a breathless laugh, finally hauling it out and plopping it onto the floor. “Oh, I’m real sorry I missed that. So wish I could have been here to help.”
“Probably just as well, now that I think about it. We’d have gotten in a fight about how it was supposed to go together, like when we built the bookcase in your apartment.”
“And I still think the back of it is upside down, which I’ll prove when I move it. If I’m right, I’ll send you a picture and gloat.” She flashed him a grin before she leaned over to pull the front and back wheels apart to open the stroller. The sight, again, of her rear and those bare legs jutting at him and moving around was now permanently branded into his brain. Which sent his libido soaring all over again and his old anger and hurt punching hard into his gut when he thought of all the fun times they’d shared. And how he could keep feeling both of those things at the same time? Over and over again?
He had no idea. But one thing he did know: it was going to be a long couple of days. With unwelcome heat and a lot of cold showers.
“WE’RE STILL TRYING to find a room for you, Mr. Grant, but hopefully one will be available soon,” Bree said to the more-than-angry patient who’d been in the ER since she’d first arrived that morning, and it was now going on six p.m. “In a big hospital like this, there’s sometimes a juggle between getting patients released and new patients into those rooms. Hang in just a little longer, okay?”
She gave him her friendliest, most reassuring smile, hoping a little niceness on her part would go a long way toward making the nurses’ jobs a little easier. Nurses who had put up with plenty of verbal abuse from the man, and who had asked her to calm him down since he’d been demanding to talk to a doctor about it. As though there were something she could do to magically make a bed become available.
And as though he cared much what she had to say anyway. There were always a certain number of male patients who, when they wanted to talk to the doctor, wanted a male doctor, and treated her and other female doctors the same way they treated nurses.
With disrespect.
Yes, it stuck in all their craws, made her chest burn and her head feel as if it were about to explode, but it was just the way it was. She’d learned that accepting it was part of the job. Discussing it with older doctors, she knew it had been part of the mentality of patients and even other physicians for years, and, apparently, was a lot better than it used to be. Those who cared about the subject were sure that, as time went on, those attitudes would eventually fade away completely. She had to hope that was true.
Sean was proof that some men had changed their attitudes. He utterly respected her work, which had been part of the reason she’d fallen so hard for him. But respecting her and knowing she could well take care of herself didn’t stop him from somehow thinking it was his job to take care of her, too. He’d protested that loving someone meant caring for them, that she was independent to a fault.
She’d learned long ago there was no such thing. If a person didn’t focus on achieving personal goals and accomplishments and independence, then what would you be? Not enough, that was what. Sean just didn’t understand, and it had been one more thing that had led to the spectacular crash and burn and utter flameout of their relationship.
Not her problem anymore, she reminded herself fiercely. Sean could go find the right wife for himself, and she’d someday, maybe, with any luck, find the right man for her. After all, her ineptness with little Will had proved two things. That Sean wanted the kind of woman who needed a child to feel complete, and that she wasn’t that woman and never could be.
Didn’t want to be.
Bree listened briefly to more lambasting from Mr. Grant, again gave him the same answer and smile, then moved on to the nurses’ desk to go over some patient charts. “Is neuro on the way to check on the possible stroke in twenty-eight?”
“Yes. And I have transport coming to take your teen broken leg to X-ray, and your elderly patient who fell and hit her head down for her MRI.”
“Good.” Bree glanced at her watch. Her shift was over in less than an hour, and while, normally, she’d hang around awhile to make sure the transition to the next doc went smoothly, tonight she didn’t have that luxury. Sean would have to leave for work pretty much the minute she arrived to take over with Will, so if she was going to see Emma, it had to happen now while she had this brief lull.
“I’m going to the ICU for a short time. Page me if you need me.” Between staying at Sean’s to watch the baby if he got called in to surgery and her own twelve-hour shift, Bree hadn’t seen Emma for twenty-four hours and was anxious to find out how she was doing. It didn’t matter that she knew she’d have heard if anything bad had happened. She had to see for herself.
As she made her way through the hospital corridors, a strange anxiety rolled around in Bree’s stomach, which she’d never experienced much of in her life. Yes, there’d been anxiety before tests in medical school, and nerves when facing a big wave in a surfing competition, or a tennis opponent in a big college match. But none of that had felt like this.
A little jittery and a lot nervous. Plenty of it was from worry about Emma, she knew. But the rest?
From having to spend time with Sean, and the tumble of mixed emotions it stirred up, welcome and unwelcome at the same time.
Walking along the bike path by the beautiful bay she loved always calmed and relaxed her. Walking with Sean and the baby in the stroller yesterday? That had been beyond peculiar. Calming and nerve-racking. Peaceful and turbulent. In some ways, it had felt just like the many times they’d spent meandering around the bay, and more than once she’d nearly reached to hold his hand. Just in time, she’d remember they weren’t lovers, barely friends, even, which had thrown aside any and all tranquillity and left her stomach in knots.
She drew in a long breath. It would be okay. Sean’s mother would be there soon, and Bree could step out of the picture, focus on packing for Hawaii and move on with her life. Her relationship with Sean would fade to a distant memory. Until then, she’d take her babysitting shift when he wasn’t around, and keep contact between them to a minimum. These uncomfortable jitters would leave and her life would ease into a new normal.
Her stomach tightened as she approached Emma’s room, wondering what her condition would be. Even the smallest improvement would be wonderful, and she hoped and prayed Emma would be awake and Bree could ask how she was feeling. Could tell her how her baby boy was doing just fine. And was it selfish of her to hope that even a small conversation might help lighten the heavy guilt and discomfort in her own chest?
But the sight of Emma’s bruised and battered body, with her arm in a cast and her body still hooked up to everything it could possibly be hooked up to, added to that weight instead. Yes, she saw patients looking like this all the time, but a friend? Emma, who as far as she knew had barely been awake enough after her surgeries to spend more than a short time with her newborn baby?
No, she hadn’t had to go through any of this before, and prayed she never would again. At least Sean believed there hadn’t been anything she could have done differently to avoid the accident. The thought gave her more comfort than it should since she found it impossible not to wonder at least a little.
But it had happened, and it was over. Like her relationship with Sean. She had no choice but to move on from both of those painful realities.
“Hey
