Since We Fell

by Ann Gimpel

“Dry your eyes,” her dad advised, as always oblivious to things he didn’t find worthy of attention. “We’ll be at Overlake in about fifteen minutes.”

  Fifteen minutes.

  She dabbed at her streaming eyes. Only a quarter hour before she’d come face to face with the two-timing slime ball who’d seduced both her and her sister. And ruined her life because she’d loved him.

  Chapter Two

  Brice McKinnon cruised through the doctor’s lounge, hunting for a snack. He’d been awake the last thirty-six hours overseeing a relatively new intervention for late-stage cystic fibrosis, and weariness dragged at him. On a hunt for calories, he slogged down chicken, mashed potatoes swimming in congealing gravy, and a pile of canned green beans. Hospital food wasn’t bad—so long as you didn’t examine it too closely.

  He washed the food down with a second cup of hot, black coffee. It had been sitting for a while and was incredibly bitter, but he needed a boost.

  “Ha. What I really need is a drink,” he muttered, but he’d pitch face down on the table if he had more than a few sips of anything alcoholic.

  He balanced an elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. Whiskers poked into his fingers, reminding him he should drop by the physicians’ locker room to shower and shave before Sarah Wray’s parents returned, bringing Juliana with them.

  Julie.

  Breath rattled through his pursed lips. The one love of his life, she’d spurned him after finding out he’d had an affair with her sister. Except it hadn’t been an affair. Not really. He’d spent one drunken night with Sarah, believing she was Juliana.

  The women were identical twins. It had been dark, and he’d been pretty out of it. Brice winced. His excuses sounded just as lame fifteen years later as they’d been the day after it happened. Sarah could have exonerated him, but she’d remained silent, looking more like a wounded victim than the vixen who’d made him believe she was her sister.

  He lifted his chin off his hand and raked it through his hair. He’d begged. He’d pleaded. Hell, he’d even groveled, but Julie had selectively cut him out of her life. Blocked his calls and emails, and run the other way if he was lucky enough to track her down.

  After three months of hell, he’d pulled his life back together. He was failing his classes, and he’d be damned if he’d let a love affair gone bad ruin his chances of getting into medical school. Besides, if Julie had really loved him, she’d have at least listened before passing judgment.

  There it was, staring him in the face. She hadn’t loved him enough to try. He’d known it then, and it had haunted him through one failed marriage, and far too many flings where he knew better than to offer up his heart.

  He counted how he’d spent the years since he’d last seen Julie. Two of them, he’d finished his undergrad degree. Four had been taken up with med school. Four more with a residency in internal medicine, followed by a two-year pulmonology fellowship. Brice grinned ruefully. Medicine took a long time, and he’d been eying another fellowship to fine-tune his skills with immune modulators.

  They were what had pulled Sarah out of her tailspin. How long her remission would last was another question altogether. She’d recognized him, her eyes rounding into small moons, but the ventilator meant she couldn’t talk. Nurses had removed it an hour ago, but he hadn’t been in to see her since.

  “Hey. Dr. McKinnon.” One of the third-year internal medicine residents charged into the doctors’ lounge and mock bowed. Her red hair was cut short. Her blue eyes glittered with enthusiasm. Her scrubs had a few blood streaks, and her white coat was missing.

  He searched for her name and came up dry. “What’s up?” he asked, sidestepping the lack of something to call her.

  “The head nurse in ICU says you might want to stop by—”

  Brice shot to his feet, adrenaline flooding his mouth with a bitter taste. “Damn. Why didn’t Erika page me?”

  “Sorry. Sorry.” Dr. No Name waved a hand his way. “Not an emergency. Your patient is better. Vitals have totally stabilized. I told Erika I was headed this way, and I’d deliver the message.”

  His heart thudded against his ribcage, anxiety turning to anger. Before he said something he’d regret, he slammed out of the doctor’s lounge.

  The female resident charged after him and grabbed his arm. “Geez. I’m really sorry. I never imagined—”

  Brice yanked his arm away. “That’s the problem. You didn’t think at all.” He twirled and faced her. “I tried an experimental treatment on a dying woman. Do you have any idea what that means?”

  She looked at the floor, her cocky expression subdued in the face of his tirade. “No. I’m sure I don’t.”

  More words crowded the back of his throat. Words about how he’d gone out on a limb. Never mind Sarah had no chance at all without his intervention. He’d still have to live with it if what he did killed her even faster than her failing lungs. Because not much of it would come out coherently, he pushed past the resident still staring at the floor and bolted for the stairwell that would take him two floors down to where he could shower, shave, and don fresh scrubs.

  He stood under water as hot as he could stand it. What was wrong with him? He’d been at the receiving end of tongue-lashings from older, wiser docs telling him how stupid and inadequate he was. And he’d sworn he’d never turn into one of the patronizing, self-righteous assholes who made him question his chosen vocation.

  “Yup. And here I am. Just one more condescending jerk.” At least he’d stopped before pounding the woman totally into the ground.

  He shook water out of his eyes and flipped off the taps. He’d had the foresight to put a towel within reach, and he wrapped it around his waist before he shaved. He’d gotten so spun out because of who his patient was, not because of what he’d done to her.

  He’d lost a lot of patients. If death bothered him, he’d have been better served going into ophthalmology or dermatology, where almost no one ever died. He sorted underwear and a clean lab coat blazoned with his name from his locker. That done, he plucked clean scrubs out of a stack the hospital laundry provided. He was mostly dressed and feeling surprisingly human again despite his lack of sleep, when the locker room door swung open.

  “Brice. Good to see you. I heard about the woman in ICU. Nicely done.” Dr. Lance Ammen, a cardiac surgeon, extended a hand.

  Brice shook it. “Thanks. How are things in your neck of the woods?”

  Lance shrugged. “Not bad. Lost one earlier today, but I was surprised when she made it through surgery. Her arteries were a mess.”

  Brice nodded. “We do what we can.”

  “We sure do, huh? I’m headed home. You?”

  Brice thought about his home. A custom-built multistory structure on Lake Washington he rarely spent much time in. A live-in housekeeper kept it clean, but it never felt very homelike to him. Maybe he should get a dog... He immediately shelved the idea. The poor creature would never see him.

  Lance shot him a peculiar look, and Brice rolled his eyes. “Sorry. No sleep the last two nights. I’m meeting with the ICU woman’s family. Then it’s home for me too.”

  “Good.” Lance slapped his upper arm. “You look like hell.”

  “Should’ve seen me before I showered.” With a jaunty wave, Brice jogged out of the locker room and glanced at a clock. He had time before the Wray parents were due to arrive. More to reassure himself than anything else, he headed toward the ICU with its banks of telemetry and uber-competent nursing crew.

  He slapped his hand on a palm reader, and the door opened for him. Erika nodded briskly from her seat in the middle of an open-architecture ICU. He nodded back. Patient cubicles spread out from the central command station like spokes on a wagon wheel. It was an efficient arrangement. Fewer steps were needed to provide care than in older facilities where rooms lined both sides of a hall.

  He donned a gown, mask, and gloves. Sliding the glass door aside, he let himself into Sarah Wray’s space.

  “Thank y
ou.” Her voice was harsh and raspy from her stint with the ventilator.

  “You don’t have to talk,” he told her. “Must hurt like hell.”

  “Yeah. It does.”

  He scanned the instrumentation, satisfied with what he saw.

  “Must look okay,” she wheezed.

  “Yes. Everything is within normal parameters.” Brice retreated to doctor-speak and took in the tall, emaciated woman lying beneath the thin hospital blanket. Dark hair fanned across her pillow, and her blue eyes looked haggard. She had the same high cheekbones and full lips as her sister. Even in her wasted condition, she looked so much like Juliana, it still startled him.

  “How long?” she asked, snagging his gaze with her own.

  He understood what she wanted to know. Breaking protocol, he perched on the edge of the narrow bed and took her hand in his, taking care not to dislodge the IV. Her skin was so translucent, he could see veins and arteries beneath its surface.

  “I honestly don’t know, Sarah. You responded surprisingly well to the treatment, but I won’t lie to you. It’s possible the immune modulating chemicals will alter enough in your body, you’ll have a few more years.”

  “How possible?” she croaked.

  “I don’t know,” he repeated. “Your parents consented to an experimental treatment. Experimental means I don’t have much data to determine if what we did will last.” He took a measured breath. “What I can tell you is there are several drugs in this particular class. If the one we started with becomes less effective, there are others we can try.”

  “Like chemo?”

  “Exactly like chemo.”

  Sarah tapped her chest with her other hand. “I’m a nurse.”

  Surprise ran through him. He known she’d had to drop out of med school, but not what she’d done afterward. “When you’re stronger, you can tell me where you worked, what you did.”

  She nodded. He let go of her hand and stood. Before he turned to go, she waved a hand motioning him closer. He bent near, so she wouldn’t have to work so hard to talk. “Whatever this is can wait,” he reassured her.

  Sarah shook her head. “No. Can’t.” She coughed, low and bubbly, but struggled to get more words out. “Julie. I’m sorry. I—” Another cough racked her.

  “It was a long time ago,” Brice kept his words low. “It’s okay.”

  “Not okay. I should have fessed up.” Her eyes sheened with tears.

  “Hell, Sarah. We were young. None of us knew much of anything about what life would throw our way.”

  “You don’t understand.” She was panting with effort now.

  “Sarah. Stop.” He retreated to full MD mode to forestall further communication. “You’re still very weak. I’ll send one of the nurses in with a sedative.”

  “I wanted you too,” she gasped out. “There. Said it. My cross to bear.”

  “It was a long time ago,” he repeated. “Let it go, Sarah. Concentrate on getting stronger.”

  She nodded, not trying for further speech.

  He turned and walked slowly out of her cubicle, deep in thought as he shucked his gloves and mask in the biohazard trash and his gown in the laundry bin. He finally understood what had transpired that long-ago night. Compassion for Sarah burned a track through him. Always the sick twin, she’d lived in Julie’s shadow.

  Erika bustled up, her navy-blue scrubs wrinkled as usual. A wiry dynamo with short gray hair and green eyes, she’d been a nurse for longer than Brice had been alive. “Hiya, Doc. She’s doing great, huh?” Erika beamed at him.

  “Pretty much a living miracle,” he agreed. “She wore herself out trying to talk with me, though. Add five mgs of Valium to her IV.”

  Erika frowned. “But then she’ll be asleep when her family gets here.”

  Brice smothered a grin. MDs who labored under the illusion they ran any of the hospital wards were dead wrong. Nurses like Erika were the true heroes. “Tell you what.” He bent closer. “Take a look at her, and page me if you think she needs something.”

  “You got it, Dr. McKinnon.” Erika pushed past him and into Sarah’s tiny space.

  Brice left the ICU and walked aimlessly to a nearby wing. Stopping near a window, he stared out into a gray, drizzling day. Sarah’s words bounced around his head. “I wanted you too,” she’d said, followed by it being her cross to bear.

  Everything suddenly made a whole lot more sense. Sarah, the shadow twin, wasn’t so shadowy after all. She had feelings and needs exactly like everyone else. How could he have been so stupid not to notice her pining after him?

  Easy. All I had eyes for was Julie.

  They’d all grown up in Twentynine Palms. Then it had been a truly small town in southern San Bernardino County. Sarah and Juliana’s parents had been career military, holding positions at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center. His father had been a Marine aviator, his mother a teacher at the base school.

  Like lots of military brats, he’d kept to himself despite the Marine Corps providing more stability than many branches of the service. He’d been in first grade when they moved to the base at Twentynine Palms, and they’d still lived there when his father’s plane was shot down over Afghanistan. He’d been sixteen then, and the Corps made it clear his mom could keep teaching as long as she wanted.

  Susan McKinnon was a strong woman. She’d nursed her grief in private and made certain he’d always remember his father. Pictures of him were all over their modest quarters in base housing. His mom never remarried, never even dated as far as he could tell. She’d told him his father was the one love of her life and that she hoped he’d find his own soul mate someday.

  Rain splattered the window he was still looking through, and he splayed one hand over the glass. He’d known Juliana and Sarah forever since they were in the same class at the base school, but something changed when he was a junior, and he’d viewed Juliana through different eyes.

  It took courage—and a boot in the ass from him mom—but he’d finally asked her out. When she said yes, his world blazed into Technicolor, and he vowed he’d devote his life to making her happy. They’d dated through the rest of high school. Julie was attracted by the world-class archaeology department at University of Washington. When she applied for admission, Brice did too. In truth, he’d have followed her anywhere. His chosen career was medicine, but pre-med undergrad degrees were available from damn near every institution—

  His pager vibrated. He tipped it up to see the message scrawled across its display and swallowed hard. The Wrays had arrived in the ICU. He hadn’t seen Julie since the middle of their sophomore year of college when she’d told him he was a piece of crap and never to darken her door—or her life—again. Any hopes he’d held that she’d get over her pique vanished as days marched by, followed by weeks and then months where she rebuffed his attempts to talk.

  He squared his shoulders. He’d get through this. She was probably married with a bunch of kids by now. He forced himself to move toward the ICU. It didn’t matter if she was married. Or if she’d gained a hundred pounds. He’d always love her, but he’d be damned if he’d let any of that show.

  Making a grab for his familiar MD persona, he quieted his mind. He’d gotten through worse. Much worse. He’d survive the next half hour too.

  Big words. He stopped outside the glassed-in ICU. General and Colonel Wray faced away from him, as did Julie. Dressed in crumpled buff-colored pants and a matching shirt, she still held herself like a queen. Erika handed the Wrays gowns, masks, gloves. Julie shrugged into her gown. Her black hair had been bunched into a rubber band, but it still hung halfway down her back. Maybe five feet ten, she was almost as thin as her sister.

  For a fleeting moment, he hoped she wasn’t ill, and then he got hold of himself. How she was—or wasn’t—was none of his business. Hadn’t been for years.

  He slapped his palm on the reader and strode into the specialized ICU devoted to pulmonary care. His ICU—if you discounted Erika’s claim to it. “Mr. and M
rs. Wray. Juliana. So nice to see you,” he said in his best professional voice.

  They turned almost as a unit, the elder Wrays both smiling. After a quick, furtive glance at his face, Juliana nodded once, sharply. “Thank you for saving Sarah. We appreciate your care.”

  “Welcome.” He kept his smile in place, but it took effort—lots of effort.

  Juliana was as heartbreakingly beautiful as she’d always been. The place in his heart—his soul—that had been empty since she dumped him seized all over again, forming a hard, painful knot.

  “How is she, Doc?” Christopher Wray trained his forthright blue eyes on Brice and adjusted his mask.

  “Probably a conversation we should have in a more private location,” Brice replied.

  Erika hurried over. “Shall I prepare the small conference room?”

  “Thank you. That would be excellent,” Brice told her. He addressed his next words to General Wray. “Sarah is still quite weak. How about if you spend maybe five minutes with her? Talking is still hard, so do what you can to keep her quiet.”

  “We understand,” Ariel Wray spoke up.

  “When you’re done, the nurse will bring you to me,” Brice said and turned. He strode evenly out of the ICU. Whoever had said untended love dies was full of shit. The flame within him burned just as hot as it ever had. Juliana was the only woman for him. It was why his marriage foundered and died. Why none of his girlfriends turned into more than casual bed partners.

  He ached for her, wanted to crush her against him and kiss her until the world dissolved around them in a flood of heat. His groin tightened, cock thickening against his belly. He dragged his lab coat over the damning evidence of his need.

  Lost in lust and memories, he damn near ran right into Erika on her way out of the conference room. “You all right?” she asked, her finely honed nurse instincts apparently in full bloom.

  “Fine. Just tired.”

  She patted his arm. “Go home and get some rest after your powwow with the family. I’ll page you if anything happens that you need to know about.”