RYDER SLUNG MCKENZIE’S bag strap over his shoulder, along with his own. “That it?”
Releasing the handle on her suitcase that he’d gotten off the baggage carousel, she nodded. “Yes, thank you. I can carry that, so you don’t have to.”
“Not a problem. I’ve got it.” Mostly because he wanted to walk her to her car.
Hell, he wanted to bring her to his apartment and make love to her in the privacy of his bed.
But he wouldn’t.
Whether she’d had sex with him out of an emotional post-wedding high, or just because he’d been convenient, or just that she’d decided to act on the physical chemistry between them, the reality was, less than a month ago she’d planned to spend her life with another man.
He’d learned his lesson well enough in the past and wouldn’t be making that mistake again. He might have been her pretend boyfriend, but he wouldn’t be McKenzie’s rebound guy.
He should have stopped her the night before, because he could no longer look at her without having flashbacks of her above him, moving sensuously and rocking his world.
Yes, he’d always felt desire when he saw her. But now he knew—knew and wanted more.
Only he didn’t.
He and McKenzie had had a great weekend together. A weekend that was so much more than he’d ever expected to have with her. It was enough.
It had to be.
He wouldn’t have McKenzie be the next Anna in his life.
They reached her car and he loaded the luggage into the trunk, then turned to face her.
“Um, thanks for going with me.” She toyed with her key fob. “For everything, really.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I...um...well, I guess I’ll be going.” She turned to get into the car, then paused, turned back to him, stood on her tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I’m not sure why you agreed to this weekend, Ryder, but you certainly saved me a lot of heartache. Thank you.”
He hoped he hadn’t caused a lot of heartache for himself in the process.
“You’re welcome.” How banal.
She eyed him a bit nervously. “So, where do we go from here?”
He stared into her green eyes and wondered what it was she wanted him to say. “A real relationship between us wouldn’t work.”
Statistics said they’d fail. Rebound relationships rarely even made it beyond the six months’ mark.
She gave him a wry smile, as if she’d known that was what he’d say and didn’t disagree. “I’ll admit our pretend relationship was pretty fab, though.”
True. It had been. Enough so that the thought of not seeing her, not holding her or kissing her again seemed impossible.
“So.” She let out an exaggerated breath. “Is this where we just walk away and go back to the way things were?”
“Yes.” It’s what they should do.
“Do you really think we can do that? After, well, you know?” she asked, still fiddling with her key fob.
“No, I guess not.”
“Me, either.” She seemed relieved at his answer. “But I hope we can still be friends. I really do appreciate everything you did.” She hesitated, as if she considered saying more.
He didn’t want her gratitude.
What he wanted... Hell, if he knew.
He’d be grateful he had this weekend to know her better, to get such an up-close glimpse at the woman who’d captured his imagination. A pretend weekend relationship would be enough.
“Goodbye, McKenzie.”
Her eyes widened a bit in shock, then she nodded, mumbled a goodbye of her own.
Just as he started to lean down to kiss the corner of her mouth, she stuck out her hand. His gaze dropped to it.
All pretense was gone. They were back to reality. It’s what he’d crazily agreed to, what she’d always wanted.
Ryder shook her hand, wondering if that would be the last time they’d ever touch.
Wondering what she’d do if he pulled her close and kissed her.
Which would be stupid since he knew this was goodbye.
She pulled her hand free, searched his eyes for a brief second, then climbed into her car.
Rather than head toward where he’d parked, Ryder watched McKenzie drive away, wondering at how he could already miss her when she’d never really been his to miss.
Ryder was back to avoiding her.
Three weeks had passed since their trip to Tennessee. McKenzie shouldn’t care that she knew he put effort into making sure their paths crossed as little as possible.
She should appreciate his efforts as it prevented awkward encounters and second thoughts on whether she should have let him walk away so easily.
Nothing about being away from him felt easy and she didn’t appreciate his avoidance.
Like now. She’d been on call at the hospital all night, had just gotten paged to check on a neonate in the NICU, and there he’d been, larger than life, and making her heart pound so hard it had to be creating shockwaves on the plethora of cardiac monitors in the unit.
When she’d spotted him her smile had been automatic. Even the tiniest glimpse of him made her insides light up. But that light had dimmed almost as fast as it appeared. As rather than return her smile, he’d given a nod of acknowledgment, then turned away.
Which hurt.
How could he just turn away as if they hadn’t had the most amazing sex on her bedroom floor, twice, before climbing up into her bed and holding each other long into the night?
As if they hadn’t shared looks and kisses an entire weekend?
As if... Ugh. She had to stop.
Ryder had done her a favor. Had pretended to be her boyfriend. He’d never promised, or even alluded to wanting, anything more.
Anything more scared her. One weekend as Ryder’s pretend girlfriend had turned her world upside down. What if they got involved for real, how would she cope when he walked away?
Clay and Paul’s walking away had hurt, but she’d survived. With the impact Ryder had had on her psyche, she wasn’t so sure she could handle being dumped by him.
Which was enough to keep her from reaching out to him and telling him how much she missed him.
McKenzie’s phone buzzed from her scrub pocket. She glanced at the message and her heart squeezed for more than one reason.
Whether either of them wanted to or not, she and Ryder would soon be forced to interact.
Sawyer Little was in respiratory distress and on her way to the hospital via ambulance.
McKenzie met the paramedics wheeling Sawyer into the emergency department. She’d wanted to be right there when the baby arrived.
As had Ryder.
Working beside him added a new level to the intensity of the moment, to the stress of Sawyer’s heart possibly failing.
Testing immediately began.
Nurses carried out orders as McKenzie and Ryder gave them.
“Please don’t let her be in heart failure,” McKenzie whispered softly as she ran the ultrasound conducer over the baby’s chest. “Please. Please. Please.”
The surgical sites looked good. The rebuilt aorta had good blood flow via the surgically connected proximal pulmonary artery. The pulmonary veins had increased pressure, which happened sometimes, but that shouldn’t have put the baby into respiratory distress. However, the fluid built up in the baby’s lungs could, and had.
Pneumonia? Or her heart’s inability to efficiently pump fluid and the fluid had backed up into Sawyer’s lungs, filling the tiny air sacs and preventing oxygen exchange?
Sawyer needed to go back on life support stat to take the workload off her heart and clear out the fluid, if it was cardiac in nature.
If infectious in nature, well, they’d deal with that, too.
“The surgical site looks patent,” Ryder commented. “Her blood is being oxygenated. I don’t see any evidence of a clot or failure of the repairs.”
McKenzie agreed. “It’s possibly pneumonia.”
Ryder nodded. “I hope not, but not uncommon after being on a ventilator for several days. It could have been slowly worsening since her hospital discharge.”
McKenzie ordered blood cultures and labs, determined to quickly get to the root of whatever was causing Sawyer’s problems.
The baby’s life depended on it.
“I’m going to suction her,” Ryder said.
They continued to examine the baby, working, prodding and poking.
Tubes seemed to be coming from every aspect of the baby’s body.
“I still don’t find any evidence of a clot, but her rhythm is jumpy.”
“I’m ordering an inotropic,” she told him, then did so.
Ryder glanced toward a nurse and gave a verbal order for additional medications.
“Ryder!” McKenzie couldn’t hold her cry in when Sawyer’s rhythm took a drastic drop.
But he was already responding, giving the baby a nudge.
Knowing time was of the essence, McKenzie pushed medication into the IV port, then got her intubated.
McKenzie and Ryder stayed with the baby over the next two hours, working with her almost nonstop to insure the tiny heart didn’t succumb to the strain of the excess fluid and ensuing shock.
Once the baby was stable, they transferred her to the neonatal intensive care unit. Kenzie and Ryder stayed close during the transfer.
“I can stay with her,” Ryder offered as they headed toward the unit.
McKenzie shot him an Are you crazy? look. “I’m not leaving, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“You’ve been here all night.”
He knew her on-call schedule? She supposed knowing would make it easier for him to avoid coming around.
“I’m fine.” Mostly, she was. She’d caught a few hours’ sleep here and there during the long night.
“I’ll be here, anyway, McKenzie. It seems crazy for you to stay past your on-call time when I know you’re tired.”
Don’t read anything into his concern. It wasn’t personal. He was just being nice.
Perhaps she was tired, or just cranky, but she didn’t want his nice.
Her chin lifted. “I’m staying.”
Ryder’s gaze narrowed and he studied her, then seemed to accept he couldn’t change her mind. “I get that, just hate that you’re doing so unnecessarily.”
She frowned. “And I get that you’d rather I not stay so you don’t have to be around me, but tough luck. Sawyer is my patient, and I’m staying.”
At her comment, Ryder winced ever so slightly, but didn’t deny her claim.
There wasn’t a need when they both knew what she said was true.
Too bad being here with him, even under duress and when she really should be feeling tired, had her feeling more alive than she’d been in...three weeks.
McKenzie should have gone home, Ryder thought for the dozenth time. Why had she had to be so stubborn? What had she been trying to prove?
Instead, she’d set up watch in Sawyer’s bay, determined to be close if anything changed on the baby’s status while they waited on test results.
Once Sawyer was settled into the NICU bay and her heart rhythm and oxygen saturation, lower than normal even with supplementation and breathing assistance, stabilized, Ryder had gone to check on another patient, the patient he’d actually come to the hospital to check, but had gotten side-tracked from by Sawyer’s arrival.
Coming back to the infant’s bay, he’d not been surprised to find McKenzie in a chair, half-asleep, but ready to jump into action at the first sounding of a vital sign change alarm.
She didn’t open her eyes at his entering the room, but her breathing pattern changed, so he knew she wasn’t asleep.
She knew he was there and was choosing not to have to interact with him. Her accusation earlier hit him. He did avoid her. How could he not when being near her made him want to forget common sense and lessons hard learned?
Surely, she agreed avoidance was for the best or she wouldn’t be pretending to be asleep.
He checked Sawyer, eyeing every one of the dozen monitors keeping tabs on the baby.
Just as he was turning to leave the bay, McKenzie’s phone went off. When she answered, he could tell it was the lab.
He waited, wanting to know what the test results were.
When she hung up the phone, she turned her lovely, concern-filled green eyes his way.
“Sawyer’s white blood cell count is twenty-seven thousand.”
Ryder winced. Her numbers should be under ten thousand.
“The fluid is from pneumonia,” he said unnecessarily.
McKenzie nodded. “The lab is sending off the sputum sample you suctioned, but it’ll be a few days before we know for sure. I’m ordering additional RNA viral testing, then I’ll go talk to Sawyer’s parents.”
“I’ll stay here while you’re with them.”
She started to argue. He could see the denial on the tip of her tongue, but she stopped herself, nodding instead. “I plan to okay the Littles to come back here with her for a while, to give them some time with her.”
She didn’t say just in case, but he heard the unspoken words.
“They’ll appreciate the time with her.”
McKenzie nodded, glancing toward the baby with so many wires and tubes attached that she seemed almost unreal.
“They have to be terrified that she’s in distress,” McKenzie said, so softly Ryder barely heard her.
Ryder imagined any parent would be. Even without the current situation, Sawyer’s parents had a long, stressful road ahead of them due to the baby’s congenital heart defects and any number of complications that could occur.
That likely would occur from time to time.
McKenzie knew that, but her heartfelt whisper didn’t surprise him. McKenzie had a big heart, one that loved her job and her patients.
His reaching for her hand was automatic. He regretted it the moment her surprised gaze jerked to his.
The moment her cool-to-the-touch skin still managed to shoot fire to his core that spread through his whole being, reminding him of how it had been with McKenzie.
How he’d been with her.
“Ryder, I...” She paused, pulled her hand away. “I’ve got to go speak with Sawyer’s parents.”
With that, McKenzie left, but it wasn’t long until she returned to the bay with the Littles. Ryder’s heart went out to the young couple who couldn’t take their eyes off their baby and all the attached tubes and wires. They’d seen worse after her heart repair, but no doubt the image was still intimidating.
“Let’s give them a few minutes,” he suggested, taking McKenzie’s elbow, ignoring that he was yet again touching her, and guiding her from the bay. There were several nurses at the nurses’ station, and Ryder just kept walking.
See why he couldn’t be near her? His hand was still on her elbow.
When they reached the elevator, Kenzie pulled her elbow from his grasp. “Where are we going?”
“To the cafeteria. When’s the last time you ate something?”
She gave him a blank look.
“That’s what I thought. Even though it’s essentially a waiting game to see if Sawyer responds to the medication we’re giving her, I imagine you’re planning to stay close tonight.”
McKenzie nodded.
“Let’s get something in you so you don’t get run down and end up picking up a bug yourself.”
For a moment he thought she was going to tell him that whether or not she got run down wasn’t any of his business, but instead, she sighed. “I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee.”
Despite the tension between them, he couldn’t help grinning.
“What?”
“You and your coffee.”
“Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not amazing stuff.”
“Apparently.”
When they arrived at the mostly empty hospital cafeteria, they went through the line, each purchasing a few items before they sat down at a table together.
“How is your family?”
“Good. They’ve asked about you.”
Ryder looked at her in surprise. Not that her family had asked about him, but that she was telling him.
“I told Mark the truth. He was livid I’d felt the need to bring a pretend boyfriend home, but admitted he also understood why I had, and, on second thought, he thought it brilliant.”
“Your brother is a good guy.” He’d truly liked the pilot.
“Most days.” McKenzie sighed. “He said the same thing about you.”
“That I was a good guy?”
Pulling the top off a yogurt cup, she nodded. “He said you had to be a good guy to agree to be my pretend boyfriend.”
“It wasn’t so bad.”
“But not that good, either?”
Ryder met her gaze. Was she talking sex? Because she’d been there, knew sex between them had been beyond good.
She glanced down. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
Let it go, he ordered himself, but couldn’t. “I’m curious. Why shouldn’t you have asked?”
She took a deep breath. “Because, in spite of everything that happened, you’re back to avoiding me.”
There was that. That she sounded hurt gutted him. He didn’t want to hurt her. Not ever.
“Things are complicated,” he admitted, searching for the right words and not sure it was possible to find them.
“If we hadn’t had sex, would you feel differently?”
Sex with McKenzie had been life-altering, but it wasn’t the sex he missed most. Yes, he wanted her, to kiss her and make love to her sweet body over and over.
But it was her smile, her wit, the way when her gaze met his he knew what she was thinking, the way when she laughed his insides filled with joy, that he missed most.
Which made him a fool. He’d have sworn he’d learned his lesson with Anna and would never let his emotions get caught in a rebound relationship again.
How wrong he’d been.
“No, McKenzie,” he admitted, giving a humorless snort at the irony of the situation. Had he really thought he could be her pretend boyfriend without ramifications? “If we’d not had sex, I’d feel the same.”
Which was the unfortunate truth.