by Amy Ruttan
Emily sighed. “Well, I do have the next couple of days off. I was going to do research.”
“Do you ever take time for yourself or do you work constantly?” Ryan teased.
“The last time I did something crazy and fun and took time for myself I ended up in a wedding chapel in Vegas.”
Ryan laughed. “Right.”
“I like work,” Emily said quietly as they got into line in the cafeteria.
“I know you do, but you need a day off. Besides, it’s not like you can repeat your mistake. We’re already married and you’re already pregnant.”
Emily rolled her eyes, but then laughed. “Yeah, I suppose so.”
“So why don’t we take a trip out to Mount Rainier National Park and have a picnic? I heard tomorrow is supposed to be decent.”
Emily sighed. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“You need a break and I need to see some sights before I leave.”
“Fine.” Emily grabbed a sandwich. “You have to bring the picnic, though, since I have to drive.”
“Deal.”
They paid for their lunch and made their way to an empty table. The cafeteria was busier than the first time they’d eaten here together, but he was glad of the hustle and bustle.
He was used to hustle and bustle.
It was the quiet and the calm that let in all those bad memories. Thoughts about his lost child, his father and mother all haunted him in the solitude of quiet.
He liked the commotion. He could think in the commotion.
The only thing that was impeding his thoughts right now was being near Emily. He hadn’t realized how much she affected him. She got under his skin.
And that scared him, because he didn’t want to disappoint her, like he had been disappointed so many times before.
* * *
Emily noticed Ryan had gone quiet.
“You okay? You’ve been staring at your sandwich for a good five minutes.”
He shook his head. “Still exhausted from my lack of sleep. I’m not used to being ordered around by an unconscious person.”
He was teasing her, she could tell by the way he was smirking and that glint in his blue eyes.
“Ha. Ha.”
“You’re mean when you’re asleep.”
“You listened to me,” she countered. “I was asleep, you didn’t have to listen to me.”
“When a woman tells me to get into bed, I listen,” he said seductively, which made her heart beat just a bit faster and she could feel the blush that she seemed to be unable to control around him creep up her neck.
Damn him for being so cocky.
She punched him in the arm. “Not cool.”
He was laughing at her. “Ow, that hurt.”
“Good.” She shook her head.
This was not keeping her relationship with him on a professional level and she only hoped that no one around them had heard that comment from him about her ordering him to get into her bed when she was sleeping.
“It was a night terror. That’s the only reason I asked you into my bed,” she said in a hushed tone.
“It didn’t seem like a night terror, but I can see what you mean. You were kind of terrifying, ordering me about and telling me to shut up.”
Emily chuckled. “It could’ve been worse. I could’ve actually have been screaming. Night terrors are not fun. We have some pediatric patients with them and often have to move them to their own room instead of being in a ward or sharing with someone else.”
“I have to say you were my first time dealing with someone who was even close to having night terrors. I don’t think I want to deal with a child screaming in their sleep. It’s bad enough when they are awake.”
“At least you can console them when they’re awake. When they’re in the throes of a night terror you can’t.” Emily looked down at her bump and hoped that she wouldn’t pass that on to her child. Her child was at risk for inheriting her autism and anxiety. The possibility scared her.
It was going to be hard enough doing this on her own, she didn’t need night terrors or sleep-walking added to the mix.
You don’t have to do it alone.
She glanced at Ryan. He’d said that he wanted to be involved and so far had refused to sign the divorce papers, but then he said things like he was moving on. He talked like he didn’t really want to stay or be a part of their child’s life.
How could she rely on him?
She couldn’t.
She’d seen what true marriage was with her parents. They were friends and lovers. They helped each other out and supported each other.
They shared the load.
If she ever thought about getting married, that was the type of marriage she wanted to have. She wanted her husband to be her partner in every sense of the word. Robert hadn’t been that person and it appeared that Ryan wasn’t either. Surgeons were self-possessed and absorbed.
They were confident, overbearing and sure of themselves.
They had to be.
She was. Lives were in their hands.
Ryan may care about her and care about their child, but he really didn’t talk much about their baby. He didn’t ask to feel their child move and he talked about moving on. He was a jet-setting world-renowned neurosurgeon and she really doubted that he would ever settle down.
She would let him be involved as much as he wanted, but he was not someone she could rely on for the day-to-day parenting. That would fall to her alone because she had no plans to leave Seattle and really had no desire to live his jet-setting lifestyle.
She was alone in this.
She’d known that the moment the stick had turned blue, but suddenly she was feeling quite unsure about the whole thing.
She had what it took to be a surgeon, but did she really have what it took to be a single parent?
That uncertainty frightened her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JUST CALL HIM and cancel.
She looked outside and it was a beautiful sunny day in Seattle.
Drat.
Emily had been hoping for miserable weather so she could get out of this day trip to Mount Rainier National Park with Ryan. After their lunch yesterday, she’d gone back to doing her research and then her rounds. She’d managed to avoid him for the rest of the day, because the more she got thinking about him leaving, the more it upset her, and she didn’t like that at all. She had been hoping that he’d forget about his brilliant idea to take a day trip, until he’d texted her that he would come and pick her up at nine in the morning.
She’d thought she was supposed to be the one driving, but apparently Ryan had got himself a rental car and was insisting on driving the three hours to the park. What they were going to do there, she had no idea.
There were a couple of short hikes she could manage, but other than that she really didn’t know. When she’d lived in Utah, she’d often gone for long hikes. Her favorite place to go had been down to St. George and do the Canaveral Falls hike.
It had been a long time since she’d done anything outdoors like that.
Maybe this will be good? the hopeful side of her thought, whereas the other side of her brain, the doubt weasel portion, told her that this was a huge mistake.
She went to pick up her phone to text him that she wasn’t going when the buzzer at the door sounded. It wasn’t even nine.
He was early. She wasn’t completely prepared mentally yet. It was a struggle sometimes when the set schedule wasn’t followed.
Early was better than late.
Emily set down her phone. “Hello?”
“It’s me. Ryan. Are you ready?”
“Not quite. You’re early. It’s not even eight thirty yet.”
“Sorry, I didn’t realize how fast I would get here. I overcompensated for traf
fic, which is surprisingly not bad.”
Made sense why he was early.
“Come on up.” She buzzed him in, while cursing under her breath.
* * *
Maybe it won’t be so bad?
She’d been in Seattle for five years and she hadn’t really seen much of it. She didn’t have many friends here. The entire time she’d lived in this city she’d been focused completely on work, so much so that when she’d told the on call pediatric attending that she was going out of town, he’d looked surprised.
That’s the way you wanted it. Remember?
She didn’t want to form attachments.
It was better to keep everyone at a distance, even if it meant that she was lonely from time to time. Besides, she was used to being alone. Other than her family, she hadn’t had many friends growing up.
There was a knock at the door and she opened it.
Ryan looked good in his jeans and flannel shirt. There was a bit of scruff on his face and it suited him. The sight of him all rough and rugged made her feel a bit weak in the knees, but he still looked a bit like a lumberjack.
“Overcompensating?” she teased.
He looked down at his shirt. “What?”
“I didn’t know that you owned a flannel buffalo plaid shirt.”
“I didn’t, but last night I went to an outfitting store and got some stuff. I am from Wyoming, we do have mountains there.”
“You still look very lumberjacky,” she teased.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Lumberjacky? Is that even a word?”
“Nope, but that’s the vibe you’re giving off and usually I’m not the best at reading vibes.”
Heat bloomed in her cheeks as she realized what she’d let out. No one but Human Resources at SMFPC, Dr. Ruchi and her family knew about her diagnosis.
Robert knew.
And look how that had turned out.
She sat down on the couch and pulled on her hiking shoes. “We’re not going on some crazy half-day hike, are we?” She was trying to change the subject so he didn’t ask too many questions about her statement.
“No, but there’s a short one called Trail of the Shadows that loops through the Longmire Meadow that I thought would be nice. The man at the outfitting store gave me a map of the national park and marked all the geohazards we have to be aware of.”
“Geohazards? What geohazards?” Emily asked, suddenly concerned.
“Mount Rainier is a volcano. An active volcano.”
“What?”
“Please tell me you knew this.”
She rubbed her temples. “I did. I mentally blocked it out.”
Great.
Volcanoes kind of freaked her out and deep down she knew there were many volcanoes on the western seaboard because they were in the Cascades region, which was part of the Pacific “ring of fire”, but she’d blocked it from her mind that Seattle sat in the shadow of Mount Rainier. It kept her anxiety over volcanoes at bay.
Salt Lake City had mountains, but they were not volcanic.
“Maybe this is a bad idea.”
No. You need to face your fear.
She hadn’t got where she was by giving in to her anxieties. She could do this.
“It’ll be fine. They have a lot of safeties in place, we just have to be aware of the signs.”
“Are you aware of the signs?” Emily asked, feeling a bit nervous. “I’m not aware of the signs.”
She hated not being prepared.
Deep breath. You’ve got this.
“Yellowstone is a super-volcano that is full of pits of boiling geothermic water. I’m aware of the signs and I know what to do if a bear comes close as well.”
“A bear?” Emily bent down and began to untie her shoes.
“What’re you doing?” he asked.
“Nope, not going. Bears and volcanoes.”
He laughed at her. She hated that he laughed. Robert would laugh at her when she’d become overwhelmed about something he’d thought was foolish.
“Don’t laugh at me. It’s not funny. I’m freaking out.”
His expression softened. “I’m not laughing at you.”
“You’re not?”
“No. They’re legitimate fears. I was laughing because it was cute. It’s nice seeing someone so confident have a fear.”
The compliment caught her off guard. She was far from confident. Ryan sat down next to her.
“Mount Rainier isn’t going to erupt today. Trust me, I checked the USGS website today. The mountain is quiet.”
Emily narrowed her eyes. “Too quiet.” She was trying now to make light of it all so he didn’t suspect anything about her diagnosis.
He laughed. “Come on. Live a little.”
“The last time I did that, I ended up with this!” She pointed to her belly.
“As I said before, I can’t knock you up again.”
Emily frowned, but then couldn’t help but smile. “Fine. I’ll go, but if I see lava, we’re done.”
“Deal, though for the record lava is the last thing you’d see. First you’d feel the earthquake.”
“Look, do you not want me to go?”
“I want you to go.”
“So let’s go and no more talking about things erupting.” She grabbed her keys and her purse. Ryan held open the door and shut it when they were in the hall. She locked her apartment and they headed to the elevator.
“Today is a nice day, Emily. It’ll be a good day. You’ll see.”
“Yeah, as long as we don’t get attacked by bears or get caught up in some kind of geohazard.”
“The last time Mount Rainier erupted was in 1894.”
Emily pushed the button. “Are you telling me it’s due to erupt?”
Ryan cocked an eyebrow. “You know, for a pediatric surgeon you’re a bit of a pessimist.”
She couldn’t help but smile then. The conversation was light and easy and they were moving away from what she didn’t want him to know about her.
People thought differently about her when they knew.
The elevator door opened and she walked on. She would’ve continued the conversation, but there were other people in the elevator and they didn’t need to know about her conversation regarding her irrational fear of Mount Rainier erupting and wreaking havoc on her life.
For the life of her, she didn’t know why she didn’t equate the volcano with the mountain when one of the emergency simulations they trained for was just that. People in the path of the lahars and the pyroclastic cloud, if Mount Rainier ever decided to blow her top, would be evacuated to Seattle.
They had a lot of contingency plans in place.
Mudslides, massive accidents, wildfires, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and super-storms. All the exciting natural disasters one could think of when you lived in such a hotbed of activity.
At least they didn’t have tornadoes.
Never say never.
She shuddered. She had to stop thinking about things like that or she’d get overwhelmed.
The elevator dinged and they got off at the lobby. Ryan had parked just in front of her building. He had rented an SUV.
“You really went all out for this trip, didn’t you?” she said, impressed.
“I like driving SUVs and pickups. I guess you can take the man out of Wyoming but not Wyoming out of the man.”
“Fair enough.” A lot of people in Utah opted for the SUV or the pickup truck. Especially in northern Utah.
It made sense to drive something like this up to Mount Rainier National Park and, to be honest, she felt more at ease with his choice in rental. He held open the door for her and she was slightly mystified.
Robert had certainly never held open the doors for her.
It’s a social cue. It’s proper.
Ryan climbed into the driver’s seat and looked at her. “What?”
“You hold open doors for me.”
“So?” he asked, confused.
“No one has ever done that for me before. I think it might be a dying art form.”
Ryan grinned. “Well, it was the one good thing my father taught me. The only thing really good about him.”
He pulled out into Seattle morning traffic and headed to the interstate, his GPS guiding him, which was good because Emily had no idea how to get to Mount Rainier National Park. As they were driving along she noticed he was gripping the steering wheel really tightly. His knuckles were almost white and they had been like that since he’d mentioned his father.
“Do you want to talk?” she asked.
“About what?”
“You’ve been kind of tense since we left my place. Since you mentioned your father.”
Ryan frowned. “I don’t like talking about him much.”
“Sorry. Has he passed?” Although she seriously doubted that was the issue when he’d said it was the one good thing his father had taught him and the only good thing about his father.
“My father left when I was seven.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
He shrugged. “I did fine without him, but at least he taught me good manners, I suppose. My mom always said he was charming, which is a good thing given I travel so much and have to make a good impression wherever I go.”
“I suppose because you don’t build professional rapport with the surgical staff. You wanted me in the operating room with you instead of the resident because you didn’t trust Dr. Sharipova. Now, just think if you were at a hospital permanently. You’d be able to build relationships with your colleagues. You’d know who you worked well with and who you didn’t.”
He glanced at her briefly. “Perhaps, but it’s not really my thing. I’d rather see the world. I tried settling down once and it...” There was hesitation there, like he didn’t want to talk about it further. “It just didn’t work.”