how she’d acted for so long as she’d fought to get surgeries as a resident.
“I’m not a shark.”
Not anymore.
She cleared her throat. “I’m here to explore the potential of a trial on autism, if you must know. One I couldn’t start in Germany. Just part of my working here was working with you on this case because I am one of the best diagnostician neurosurgeons in Europe, next to Mannheim.”
He smirked. “So you’re not after Dr. Brigham’s job?”
Vivian shook her head. “Yes, I am. I have aspirations on Dr. Brigham’s job. Who wouldn’t?”
* * *
Me.
Only Reece kept that thought to himself. No one needed to know he had no desire or plans to run. He had no aspirations on Dr. Brigham’s job. He preferred being on the front line. He liked the OR too much. He didn’t like the spotlight or the PR aspects of running a surgical program. He didn’t crave the spotlight like his parents did. Most people would think so, but he didn’t. He abhorred it. That was why he didn’t use his real surname. Why he’d changed Castille to Castle when he was eighteen. He wanted to hide the fact he was the son of country music royalty. He didn’t want people to know that his father was Ray Castille, one of the biggest artists to grace the halls of the Grand Ole Opry. His mother, Edna, had been a model and preferred the jet-setting lifestyle and Hollywood over him and his father, to be honest. Wealth, fame and prestige destroyed lives.
Ruined people.
The limelight wasn’t for him.
He hated the attention, the world he’d grown up in. Wealth and glamour did not lead to a normal childhood. So he avoided attention as much as he could. Privacy was what he wanted, though if his Alzheimer’s trial was successful that could change. Bringing in money.
And maybe then he could help more people who couldn’t afford health care or specialists.
Don’t think about it.
“I’m sorry. Really, your reasons for returning aren’t my concern. I was just...I was surprised to see you,” Reece apologized.
She was going to say something more when his pager buzzed. It was a code blue on Gary. He turned on his heel and ran. He could hear Vivian following him.
“What is it?” she shouted behind him.
“Code blue,” he shouted back over his shoulder.
As soon as he came into the room the nurse began to fill him in. It was a seizure, but one that seemed to be affecting Gary’s heart as well. It was strange, both monitors showing his cardiac and neurological distress.
Vivian didn’t ask any questions. She just dove right in, ordering medicine and keeping calm as she rapidly fired off instructions beside him. Just like the good old days.
“His pulse ox is down. He can’t breathe,” she shouted over the alarms. “Why is he not getting enough oxygen?”
I don’t know. Only he didn’t say that out loud as he pulled over the crash cart. They worked together over Gary like they’d worked together a long time ago. As if no time had passed at all.
He’d forgotten how calm and collected she was. How she grounded him. How she grounded the whole room in an emergency situation. He’d missed that.
“Charge to ten,” she said above the din as Gary flatlined.
Reece grabbed the paddles. “Clear.” Everyone stepped back and he shocked Gary’s heart back into rhythm.
The heartbeat stabilized, sinus rhythm returning and seizures ended. Reece breathed a sigh of relief as the monitors bleeped in time with a stable heart and his pulse ox rose again.
“Thanks,” he said to Vivian. They shared a smile and it made his heart skip a beat because it was as if nothing had changed.
“No problem,” she said. “That’s what I’m here for.”
He was glad she was here, but she’d left once. She’d leave again. He didn’t need her. And he had to keep reminding himself of that to reinforce the walls he’d built.
“I can take it from here,” he said, looking away quickly. Just working alongside her stirred so many memories within him. It reminded him of the hurt and pain from when she’d left. She’d been the one person he’d opened up to and she’d betrayed him. Broke his heart and just affirmed his belief that you couldn’t trust anyone.
His parents and many so-called friends had shown him that. Even his parents had always been unreliable and never really there when he’d needed them. There was only one person Reece could rely on and that was himself.
“Are you sure?” Vivian asked. “I can stay...”
“No. Go get settled. I’ll let you know when everything is set up to monitor him.”
Vivian nodded and left the room, which he was thankful for. The last thing he needed was to carry on that heated conversation out in the open. One thing was for certain. He had to keep his distance from Vivian, which was going to be impossible to do, the longer Gary was in the hospital, but it had to be done.
For his own good.
“MAMA?” VIVIAN SET down her briefcase on the floor in the entranceway. She’d been surprised the door had been unlocked when she tried her key. Her mother never left the door unlocked, especially since they’d grown up in a less desirable location in the city. Although her mother’s house wasn’t in a bad part of town anymore; Vivian had taken care of that when she’d gone to Germany by buying this place. Still, it was no reason to leave her door unlocked.
The door being unlocked had Vivian on alert. Especially as there was no answer to her query when she first walked in. Her mother was definitely home as Vivian had the car now. Her mother’s license had been revoked the day the diagnosis came down.
It didn’t stop her mother from walking, though.
“Mama?” Vivian called out again, a little more urgent this time. She walked toward the kitchen and memories of that horrible day when she was a young girl came rushing back...the moment she’d found her mother in a pool of blood. Painful nightmarish memories that she hadn’t thought about in a long time.
Her mother’s suicide attempt after her father left was the stuff of nightmares for Vivian.
It was something they didn’t talk about. That year, the year her mother checked out, haunted her for so long and in this moment, calling out to her mother, it was overpowering.
“Mama?”
Her mother rushed out of the kitchen, a tea towel in one hand, a dish in the other. She looked surprised. “Vivian? When did you get back?”
“Just now.” She sent up a silent prayer of relief.
Her
