I spied her earrings—dangling hummingbirds. My mom aways said that hummingbirds were spiritual messengers, evidence of reassurance from loved ones who have passed.Ugh. Also, a tiny fuzzy koala bear was attached to her stethoscope.These pediatricians.
She sat down in one of the chairs opposite my desk, where staff members came to complain, cry, or, rarely, to celebrate. She rubbed her forehead. Opened her mouth then shut it. Then simply stared at me for a beat or two before she finally spoke. “Did you lose something, Dr. Lowenstein?”
Her question threw me. I glanced around—my desk was nearly cleaned off and impeccably neat. Everything else was spotless and in perfect order. “I don’t think so,” I said.
“Oh,Idefinitely think so. I’m thinking that it was your sense of humor.” She folded her arms. “You must’ve left it in Turks and Caicos. Along with your sweater.”
“Igaveyou that sweater,” I said somewhat indignantly.
“Aha!” She stabbed the air poignantly. “So youdoremember.”
As if I could ever forget. “Of course I remember.” She kept drilling down on me with those eyes, a perfect clear blue, like the sky in Grand Turk. And right then, they held anger. Lots of it.
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“For right now, with my entire staff probably crowding to listen at the door, yes.” I got up and checked the hall in both directions, just in case. No one there—yet. Then I walked back and leaned against my desk in front of her.
“Why…” She pressed on her temple. “Why would you…”
“Why would I what?”
She threw up her arms. “I have so many questions, I don’t know where to begin. How did you come to take this job? There is no way we’d ‘coincidentally’ end up in the same ER, in a small town that’s barely on the map. No. Way.” She did air quotes on thecoincidentally. “Did you—did you follow me here?” Her eyes grew wide. “Oh, my God, you did, didn’t you?” She smacked her forehead. “Thisis why you should never have one-night stands. Because you don’t know who the person you sleep with really is!”
“Shhhh,” I said, which made her even more angry. “Relax, Ani. My mother lives here. She’s about to retire. Would you like to meet her? She can assure you that I’m not a criminal.” But I also knew from the moment I googled Ani last summer that she was living in Oak Bluff, of all places. And soon as I was hired, I knew that one night, she’d show up in my ER and walk backinto my life. I’d worried about it, anticipated it, replayed it in my head, and dreaded it, all in equal measure.
“I don’t believe you,” she said weakly. Like she was trying to process how my mother could actually live here.
He snorted. “Believe what you want. But this is a place of business. And I’m in charge. I can’t?—”
“Express emotion? Say hi to an old friend?” She got up and paced my office, which held a desk, two chairs, and all my diplomas and board certification certificates on the wall. Seemed like all the degrees in the world couldn’t tell me what to do now. She spun around. “At least, Ithoughtwe were friends. But even a one-night stand deserves some recognition, don’t you think?”
I tried not to flinch. “Regardless of how you define our relationship, now we’re colleagues. Professional colleagues.”
Under her scrutiny, I felt like a jerk. But I could not make her a distraction. I had to draw a clear line. “I liked you,” she continued, making me further feel like a pile of steaming bird guano. “You were really nice. You stood out. And you were a lot different than—this.” She waved her hand over me, as if wishing I would disappear into thin air.Poof.
She wore her heart on her sleeve. She seemed incapable of deception. I didn’t know how to handle such honesty. And I definitely couldn’t give it back, or tell her that she’d stood out to me, too.
I reminded myself of my number one goal –keep everyone safe. Make my ER the safest, best ER in the state. Hell, on the planet, if I could have my way. I couldn’t save Liv, but by God, I’d use every brain cell in my head and every muscle in my body to save as many people as I could.
A dead, loaded silence filled the room. She curled her hands into fists. I waited for her to pummel me—physically or mentally, I wasn’t sure. How could I possibly befriend her when I was essentially her boss, at least in the ER? And I was not goingto say that I still thought of her, still wondered what might have happened if we had met at a different time of life. That standing before me, angry as she was, she was even more beautiful than I remembered. I absolutely could not allow anything personal to spill over into my professional life.
She narrowed her eyes, and I saw something else in them. Her anger I could take, but this…this was disappointment.Hurt.
The man I was before Liv died wouldn’t have let her feel that way. He would have been honest too. But I wasn’t that man anymore.
“Wow,” she finally said, her tone even and with deadly aim. “What…happened to you?” It was a punch in my gut.
What had happened, indeed. I could ramble on about the randomness of life, the unfairness of tragedy. How happiness could turn to grief in the space of a heartbeat. But no one wanted to hear about that.
Strange, that she was more concerned about our friendship—or whatever it was—than the fact that I’d hovered over her during her procedure. Which I shouldn’t have done.
I knew her qualifications, her recommendations. By all accounts, she was an excellent clinician. I hadn’t needed to check in on her.
So why had I done it? To scare her away? To make her angry? Or was it that if I made her angry, I didn’t have to deal with other, more complicated emotions?
I flicked up my gaze and tried not to notice her disappointment. “What happened is that I am in charge of a place that deals with life and death Every. Single. Minute. It’s my job to ensure that everyone is doing all they can to never, ever forget that. Our, um,relationshipwould put my ER at risk.”
She snorted. Snorted! And crossed her arms.The defiance. “I’d hardly call extracting a couple of M&M’s from a child’s nose a life-and-death procedure.”
