“I just don’t understand why I need to, when there are certainly enough women on the island to keep me busy every minute of the day between preventative tests and a myriad of other women’s health needs—not to mention prenatal monitoring and actual births. Speaking of which—how frequent are they here? On an island of about ten thousand? Should be one to two per week?”
“About that,” Theo confirmed. “It will take a few days for word to get out and for you to get busy, and we all handle overflow cases in emergency situations. You can shadow Ares for a few days until patients begin lining up to see you.”
The deep breath she took made Ares look at her face for signs of attack. Was this the breath before the tirade?
There was a touch of pink in her cheeks, but she expelled the breath and leaned back without shouting. “Fine. If I’m not otherwise needed for women’s health issues, I will shadow Ares.”
He didn’t need to wonder if she would have backed down for him—he’d practically had to throw her out the window to make her leave yesterday. Maybe he just brought out her quarrelsome instincts. Or maybe they would forever be at loggerheads with each other.
Didn’t matter. All he had to do was make a call, that emergency parachute would be deployed and he’d get out before things got too bad.
“Well, I’m about to fall over. Maybe she can start shadowing me tomorrow.”
“And you’ll be at the wedding on Saturday?”
He was on his feet, but his stomach fell to the floor anyway. He hadn’t gotten out soon enough. “Who’s getting married?”
His father was currently married—last time he’d checked—and his mother had taken herself off the market after her sixth divorce a while ago. Besides, neither of them were residing on Mythelios, so they couldn’t be the usual reason he had to go to yet another wedding.
“Me and Cailey!” Theo looked at him like he’d told him this twenty times and he was losing his mind.
Scanning back, Ares looked for any landmarks that had made him zone out, like he always did when people talked weddings.
Theo and Cailey were living together—that might have been enough reason for him to check out of the conversation.
“I must be more tired than I thought. Of course I’ll be there. Where?”
He was stuck until Saturday. He’d have to wait until Monday to pull that cord.
* * *
Midday Friday, and despite Theo’s instruction that Erianthe shadow him, Ares had to go looking for her to let her know there was a pregnant woman to see her.
They’d had a reprieve from each other on Thursday. He’d slept in the on-call room until the afternoon, then gone home. Today he’d been happy to see she had patients every time he found himself between cases, as it gave him an ideal excuse not to bother her.
Only now he had to take it the other way and go find her.
Dr. Lea Risi, a psychiatrist who had been on holiday on the island when the earthquake had struck, and in staying on to help had subsequently turned his buddy Deakin into a love-struck jokester, had caught Ares asking Petra if she’d seen the newest Dr. Nikolaides and had directed him to the clinic’s Serenity Gardens, with a somberness in her green eyes hinting that something might be amiss.
When he found Erianthe in the garden, he understood. She sat on a bench beside the fountain, staring unmoving into the water. She looked so deep in thought he stopped a good ten feet away, dread rising on the back of his neck.
He didn’t have to say anything. Without even looking at him, she asked, “Do you need me?”
He skipped right over the jolt of something he’d rather not examine in favor of answering her question in the most mundane, emotionless way possible. “There’s a patient for you. Pregnant.”
Whatever she’d been sunk into, he could almost see her shove it aside mentally. Decision made to bounce back, she stood, smoothed her scrubs and headed toward the door.
“Just a checkup, or do we have a problem?”
Ignore the we. This was not a we situation. Take her to the patient, drop her off, return to his corner.
He took the lead, guiding her to the appropriate exam room, not far away. “She said she wanted to have a checkup. But she’s worried, and she said she’d heard the baby doctor was here.”
He knocked, opened the door and led Erianthe inside.
“Nyla Sarantos, this is our resident obstetrician, Dr. Nikolaides.” Ares introduced them and then filled Erianthe in on basically what he’d already told her, which was all he really knew. “Miss Sarantos is seven months in and worried about her baby.”
Erianthe turned her attention to Nyla, the patient, making it clear she no longer considered him to be needed.
He’d told himself he’d leave after the introductions were made, but as Eri stepped forward and began going through a string of questions to get her bearings, he found himself staying, leaning against the counter.
He worried about pregnant women to the point where he actually often passed their treatment to other doctors, even when it was something simple, like a cut that needed stitching. It was something he’d shoved aside during Jacinda’s surgery because he’d had to. And because Erianthe had needed him to.
Truthfully, he didn’t like thinking about pregnant women at all—and treating them was worse.
“Okay, Nyla, tell me what you’re worried about,” Erianthe said, taking her patient’s hand and leaving no room for doubt that her attention was focused entirely upon the person she was treating. The bedside manner of a doctor who really cared.
Medicine hadn’t been an interest in her teenage years—at least not one she’d shared with him. If he’d had to guess then, he’d have placed her in an academic field, or maybe the arts, but she suited medicine.
“I’m afraid the baby is sick. He’s not moving much.”
The gentle smile Eri had worn faltered, and she let go of Nyla’s hand to don her stethoscope immediately. Using the bell, she listened to the woman’s belly, then began moving the instrument around, the furrow of her brow deepening with every move.
The third time her hand lifted, it shook. Ares found himself back at the table, his eyes fixed on Erianthe’s face. Over the following seconds her honeyed complexion turned ashen.
Grabbing his own stethoscope, he joined in listening for the baby’s heart from the other side of the woman’s belly.
Nyla’s heart was racing—beating hard enough to make him concerned. And the baby’s...? He couldn’t hear the baby’s heart for the power and speed of the mother’s.
Cold hit his chest and his own heart rate kicked up.
He tried a lower quadrant. Still nothing.
Erianthe moved the bell of her stethoscope again, and so did he. But the second hers made contact with Nyla’s stomach, her hand came over his—a touch that made his whole body flame with awareness. He searched her face, not moving, not even breathing.
The brows that had been pinched and worried had relaxed. He saw softness there, and a tiny smile starting in her eyes. Relief. The relief he saw on her face was absorbed right into him through the petite, delicate hand over his.
“Is he gone?” Nyla’s voice broke, and he shook his head immediately as Erianthe started to speak.
“He’s there.”
Her voice creaked with emotion, and she listened to the tiny heart beating a moment longer, then seemed to realize she still had hold of his hand, and removed hers from on top of it.
The buds in her ears came next, and she explained, “Your heart is beating very fast, so I want you to lie down here for a while and we’ll see if we can get it slowed down. That’s all I was able to hear at first, and that’s not good for him. So, we’ll just do some deep breathing exercises and see if we can slow it down.”
Despite her no longer touching him, he still took a moment to recover his senses enough to make it back
to the counter and give them some room.
Together Erianthe and Nyla breathed through the pattern Erianthe set—slowly in, hold, slowly out... After a full minute she listened to Nyla’s heart again and nodded. “That’s better.”
She let the mother listen too, and things began to settle down. But his own heart rate refused to slow. He hadn’t even asked the patient what she was worried about—had taken time to find Erianthe and hand her off. What if the baby had been in trouble and had needed something in those minutes?
Quietly, he practiced the breathing technique Erianthe had established, but it didn’t help.
He should leave. A proper examination was the next step.
For once, despite the wave of weakness he couldn’t think about, his feet listened to his orders. He walked toward the door, excusing himself. “I’ll get Cailey.”
A minute later Cailey slipped into the examination room and Ares waited outside, where he could still see the door.
As he waited, his heart finally began to normalize. Heat flooded him. The look on Eri’s face, the shake of her hands, how she’d paled... All of it ran on repeat through his head. He should still be feeling guilty for not having placed the welfare of a patient above his own need to get away from Erianthe, but he was too busy being angry that she had gone to the opposite extreme.
This was the second time he’d seen her with a pregnant patient—and he knew the whole point of her specialty was helping pregnant women and delivering babies—but she had absolutely no barrier between how it made her feel and the face she presented the world. Even the expectant mother had grown concerned, watching her new doctor’s face drain of color.
Was she punishing herself?
There went his heart rate again.
A short time later Cailey led Nyla out and he went straight back inside, having lost none of his concern.
Erianthe stood at the counter, her back to him, making notes in the file.
He didn’t wait for her to turn around. “Why do you do this when it so obviously hurts you?”
“You mean...?”
Feigning ignorance? Oh, hell, no.
He crossed the counter and took her elbow, making her look at him, letting him see her face. A quick scan almost convinced him he’d imagined her reaction, but he hadn’t. The patient had seen it too.
“Why obstetrics? Are you some kind of glutton for punishment?”
He’d expected to see anger at his words, but the grief he saw in her eyes set him back on his heels.
“It doesn’t always hurt me,” she whispered, and extracted her elbow from his grasp so she could look back at the file, though clearly she wasn’t reading it. “But that particular symptom, especially today, was worse. Maybe it’s just because I’m here. I don’t know...”
That particular symptom.
He gripped the edge of the counter to keep himself from reaching for her again. He didn’t know what to say to her. He hadn’t actually thought she’d answer him—he’d become used to her pushing him away.
She gathered her things and turned to leave, making him catch her by the hand again to stop her. Skin to skin, the feel of her lit him up. But the flash of pain on her face made him let her go almost immediately.
“Wait.”
“What? Why?” She backed up a little, clutching the file to her chest with folded arms.
He didn’t want to ask, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Is that how it happened?”
“Is that how I lost my baby?” she clarified.
Our baby.
He wanted to correct her, but he nodded instead. “My mother never gave me any details. Just said that it...it was late in the pregnancy...when it happened. Hard for you...”
Tears rushed to her eyes and he felt a burning in his throat that was mirrored in hers when she rasped, “I can’t do this right now. I have patients to see.”
It still ate into her.
He’d asked his mother only once and later had been glad she’d refused to give him enough details for him to agonize over. He still didn’t know if he’d ever be able to know and then put it out of his mind and get on with things. But he needed to hear it, and he needed to be able to let it go. Every time he looked at her it was still right there between them, and he couldn’t imagine it wasn’t the same for her.
But she was right. Now was not the time.
CHAPTER FOUR
ERIANTHE STUFFED HER stethoscope and the various pens and pads from her pockets into a cubby in the office cabinet, stashing them there to keep from having to carry it all back home at the end of the day.
Well, not home. Chris’s house. And while it was lovely, and a place she was made to feel welcome, it still wasn’t restful. So keeping as little as she needed there appealed to her in some fashion. The clinic was to be her home for the long haul, and even with Ares lurking around the place she didn’t dread going there, like she regrettably did Chris’s.
The weight of Ares’s stare behind her alerted her to his arrival, but she wasn’t going to greet him. It had been too long a day for her to chase tigers.
“Are you leaving now?” Ares asked from behind her.
She should ask Chris about the neuroscience behind that feeling of being watched. It wasn’t exactly what she felt when Ares was around, but it was the closest she could come to describing it. Knowing someone was there, feeling his eyes on you... She actually wished his gaze had that same creepy, hair-prickling quality of a stranger’s. Contrarily, Ares’s gaze felt warm and soothing—which was ironic, because nothing else about him was soothing in the slightest.
“Yes. Is everything all right with Jacinda?”
“Last I checked.” He showed her the keys in his hand. “Can I give you a ride?”
Erianthe closed the office cabinet where she kept her bag, put the bag carefully on her shoulder and considered the keys in his hand. The creeping sense that she was being set up was too much for her to wade through right now.
The old Ares had never done anything without a plan. Showing up with keys to drive her home? Likely he was not being as gallant and kind as anyone else might be fooled into thinking.
At least she knew him that well. His mind had always worked in advance. Everyone else played the game right before them, but Ares played three moves ahead. Which was why she’d never known how to view his going to Dimitri ten years ago as anything other than getting her and the problem of her pregnancy solved. Any idiot would have been able to predict that her father’s reaction to the news would be detrimental and extreme.
She should remember that when she thought about the creak in Ares’s voice when he’d asked about her stillbirth. Nothing had changed on that front since this afternoon—she still didn’t want to talk about it with him.
But those were boat keys, and boats were loud, which meant there was little chance he would try to talk to her. About anything. A boat would get her to Chris’s villa fast, and then she could race up the path without a long walk on top of an already long day.
“Is it a hard question?” Ares interrupted her mental list of pros and cons.
“Yes,” she answered immediately, then looked at him, daring him to argue it.
Until today, every time he looked at her it had been as if from behind a mask—guarded, sometimes irritated—but now the corners of his mouth actually turned downward, and he had what she could only call remorse in his eyes.
If she went with him, she could enjoy the water and let the salt spray wash away her hard day. Let him feel better about himself by giving her a lift and let that be the end of it. More important, if anyone noticed them being weird or avoiding each other, they’d ask questions, and questions were bad for everyone—at least on that they could agree.
If his plan was something else, she could always shove him into the Aegean—they’d be too far from the shore for anyone to see.
“Eri?”
“You’ve had all day to consider this. You can give me fifteen seconds to decide.”
She waved a hand toward the door, indicating her decision, and started walking.
In less than five minutes she was seated on the back bench of a speedboat, and Ares had it maneuvered out from the docks. He sent it hurtling far from shore, where it was safest to speed. She closed her eyes and turned her face to the sky, letting the sun warm her as the mist rose from the boat skipping across the water.
He didn’t try to talk to her. He didn’t bother her at all. Two good things. She hadn’t expected him to ask any questions—still didn’t understand why he had. Why now? Why not when he’d first heard about it and she’d been so devastated and alone? No one to talk to. No one to grieve with. Was it simply that proximity had made the topic fresh enough to make him wonder about it again after such a long time?
She realized then how long they’d been speeding over the water. It wasn’t that far to Chris’s house. And shouldn’t the sun be warming the other side of her face right now?
Opening her eyes, her hand placed above to shade them, she looked toward where the shore should be—and wasn’t. Her eyes twitched and she peered in the other direction. Yep. He had turned in the wrong direction—away from Chris’s house and toward his own little sheep-infested island instead.
Wedging her bag between the bench and the boat, she grabbed the side for support and made her way to the front so she could push him in. Or hit him. Or maybe just scream until he heard her.
As soon as she appeared in his peripheral vision, he slowed the boat, and when it stopped, he killed the engine.
She didn’t need to know what he was doing, and she really didn’t want to think about why. She just wanted to cut this nonsense short. “I don’t want to go to your island. It has been a very long day, Ares.”
He took the keys out of the dash, stuck them into his pocket and gestured back to the bench. “I know you don’t want to go there. I know you want nothing to do with me. I get it. Sit down and talk to me—it won’t take long.”
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