Ivy noticed Slade’s skin color had pinkened considerably. “We’ll take him to the E.R. now, while we wait for transport. But don’t worry,” she told the couple kindly. “Someone will be with you and Slade at all times. In fact, I’m sure he’d appreciate having his mommy carry him.”
She spoke to Ethan, hating that the temperature of her voice had cooled several degrees, but she couldn’t pretend to be friendly when she felt so betrayed and used. “Will you go with them while I make the arrangements?”
His forehead wrinkled and his eyes reflected the same haunting shadows she’d seen that one night in the diner. He started to shake his head, then stopped, as if he were reconsidering.
“Yeah. I’ll go,” he finally murmured.
Ivy turned back to the couple. “I’ll catch up to you in the E.R. And don’t worry. Slade is in good hands. Dr. Ethan knows what he’s doing in situations like these.”
The tension on the Jantzens’ faces eased with her endorsement, but Ethan froze. He clearly hadn’t expected to receive such a glowing reference, yet in spite of his lie of omission, in spite of her feelings of betrayal, she had confidence in his abilities. It seemed important to tell him so.
As he’d promised, Ethan remained with Slade while Ivy contacted the air ambulance service and a pediatric cardiologist, who gave her the same instructions that Ethan had already implemented.
He took her news in stride as they each steered their conversation along politely professional lines, without their usual easy banter. Other than speaking when absolutely necessary Ethan had withdrawn—probably to prepare himself for the accounting she would demand when the opportunity presented itself.
An hour later the helicopter arrived, with a nurse practitioner and an E.M.T. who took charge with Ivy’s blessing. Shortly after young Slade was taking his first chopper ride, and shortly after that Ivy had returned to the relative quiet of her practice.
As much as she wanted to corner Ethan, she knew she had to bide her time. This discussion required privacy and no interruptions.
After Ivy had seen her last patient and the office was empty, by four-thirty, she was ready to make her move. Unfortunately he had disappeared.
“You just missed him,” her receptionist told her apologetically. “He didn’t have any more appointments so he decided to leave early. If I’d known you wanted him to stay, I would have—”
“It’s okay. I just had a question for him. Nothing that can’t wait until later,” she lied. “Did he say where he was going?”
“No. I didn’t ask and he didn’t offer.”
Considering it was far too early to eat dinner, although they’d missed lunch because of little Slade Jantzen, Ivy doubted she’d find him at the diner. He’d probably gone home to lick his wounds in private.
She was determined not to let him.
Ivy hurried down the connecting hallway that led to Walt’s office, where she found both Jed and Walt’s nurse practitioner behind a stack of charts on their desks.
“I have a favor to ask, Margery,” Ivy said. “I’ll buy, beg, borrow or steal whatever it takes for you to say yes.”
The forty-five-year-old Margery laughed. “Sounds like a deal. What do you need?”
Ivy explained, her fingers crossed. Although she’d manage somehow if Margery couldn’t help her, it would make life so much simpler if she did.
“Sure—no problem,” the N.P. said.
Grateful, Ivy flew home. She changed into a sleeveless blouse and comfortable shorts, dug a pizza out of her freezer, grabbed a six-pack of sugar-laden caffeinated soda pop, then headed for Ethan’s cabin.
Her car ate up the miles and she told herself to remain calm. Although as the moment of truth loomed ahead of her a familiar sense of pain surfaced. She didn’t know if it was for Ethan or for herself.
The more she thought about her feelings, the more she realized it was ridiculous to feel hurt and betrayed. She’d only met the man a mere five days ago! As she reminded herself of that, she knew time had nothing to do with the strength of her feelings. After the kisses they’d shared, their companionship, his thoughtful gestures, he should have trusted her with his secrets. And yet he hadn’t.
Her righteous indignation lasted until he answered her brisk knock and she saw his bleak face. Her own hurts hadn’t disappeared, but now they seemed small and insignificant in comparison to the private war still waging inside of him.
Ethan had been expecting to hear from Ivy, but he’d been waiting for the telephone to ring instead of a personal appearance. Sending her packing when she stood on his doorstep would be more difficult than disconnecting a call.
“Hi,” she said quietly. “You left early today.”
He raised a sardonic eyebrow before he drank from the bottle of beer in his hand. “Feel free to dock my salary for the hour.”
She raised the box in her hand. “I brought pizza.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“It’ll keep.” She paused. “May I come in?”
He didn’t want company. He wanted hers least of all. “I don’t suppose you’ll go home if I say no.”
“Not a chance. I’ll camp out here on the sidewalk until you agree.” Her tone softened. “You need to talk, Ethan.”
She was right, he thought wearily, but when he did Ivy would see him in a completely different light and the acceptance in her eyes would fade.
“Fine,” he retorted, heading away from the door and for-going the gentlemanly ritual of holding it for her. “Come in.”
He finished his bottle, tossed it in the trash can and forced himself to retrieve a plastic bottle of water instead of a second beer from the refrigerator. As tempting as it was to drown his sorrows, trying to do so on the two bottles of beer in his refrigerator was impossible. He’d also learned long ago that drinking himself into oblivion only added a monstrous hangover to his woes and wasn’t worth the few hours of forgetfulness.
He broke the seal, sank onto the sofa, and rested his sock-clad feet on the coffee table while Ivy slipped the pizza into his freezer, presumably for later.
Out of the corner of his eye he watched her sink gracefully into the easy chair on his right. He tried to read her mood, but couldn’t. This Ivy was far more serious and pensive than the one he’d come to know, but at least she wasn’t angry.
He hadn’t intended to hurt her, but he had. He should have kept their relationship purely professional, but she’d been like a long drink of cool water on a hot, sunny day and he hadn’t been able to stay away.
His idea that he could separate his past from his present under carefully guarded conditions had been faulty. Once again he’d pay the price for his decision, but he wasn’t in a hurry to do so.
“Any word on the Jantzen boy?” he asked.
“Not yet. I’m going to call in a few hours for an update.” She hesitated. “Why did you lead me to believe you didn’t have experience with infants?”
“It was easier than telling the truth.”
“Which is?”
“I am—er was a neonatologist. I was on the fast track to becoming head of department when my boss retired in a few years, but I gave it up and left St. Louis in search of the peace I couldn’t find there.”
He studied the brick pattern on the fireplace to avoid her gaze, although he sensed she was studying him intently.
“What happened?” she prompted.
“Do you remember the first morning we met? You asked me if I had any children. I don’t, but I did. His name was Cody Alan Locke. He died six weeks after he was born.”
“I’m so sorry, Ethan.”
He ignored her condolences. He’d heard them so often they no longer meant anything. How could she or anyone else imagine or know the pain he’d felt?
“His mother and I had a long engagement. Her pregnancy came as a surprise, but she wanted to wait to hold the ceremony until after the baby was born. Rushing the wedding and walking down the aisle in a maternity gown didn’t sit well with her, s
o I gave in. At twenty-six weeks she went into premature labor and her OB-GYN couldn’t stop it. Cody was born and whisked up to my NICU, where he immediately had problems with his blood sugar. We fought a constant battle against hypoglycemia.”
“PHHI?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. Those were letters he’d come to hate. Persistent Hyperinsulinemic Hypoglycemia of Infancy. A complicated condition with a long-winded name for such a tiny scrap of humanity. “His insulin levels were high and his glucose levels low, and we tried everything to even the score. Several of the consultants recommended surgery to remove part or most of his pancreas, depending on what the pathologist found on the biopsies, but I was confident that the next drug or a new dosage would magically control the problem. I was wrong. By the time I agreed to surgery he couldn’t handle the procedure. He died on the table.”
Ivy wanted to wrap her arms around him, but he was too caught up in his memories to appreciate her gesture. After hearing his story, she now understood the reason for the shadows in his eyes.
“So you gave up medicine?”
“Not then,” he said. “I didn’t make that decision until later. A few weeks after Cody died Tiffany left me. She said I was responsible for his death and she couldn’t bear to be around me. I didn’t blame her. I couldn’t bear to be around myself.”
Ivy considered his former fiancée with disgust, but held back her comments. Ethan was finally talking, and she didn’t want to interrupt.
“Losing her was another blow, but I weathered it,” he said. “Barely. The last straw broke after I lost another neonate to necrotizing enterocolitis. By then I admitted I had lost my edge and it was time to step aside. So I did. I left St. Louis with the belief I’d find a new career on my extended vacation. Something where I wouldn’t have to make life-and-death decisions.”
“And you ended up in Danton,” she murmured.
“Yeah.” He glanced at her with pain-filled eyes. “I never intended to go back into medicine. I should have held my ground after you visited that first day, but I felt guilty because I remembered what it was like to work when I was dead on my feet. In the end I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t,” he finished ruefully.
“So you set your conditions in order to protect yourself?”
He nodded. “It worked, too. Until today.”
“I wish you had told me.”
“I couldn’t. I was afraid I’d see the same disgust in your eyes that I saw in Tiffany’s. You made me feel like I could believe in myself again, and I couldn’t risk losing that.”
Her heart pounded. “Oh, Ethan,” she said. “I wish I’d known. I might have handled things differently with the Jantzen baby.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. If you hadn’t asked for a consult today, you would have at some point. It was inevitable.” He leaned against the back cushions and drank deeply from his water bottle. “Now you know the sordid details. If you don’t want me to come in on Monday, you won’t hurt my feelings. I’ll understand.”
She hated seeing his defeated attitude, but sensed that if she sympathized with him, he’d never get past it. “If you think I’m letting you off the hook this easily you’d better think twice,” she said tartly. “You promised to help me for three weeks, and by my calendar I still have two weeks to go.”
Surprise flitted across his face. “After what I just told you—you still want me to treat your patients?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” she asked, certain he’d continue to wallow in self-doubt if she didn’t give him a dose of tough love. “For the record, I don’t believe you were responsible for your son’s death.” At his protest, she cut him off. “You weren’t the doctor-of-record, were you?”
“No,” he said slowly. “My boss, Stewart, was. But—”
“Then it was Stewart’s responsibility to convince you to take other treatment alternatives. Barring that, he could always have pressed the issue and gone the legal route if you’d refused to follow his advice. He didn’t, so that tells me he was content, at least to some degree, with your decision.” She softened her tone. “I’m sorry your son died, Ethan, but no matter how hard we wish it, or how hard we try, we aren’t God. Some things are out of our hands. If you want my opinion, your fiancée was wrong to blame you when you were trying to save your son’s life. Unfortunately, bad things happen. Period. I hope she learns that someday. As for your last case, NEC is something the bedside nurse usually notices first. Did you ignore her reports?”
“No. I ran tests, but they didn’t show anything specific. Sometimes infants with feeding issues show the same symptoms, so we waited and watched. Just when we thought the baby was in the clear the bowel perforated, and we couldn’t get her to surgery fast enough.”
“Ethan,” she said kindly, moving to sit beside him on the sofa and cradle his hand in hers, “you did what you could. You probably did what any of your colleagues would have done and I’ll bet they told you that.”
“They did.”
“Then let it go. It’s time.”
He paused.
She leaned over and kissed him, softly at first, but it steadily grew into a heated expression of what lay in her heart.
Ethan didn’t move until suddenly he flung an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “Ivy,” he whispered against her mouth. “I was so afraid—”
“Don’t be,” she replied.
“I should tell you something else.”
She could barely string two thoughts together under the sensation of his mouth trailing down her neck. “What?”
“I’ve wanted you from the day we met.”
In some functioning portion of her brain she recognized the proof of his desire. What would making love with the man who had sneaked into her heart be like? The prospect of finding out for herself sent her heart into racing mode. There was nothing in this world that she wanted more. Nothing in this world felt more perfect.
To her consternation, he slowly turned down the heat until he’d put space between them. His eyes, his expression, revealed regret and apology. “You know I want this, don’t you?”
“I want it, too. So why—?”
“I can’t. As right as it seems, I can’t make love to you when I’ll be leaving in a few weeks.”
“You could stay.”
His smile was small. “It’s tempting.”
In her heart, though, she knew he wouldn’t yield easily. His war within still waged too strong for him to believe he deserved his own happy ending. As much as she wanted him to remain, and would do everything in her power to convince him, she also wanted him to stay for the right reasons. Running away from St. Louis so he could hide from his fears wasn’t one of them.
“Then I’ll keep working on it,” she promised. “But no matter what you decide about the future, please make love to me now, Ethan. It’s what we both want.”
He ran one hand through his hair, his indecision plain as he wrestled with his desires. “Don’t make this so difficult,” he said hoarsely. “I’m trying to do the right thing.”
She rested her fingers on his forearm. “I appreciate the considerate gesture, but it isn’t necessary.”
His uncertainty faded and a cautious hope filled his eyes. “You’re certain?”
“Very.”
“I don’t want you to have regrets,” he warned.
“Please don’t make me beg, Ethan. The only regret I’ll have is if we don’t do this.”
He jumped to his feet and began to pace. Certain he was putting distance between them, she felt rejection spear her soul. But before her hopes completely drained out of the hole he’d created, he turned around to reach out, grab her hand and tug her upright.
“Me, too,” he said in a husky voice. “I’ve lived with enough regrets. I don’t want to add to the list.”
Happiness soared through her and she slipped her arms around his waist. “Neither do I.” Stretching on her toes, she pressed her lips to his in a kiss packed with emotion.
Once again, he broke contact. “No.”
Impatience reared its head. “No? After that you’ve said no?” Her voice raised.
He grinned like a mischievous little boy. “I’m objecting to the location, not the activity.” He quickly ushered her down the hallway. “I won’t make love on the sofa like a teenager.”
Eager to have him to herself, because these few seconds’ delay was killing her, she said, “I don’t mind.”
“I do,” he said firmly. “If you want the sofa, we can try it later, but not the first time.”
Anticipation tingled down her spine as his words soaked into her feverish brain. My, oh, my, but she loved the way this man thought.
CHAPTER NINE
THEY’D barely crossed the threshold to his bedroom when Ethan’s mouth met hers and his hands began a careful exploration that drove her out of her mind. She mumbled her impatience.
“You don’t want slow and easy?” he murmured as he eased a shirt button through its hole.
“Later,” she said breathlessly. “Not the first time.”
“Turning my own words against me, are you?” Another button eased free.
“Yes.” She tugged his polo shirt out of his waistband and slipped her hands underneath. Her palms glided along his chest and her fingertips encountered tight abs and a sprinkling of coarse hair.
“In that case…” The last few buttons slipped from their mooring as if by magic, and he peeled her blouse off her shoulders in one smooth motion. His knuckles grazed the upper swell of her breasts before he parted her bra and flung it somewhere on the floor.
His hands roamed, cupped and teased her flesh, and she moaned her pleasure. In the wink of an eye the rest of her clothing vanished, and she was lying on top of a satiny coverlet that cooled her skin.
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