good to see you too, wife.”
WHY DID HE have to be so cocky?
The moment he said the word, he was sure that fire was going to come shooting out of Emily’s nostrils and he really understood the meaning of that old saying, If looks could kill, from the way she was glaring at him. But, dammit, she looked just as good as ever.
Her blonde, almost platinum-colored, hair was shorter, but it suited her and he couldn’t help but remember the way that if he kissed her just below her earlobe it made her sigh in pleasure. He’d been a fool to walk away from her.
You weren’t the only one who walked away, remember?
When he’d woken up in that Las Vegas hotel room, he had been alone and the only thing left of her had been the marriage certificate on the night stand.
He’d tried to reach out to her but she hadn’t responded, and by the time she’d reached out to him, he’d been boarding a plane heading to the Middle East.
And Emily had never reached out to him again until he’d received the divorce papers a week ago. That was the first he’d heard from her. It had been around the same time that Dr. Ruchi had asked him to consult on the conjoined twins case.
He’d figured it would be nice to hand deliver the divorce papers to her and put an end to that reckless night in Las Vegas, and also lay her ghost rest, because for the last six months she’d been all he could think about.
The fact that another woman haunted him so much scared him, because he remembered the last time that had happened.
He’d thought Morgan had loved him. She’d fallen pregnant and, without telling him, she’d terminated the pregnancy and left.
He never wanted to get involved with another woman again. Not in a serious relationship anyway. One-night stands were fine, but marriage?
What had he been thinking?
It was a relief that Emily seemed to want the same thing.
He had mentally prepared himself for the worst by coming to Seattle and facing his demons, but he hadn’t been prepared to really see her again, because when he’d first seen Emily in Vegas he’d been a lost man. She had been gorgeous and though she’d been a bit shy, there had been something about her that had made him want to know her better.
He’d fallen for her intelligence, her beauty, her charm, her lack of dancing skills, but, just like every other woman, she’d used him and she’d left.
He’d become used to leaving first. He wasn’t used to it being the other way around. It suited him, though, because he’d been unable to deal with that heartache Morgan had inflicted on him.
Emily opened her mouth to say something else and then glanced over her shoulder at the intern, who was at the end of the gurney, and thought better of it.
The doors to the elevator opened and they wheeled the gurney toward an open room in the ICU where they could get his patient settled and Ryan could reverse the hypothermia and get busy repairing this young boy’s spine.
“Dr. Teal, would you get Dr. Gary some scrubs and a surgical cap?” Emily asked as they made sure the patient was stabilized.
“Of course, Dr. West.” The intern left the ICU room and the team of ICU nurses took over as Emily picked up the patient’s chart and motioned him to follow her. She set the chart down at the nurses’ station and turned to face him, her arms crossed, and it was then he noticed the round swell under her scrubs.
His heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. She was pregnant and she hadn’t told him? Just seeing her like that caused a flashback.
“You could’ve told me you were pregnant!” Ryan shouted as Morgan packed up her belongings.
“Why? We’re not married and I don’t want to be a mother. My career is my focus now.”
“I have a right to know!”
“You do. I just told you, but it’s done. Now we can both move on.”
He shook that memory away. He hadn’t wanted to be a father, but by the time he’d come back to New York after a business trip Morgan had already terminated the pregnancy and the relationship.
He’d been kept in the dark.
Apparently, history was repeating itself.
And he was scared by the prospect. He just had to handle this delicately.
“You look good, Emily.”
“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head.
“What?”
“You know what.” She looked toward the ICU pod. “That is a pediatric patient.”
“With a traumatic spinal cord injury,” he answered, confused. “I did what was best for transfer from Portland.”
Emily bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “Therapeutic hypothermia is not tolerated well in pediatric patients.”
“The boy is ten,” Ryan snapped. “He’s not an infant and I put him in a medicated coma. He’s old enough to tolerate it for a short time and he’s young enough to bounce back. There won’t be significant loss in brain function that he can’t recover with extensive physiotherapy, which he was going to need if I left him a quadriplegic.”
She sighed and her expression softened. “I assume you got the parents’ permission.”
“This is not my first time performing this on a preteen pediatric spinal cord injury. We’ll reverse the hypothermia and I’ll repair the spine,” he snapped, annoyed she was questioning him. And he realized this argument had nothing to do with his treatment plan of the patient and everything to do with the pregnancy and divorce papers.
She was angry.
Well, he was angry too.
“Is it mine?” he asked, catching her off guard.
“Yes.” She blushed, the pink creeping her way up into her high cheekbones. “So, you did get my emails?”
Ryan cocked an eyebrow. “What emails?”
“I sent you an email when I found out I was pregnant and then several others. There was no response so I assumed you didn’t want anything to do with me and the baby.”
“You assumed?”
“You didn’t answer me,” she hissed.
“I didn’t get the emails, Emily. I didn’t know that you were pregnant.”
Emily was going to say something further when Dr. Teal returned with scrubs.
“I have the surgical scrubs, Dr. West.”
“Thanks,” Ryan said, taking them from the intern. “Can you prep an operating room for me?”
“Of course, Dr. Gary.” Dr. Teal left and Emily glared at him.
“She’s a surgical intern. She’s here to learn under my guidance today.”
“And isn’t it her job to prep the operating room? It was when I was a surgical intern,” Ryan said.
Emily’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll want a resident. Dr. Sharipova is one of the best and most promising pediatric surgical residents. He’s been an invaluable asset to me.”
“Thank you. I’m sure he’ll be great help, but I would also like you in there. I was told that you would be in the operating room with me on this and I told the patients’ parents that the best pediatric