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.”
