by Amy Ruttan
He hoped it was as simple as that.
As soon as he walked into the hallway a nurse rushed over to him.
“Dr. Gary, we’ve been looking for you!”
Ryan was confused. “Me? Is Jason okay?” That was the only other patient besides Raquel that he currently had at this hospital until the conjoined twins were born and were ready to be separated.
“Jason is fine,” the nurse said. “Dr. West is with Dr. Samuel in the maternity wing. She fainted.”
Ryan didn’t stay to hear any more. He turned around quickly and ran as fast as he could toward the other side of SMFPC, to the wing where pregnant mothers came to deliver their children or were waiting to deliver their children.
His blood was pounding in his ears as he ran as fast as his legs could carry him, dodging people as he crossed the covered walkway that connected the two wings. It didn’t take him long to find Dr. Samuel’s office.
A nurse in the maternity wing knew who he was looking for and shouted out the room number as he ran past.
He didn’t even knock, just burst into the room.
Emily looked pale and she was lying on a table with her eyes closed. There was a little cut on her head that had been closed with Steri-Strips.
“Em?” he said, as he crouched down next to the bed.
“Ryan?” she asked. “How did you know I was here?”
“A nurse told me. I came as soon as I found out. Are you okay? Is the baby okay?”
“She’s fine,” Dr. Samuel said, coming into the room. “She had a drop in blood sugar, so I want to do a glucose tolerance test and check for gestational diabetes. She also hit her head, but she’s not exhibiting any signs of concussion.”
“And the baby?” Ryan asked, unable to really process anything that the doctor was saying. He was just terrified that the baby was gone. That he’d lost another child.
“The baby is fine,” Dr. Samuel said. “Do you want to hear the heart beat?”
“Yes,” Ryan said.
Dr. Samuel squeezed some more ultrasound jelly on Emily’s belly and used the Doppler. There was a lot of static at first, whooshing noises that he knew was Emily’s blood, and then there it was. A little heart, beating so fast.
The baby’s heart.
“Strong heartbeat,” Dr. Samuel said, smiling.
Ryan squeezed Emily’s hand and just listened in disbelief. It was amazing, it was strong and it was his child’s.
“I want you to go home for the rest of the day, Emily. Rest. Nothing to eat or drink after midnight and then come back first thing in the morning and I’ll do your glucose tolerance test.”
“Okay, Alex,” Emily said demurely.
“Dr. Gary, do you think you can take Emily home?”
Emily’s eyes widened. “He has patients.”
“I can take her home,” Ryan stated firmly.
“Ryan, you have Raquel...”
“She’s going through a CT scan right now and Dr. Teal can email me the scans. I can’t do the surgery until tomorrow anyway. I can take you home and take care of you tonight. You hit your head and your blood sugar dropped. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
Emily sighed and took the towel Dr. Samuel handed her to wipe the ultrasound jelly off her abdomen.
Ryan helped her sit up.
“You wait here and I’m going to get your things in the lounge and pull my car around to this side of the hospital.”
“It’s no big deal...” Emily tried to argue.
“Listen to him and do what he says,” Dr. Samuel said, before leaving the room.
Emily rolled her eyes.
“Stay put!” Ryan ordered, and then smiled.
“Fine.” Emily crossed her arms, but he could see a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Ryan left the exam room and when he closed the door he leaned against it and let out the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He scrubbed a hand over his face and then headed back to the other side of the hospital.
He had been so worried that something had happened to Emily or the baby.
It was the same kind of terror he’d felt when they had been at Mount Rainier National Park and the geohazard siren had gone off, right before the lahar had hit.
The thought of losing either one of them made him feel sick to his stomach and it also scared him. The worry was too much and he wasn’t sure he could let his heart be on the line. He wasn’t sure he could handle the heartache again.
Just like he wasn’t sure that he knew how to be a father.
And he hated himself for his fear, his hurt and uncertainty.
Right now, though, he would try and do his best for Emily and the baby.
He wouldn’t walk away like his father had.
At least not yet.
* * *
Emily was propped up in bed.
At least she had a television in her room or she’d go bonkers, because ever since Ryan had brought her home, he’d been hovering and not letting her take one step out of bed.
“I’m not on bed rest, you know!” she shouted so that Ryan, who was in the kitchen, could hear her. “He just said to go home for the night and rest.”
“And where do you rest?” Ryan asked.
Emily rolled her eyes. “In bed.”
“Right.” He handed her a cup of tea. “I’m going to order in dinner. Would you like anything in particular?”
“Chinese food would be great.”
“Isn’t that a tad clichéd for a pregnancy?”
She glared at him and took a sip of her decaf tea.
“All right, all right. Just stay put and we’ll rent a movie online or something.”
“Don’t you need to go back to the hospital?”
“I’m waiting for Dr. Teal to email me the scans and then I’ll go back and decide how to proceed, but the surgery really can’t be done until tomorrow. Raquel had lunch and a snack. I’ll bring you to the hospital tomorrow for your glucose tolerance test and then I’ll do the surgery.”
“What about your other patient?”
“Jason?” Ryan asked.
“Yes.”
“He’s stable and in good hands in his room.” That was all he said about Jason, which meant he hadn’t regained any control yet. She could tell that it was weighing heavily on Ryan, which was why he was probably overcompensating with her.
Ryan left the room to place the order and Emily leaned back, setting her tea on the nightstand. She was still feeling a bit woozy and her head was hurting from when it’d hit the floor. She touched it gingerly and winced.
“Don’t poke it,” Ryan said, coming back into the room.
“I’m not.”
“You are.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and checked his phone. “The food should be here in forty minutes.”
“Good. Any word?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
Emily reached over and picked up her tablet. She opened up the MRI scan that had been done of Janet. Ryan hadn’t seen the scans of the babies.
“Take a look at that. Since you’re not going to let me out of bed and you’re planning to stick around, perhaps we can talk about this.”
Ryan picked up the table and then kicked off his shoes, scooting back so he was sitting upright next to her.
“That’s a lot of nerves bundled together.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to separate them without paralyzing them?” she asked.
“I believe so.” Ryan flipped through the images. “I won’t really know until I get in there and start to separate them. I’ll have nerve monitors on them. I want to make sure I don’t paralyze them and I won’t know that until I go in. The hardest job will be flipping them to do that.”
“It’s like a puzzle,” Emily said, leaning over hi
m. “Every case of conjoined twins is different.”
“Well, if they were all the same it wouldn’t be such a problem.”
“I wish that were the case.” Emily picked up her tea and took another sip. “How did Raquel take the news?”
“She was scared,” Ryan said, setting down the tablet. “I think I made her happy when I told her what she could do to me.”
“What?” Emily asked, confused. “What’re you talking about?”
“Since I have to shave her head to resect the tumor, she gets to shave mine.”
Emily was glad she hadn’t taken a sip of tea just then because she would’ve spit it out all over him. “You promised a ten-year-old child that she could shave your head?”
“Well, a buzz cut. She wanted to add racing stripes, but I vetoed that.”
Emily cocked an eyebrow. “You’re taking your patient care a little too seriously.”
“It made her happy.”
She smiled. He was so good with kids. She just hoped that he’d be around for their baby. He’d be a good father.
And that was the first time she’d thought of the baby as their baby.
It had always been her baby from the get-go and she couldn’t help but wonder when that change in her mind had come, but it had.
“So no racing stripes, eh?” she teased, and then she reached out and ran her fingers through his brown hair. “I’m not sure how you’re going to look with a buzz cut. You have really great hair.”
“I’ve had buzz cuts before. You just didn’t know me when I did.” He pulled out his phone and pulled up an old photograph and showed her. “See, it’s my high-school yearbook photo. I had a buzz cut then.”
Emily chuckled. He was so skinny and awkward and young in the image.
“Why do you have an old picture of yourself on your phone?”
“To remind me how far I’ve come.”
“And you need to be reminded?” she asked.
“Some days.”
An awkward silence fell between them, just like it had after they’d shared that kiss at Mount Rainier National Park. He pocketed his phone just as the buzzer to her apartment sounded.
“Hopefully that’s the food.” Ryan got up and headed to the front door.
Emily lay back and closed her eyes. She wished she could just come right out and ask him about his future plans. She wished that she could trust him.
She wished for a lot of things but she wasn’t sure that she was ever going to get them.
* * *
They ate Chinese food in her room. Ryan had managed to find a breakfast tray so that Emily wouldn’t be tempted to get out of bed because she’d been afraid of making a mess in her bed, which was what she had said when he’d first brought the bag of Chinese take-away into her room.
She’d ranted on about expensive cotton sheets and had said she felt well enough to sit at the dining-room table, but he was having none of that. She’d hit her head and even though she had been cleared of a concussion, he hadn’t wanted to take any chances. She’d hit her head hard enough that it had bled and they’d needed to put Steri-Strips on it.
Eventually he’d won out by telling her he was the neurosurgeon and she should listen to him. He had compromised and found an old breakfast tray in the back of her pantry, covered in dust. He’d washed it off and brought her food.
He brought in a chair and sat next to her bed, because the last thing he wanted to do was make her angry about ruining her sheets. Even though he really wanted to sit next to her. Her bed was much more comfortable than the hotel’s bed he was sleeping in.
Definitely better than her couch, which was where he’d slept the first night he’d been in Seattle. They watched an old comedy movie from the 1980s that had been popular when they’d been much younger, but now was just completely corny, though Emily admitted she still loved it, and that just made him fall for her even more.
Eventually, she drifted off to sleep and Ryan cleared away all the food and got her a glass of water for her bedside.
She looked so peaceful, sleeping.
He wished he could stay, but the CT scan results were in and he couldn’t pull them up on his phone. He would have to go into the hospital to check them out or get her to tell him the passcode for her tablet.
“Emily,” he whispered.
“Yes?” she asked groggily. “Have the results come in?”
“Yes, but I can’t pull them up on my phone. Sorry to wake you but I need you to unlock your tablet so I can take a look. Unless you want me to go to the hospital.”
Emily sat up and picked up her tablet. She unlocked it. “I want to know the results too.”
“Fair enough.” Ryan logged into his email and opened up the scans. He studied them thoroughly and let out a sigh of relief. “No mets anywhere else, which means this malignancy is a stage two at the most.”
“That’s great,” Emily said, stifling a yawn. “I’m really glad to hear it.”
Ryan pulled out his phone to call Dr. Teal. He wanted an operating room booked for tomorrow morning and he wanted Dr. Teal, who was on call, to prep Raquel for surgery.
“Hi, Dr. Teal, it’s Dr. Gary. I need you to prep Raquel for surgery and book an operating room for tomorrow morning. As early as you can. Thank you.”
Ryan hung up the phone. “Who do you think the best pediatric oncologist in SMFPC is?”
“Dr. Ramses. She’s the best.”
“I’ll make a referral to her.” Ryan sent off the scans and the chart to Dr. Ramses electronically and almost immediately got a response that Dr. Ramses would see Raquel tomorrow morning before the surgery. “Dr. Ramses will see Raquel before I take her to the OR.”
“You’d better get there even earlier if you’re going to let Raquel shave your head,” Emily said, a smile quirking her lips. She looked so tired and he felt bad for waking her.
“Do you want me to leave so you can get some rest?” he asked gently.
Not that he wanted to leave, but he really should.
“No. Stay. It’s late and you have an early morning tomorrow.”
“So do you.”
She nodded. “I’m not looking forward to the glucose tolerance test. I’m not a fan of orange soda, especially thick, syrupy orange soda.”
“That doesn’t sound appealing.”
“It’s not. Or so I’ve been told by patients.” She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep again.
Ryan slipped off his shoes, which he had put back on because he’d been planning to leave and head back to the hospital. Even though he shouldn’t stay, because he was just torturing himself getting more and more involved with her, he wanted to stay. Emily had asked him to stay.
She found comfort in his presence.
You’re going to break her heart when you leave.
And that thought made him feel ill.
Unless he stayed. He could focus on pediatric neurosurgery. He was versed in both. He liked Seattle and if he stayed here then he could be close to Emily and the baby. Maybe then they wouldn’t have to get divorced. They could stay married and try to make it work.
He was falling for her.
He cared for her and desired her, especially after their time in Vegas, but something was changing and shifting. Emily got through all the barriers he’d set up for himself to protect his heart.
Barriers that he’d been setting for himself since his father had left him and his mom. Barriers that he’d been putting in place since his mother had disowned him because he hadn’t wanted to follow the path that she’d wanted him to follow. He hadn’t wanted to stay on the land, like his father hadn’t wanted to stay. He had left, just like his dad.
Barriers that had been put in place when Morgan had terminated her pregnancy.
All those barriers he’d put in place to protect his heart. Only Emily
was wiggling her way through and he wasn’t sure if he had what it took to give her the life she deserved. He wasn’t even sure that he knew how to love.
And he wasn’t sure that he’d be a good father. He was so like his dad.
He’d met up with his father again once as an adult, before he’d met Morgan. His father had looked him up, needing medical advice, but their meeting had been brief and very awkward, and they hadn’t stayed in touch. His father had only said, “I was never a good father. I didn’t stick around for you or your mother. I couldn’t change.”
They’d parted ways and Ryan had never seen him again, and the focus of his life had been his career. How could he be a good father when he never stayed in one place long enough? When all that mattered to him was saving lives and practicing medicine?
Emily was fast asleep, and in the darkness he rolled over on his side and placed his hand on her belly. He felt the little kicks and smiled.
He couldn’t walk away from this.
Not now, but he was so scared that he wasn’t good enough for his child. That he would hurt this child the way his parents had hurt him.
Because you’re scared means you won’t.
Ryan shook that thought away because he didn’t really believe it, but he had to try and believe it or this would never work. And right here and now, curled up next to Emily with his hand on her belly, feeling their baby move under his palm, he wanted it to work.
He wanted to stay.
He wanted to be here for his child. When he’d heard that heart beating it had thrilled him and scared him at the same time. Lives were always in his hands as a surgeon, but this life, this life under his hand was something completely different. It was a life that he and Emily had created.
Together.
He leaned in and put his face close to her belly, close to where his hand was resting on her belly, where he could still feel their baby kicking.
“I will try. For you. I will try,” he whispered, and he meant what he said.
Every instinct was telling him to leave, that it would be better for Emily and for the baby if he left, but his heart was telling him to stay and make it work.