off, trees had toppled, electrical wires had been ripped from their housings. It was amazing the E.R. hadn’t been ten times as busy.
She’d finished her grocery shopping, gone to the post office and to the dry cleaners. Tonight would end her graveyard shift, and the day after tomorrow she would begin days. It wasn’t an easy transition to make, not only because of her body clock, but because of the social aspects of the day shift.
There were more patients, more interactions, more staff. She’d be doing rounds with Guy, seeing him in the call room, in the lounge. It was also time for her yearly review, and while she felt confident her performance was up to par, she didn’t like the fact that Guy had so much power over her.
Not that she hadn’t had supervisors and bosses before. She’d done her residency at Baylor in Houston, and they were notorious for their brutal reviews, but no one had ever flustered her the way Guy did. For all her expertise at disassociating her emotions, she failed miserably when she was around him.
She’d given up denying her attraction to him. It was there. Big time. But just because she felt it didn’t mean she had to act on it.
She just wished it would go away—that she could cure her attraction like a headache and be done with it.
And now, given his grief at the loss of Heather, she needed to be extra attentive, more personal, giving.
Okay, she wanted to be those things because no one should have to go through his pain, but the territory was dangerous and she had to be so very careful not to let him get too close. Not to let her guard down.
Once Rachel arrived at the hospital, she headed straight for the NICU.
In the elevator to the fourth floor, two nurses joined her. Rachel smiled at them and stood to one side. Of course she knew them both—they worked in cardiology—but not well.
“I know,” Cathy said, her voice just above a whisper, yet clear as a bell to Rachel. “I couldn’t believe it. His own stepdaughter.”
“I heard he was just devastated,” Ilene whispered back.
The elevator stopped on Two, and the nurses left without a backward glance. Rachel sighed. Courage Bay was a small hospital, and rumors raced through it like a fire. That was another reason she had no intention of letting Guy’s situation get to her. Nothing went unnoticed around here, and she would rather die than be the subject of staff gossip. It was enough that she’d earned herself the nickname of the Iron Lady. No one had ever said it to her face, but she’d heard it in the lounge, even on the floor. Better she should be known by that moniker than as a soft touch.
At the fourth floor, she headed toward the NICU, but as she passed the big windows, she came to an abrupt halt. Guy Giroux, her tough-as-nails boss, sat in a rocking chair, a sterile mask covering the lower half of his face, a tiny bundle, still hooked up to an array of monitors, cradled in his arms.
A wave of compassion swept through her, as strong as the winds that had toppled the trees last night. Without her permission, tears filled her eyes and she had to blink them away as she struggled to regain her composure.
This wasn’t the plan. She hadn’t even spoken to the man and she was getting blubbery. This never happened to her. Not anymore.
She got a grip on herself, straightened her shoulders and headed into the room, stopping to wash her hands and grab a mask before she walked over to him.
Guy didn’t look up. She doubted he knew she was there, the way he was watching the child.
Oh, God, the baby was so small and so jaundiced. Her gaze went to the monitors, and she was immediately concerned about both the BP and the heart rhythm.
“Hello, Rachel,” Guy said.
She smiled, but her body was almost rigid with control. “Hello, Doctor. I came up to see how the baby is doing.”
“I wish it was better,” he said, and that’s when he looked up at her.
It was as if she were staring at a new man. All she could see were his eyes, but the change in him was palpable. Guy had always been compassionate—that was one of the things that made him such a good doctor—but this was…different. There was a softness she would never have guessed, right there in his dark gaze.
“What can I do?” she asked.
He hesitated. “Before we get into that, I want to apologize for this morning. I had no business barging in—”
She held up her hand, her face filling with heat as she remembered her outfit, or lack of one. “It’s not a problem. I’m sorry I didn’t finish up the paperwork yesterday. I came in early to do just that, but if I can help here, I’d like to.”
He smiled. Not that she could see his lips curve through the mask, but the corners of his eyes crinkled. “I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that you did everything possible for Heather. I’m still stunned about all this. I spoke to her mother. Seems she thought Heather was in Los Angeles with her father.”
“Oh, no.”
“Tammy didn’t even know about the pregnancy.” His gaze went back to the boy. “This little guy had no help coming into this world. No prenatal care, no grandparents. I just don’t understand. This wasn’t like Heather. She’s always been a good kid.”
In the two years she’d been at Courage Bay Hospital, she’d never had such a personal conversation with Guy. Her first instinct was to get out, go back to the world she knew, but she could tell he wasn’t finished. That he needed to talk.
So she walked over to an empty incubator and grabbed the rocking chair positioned next to it. She placed it close to Guy’s chair. Settling into it, she crossed her legs and leaned back. “Tell me about her.”
Guy touched the baby’s tiny arm with his index finger. “I only had Heather for four years. Her mother and I got divorced when she was thirteen. She was bright. Heather, I mean. Inquisitive. I’d hoped that someday she’d become interested in medicine, but back then, all she cared about were boys and music, music and boys. Oh, I forgot clothes. Those were big, too.”
“She sounds like a typical teenager.”
“In a lot of ways, she was.” Guy looked at her, although Rachel had the feeling he wasn’t really seeing her. “She loved to sail. I suppose that’s where we spent most of our time together. I was always getting home after she went to bed, leaving before she woke up.”
“That’s the doctor’s curse.”
“It cursed that marriage, all right. But I learned my lesson. Never again. I wasn’t there for either of them. They needed me, but I didn’t give much of a damn. Tammy…”
She didn’t press him to finish the sentence. In fact, she didn’t want to hear the rest. His confession was hitting her in a place long buried. The two of them were so alike. At least Rachel had never made the mistake of getting married. She knew it would be just as Guy said. She wouldn’t be there in a way a wife or mother needed to be.
“Tammy’s in France, but she’s going to get here as soon as she can. I still haven’t connected with Heather’s father. I left two messages, but the number I have may be old.”
“Do you think he knew what was going on?”
Guy shook his head. “I never cared much for Walter. The idiot. He was unfocused and a wastrel, but I never imagined he was this negligent.” His voice hardened into something Rachel recognized a lot more than his previous gentle cadence. “I’m going to find out exactly what he knew, and when. And how he could have let this happen. I blame him for Heather’s death.”
His head bowed a little farther, as if she wasn’t there. Rachel barely heard his next words, they were whispered so softly. “And myself.”
“Guy, you’ve been divorced from Tammy for how long?”
He didn’t answer for a long moment. “Five