by Amy Ruttan
His body was like lead and it felt like he was sinking into her mattress. He really should get up and leave. He should find a coffee cart and order a triple shot of espresso.
Come on. Stay awake.
Only he couldn’t and he prayed that he didn’t give Emily a complete fright when she woke up next to him in about an hour.
CHAPTER SIX
EMILY WOKE WHEN her alarm went off. It was six thirty and rounding would start soon. She thought that Ryan would’ve woken her.
When she rolled over she was startled when she saw that Ryan was lying on top of her duvet and fast asleep.
How had he got in here? And, more importantly, when had he got here?
“Ryan,” she said, shaking him. “Wake up, you’re going to be late for rounds.”
“What?” Ryan sat bolt upright and rubbed his eyes. “Oh, my God, I fell asleep.”
“Yeah, I was meaning to ask you how it came to be that you’re in my bed,” she said incredulously.
“You invited me,” he said, stifling a yawn, before he shimmied to the edge of the bed.
“Pardon?” she asked, not really hearing him. “I invited you?”
He nodded. “You did.”
“I don’t remember that at all. The last thing I remember was that you were passed out on my couch, sound asleep, and I went to bed. Alone.”
“Yes, but then I heard you crying.”
“I wasn’t crying,” she said indignantly.
“You were crying in your sleep. I tried to wake you to tell you that I was leaving but you told me to shut up repeatedly. You also said no several times and then you told me to get into bed with you. You sat right up, looked me in the eye and told me to get into bed with you. Who was I to argue?”
There was a smug grin on his face and she groaned.
“I don’t remember any of that at all.”
She’d had the propensity for night terrors and talking in her sleep when she’d been younger, but as far as she knew she hadn’t done it in a while. She only used to do it when she’d been really stressed out.
When she’d been completely overloaded by the rest of the world. When interaction with people and stressful situations had been too much for her Asperger’s, the night terrors had always come. Robert had hated the night terrors. He would complain bitterly about them.
Emily buried her head in her arms. “Ugh. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” His statement caught her off guard. It made her relax. No one had ever said she didn’t have to apologize when she was feeling overloaded and overwhelmed. It was nice to feel accepted.
“Besides, your bed is very comfortable and I was exhausted.”
Emily chuckled. She knew he got up when the weight on the mattress shifted. She looked up to see him pulling on his coat, which he’d left at the foot of the bed, obviously when he’d come to tell her he was leaving and her unconscious self had told him to get into bed!
“If you give me ten minutes I can be ready and we can head to the hospital together. I’m sorry for making you late for rounds by demanding you sleep with me.” It was a subtle attempt at a joke.
He smiled at her. “It’s okay. Take your time. I’m going to call a cab and get to the hospital so that I can talk to Raquel’s mother and have a resident assist me in Raquel’s biopsy.”
Emily felt a sense of relief and sank back against her pillows, but still sitting upright. “Thank you for taking my talk about teaching our residents so seriously.”
“So, who would you recommend?”
“Dr. Sharipova, and he should be there already. He’s probably read Raquel’s chart and familiarized himself with it.”
Ryan nodded. “He’s eager. I do like that.”
“Let him lead. Dr. Teal is one of his interns and Dr. Sharipova has seniority over her.”
“I will. I don’t want to step on any toes. It’s been some time since I worked in a teaching hospital.”
“It’s okay. You’re forgiven” she teased. “You’d better go or traffic will make you late.”
Ryan nodded. “I’ll see you later?”
“Yes. I’ll have you paged when the patient from Portland is coming in.”
“Okay.” Ryan hesitated for a moment, like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. He just ducked his head. “See you.”
Emily craned her neck and watched him as he pulled on his shoes and left her bedroom. Then she heard the door being unlocked, opened and shut again.
She leaned back against the pillows and closed her eyes. She was annoyed that she’d asked him to sleep with her, but it explained why she’d slept so well. It had been months since she’d slept so deeply. It felt really good to get a really deep sleep, even if it was of a short duration.
You can’t let him in.
And she had to keep reminding herself of that. She couldn’t let him in. The last time she’d let someone in, she’d been so hurt.
“What do you mean, you got the lead attending position in Seattle?” Robert demanded. “How could someone like you get it?”
His words were like a slap in the face. “What do you mean, someone like me?”
“On the spectrum.”
She ignored his hateful words. He was angry. He often used it against her when he was stressed and angry. He took advantage of the fact that she struggled to read social cues. Besides, when she’d found out he was cheating on her too she knew she had to get away from this toxic environment, which was why she’d applied for the job.
“I applied for it and Dr. Ruchi recommended me...”
“Oh, of course Dr. Ruchi would recommend you. She hates me. You remember how she treated me when we were interns. She threw her recommendation away on someone who barely passed the surgical boards!”
His hateful words had crushed her heart and her spirit. She had been so depressed and it had been Dr. Ruchi who had talked sense into her and brought her out of her slump. Ana had put her on the right path to focus on her career.
It was the kick in the butt that she had needed.
She’d managed to keep her head together for five years, until she’d met Ryan.
And he’d been in Seattle for less than twenty-four hours and he’d already been in her bed again. What was it about him? Why did she have such a weakness for him?
The baby moved and Emily couldn’t help but smile and touch her belly.
“It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the one messing with the rational side of my brain.” It was a joke.
The baby poked at her and she laughed softly to herself. She knew why she had a weakness for Ryan. He was confident in everything he did. He was comfortable in his own skin. He was strong and sure of himself. He was smart and passionate about his career and he seemed to care. Robert had never cared and she was angry at herself for not seeing it earlier.
She had to get up, have a shower and get something to eat. Today was going to be a long day and she wanted to be fighting ready when the mother of the conjoined twins arrived. She wanted to be able to assure her patient that they had a plan in place to take care of her babies when they were born.
The problem was, she didn’t have a plan in place and she needed to talk to Dr. Samuel and put a plan in place, because the first step was making sure that both of the babies survived their birth and were stable and stronger before she even attempted to separate them.
She didn’t have time to think about Ryan or the fact that he’d been in her bed.
Or the fact that she was glad he’d been there.
* * *
Ryan drank down his second triple espresso. His hand was shaking and he was trying to regain control over his emotions. He hated it when kids cried.
He hated it when anyone cried.
It reminded him of his father and how his father would always lay into him when he cried, which
was why he tried not to do it.
His mother had also used to tell him that it had been his crying as a child that had caused his father to leave. It hadn’t just been him crying. His dad hadn’t wanted to ranch, and his mother had. It was just like him not wanting to stay on the land either.
“Fine,” his mother had snapped when she’d learned about his acceptance at Harvard. “Leave, but don’t come back!”
It had hurt him, but he’d listened to her.
So he hated seeing a kid so hurt or scared that they cried. He was worried that something bad would happen to them, though he knew that wasn’t the case.
Parents usually weren’t like that, but it was just a deep-rooted reaction he was still trying hard to get rid of.
Raquel had every right to be terrified.
He was going to have to do a stereotactic brain biopsy, which meant taking tissue out of her head, which meant an operation. Any child would be terrified. At least he’d been able to assure her that she’d be asleep.
That had eased her fears.
Still, her crying and his lack of sleep had set his nerves on edge and he needed to find a quiet place to calm down and think. He also needed another espresso.
He finished his coffee and threw the paper cup in the garbage.
“Dr. Gary, I have the operating room ready.”
Ryan looked over to see Dr. Sharipova standing beside him.
“Good, and has the patient been prepped?” Ryan asked.
“My intern, Dr. Teal, is doing that now.”
“Good. I’ll go up and see them right now.” Ryan headed toward the pediatric inpatient ward. It was the ward at SMFPC that was used to house the kids who were waiting. Waiting for test results, waiting for general surgery, waiting for answers.
It would take some time to test Raquel’s biopsy and he hoped that he didn’t have to move Raquel to the cancer ward. He never liked having to diagnose cancer.
Raquel looked terrified and Dr. Teal had finished prepping her for surgery. Ryan had promised that Raquel would get an IV only after she went to sleep, and it was standard procedure for SMFPC, as was parental presence at induction.
“How are we doing?” Ryan asked, mustering the best smile that he could for the frightened little girl.
Raquel just shook her head and wouldn’t look at him.
“Dr. Teal, would you give us a moment?” Ryan asked.
“Of course, Dr. Gary.” Dr. Teal left the room.
“What’s up?” Ryan asked. “You know that you can ask me anything.”
“I don’t want you to shave my head,” Raquel whispered.
“That’s it?” Ryan asked.
Raquel nodded. “Dr. Teal said you’d have to shave my head.”
“Only a small part, just so I can do the biopsy. Very small.”
Raquel stared at him, her dark brown eyes questioning, and he could tell that she didn’t quite believe him.
“The needle is small, very small, and I just need to make a tiny little incision and a tiny little hole in your skull to sneak out my sample. I promise you, you won’t have a bald patch, but I do need to put in some stitches.”
“See, baby? It’s okay,” Raquel’s mother said gently.
“Okay, just don’t shave my entire head,” Raquel said.
Ryan smiled gently at her. “I promise. If I have to shave your entire head, you can shave my head.”
Raquel’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
Ryan nodded. “Yep.”
“Deal!” Raquel agreed eagerly.
“That’s a good deal.” Ryan turned to Raquel’s mother. “You’re willing to participate in the parental presence at induction?”
“I am. Raquel wants me there.”
He nodded. “Good. It does help calm them. I am a supporter of parental presence at induction. I’m going to have a child life support worker come up here very soon and prepare you both for surgery. A child life support worker can help calm kids before and after, and she’ll help you too. As you know, I’m doing a stereotactic biopsy.
“I place small markers on your head to help guide the CT scan and find that lesion on your brain that I saw in the MRI. The one that has been causing your seizures and your other symptoms. You’ll be asleep during that and once I find that spot I shave a minuscule patch of hair, make my incision and then make a small hole in the skull to take my samples. After I have my samples, we close you all back up and we wait for results.”
Raquel’s mother squeezed her daughter’s hand. “Okay.”
Her voice shook and Ryan couldn’t really blame her. It was not a fun procedure and he’d already explained the possible complications to Raquel’s mother, away from Raquel. His young patient didn’t need to hear about the chance of cancer or intracranial pressure and hemorrhages.
“I’ll leave you both to it and I’ll see you soon in the operating room.”
“Have your clippers ready,” Raquel teased.
Ryan winked at the little girl and then left the room. Dr. Teal was waiting nearby.
“Dr. Teal, send a child life support person up to help Raquel’s mother prepare for the parental presence at induction. Her mom needs to be dressed in scrubs before she can enter the OR.”
“Right away, Dr. Gary. And I received a page from Dr. West. It seems like the patient from Portland is arriving in ambulance bay three. Dr. Samuel and Dr. West were hoping that you could join them there before your biopsy.”
“Dr. Samuel?” Ryan asked, feeling a slight pang of jealousy and worried that Emily had replaced him with someone else.
“He’s the OB/GYN on the case.”
“Oh, good. Yes, I’ll head down there right now. Thank you, Dr. Teal.”
Ryan turned and started walking toward the ambulance bay. It would serve him right for Emily to replace him. He could understand her need to plan the separation surgery and he had been pushing her off because he wanted to talk about their night in Vegas.
“You’re a selfish child!” his mother screamed at him. “No wonder your father left us.”
Ryan shook that thought from his head. He was angry that all these memories were deciding to come back out of the blue. They were very unwelcome.
Why was he thinking about this stuff now?
What was it about seeing Emily and being in Seattle that was doing this to him? He hadn’t thought of his parents in years.
That’s because you never stand still long enough to let them in.
And that was it. He never sat still. He was always in demand. Always being offered cases and consults all over North America and sometimes overseas.
He didn’t have a place to call home.
He didn’t have any roots.
It wasn’t for lack of offers. He always had tons of offers, but he didn’t want to settle down anywhere. The only twice he’d been really settled in his life had been in his childhood and in his relationship with Morgan. Both had ended badly.
His mother had disowned him. Morgan had left him and terminated her pregnancy because she’d wanted to focus on career.
Ryan closed his eyes and clenched his fist, taking a deep, calming breath. Maybe Morgan had been right. How could he be a good father when he was always on the move? When he had no real father figure to model himself on?
When he walked into the ambulance bay he saw Emily standing there, waiting for the patient and scrolling through a tablet. Probably going through patient information. Her short blonde hair was pinned back and she looked well rested.
Good.
And then he focused on her round belly and his heart clenched.
How can I be a good father?
And he couldn’t help but think that maybe his child would be better off without him.
Emily would be better off without him.
And he would have to keep remindi
ng himself that this was just a professional relationship, because once the twins were separated he’d move on somewhere else.
That’s what he always did.
And he didn’t see a change to that.
* * *
Emily looked up because she felt like someone was staring at her. She saw Ryan lingering just outside the ambulance bay. He looked exhausted and she felt slightly bad, because she was pretty sure that she was the cause of it.
Her sister always said that when they shared a room that she hardly ever got sleep because Emily talked loudly in her sleep about random things.
Well, Ryan would be able to get sleep tonight because that was the first and last time he would be at her apartment and sleeping in her bed. There had to be boundaries. If they were going to keep this relationship strictly professional they had to stop having dinner together, ending up in bed together!
There had to be rules to follow but, then, there was a part of her that secretly loved the fact she had slept so well.
That someone cared about her again.
Don’t get sucked into that trap again.
Emily looked away as Ryan started walking toward her. She had to collect her thoughts, she couldn’t think about how nice it had been to wake up snuggled up against him. How she’d enjoyed their brief dinner last night in the bistro or how she appreciated that he’d bought her a sandwich and made sure that she was taking care of herself.
“Dr. West, I was told that our patient is arriving from Portland,” he said, and she was relieved that he used her professional name in front of Dr. Samuel. Dr. Samuel was her OB/GYN as well and she hadn’t told him that Ryan was the father of her child.
Of course, that might be common knowledge after he’d announced in front of Dr. Teal that they were married.
“Yes, the ambulance is about fifteen minutes out,” Emily said, clearing her throat and suddenly feeling very awkward. “Dr. Samuel, this is Dr. Ryan Gary, the neurosurgeon who will be doing the separation surgery with me.”
Dr. Samuel’s eyes lit up. “I’m very familiar with Dr. Gary’s work. It’s a pleasure.”
Ryan shook Dr. Samuel’s hand. “Very pleased to meet you.”