by Tina Beckett
But with Tucker sitting just down the row? Almost impossible.
Was he thinking the same thing?
Doubtful. He’d somehow seemed to be able to push Grace out of his life and thoughts with the same ease that he’d signed those divorce papers. Out of sight. Out of mind. Was that how it worked with him?
No, she’d seen his grief firsthand. Raw and angry and ready to wreak havoc on the gods for what had happened. In the end, the only true havoc he’d wreaked had been on their relationship when he’d stated they were having no more children. Ever. She’d had no say. Her request to him to go with her to genetic counseling had fallen on deaf ears. Nothing had moved him from his stance.
And yet a second ago he’d tossed her a smile that had napalmed her senses as if nothing had ever happened between them. As if they were old friends.
They were not friends.
The drone of voices went silent. Glancing up in a panic, she realized it was because it was her turn to speak. The microphone was already in front of her. How had she missed that?
Clearing her throat and hearing it amplified through the whole auditorium made her wince. As did the light laughter that accompanied it. “Sorry. It was a long flight.”
More laughter. Louder this time. Maybe because the flight from Atlanta to New York only took a little over two hours.
The emotional distance, though, was much, much longer.
She forced an amused crinkle to her nose. “Long day at the office?”
This time the laughter was with her rather than aimed at her. It helped put her at ease and allowed her to temporarily block out all thoughts of Tucker Stevenson. Plunging into her brief five-minute speech, she allowed her passion for the subject at hand to propel her through to the end. Wasn’t her specialty all about empowering women during difficult times?
And wasn’t that what her IVF quest was all about?
The audience clapped, and she couldn’t stop herself from sneaking a glance back down the line of presenters. Tucker was leaning forward, his elbows planted on the table, head swiveled in her direction. This time he gave her a nod that she could swear contained at least a hint of admiration.
For her?
A shiver went through her.
No, she had to be mistaken.
A thought came to mind. Had he gone through with the procedure?
The thought of her ex-husband never fathering another sweet baby girl like their Grace pierced straight through her. He’d been a wonderful daddy—once he’d got over his initial fears of inadequacy. He’d loved their daughter in a way that had made her go all gooey inside—had made her hot for him and him alone. No other man could touch what she’d once felt for Tucker.
Watching as that pristine white casket was slowly lowered into the ground had changed him, though.
It had changed both of them.
Gone had been the days of frantic lovemaking. Of being unable to wait to get each other’s clothes off. In fact, Tucker had moved into another bedroom soon afterward, cutting himself off from her completely.
The difference between them was that Kady had never completely let go of hope. Even in the aftermath of Grace’s death.
It took two recessive genes coming together to cause Tay-Sachs. He could have had children with someone else and not had a problem. Although since neither of them were of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, it had never dawned on them that they could be carriers until it was too late. What were the chances? Enough to land them with a horrific diagnosis.
Any future children they’d produced would have had a one in four chance of having the same deadly genetic imprint.
But there were other ways to have kids. Adoption. Even genetic selection of embryos, although that thought made her stomach swish sideways.
The last panelist finished and not one of them had spoken about genetic abnormalities, which she found odd. Unless there was a dedicated workshop just focusing on screening. She would have to look at the schedule and avoid any such session like the plague.
The moderator opened the floor to questions—the moment she’d been dreading the most.
The first one came from a female audience member and was directed at Tucker. “How many fetal surgeries have you done? And what are the most common things you’ve corrected? The last question goes along with that. Have you ever had a case that you knew was hopeless?”
The long seconds of silence that followed the query would have made any librarian proud. Only Kady knew exactly what had caused it. And why.
A thousand pins pricked the backs of her eyelids and she had to steel herself not to let them take hold. Instead, she clasped her hands tightly together and willed him the strength to get through the question.
“I’ve done a few hundred surgeries, although I don’t have an exact number. The most common procedures I’ve run into have been neural tube defects. And, no, I’ve never had a case where I’ve given up without at least exploring every available option.”
That answer jerked her head sideways to stare down the line at him. He most certainly had. The fact that he could sit there and let that answer fall from his lips made the pendulum swing from sympathy back toward anger.
Only this time he didn’t look her way, so her mad face was useless.
Two questions later, someone asked Kady what her toughest case had been.
“That would be my divorce.” She laughed as if it was all a big joke, even though that barb had been sent straight toward the hunk to her left. “Sorry. No, my toughest case was a mother who came in at six months carrying quadruplets. She’d had no prenatal care and was seizing—in full eclampsia.” A whisper of gasps went through the audience. Kady waited for it to die down, knowing the worst was yet to come. That case had made her cry, and had almost, almost made her quit medicine completely. But they needed to know the realities of what they would face.
She forced herself to continue. “Only one of those babies survived. That was hard. I can’t stress enough the need for early intervention and care, and you should stress it to your patients as well. Knowledge really is power in cases like this one. If she’d been followed from her first trimester, we probably could have given her a good outcome that ended with four live births.”
Even as she said it, she knew—from experience—there were some conditions that no amount of care or intervention could fix.
An hour later, the questions had been exhausted and people filtered from the room, leaving her to stuff her papers back into her bag and plan her escape. The moderator handed her a note. She glanced at it and frowned. The head of maternal-fetal surgery at Wilson-Ross wanted her to stop by his office when she had a chance.
Why? Unless it had something to do with the conference. She made a mental note to swing by the hospital as she dropped the slip of paper into her purse. Her fingers brushed across the IVF clinic’s letter, and she couldn’t stop herself from glancing at it. It was a huge decision. But maybe it was the best one for her.
“I didn’t realize you were going to be here.” Someone settled into the vacated chair next to her.
She snatched her attention from the letter, jerking the edges of her handbag closed.
Get real, Kady. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.
“I could say the same thing about you.” She hadn’t meant that to come out as surly as it had.
His glance traveled from her face to her hand, making her realize her fingers were still clenched around the opening to her bag.
“The difference is,” he said, “I work here.”
“I was a last-minute substitution. Your administrator asked me to come.”
“Ah, so you’re taking Dr. Blacke’s place, then. I’d wondered who they got.”
“Is he traveling?”
“No. He found out he has pancreatic cancer last week.”
Up came her head, her eyes finding hi
s. “Oh. I’m so sorry, Tucker. I had no idea. Does he have a good prognosis?”
“Unfortunately no, although all of us have seen hopeless cases turn around completely.”
“And sometimes they don’t.” She forced her fingers to release their death grip on her purse, afraid he’d read some kind of telling emotion into the act.
Ha! As if there wasn’t.
“You’re right. Sometimes they don’t.” He studied her for a few seconds before continuing, “Our divorce was the toughest thing you’ve ever handled?”
“It was an icebreaker. It was supposed to be funny.” Especially since they both knew the correct and not-funny-at-all answer would have been Grace’s death. “None of them know we were ever married, much less divorced.”
“And yet we’ve been both.” His mouth tightened slightly. “Maiden name?”
“Easier, don’t you think?” If he could do short, concise questions, so could she. Especially as her heart was beginning to set up a slow thudding in her chest that spelled danger. She needed to get out of there.
“Easier? Possibly.”
Possibly? That drew her up short. How did that even make sense? Of course it was easier.
“I think it is. People won’t automatically see the last names and wonder if we’re brother and sister. Or something else.”
One side of that mouth quirked again. “Oh, it was definitely something else.”
The thudding became a triplet of beats. Then another. How was it that he could still turn her knees to jelly with the single turn of phrase?
“Tucker...” She allowed a warning note to enter her voice.
He leaned back in his chair. “So how are you?”
“Fine.”
Sure she was. Right now, she was anything but fine. Why had she let herself be talked into this stupid trip?
He leaned forward. “Okay, let’s cut to the chase. Are you staying for the entire conference?”
“Yes. You?” It was a stupid question, since he lived here, but her brain was currently operating in a fog.
“Hmm...”
She would take that as a yes.
“Do you have a place to stay?” he asked.
A weird squeaking sound came from her throat that she disguised as a laugh. “I take it that wasn’t an invitation.”
He smiled the first real smile she’d seen since she’d been there. “I take it you wouldn’t accept, if it was.”
“That probably wouldn’t be wise.” Not that they hadn’t done some very unwise things over the course of their relationship. “The hospital booked me a room at the hotel across the street. It’s convenient. And close to both the hospital and the conference center.”
“Convenient. That’s one word for it.”
Was he saying that her being here was making it awkward for him? Of course it was. Just like being around him was uncomfortable for her. In more ways than one.
She took a deep breath and asked a real question. “How are you, Tucker...really?”
“I’m busy.” His smile faded, the words taking on an edge that made her tilt her head. And it didn’t answer her question.
“You always were in high demand.”
“With some people. Not so much with others.”
Was he talking about their marriage? Because she hadn’t been the one to withdraw. He had. She’d loved this man. Deeply. Passionately. It was why it had devastated her when he’d shut down completely during Grace’s illness—pulling away from everyone except for his patients.
She’d been his wife! Grace’s slow downward spiral had been just as painful for her. The worst thing was, she’d felt frighteningly alone during those first few months after her death, while Tucker had slept in the guest bedroom and spent longer and longer hours working at the hospital. Desperate to reconnect with him on whatever level she could, she’d casually said maybe they should try to have another baby. If she’d thought that would lure him back into their bedroom, she couldn’t have been more wrong. He’d looked at her as if she’d taken leave of her senses, his next words chilling her to the bone.
I’ll never have another child.
When she’d started to say something more, he’d cut her off with a shake of his head and walked out of the room. Any time she’d brought up the subject after that, begging him to talk to her, she’d been met with the same stony response. Rather...no response. And his hours at the office had increased so that he’d barely been home at all.
Then had come the final blow. On the first anniversary of Grace’s death, he’d announced he’d decided to get a vasectomy, as if it was something people did every day. He’d probably hoped that would end all talk of having more children. It had.
His unilateral decision had floored her. And infuriated her.
The powerlessness she’d felt had been crushing. All-encompassing.
That had been the beginning of the end. Actually, it had been more like a rapid slide to home base, only to find out that the ball had arrived long before you had.
Three strikes and they were out. Bags packed. Papers filed. Divorce decree signed.
Being bitter solved nothing, though. So she stuffed all that back inside.
She went back to his cryptic comment about being in demand. “I’m sure your patients appreciate all you do.”
A softness came back into his eyes. “I wasn’t trying to be the big bad wolf back then, Kady.”
“I can see that...now.”
Back then, though, things hadn’t been so clear, and he’d seemed like the villain in their particular tale.
To her, anyway. Even now the memory of those days pinched at her heart like a pair of surgical clamps, causing a strange numbness to come over her.
But not so numb that it staunched the weird waterworks sensation that was inching its way back onto her radar. God, she wished things could have been different between them. They hadn’t been, though. So she needed to stop looking at him with glasses that magnified those old hurts. “That’s all in the past, where I think it should probably stay.”
He stood. “You’re right. It is. I just wanted to stop by and say hello.”
“I’m glad you did. It was really good to see you again.”
Good and sad and filled with all kinds of regrets.
He walked away, leaving her on her own once again. Only this time she was ready. All decisions about whether or not to have children would be made by her. And as soon as she got home, she was going to act on them. Seeing him again had just brought home all her reasons for wanting a child, and that longing she’d had as she’d carried Grace over those nine months.
All she needed to do was select a sperm donor and she’d be ready to start a family of her own.
For a few brief seconds she’d wanted to throw that letter from the clinic in his face, the way he’d thrown his decision about not having children in hers, but what would it solve?
Nothing.
She didn’t want to hurt Tucker. She just wanted a baby. Not to replace Grace. That would never happen. She would always love her little girl and be grateful for the time they’d had together. At times, Grace’s loss still caused her lungs to seize in the middle of the night as she lay there alone in bed. Any tiny sound in the dark would make her sit up, sure she’d heard a familiar cry. Wishing with all her might that she had heard that cry. And when she realized no one was there, Kady would be the one who cried.
Surely her daughter wouldn’t have wanted her to be stuck in limbo like this, never moving forward. She’d like to think Grace would have wanted her to go on living, to love and be loved. And she was finally ready to share that love. With another baby.
She tried to focus on that and block out the negative thoughts that were steadily creeping into her head.
And the best way to hold those at bay was to stay as far away from Dr. Tucker Stevenson as p
ossible.
CHAPTER TWO
TUCKER HAD NO idea why Phil Harold, the department head, wanted to see him. He was already running behind on his appointments and had a surgery scheduled at two o’clock this afternoon. At this rate, he’d be late to the convention workshop today. The convention. Great. Where he’d probably see Kady again.
How in the hell had any of this happened? He’d come to New York to get away from her. No, not from her. From the pain and memories of what had happened in Atlanta. Except some things—unlike his old golf clubs—weren’t as easy to leave behind. Some of them had followed him. And seeing Kady again had been like a punch to the gut, reawaking the guilt of not being able to give her what she’d wanted.
It was just for a week, though. Surely he could maintain some kind of poker face for that long. Then she’d fly back home. Life would return to normal.
Or some semblance of normal.
He rapped on the door, irritated that his thoughts seemed to keep circling his ex.
“Come.”
The curt command didn’t faze him. Phil was that way with everyone. And, as far as he knew, he hadn’t done anything to tick the man off. Not this week, anyway.
He pushed through the door and paused. Someone else was already in there. “Sorry, I can—”
“No, come in. This concerns both of you.”
Both?
Taking another look at the chair’s occupant, his stomach curdled in protest. Talk about circling. Think about her, and she appeared.
What the hell was Kady doing here?
He’d figured she’d be out lounging by the pool this morning, wearing one of those skimpy bikinis she tended to favor. Memories of creamy skin and long, lithe limbs flashed through his skull, only to be ejected in a hurry.
Not even going there.
That was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place.
He chose to remain standing by the door, even as Phil took his seat again. “You have a group of medical students scheduled to shadow you this week between conference sessions. Are you ready for them?”