man.
“Look, I know it’s not easy. Believe me, if anyone knows how hard it is to pick up the pieces and move on, it’s me. After my marriage broke up…” He paused, shrugged, then smiled. “But I’m working it out with Gabrielle now, and I think we’re going to get married. Which shows how easily the past becomes just that—the past—when the right future opens up to you. So keep yourself open to the possibilities, because you deserve to find some happiness. If not with Dinah Corday, then with someone else.”
“What if I don’t want to open myself up to them? I mean, what if I like keeping myself shut off?” Eric spun away from Neil and pushed through the surgical door, stepping directly into the gown the surgical tech was holding up for him. He was back in the moment now, back in the zone. That’s what always happened the instant he stepped into surgery and right now, even though the most gorgeous pair of brown eyes he’d ever seen in his life were staring over a surgical mask at him, he was focused on starting the procedure to save Bryce Evans’s life.
But as he stepped up to the table, for one fleeting moment the only thing he saw in front of him were those eyes. Beautiful eyes. Distracting. Then he blocked them out, and cleared his throat. “Let’s go over the surgical check list before we start.”
Well, if this hadn’t been quite the day! She’d helped deliver one baby, helped resuscitate that baby, and had then assisted in his surgery. All that, plus dodging a flood. By all rights, she should have been tired, exhausted, ready to find a quiet corner somewhere, put her feet up and take a nap. That’s probably what she’d do in a little while, when she finally wound down. But right now she felt alive. Invigorated. It had been three long, difficult weeks since Molly’s death. Three weeks to doubt herself, three weeks being berated for caring by the man who had claimed to love her. Three weeks of agony and self-doubt.
Yet in the span of only a few hours now, it was like she’d been sustained again. Sustained, validated. Made to feel normal. Of course, it would all be over with once she stepped outside the confines of this hospital. So she wanted to bask a while longer in a place where she felt like she belonged, to linger in the good feelings. Besides, she felt safe here. She’d never, ever in her life set foot into such a tiny, crazy hospital as this one, where trauma doctors had second careers as surgeons and third careers as heads of search and rescue, and where doctors still made house calls and invited total strangers into the surgery. As mixed up as it all seemed, she liked it so much she could almost picture herself belonging here, and that was a nice feeling she wanted to last for a while longer because, to be honest, she doubted she’d ever get it back.
Creeping into the intensive care nursery, where the lights were dimmed for the sleeping hours, and the green, glowing trace of baby Bryce’s heartbeat on the cardiac monitor next to his bed illuminated the area like an eerie beacon, Dinah stopped halfway to the crib to admire the miracle baby lying there, breathing easily and sleeping peacefully. All was right in his world and he had no idea how people had scrambled to save his life today, how they’d put their own lives at risk to save him. Neither had he any idea how many people had already crept in to see how he was doing, or hovered outside the door, worrying about him. He had no idea that things weren’t perfect, and that’s the way it should always be in a child’s world. Molly should have had a chance at that, if even for a moment.
Dinah loved children, loved taking care of them, loved the innocence of the smiles and giggles. She’d fallen in love with Molly. Abandoned at birth because of overwhelming disabilities, her birth mother had simply walked away. Never looked back. And had left a precious child to die alone in an impersonal hospital nursery where the duty nurses took good care, but didn’t truly care. No child should ever be alone that way, and she’d made sure Molly had never been alone.
It had reawakened something in her. A longing. And watching Bryce now reminded her of the all things he would have ahead of him, things Molly wouldn’t have. She wouldn’t have gone home from the hospital, wouldn’t have slept in a crib, wouldn’t have had toys to play with. All those weeks sitting with Molly in the hospital, holding her, singing to her, she’d wanted to pretend things could be normal for the child, but she’d known…as a nurse, she’d known. All those weeks with Charles calling her crazy for getting involved. Hopeless was what he’d called Molly. But Dinah had never seen hopeless. All she’d seen had been a sick child who’d had no one but her.
How could she have been so wrong about Charles? He was a pediatrician. He was supposed to love children, no matter what their condition. Through Molly, what she’d come to know had been a man who could barely tolerate them.
How could she have been so blind?
Now, watching Bryce, and feeling so connected to him, the longing to be part of something so good was stirring again. It would be nice to sit and cradle him in her arms the way she had Molly, to whisper motherly things in his tiny ear. It was a feeling that scared her, though, because she knew the pain of loss when it ended. It was unbearable. So deep and profound nothing could touch it or make it better.
Not ever.
With her marriage to Damien, shortly after she’d graduated from nursing school, she’d wanted all the right things—the nice little house with a white picket fence. Wanted to bake pies for her husband and cool them on the windowsill in the afternoon so their sweet aromas would waft down to him as he came home from work. Wanted children playing in the yard. Wanted to snuggle with him in the evening after the children were in bed, and talk about the things that were interesting to no one but themselves—how their days had been, who they’d met on the street, what they were going to do tomorrow, and next week and next year. But that was a dream life that hadn’t come true as Damien had been bored with their daydreams by the end of their first year together and already working on a way to find his life with someone else. And here she was now, at thirty-four, fresh from the last daydream fiasco with Charles, older but, apparently, not much wiser.
Well, experience was the best teacher. Maybe she had a tendency to let her heart rule her head, but this time her head was fastened on better. Avoid relationships and the problems didn’t happen.
“He looks so peaceful, you wouldn’t know what he’s just gone through, would you?” Eric asked.
“Eric!” she gasped, startled that he’d been able to sneak up on her like that. She’d been too lost in the daydream she didn’t want to have, too caught up in something she couldn’t allow herself, and this lapse in judgment had everything to do with him. Not that he would be interested in her that way. Yet he was practically hanging over her shoulder now. Standing much too close. So close, in fact, that the scent of soap on his skin threatened to tip her right back into her daydream.
As a preventative to the thoughts trying to creep in, Dinah moved round to the other side of the baby’s crib, laid her hands on the raised rails and relaxed a little. She was safe here, keeping so many physical obstacles between her and Eric, even if Eric didn’t know what she was doing, or how she was feeling, being so close to him. “Babies are resilient. Much more than we are, I think.”
“Is that why you chose pediatrics?” he asked.
“Actually, my most recent choice was a kitchen in a ski lodge.” It was a blatant dodge, but she didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to look up at him for fear he could find the answers he was seeking in her eyes. And they were there, she was sure of it.
“Before that.”
“In my life, before that doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice now a whisper. “I’ve had a few of those and now I am what I am in the moment. Don’t expect anything else.” He was going to respond to that. In fact, she was so sure of it she practically held her breath waiting for it, but when he didn’t, Dinah finally did look
