I stepped back.
“No,” I whispered.
Not to him.
To myself.
Then I kept walking.
Outside, the sky over Albuquerque had begun to pale. The first thin light of morning stretched over the hospital parking lot, turning windshields silver and concrete almost soft.
Another day was coming.
Dylan was alive.
Georgia was still there.
And I was still standing.
For now, that had to be enough.
By morning, I had made a promise to myself.
I was not going back into Dylan Degan’s room.
Not unless the hospital caught fire.
Not unless he coded.
Not unless some official medical necessity put me there, because apparently my heart could not be trusted within ten feet of a man attached to an IV pole and another woman’s future.
I had been very proud of that decision for almost forty-seven minutes.
Then charge ruined it.
“Rourke.”
I looked up from the station where I was charting on a post-op patient and pretending the ICU hallway did not exist to my left.
“No.”
The charge nurse stopped.
Her eyebrows lifted.
I winced. “Sorry. I mean, yes?”
“You don’t even know what I’m asking.”
“I sensed danger.”
“You sensed staffing.”
“Worse.”
She handed me a tablet. “Marisol called out sick. Fever. Possible flu. I need you covering vitals and routine checks for Degan until I can shuffle assignments.”
The name hit my chest like a fist.
