by Amy Ruttan
Calum, ever the gentleman, held open the door for her and they walked out of the boardroom. Pearl led him through the facility and then down to the field, where the Bridgers were out running drills.
The players she wanted to see were on the sidelines.
“Do you want me to come down on the field?” he asked.
“Sure. Why not? You can help.”
He nodded. “Okay. I don’t know how much help I can be, though. You’ve dealt with orthopedic injuries.”
“You can help, come on.”
They headed down onto the field and over to the sidelines, where the players were waiting.
They waved as she approached them.
And she was met with greetings of “hey, Doc” and “what’s up, Doc.”
“Dr. Calum Munro, this is the lead quarterback, Jose Fernandez. He’s taken one too many blows recently and broken a few ribs.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Munro,” Jose said as he held out his hand, which was taped. Pearl frowned when she saw that and gingerly took his hand.
“What have you been doing?” she demanded.
Jose shrugged. “I got tackled pretty bad in the last game. I’m still recovering from that concussion from last month. Anyways, I lost my balance and was open for the tackle. I bent a couple of fingers back.”
“Concussions can take weeks to heal, Jose.” She looked at his hand.
“I know, Doc. I thought I was fine, though.”
“Have you gone to get this X-rayed?” she asked.
Jose sighed. “Not yet, Doc. I swear I was on my way up.”
Pearl gave him a stern look and then stepped aside for Calum to look. “What do you think, Dr. Munro?”
Calum took Jose’s hand. “Definitely dislocated a joint. There’s swelling. You did a good job taping though, Jose. I should’ve benched you, but it didn’t look this bad last night.”
“Thanks, Doc!” Jose said brightly. “It was fine during the game, but I finished practice today and it’s worse. It’s a bit tender.”
“You need to get up and see Marta in X-ray. I want to see how badly you’ve dislocated your joints and I want to make sure there isn’t any tendon damage in your arm. Your good throwing arm.”
“Yes, Doc.” Jose made his way off the field.
“You talk to them like you’re their mother,” Calum teased.
“I guess I am in a way, but they need to take care of their injuries and not play through the pain, but no matter how much I talk about that, they do. They’re professional athletes.”
“I get that,” Calum said.
“Do you?” she asked, crossing her arms.
“Sure. Aren’t surgeons like that in some way? We work grueling long hours, sometimes ignoring what our body is telling us. We don’t eat, we don’t sleep as we fight for our patients’ lives.”
“You’re right, although my parents wouldn’t agree with you.”
He was confused. “Aren’t they surgeons, too?”
“Yes, but they see their surgery is something legitimate. Orthopedic surgeons aren’t as important as a cardiothoracic surgeon or a neurosurgeon as far as they are concerned. You can live without a leg, but you can’t live without a heart or a brain...though my parents seem to be doing a good job of that.”
“Are you serious?” he asked.
“I think I have told you this before.”
“Right. I tend to block out memories of your mother,” he teased.
She laughed. “Can’t blame you for that.”
“I don’t understand why they hated your choice in surgery.”
“Because it’s not theirs. Although, my father respects my job working with the Bridgers.”
“Why?” Calum asked.
“Money.” She regretted it instantly the moment she said it. Like her answer was confirming something.
“I guess that’s something,” he said firmly. “My father, who was absent most of my childhood, felt like I should become an investor like him. Of course, that’s only when I grew older and showed an aptitude for figures. When I was a kid, he couldn’t be bothered with me.”
“I’m sorry that I’ve forced you to come here. I forgot about your relationship with your dad momentarily.”
“What relationship?” Calum shrugged. “It doesn’t matter that Grayson Munro, one of the major investors of this team, is my father.”
She knew Grayson Munro, he was very persuasive—Calum’s father had encouraged her to do whatever it took to save George’s career because he had personally invested so much in George’s career with the Bridgers.
Had Grayson worked some deal with Calum? Perhaps Calum really didn’t want to help her because he cared about George and about the case. Maybe he had no choice.
“Is that why you’re helping me?” she asked.
Calum cocked an eyebrow. “What’re you talking about?”
“Your father is an investor for the Bridgers. Is he the one that forced you to take on my case?”
* * *
Calum was stunned that that was the first thing she would think about. Did she really think so little of him? His father might have invested in the Bridgers, but he hadn’t come to Calum and asked him for help. Why was she always looking for something to push him away?
Why were you?
“Pearl, I don’t talk to my father. He had nothing to do with this.”
She pursed her lips together. “I believe you.”
“I’ve never lied to you, Pearl. You know I don’t talk to him.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He knew she had trust issues, but he was glad she believed him. He had never lied to her.
Of course, he wasn’t telling her everything. He wasn’t telling her that kiss last night scared him, that her walking away hurt him, but was also a relief.
Being with her made him lose all control. It was like no time had passed between them. He forgot who he was when he had her in his arms.
And suddenly, he was very thankful that he was getting out the city for the weekend. Max was going his to favorite doggy day-care place and he was going to just get away, into the mountains for some peace and quiet.
Away from this.
All of these emotions. He had been overcome when he kissed her. He’d forgotten everything. When he was with Pearl he forgot what happened. The pain when she left.
Kissing her, he lost all control.
He still cared for her.
He still loved her, but he couldn’t open up to her. When she left him last night, he remembered why he guarded his heart.
“I really am thankful that you’re assisting me. There’s no one I would rather have.”
He nodded, but he wasn’t so sure about that, not really. If she really wanted him why had she left all those years ago?
“Well, I think I’m going to head back to the hospital,” he said, because he didn’t really have much more to say. Not at this time.
Not without saying something that he would regret.
Would you regret it, though?
“Sure. I will be there as soon as I check up on Jose’s hand.”
“Make sure there isn’t a crush injury,” he added.
She gave him a look that said “please” and then he chuckled softly. He’d forgotten who he was talking to.
“I’ll see you later,” she said over her shoulder, heading back into the facility.
Calum headed in the opposite direction, watching the players on the field, taking his time as he processed everything. All the emotions he was feeling, how it was so easy to get wrapped back up in Pearl’s life and why he was a lost man when it came to Pearl Henderson.
“Calum!”
Hearing his name, Calum spun around and his stomach twisted as he saw his father up in the stands, not far from him.
It had been a long time since he had seen Grayson Munro, at least as long as he and Pearl had split up. And honestly, although it felt like an eternity that he and Pearl had been apart, it didn’t quite feel long enough since he had last seen his father.
“Father,” Calum said stiffly.
His father was still decked out in one of his expensive tailored suits and when he saw those suits all he could think about is how his mother barely scraped by and sometimes didn’t have food for herself to feed them.
His father’s dark hair was almost white and Calum was thankful that he took after his mother and her ginger coloring.
There weren’t many ways he resembled his father. A few traits, but there was nothing but a name connecting Dr. Calum Munro with Grayson Munro.
“What’re you doing here, son?”
Grayson never called him “son” unless there were people around and his father was putting on a show. As Calum scanned the bleachers, he saw there were a group of people farther up, sitting politely, so that was why his father was putting on a performance. He had no doubt that they were a group of investors.
“Laying it on thick, eh, Father?”
Grayson was not amused with that, but he didn’t let the saccharine act slip. “I’m surprised to see you here, son. Why don’t you come up and say hi to some people? I’ve been telling them all about my son who won the most prestigious medical award.”
“Another time.” Calum waved to the group, all of whom were looking at him. “I’m wanted back at the hospital.”
“Surely that can wait? What kind of emergency case is an orthopedic surgeon needed for?”
Calum narrowed his eyes. “Actually, it’s for one of your star players. George Vaughn. He has a pretty bad osteosarcoma and your team’s surgeon contacted me to help him out with that ground-breaking surgery that I won the award for. He’s waiting for me at the hospital.”
Grayson was stunned. “I had no idea it was that bad.”
“It is. So when I say another time, I mean another time,” he said tightly.
“I’ll call you later, son. Take care of our star player.” Grayson turned and headed up the bleachers to the investors, and Calum watched him kowtowing and kissing ass in disgust.
His father only let him go without fighting because there was a crowd watching and because the patient was someone he was personally invested in.
And by invested in, Calum meant financially invested in.
If it had been anyone else and they had been alone, Calum knew that his father would have raised more of a stink. Calum and his mother were always supposed to jump whenever Grayson Munro graced them with his presence. His mother had been so in love with Grayson, even after he left, that she had always hoped he’d come back.
Right up until her death. She had held out hope he’d return. Only he hadn’t.
And Grayson certainly liked to throw it in Calum’s face that he had paid for his education and that Calum owed him.
Even though Calum had told Pearl the truth, that his father hadn’t put him up to this, he hoped that taking care of George would repay the supposed debt that he owed his father.
This was why Calum had never really wanted a family.
Never wanted to get married.
He didn’t have a good role model, but when Pearl had told him he was pregnant, he had been willing to give it a shot, because he loved Pearl that much. He wanted Pearl and he wanted their child. He thought maybe he could have happiness, and the longer they were together, the more hopeful he had become for a family life he’d never had.
Pearl had made his life better.
Calum had sworn from the moment that Pearl told him that she was pregnant that he was never going to be like his father and he was going to strive to do better.
He would do better.
Of that he was certain, only that chance had been taken away from him when they lost the baby, and Calum was too worried about the pain of ever trying again.
One thing was for certain, one thing he knew—he would never prioritize a patient because of money.
He was not that coldhearted.
* * *
“Can you feel that, George?” Calum asked as he tested the skin around where he was going to make the biopsy incision. He’d given George an epidural, because he couldn’t wait the full six hours for George to have a completely empty stomach and put him under general anesthesia.
So he and Pearl had decided that it would be best if George had an epidural.
“I can’t feel anything, Doc,” George said from behind the surgical drape.
“Good.” Calum looked over at Pearl, who was standing on the opposite side of the table. She was there for moral support for George, who was trembling, but that was the effect of the epidural.
“You’re doing great, George,” Pearl encouraged.
“Yeah, but I’m the only player going through all this junk and surgery.”
“Jose crushed a couple of fingers. I admitted him just before I came in here.”
“What?” George asked, staring up at Pearl.
Calum chuckled because he knew that Pearl, who usually didn’t talk about patient-confidentially stuff, was trying to take George’s mind off the fact that he was starting a rough journey treating his cancer.
And he also knew that Jose had given Pearl permission to talk to George about it because Jose also wanted to ease George’s mind off the fact he was going to have his leg, the thing that helped carry him to the very cusp of his dream, be put through the ringer.
“How did he crush his hand?” George asked.
“During the game yesterday. What we thought was a sprain was a lot worse. He’s still recovering from that concussion, so he’s a bit out of it. He’s benched for a while. I have to tell you your coach is not happy having you out this season and Jose out for a couple months, at least. He needs surgery.”
“No, I suppose he’s not happy.” George relaxed, which was the best thing for him. Pearl was keeping George’s mind off the leg. She might have been called an ice queen when they were residents, but that was the furthest thing from the truth.
She was kind to her patients and he understood why she liked her job. The players relied on her and she treated them like they were her kids.
She was concerned about them. She cared for them.
Although she tried to hide it, there was a soft side to Dr. Pearl Henderson.
He knew first-hand what it was like to have her melt in his arms and under his touch.
Calum was handed the scalpel so that he could start his incision, so he could take a piece of the tumor that was invading George’s bone.
And he wanted to get a good look at it close up, under his microscopes. He wanted to know what he was up against so that he could help George.
“Hey, Doc Munro, have you started?” George asked.
“He has,” Pearl said. “But if you bug him too much he might slip!”
“I never slip,” Calum muttered and then winked at George.
George was laughing. “It’s kind of quiet in here. Don’t you have some music or something? I’m going stir-crazy.”
“Well, our teacher used to like to listen to Queen when he was doing surgery,” Pearl said. “It annoyed Calum and he likes it quiet.”
“Why?” George asked. “Doc, that’s seriously boring.”
“Sure, get the patient on your side, Dr. Henderson,” Calum teased.
Pearl’s eyes were twinkling. He loved being here in the operating room with her. This felt right. This felt like they belonged together. They worked well together. She anticipated his moves. She knew what he needed done before he had to ask. They moved and thought like one. They were partners. They were equals and he missed this.
“I’ll always side with the lady, Dr. Munro. Sorry about that.”
Calum laughed softly as he dissected down to where he needed to take a sample from. “In this case, I don’t blame you. Dr. Henderson is not bad on the eyes.”
“No, indeed.” George’s eyes rolled back into his head.
“George?” Pearl asked, her voice rising. “George, stay with me.”
“His blood pressure is bottoming out,” Dr. Knox, the anesthesiologist, stated. “I’ll hang some more fluid. It’s common with an epidural.”
Pearl nodded, but Calum could tell she was a bit worried.
“Surely, this isn’t your first patient that’s had a reaction to an epidural?” Calum asked.
“Usually my patients are under general anesthesia. I have yet to do a knee replacement under an epidural,” she said.
“I have,” Calum said. “Not the most pleasant thing for the patient. I do prefer general anesthesia, but a couple of years ago we had a patient who was allergic to the medication and an epidural was our only option.”
“I’m envious,” Pearl said.
“Of what?” Calum asked.
“You have a bigger scope of cases here. More than I do.”
“Well, I didn’t leave,” he said tersely.
He knew that he had hurt her, and he hadn’t meant for that to slip out, but it was the truth. She had left for a higher-paying job, but one that was so stifled in the scope of cases. He saw everything an orthopedic surgeon could see here in the hospital, which is why he had been so successful developing his treatment plan.
Pearl didn’t say anything else as George came to.
“Whoa, is it over?” he asked weakly.
“Almost,” Calum said. “Just a few more minutes.”
He glanced up at Pearl, but she was focused on George, her back to him. He knew that he had hurt her, but she had hurt him, too.
Still, he hated himself right in this moment.
He hated himself for hurting her, which was the last thing he wanted to do.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PEARL TOOK A deep breath when she got off the last train in downtown Sonora. It had been a long day, but the train journey gave her time to catch up on work and to think about everything. She’d been hurt when Calum had said what he did during George’s biopsy, but she couldn’t blame him.