biopsies on kids.”
Emily’s expression softened. “It’s not one of my favorite parts of the job.”
“No.” He leaned back in the chair. “I would like you in there while I do the biopsy.”
“Do you really need me in there?” she asked. “A resident could easily assist you.”
He gazed at her. “I don’t trust anyone else. I trust you.”
The admission caught her off guard.
He trusted her?
How could he trust her? He didn’t even know her. Except for that one night and today together, they knew nothing about each other, and you couldn’t form a bond of trust that fast.
“Ryan, you don’t even know me.”
“I know how you work in an operating room,” he said quickly. “That’s why.”
She let out an inward sigh of relief. So that’s what he’d meant and she could respect that. “You’ll never learn how the other surgeons work in your operating room if you don’t work with them. We have some of the best and most dedicated residents and fellows in our teaching program. If you trust me, you’ll believe me that they’re worth their salt and it would mean so much to our teaching program if they could assist Dr. Ryan Gary in a procedure.”
A smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
She knew how to stroke an ego. Another social cue she’d learned well. It had gotten her far in her career.
“You’re just buttering me up. I know your modus operandi.”
Emily chuckled softly. “Well, it’s the truth. Besides, we’re going to need a large team to do this conjoined twin separation and there are going to be a lot of moving pieces in this surgery. It’s best you start working with my staff, with my residents.”
“You have a point.”
“I know I do,” she replied saucily.
He shook his head. “So, are you ever going to go to bed? It’s past one in the morning.”
“You’re right. You’d better call your cab.”
“If you don’t mind, I might crash for a couple of minutes on your couch.”
Emily glanced at the couch. “It’s not that comfortable. It’s pretty old.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“Okay, then sure. Just wake me before you go to catch the first set of rounds. I want to get up and start the day too.”
Ryan nodded. “I promise.”
“I’ll get you a blanket and a pillow.”
Ryan peeled off his coat and kicked off his shoes as he settled down on her old couch. “Thanks.”
Emily walked down the hall to the linen closet and pulled out an extra blanket and pillow. By the time she got back to the living room Ryan was flat on his back and fast asleep. She couldn’t help but smile as she watched him sleep.
If someone had told her a couple of days ago that her one-night stand and father of her baby would be crashing on her couch and she was actually letting him do that, she would’ve thought that person was crazy.
Maybe I am crazy.
She shook her head and then set the pillow down on the chair. She unfolded the blanket and gently laid it over him. It had been a long, emotional day.
The day hadn’t been boring. It had been a whirlwind. Just like that night in Vegas that they’d spent together.
She sighed and then left the living room. She needed to get some sleep if she was going to wake up by the first rounds of the morning, and tomorrow was going to be a long, long day.
* * *
Ryan heard crying.
It startled him and he woke up.
Where am I?
He sat up and could see the sky just starting to grow light. It was reflected in the windows of the city and the Space Needle still had its lights flashing. Then he remembered that he was in Seattle and that he was in Emily’s apartment.
He heard the cry again and he got up, looking for Emily.
Oh, God. Please don’t be the baby.
His first thought was that she’d pushed it too far and that he’d have to rush her to the hospital, but when he found her she was curled up on one side and sleeping. She was dreaming.
Ryan let out a sigh of relief and scrubbed a hand over his face. He glanced at her alarm clock and saw that it was five-thirty in the morning. The first set of rounds at SMFPC started promptly at seven.
At least she was close to the hospital. He wanted to let her sleep because he was planning to leave, but she’d made him promise to wake her when he was going to leave.
He crept over to the bed and knelt down, gently touching her.
“Emily?”
“Nope,” she snarled, and rolled over, continuing to snore loudly into her pillow.
A smile quirked his mouth. “Emily? You wanted to know when I was going to leave.”
“Shut up,” she mumbled into her pillow.
He laughed. She was feisty in her sleep. He liked that.
“Emily?”
“Just get into bed and shut up!” she snapped, sitting up with her eyes wide open, before she lay back down.
Ryan shrugged and climbed into the bed next to her. He’d give her a few more minutes and then he would try and wake her up again. Her bed was really comfortable and as he sank down next to her she snuggled up against him.
She was so warm and his eyelids were getting awfully heavy.
Stay awake. Stay awake.
Ryan tried to keep himself awake by thinking about the biopsy, about the conjoined twin case and about Jason. He thought about the job offer that was waiting for him in San Diego, the one that he was stalling on taking because he really didn’t want to settle down anywhere.
Except that wasn’t working. All he could think about in this moment was that Emily was beside him and how warm she was.
Stay awake.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and yawned quietly into his fist. His body ached from sleeping on her horrible couch and he was worn out from constantly moving around. Maybe it would be good to settle down and he was annoyed that he was thinking about that.