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Emily nodded to her, because it was no use talking to her over the roar of the chopper blades as the medical helicopter gently landed on the roof.
Once the helicopter had landed, the blades of the chopper began to slow and the doors of the helicopter opened.
“Come on,” Emily shouted to Dr. Teal as the engines began to power down.
They ducked and ran toward the open door. The paramedics were in action, getting ready to transfer the child to her care.
As she approached the helicopter, she caught sight of Ryan and her heart did a flip-flop again. He hadn’t changed much in the last six months. He was just as handsome as ever. He took her breath away. His light brown hair was perfectly tousled, those stunning blue eyes focused on the patient and paramedics. Ryan still had the scruff on his strong jaw, but it didn’t hide the delectable cleft in his chin.
Get a grip.
And just as she was telling herself that, his gaze went from the patient to her. His blue eyes widened in shock, but only for a moment. It was if he was surprised to see her, like he hadn’t expected her to be here, but she found that hard to believe. She looked away and moved toward the paramedic as she and Dr. Teal stepped up to take over care of the patient.
The only way she was going to survive this was to treat him like every other surgeon she dealt with, at a distance and professionally.
Which was what she should’ve done six months ago in Vegas, instead of letting down her guard and letting him sweep her off her feet.
Maybe because you needed that?
Emily shook that thought away.
“Patient is male, ten years old and sustained a spinal injury while riding an ATV. Patient suffered a break in his spine between C7 and T3. Dr. Gary has induced a state of medically induced coma and hypothermia,” the paramedic said as they slid the stretcher out of the helicopter onto the gurney.
“Hypothermia?” Emily asked.
“To preserve the spinal cord so maybe he can walk again,” Ryan said from across the stretcher as he helped load the patient onto the gurney.
Emily didn’t say anything to him.
“We’ve got it from here,” she said to the paramedic.
The paramedic nodded and handed her the chart. Emily placed it on the end of the gurney and began to wheel the patient toward the elevator. She could feel that Ryan was looking at her but she didn’t care. They had to get this patient to the ICU and stabilized. The only things she wanted to discuss with Ryan was work and signing the divorce papers.
That was it.
And now was not the time to discuss the divorce.
Dr. Teal had called the elevator and the three of them got the patient’s gurney onto the elevator while Emily pushed the code for the floor holding the ICU. As the doors shut, she could hear the roar of the helicopter engine come to life again. She wished that Ryan had got back on that helicopter.
Inducing hypothermia on an adult in a traumatic spinal injury often had a good outcome, but a pediatric patient? It was frowned upon.
What was Ryan thinking? Was he this arrogant that he believed he was God or something?
“What the heck were you thinking, inducing therapeutic hypothermia in a pediatric patient?” Emily berated. She was so angry, but it really wasn’t about his method of treatment. She wanted to scream at him for ignoring her for the last six months.
For not responding about the baby.
For hurting her. But she couldn’t say those things in front of Dr. Teal so she attacked him over his treatment choice to blow off the anger she felt in that moment of seeing him again.
Dr. Teal’s eyes widened and for one moment Emily felt bad for exploding in front of her intern, but it was only for a moment, because when she looked across the gurney at Ryan he was smiling. That charming, arrogant smile that had got her into trouble in the first place.
“It’s good to see you too, wife.”
CHAPTER TWO (#u966b18f1-6ea3-54ca-8b76-92d7e0a996f1)
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 surgeon on the western seaboard would be assisting me in the operating room.”
“Of course I’ll be in there.”
“Good.” There was more that he wanted to say to her, but he didn’t want to say it in the middle of the ICU with patients and other staff members around them. This was not the place to talk about their baby or their marriage.
Of course, after calling her his wife in front of her surgical intern that secret was going to spread around the hospital like wildfire.
“Can you show me a place I can get changed into my scrubs and possibly store my stuff? All my luggage is being shipped to my rental in Seattle, so I don’t have a bag or much with me.”
Her expression softened again. “Sure, I’ll show you where the attendings’ lounge is. Follow me.”
Emily could feel all the eyes on her as she and Ryan left the ICU. She was pretty sure that most of the staff by now knew what he’d called her. Not that she could blame Dr. Teal for saying something. It was pretty shocking and she felt bad that Amanda had been mixed up in that tense moment.
She was feeling bad for calling Ryan out and for putting Amanda into the middle of all those emotions she was feeling.
Although she’d never used therapeutic hypothermia on a patient, she shouldn’t have questioned his tactics. He was a brilliant surgeon. Her reaction was not keeping her emotions out of the mix. If anything, it was causing more problems.
Her plan had been to treat Ryan like any colleague and it was rare that she called out another practitioner on their methods in public like that. Especially when neurosurgery was not her specialty. And especially since it wasn’t even about that. She was angry he’d never responded to her and then he’d made her look like a fool in front of Dr. Teal. She’d hated it when Robert had done that to her.
Usually she was calm, cool and collected. She prided herself on professional behavior. Behavior she’d worked so hard to learn. What she’d just pulled was not her usual behavior and she was annoyed with herself for letting her emotions get the better of her.
The attendings’ lounge was, mercifully, empty.
“There’s an empty cubby over there.” She pointed to the one that was furthest from the door but she stayed close to the door, because it was an escape route.
“Thanks.” Ryan walked over to the cubby, slipped off his leather jacket and placed it inside. “I did get one message, by the way.”
That shocked her. “Oh?”
“The divorce papers.”
“But not news of my pregnancy. I sent you ten emails.”
“I told you the night we got married that I had to catch a flight. I was overseas and in an area where internet connection was spotty. I wasn’t trying to ignore you.”
