Page 7 of Holiday Love
“How long was he pulseless?” I ask Lindsey.
She consults her paperwork. “Less than a minute.”
I gape, surprised. It felt like an eternity.
“Okay.” I wipe sweaty palms on my long, white lab coat. “We can work with that. Put in a STAT order for an MRI. We need to make sure there’s no brain injury.”
“On it.” Sarah heads for the door. The rest of the code team quickly clean up and trickle away.
I should go with them. I have other patients who need me, but I linger a few minutes longer than necessary. I can’t seem to take my eyes off that monitor with its now steady blips and beeps. There’s an unreasonable fear in me that if I look away his heart will stop again, which is silly. That’s not how the human body works. I mentally chastise myself. It’s not like me to be superstitious, but it’s not like me to have a one-night stand either.
“Good job. You brought him back.”
I jump at Larry’s voice, so loud and jarring.
“Hmm?” I turn to find Larry in the doorway, his expression carefully schooled. “Oh,” I say, shooting him a false smile, hoping he’ll let it go. “I guess the pearly gates didn’t want him yet.”
Larry doesn’t smile back. His gaze flicks to Teddy, then away, like he can’t stand the sight of him. He grips the chart so tightly the papers crumple.
I resist the urge to step between them, to shield Teddy from that look of judgment.
“I’m telling you,” he mutters, his voice low and edged with contempt, “guys like him never change.”
The words hit harder than they should. Because the second he says it, another voice rises from my memory. Teddy’s voice, warm and reckless, one year ago, whispered between kisses.
“Tonight, I’m all yours.”
Just one night. That’s all he gave me.
I stare down at him, brown hair against too-pale skin, chest lifting in shallow breaths. Alive, but fragile. For a moment, back then, I’d thought he might be someone I could hold onto, but I was wrong.
“Yeah,” I tell Larry. “He’ll never change.”
Chapter five
Helen
My shift ended hours ago, yet here I sit watching Teddy breathe. The monitor hums beside me, its steady sound the only reassurance I have that he’s still with me. Still alive.
I had only stepped away once, in the beginning, to make a phone call I dreaded. The one to his sister, my friend Gwen. She’s an ER doctor, like me, so as the phone rang I sent up a prayer that I wasn’t waking her after a long shift in the hospital.
She’d answered on the third ring, sounding harried. She’s been stretched thin recently, something I’ve noticed during our near-weekly phone calls. I met her less than a year ago at a medical conference we both attended, but somehow Gwen’s become my best friend.
That’s not saying much, though.
I don’t have many friends. Never have.
“Hey,” she’d said, then cracked a yawn so big I heard it over the thousands of miles that separated us, with her in New York and me in Los Angeles. “How’s it going?”
I’d evaded that question with one of my own. “How’s Carter doing?”
Gwen’s sweet four-month-old baby has been sickly, plagued with terrible ear and throat infections. Add in his infant reflux, and the poor thing has a hard time putting on weight. In these situations, being a doctor is more of a burden than a blessing. It means there’s no blissful ignorance. Gwen the mother and Gwen the doctorbothknow that if Carter doesn’t turn things around soon, he’ll end up with a tube down his nose and into his stomach to force feed him.
“Not great,” Gwen had admitted. “Another double ear infection. They’re finally listening to me and putting in ear tubes tomorrow. He’s young to get them, but I’msotired of the constant antibiotics.”
“It’s good they’re doing something.” Gwen had been advocating for her son to get that treatment for a while now. “How about you?” I had asked, buying myself time to build the courage to tell her why I’ve called her in the first place. “Are you gettinganysleep?”
“Caleb’s been great, thank goodness. He gets up with Carter more than I do, even gives him his two a.m. feeding.” Her voice softened, rich with affection, and for a second I wondered what that would be like. To have someone to love. Someone who shows up for you in the middle of the night without being asked, simply because they want to be there, to support you.
