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If she weren’t sitting on the sofa, she’d likely have staggered back from his verbal blow. Truly, there must be a gaping hole in her chest because her very heart had been yanked from her body. “Agreed. You don’t.”
“I never meant for you to think I’d stay in Chattanooga, or that I wanted to stay.”
She interpreted that as he’d never meant for her to assume he was going to stay, or want to stay, with her.
She’d been such a fool. She’d believed he loved her, had believed the light in his eyes when he looked at her was love, the real deal. She’d just seen what she’d wanted to see. Whatever that look had been, she’d never seen or felt it with past boyfriends. Maybe she’d mistaken phenomenal sexual chemistry with love. She wouldn’t be the first woman to have done so in the history of the world.
Devastation and anger competed for priority in her betrayed head.
She met his gaze and refused to look away, despite how much staring into his dark eyes hurt. They were ending. She’d thought everything had been so perfect and he’d been planning their end. “I think you should leave,” she began, knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to hold her grief in much longer and not wanting him to witness her emotional breakdown.
She was going to break down. Majorly.
He started to say something but, shoulders straight, chin tilted upward, she stopped him.
“That you made this decision without involving me tells me everything I need to know about our relationship, Charlie. We aren’t on the same page and apparently never were. My bad. Now that I know we don’t want the same things from our relationship, there is no relationship. I want you to leave. We’re through.”
There. She’d been the first one to say the words out loud. Sure, he’d been dancing all around the truth of it, but she’d put them out there.
Not once since she’d seen that little blue line appear had she considered that he wouldn’t be happy about the news...that he wouldn’t be there for their child.
That he wouldn’t be there, period.
CHAPTER TWO (#ube700346-bfb4-544f-88a0-7de8bca06a99)
CHARLIE SMILED AT the petite lady he’d grown quite fond of over the past couple of years he’d been her cardiologist. “Now, now, Mrs. Evans. You’ll be just fine under Dr. Flowers’ care. He’s an excellent cardiologist.”
“But you know me,” the woman explained, not happy about his announcement that he was relocating. “If it wasn’t for having to cross that mountain halfway in between, I’d follow you to Nashville.”
“I’m flattered that you’d even consider doing so, but you don’t need a cardiologist who is two hours away. Mountain or no mountain, that’s not a good plan.”
“Then I guess you should change your mind and stay.”
If ever there was a time he considered changing his mind about his move it would have been the night before at Savannah’s apartment. The betrayed look on her face had gutted him, but he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do.
He’d set Savannah free and let her keep her pride by her being the one to say the words. He’d needed to let her out, but he hadn’t wanted to break her spirit.
Things were as they should be.
He was single, free to make the decisions for his life without her or any woman’s interference, and she was free of him and his baggage.
His father’s dying words had been pleas to Charlie never to be controlled by what was in his pants, and a declaration that no woman was worth giving up one’s dreams.
“Marriage and kids suck the life right out of you, son,” his father had told him. “You go after your dreams and you make them happen. You be the best doctor this country has ever seen and don’t you let a woman stand in your way, no matter how pretty she is. In the long run, she will eat at your soul until you despise her for taking away your dreams.”
Those had been the exact words from his last conversation with his father. He’d heard similar all his life, had known that was how his father felt about his mother, him.
Although he’d become way too involved with Savannah for far too long, Charlie wouldn’t let any woman tie him down.
Not because of his father, but because of not wanting to relive the hell of what he’d grown up with. He’d been a burden to his parents, had ruined their lives; he’d been unable to protect his mother from his father’s abuse, unable to protect her from the misery he’d caused. Charlie would never marry nor have children. Never.
He’d ruined enough lives during his lifetime already.
“You hear something different, doc?”
Charlie blinked at the elderly woman he’d been checking and instantly felt remorse at his mental slip into the past. Crazy that this move had him thinking so much about his parents, his failure of a family, his past. All things he did his best to keep buried. Maybe that had been the problem over the past year. He’d kept his past so deeply buried that he’d forgotten all the reasons why he shouldn’t have gotten so involved with Savannah. No more.
“No,” he told the woman with a forced smile. “Just listening to your heart sounds. Your heart is in rhythm today.”
“My heart is in rhythm every day. Just some days that rhythm isn’t such a good one.”
He finished examining her, then saw the rest of his morning patients. Typically, this was the time he’d go to the cardiovascular intensive care unit, see his inpatients, see if his favorite CVICU nurse could sneak away to grab a bite of lunch.
He’d gotten too attached to Savannah.
For both their sakes, he’d been right to take the job in Nashville. She might not realize it yet, but he’d done her the greatest favor of her life.
* * *
“You don’t seem yourself today.”
Savannah glanced up at her nurse supervisor, who also happened to be one of her dearest friends. Should she tell Chrissie the truth?
If so, how much of the truth?
The man I thought I was spending the rest of my life with told me last night that he’s moving two hours away? Or, I’m pregnant by a man I was crazy about but currently just want to strangle?
Neither seemed the right thing to say at work, where she had to hold it together and not cry out her frustrations.
“I’m okay.”
Chrissie’s brow lifted. “You usually walk around as if your feet aren’t affected by gravity. I’ve not seen you smile all day. So I’m not buying ‘okay’.”
Savannah gave a semblance of a smile that was mostly bared teeth.
Chrissie winced. “That bad?”
Savannah nodded. “Worse.”
“You and Charlie have an argument?”
Had they argued? Not really. More like he’d told her he was moving and she’d verbalized that they were through.
“I heard he turned his notice in yesterday. I wasn’t going to say anything until you did, but you’ve looked so miserable today that I couldn’t hold it in any longer.”
There it was. Confirmation that he was leaving. Everyone knew. Charlie was leaving her.
“I’m not sure what to say. My boyfriend—former boyfriend,” she corrected, “is moving out of town. I was shocked by the news and haven’t quite recovered.”
Chrissie’s expression pinched. “You didn’t know?”
“You probably knew before I did.”
Her friend’s eyes widened. “He hadn’t mentioned he was considering a move to Nashville?”
Savannah shook her head. “Not even a peep.”
Chrissie looked blown away. “What was he thinking? He should have talked such a big decision over with you.”
Maybe her expectations hadn’t been unfounded if Chrissie thought the same thing as she had. What was she thinking? Of course he should have mentioned the possibility of a move. They’d been inseparable for months. Her anger was well founded.
“Apparently not.”
“You said ‘former boyfriend’,” Chrissie pointed out. “You two are finished, then?”
Savannah had to fight to keep her hand from covering her lower abdomen. She and Charlie would never be finished. There would always be a tie that bound them.
A child that bound them.
Still, she didn’t need him, would not allow herself to need him. Some fools never learned, but she wasn’t going to fall into that category.
Toying with her stethoscope, she shrugged and told the truth. “Yeah, as a couple, we’re finished.”
* * *
Wincing, Charlie paused in the hallway. Neither woman had noticed him walking up behind them. Neither one knew he was overhearing their conversation.
Should he clear his throat or something?
He shouldn’t feel guilty for eavesdropping. If they didn’t want someone to overhear their conversation they shouldn’t be having it in the middle of the CVICU hallway.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Chrissie told Savannah, giving her a quick hug. “I thought you two were perfect together.”
Perfect together.
They had been perfect together, but wasn’t that the way most relationships started? All happy faces and rainbows? It was what came along after the happy faces and rainbows faded that was the problem.
He was just leaving before the bright and shiny faded, before hell set in and people died.
Charlie absolutely was not going to be like his father.
If Rupert had been miserable at giving up his dream of a career in medicine, then he’d made Charlie’s mother doubly so until her death in a car accident when Charlie had been fifteen. That had been after a particularly gruesome argument that Charlie had tried to stop. He’d never forgiven himself that he hadn’t been able to protect her from his father. He’d tried, failed, and look what had happened, at what she’d done to escape his father—to escape him?
Guilt slammed him and he refused to let the memory take hold, instead focusing on events before that dreadful night. Why his parents had stayed together was beyond Charlie. They should have divorced.
They should never have married.
No doubt his mother would have been a hundred times better off if Rupert had walked away instead of marrying her and making her pay for her pregnancy every day for the rest of her life.
Regardless, Rupert had stayed with his wife and had instilled in Charlie the knowledge that giving up one’s dreams for another person ultimately led to misery for all involved. His mother had seconded that motion, and when she’d died it had confirmed that her son was not worth living for. Charlie wasn’t able to make another person happy, nor was he able to protect anyone from life’s harsher realities. Those were lessons he’d learned well.
Thank goodness he was leaving before he’d sunk so far into his relationship with Savannah that he couldn’t resurface.
That she couldn’t resurface.
The next two months couldn’t pass soon enough.
* * *
Savannah didn’t have to turn to know that Charlie was behind her. Something inside always went a little haywire when he was near and, whatever that something was, it was sending out crazy signals.
“All good things must come to an end,” she told her friend, not going into anything more specific, wishing she wasn’t so aware of the man behind her.
With time, she wouldn’t even remember who he was, she lied to herself, trying to balm the raw ache in her heart, trying to cling to her anger. Anger was easier than pain.
“You really aren’t going to try to make a go of it long distance?”
She shook her head. “I don’t do long distance relationships.”
Perhaps, under the right circumstances, she would have, but nothing about what had happened with Charlie was right. He’d blindsided her and left her emotionally devastated.
Chrissie gave her a suspicious look. “You aren’t going to leave Chattanooga on me, are you?”
She shook her head again. “Nope. Not that he offered to take me with him, but I’m not leaving Chattanooga to chase after a man or for any other reason. This is my home. If I’m not worth staying for, then good riddance.”
She was pretty sure her words were aimed more at the man eavesdropping than at her friend. But what did it matter? Her words were true.
If only the truth didn’t hurt so much. Didn’t make her so angry. Not hurt. Angry.
“As your nurse supervisor, I’m glad to hear that. As your friend, I’m sad that you and Dr. Keele have split. You two seemed to have something very special and, quite frankly, I was more than a little envious.”
Yeah, she’d thought so too.
“Appearances can be deceiving.”
Very deceiving. She’d believed in him and his feelings for her. She’d been the one deceived and had no one to blame but her foolish, naïve self.
Only she blamed him, too.
Why had he acted so enamored if he wasn’t? He’d treated her as if she was the candle that gave light to his world. They’d been together almost a year. A freaking year. A year of her life. A year of his life. Gone. Meaningless.
Only it wasn’t.
Because there was a physical reminder of that year, of their relationship, growing inside her.
Darn him for taking the happiest day of her life and turning it into the worst.
She’d cried enough tears to sail a fleet upon, had to have used up all her tears, and yet, even now, she could spring a leak that would rival Old Faithful.
