BLAKE’S stomach churned as he watched myriad emotions flit across Moriah’s face. Sorrow. Pain. Regret.
Mostly regret. He felt the same thing himself. He’d thought being here with her would help put the past to rest, but so far he’d only managed to make things worse.
He was the one who’d searched for her throughout the hospital. He should have listened to the logical part of his brain that had told him to let her go. Circumstances beyond their control had brought them back to Peru. But what made him think she was at all interested in anything he had to say?
“That night shouldn’t have happened.” Moriah repeated his words in apparent agreement. She fell silent when the waiter brought their meal and for a tense moment he wondered if she’d leave. But she didn’t. Instead, she merely picked up her fork. “I’d prefer to forget my lapse in judgement.”
“I don’t regret our time together, even if you do.” He clenched his jaw, contrarily annoyed with how she’d referred to their night together as a “lapse in judgement.” They’d shared a night of pleasure—it wasn’t his fault they both wanted different things out of life. Edgy need for her had ridden him for what seemed like for ever, worse in those months after her breakup with Ryan. Then the news of Ryan’s death had reached them on their last night in Peru. All he’d intended had been to offer a shoulder to cry on. Instead, he’d ended up taking advantage of the situation. The moment she’d returned his kiss, he had been lost.
She carefully set down her fork. “I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”
He knew he should leave it alone. But he couldn’t. “Is that why you left Trinity Medical Center and joined that private practice across town?”
Moriah raised her hand, signaling the waiter. When he scurried over, she gestured toward her untouched meal. “Would you please wrap this for me?”
The waiter broke into a torrent of Spanish, asking if there was something wrong with the meal. She assured him the food was fine, but she was too exhausted to eat now and needed to return to her room.
“Moriah, don’t.” Helplessly he watched as the waiter brought her a bag for her food. Ignoring him, she quickly transferred the contents of her plate to the bag.
“We can’t rehash the past, Blake.” She stood to leave. “I’ve moved on with my life. And so have you. Maybe you’re a man who enjoys the chase, but I’m not willing to run. Good night.”
She turned and left the dining room. He stared after her retreating figure, knowing she was wrong.
Maybe once he had enjoyed the chase. But not in the past year, since spending the night with Moriah. He’d thought flirting would be a way to help him forget about her. But it had failed to work.
He feared nothing would make him forget the tiny slice of heaven he’d experienced in her arms.
Dawn had barely crept over the horizon when Blake arrived at Trujillo hospital. Making rounds, he visited each of his post-op patients from the day before. He was pleased with their progress: everyone was recovering nicely. He spent extra time with Anita’s mother, who felt guilty for the role she’d unwittingly played by not confirming Anita’s asthma. He understood, and reassured her as best he could, explaining that, in all honesty, the laryngospasms could have happened even if they had known about the asthma, or even if the girl hadn’t had asthma. He left, hoping she believed him.
Despite his successful operations, he didn’t feel the usual surge of satisfaction. His emotions remained unsettled thanks to the erotic dreams of Moriah that had invaded his sleep all night.
In the harsh light of day, he felt a sharp stab of annoyance. Weakness was something he refused to tolerate. He needed to get his act together, to get his wishy-washy head screwed on straight.
Moriah was just a woman. Heaven knew, there were plenty of them out there. Sure, maybe his days of playing the field were over. Maybe what he needed to do was to find a woman as dedicated to her career as he was to his. Someone who wasn’t tethered to the idea of having a big, noisy family.
With a determined step he headed down to the OR suites. His first case of the day was Arturo, the forty-year-old man with extensive face and neck burns who they’d squeezed into the schedule. The procedure would take a good six to eight hours, and he was anxious to begin. He often saw these procedures like puzzles, whose pieces needed to be replaced to be complete.
Per protocol, he scrubbed extensively with antimicrobial solution prior to entering the sterile area. He used the time to clear his mind of his personal problems, thinking instead of the complicated procedure to come.
He found Moriah already in the room, smiling at his patient as she prepared him for anesthesia. Her eyes were bright and lively as she placed the IV catheter and administered a dose of Versed.
“How is Arturo doing?” Blake asked, as he surveyed the sterile instrument trays, grateful to find everything ready.
“He’s great, actually. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a patient this excited about having surgery.” Moriah’s eyes over the rim of her face mask crinkled in a smile. “He was talking a mile a minute, it wasn’t easy to calm him down. For a while there I thought I’d need to give him a double dose of medication.”
Her words warmed his heart. As much as he’d come on this mission to cover for Ed Granger, he had to admit that assisting people who really needed help was gratifying. Humbling. The people here, men like Arturo, were easy to work with, so compliant with their care compared to some of the people he saw in the US. In many ways he preferred practicing here in Peru.
“Let’s get started, then.” Blake snapped on a pair of sterile gloves. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Give me a few minutes to secure his airway.” Moriah deftly intubated the patient and then played with the dials on the anesthesia machine. “All right, he’s ready.”
Blake quickly became engrossed in the microscopic surgery. At some level he was aware of Moriah reciting the patient’s vital signs every hour. Once in a while he paused to stretch when his neck muscles cramped from peering through the microscope. Halfway through the case, he reached the point where he’d planned a short break. The first graft had been placed; the second one still needed to be done.
“Blake? Do you have a minute to come look at this?” George poked his head into the room.
“What’s going on?”
“One of the locals needed a crash C-section and the baby has a diaphragmatic hernia. One of our surgeons helped with the infant’s surgery, but we need to keep the abdomen open and we don’t have any synthetic Gortex mesh to use.” George’s gaze was troubled. “We brought plenty of regular abdominal mesh, but for this particular case they need something stronger. Come and take a look, maybe you can come up with something we’ve missed.”
“I was just planning to take a break.” He glanced at Moriah. “Send someone to give Moriah a break, too.”
“I’m all right,” she protested.
Blake shook his head. “I need you for the long haul so don’t even think of arguing. Besides, I want you to come look at this newborn with me. Maybe, between the two of us, we’ll come up with an idea.”
Moriah reluctantly handed over the reins of anesthesia to Terrance, another of the team’s anesthesiologists. She and Blake followed George into OR suite five, changing their gowns, masks and hats along the way. In minutes, Blake and Moriah had joined the small group standing around the OR table.
“See? I’ve tried to use this regular mesh, but it’s just not strong enough to give the hernia the stability it needs.” Frustration was evident in the surgeon’s tone. “I don’t know what to do.”
Blake frowned at the infant boy’s abdomen, trying to think of a solution. Gortex was like thin rubber. What they needed was a rubbery material, something strong enough to hold the infant’s intestines in place, yet with a little give to it.
“What about using part of a plastic IV bag?” Moriah suggested.
Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “The inside of the bag is sterile, yet the plastic is flexible enough and strong enough to cover the abdominal organs. You know, it just might work.”
“I’ll get one from the PACU.” The circulating nurse darted from the room, returning a few minutes later with sterile scissors and an empty IV bag.
Blake took the items from her and eyed the infant’s abdomen, then cut a square from the IV the same approximate size. Handing it to the team, he watched as the surgeon sutured the edges of the plastic in place.
“It’s perfect, holding the surgical site with the right amount of firmness. Great idea, Moriah.” The surgeon glanced at her. “Thanks.”
She smiled. “No problem.”
Pride swelled in Blake’s chest. He grinned at her. “Let’s get something to eat, just for a few minutes.”
“Sounds good.”
There was an ample supply of juice and crackers in the OR lounge. Blake didn’t really want to run all the way down to the cafeteria so the simple nourishment would have to do.
Moriah nibbled on a cracker. “Can you imagine using an IV bag in place of Gortex in the States?” Moriah chuckled. “Someone would try to sue on the grounds the FDA hadn’t approved IV bags for that particular use.”
“Yeah, it is nice practicing here, without worrying about a zillion senseless regulations,” Blake acknowledged. “The US could learn something from Peru.”
“I wish.”
“Moriah?” Greta entered the break room. “There’s a phone call for you, from the US.”
“Who is it?” Her eyes widened.
“Your brother, John.”
“Is something wrong?” Blake asked, as she hurried off.
“I don’t know. He didn’t sound upset on the phone.” Greta shrugged and turned away.
Blake’s thoughts churned as he headed back to the sink outside the OR suite to re-scrub. He’d met Moriah’s extensive family a few times over the years and knew they were a close-knit bunch. He and Ryan had mostly stood on the sidelines, feeling strangely isolated as Moriah and her siblings had mercilessly teased each other. As the only child of parents who had hauled him from one obscure country to another until, at the age of five, they had sent him to live with his aunt and uncle indefinitely, he hadn’t been able to quite identify with the noisy, rambunctious group.
Not that his unorthodox upbringing meant much now. His parents were long gone, having died in a small plane crash while traveling to a mission.
Moriah’s parents, on the other hand, were alive and well, even if they were getting on in years. With a frown he finished scrubbing, hoping there was nothing seriously wrong back home.
“Johnny, I can’t believe you called me out of a case to tell me you’re getting married.” Moriah laughed and shook her head in amazement. “You’re lucky I happened to be on break. This call is going to cost you a bundle.”
“Sis, I’m killing two birds with one stone here. Mom and Dad have been freaking out because they haven’t heard from you.”
Guilt flushed her cheeks. “I know, I’m sorry. It’s been crazy busy around here. Please, tell everyone I’m fine.”
“Will do. Take care of yourself.”
“Congrats, John. Tell Elizabeth I can’t wait to welcome her into the family.” She hung up the phone, smiling wryly.
Her little brother was getting married. Who would have thought? For a while there, he’d seemed to jump from one relationship to another. Just like Ryan. And Blake.
Soberly, she returned to the main OR. As happy as she was for her brother, she wished the thought of John’s wedding didn’t make her feel so lonely. Her plan to purge the remnants of her feelings for Blake from her system didn’t seem to be working very well so far.
A few more days, though, and she was sure she’d have the task mastered.
Steeling her resolve, she donned her sterile garb and hurried into the room.
“Everything all right?” Blake asked, when she took over from Terrance.
“Sure. Everything’s fine.” She suspected her falsely bright tone didn’t fool him in the least.
He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded and turned his attention to work. She reviewed Terrance’s notes, familiarizing herself with how her patient had fared in her absence. Eventually, though, she found herself gazing once more at Blake.
The way he managed to perform painstaking surgery for hours on end totally amazed her. In some ways, her job wasn’t nearly as hard, although she knew they were equally important. They both had to stay alert and ready for the unexpected for long hours during a case. Why wasn’t Blake more arrogant, like some of the other surgeons she worked with? Then maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to hang on to her anger toward him.
After they’d finished with Arturo they took another quick break before starting the second patient, a young girl with bilateral lower leg contracture releases. The eight-year-old hadn’t walked in two years, since the original burns.
“Louisa’s blood pressure is stable, 98 over 62, and her pulse is steady at 102,” Moriah recited for Blake’s benefit. She knew from working with him in the past how he demanded periodic updates on his patient during the case. Something had happened while he’d been a resident, he’d confided to her last year. One of his patients had taken a turn for the worse during the course of an operation. But the anesthesiologist had simply kept giving stronger and higher doses of medication, rather than telling the surgeons what was going on. They had just about finished the case when the patient had suffered a cardiac arrest. They’d coded him for over an hour, but he’d died. And from that moment on Blake had vowed to practice differently.
His real concern for his patients was just another aspect of his character to admire. The patients weren’t statistics to him, numbers that had to be balanced so there weren’t too many deaths. They were real people. Over and over again she’d watched him spend a little extra time with his patients, as he had with Anita and her mother.
With a scowl she sought to remember those things about him she didn’t like. His penchant for going from woman to woman. The way he seemed to stand completely alone, even in a crowd.
The way he’d walked away from her, as if their night of love-making hadn’t meant a thing.
Ryan had mentioned once that Blake had had a rough childhood, but hadn’t elaborated on the subject. Watching Blake work, she realized she didn’t really know much about his personal life prior to medical school. She did know he was conservative with his money, and he’d once said that he’d been forced to take out several large student loans to get through medical school. But other than those few skimpy facts, she didn’t know much at all about his past.
He must have sensed her gaze, because he glanced up at her.
“Louisa’s vitals are still stable,” she said quickly.
“Good.” His eyes crinkled in a smile. Lord, his face was half-covered with his face mask and she still felt his smile all the way to the bottoms of her feet.
The man had dated more women in a year than she had friends, and her pulse still quickened, her stomach tightening when he gave her one of his long, measuring looks.
She needed her head examined, big-time.
“I’m finished here,” Blake announced. “Go ahead and reverse her.” He pushed the instrument tray out of the way with his foot and pulled off his bloody gloves.
Moriah gave the necessary medication and cut back the general anesthetic. The anesthetic drugs they used now were great. The whole process of waking patients up went much more smoothly and quickly than in years past.
“I’m taking her over to the PACU,” she told Blake.
“All right, tell them not to mess with the leg splints I put on her.”
“I will.” Moriah wheeled her patient down the hall to the PACU and Greta’s capable hands. They’d barely gotten her settled when the patient began to flail around on the cart.
“Give her some morphine,” Moriah told Greta, attempting to hold the girl down. “She must be in pain.”
“All right, here’s another two milligrams,” Greta told her as she pushed the medication into Louisa’s IV.
The poor girl still writhed in the bed, so Moriah lowered her body over the patient’s thrashing legs, hoping to protect Blake’s surgical sites.
“Give her another dose. Is her IV working? What you gave didn’t seem to be touching her.” Moriah hoped they hadn’t lost the girl’s IV.
“You’re right, Dr Howe. Her IV isn’t working. I’ll need to start another line.”
Good grief, how could they start another IV when the poor girl was experiencing such pain? “I’ll do it. Help me by holding her down.”
Louisa continued to buck and flail on the gurney. Starting another IV wasn’t easy, although with Greta’s help Moriah finally managed to slide the catheter in.
“There, quick, give the morphine. And the Versed,” Moriah directed, holding the patient down from her side of the gurney. The medications were on the table beside Greta.
Greta administered the morphine, but not quickly enough. Snap! The sound of a breaking splint echoed through the room like a gunshot. “Oh, my God, call Blake. She just snapped one of her leg splints in two.”
Moriah continued to hold her patient and soon, once the medication actually reached her bloodstream, Louisa calmed down. Blake muttered under his breath as he re-created a new splint for her.
“Sorry about that,” Moriah apologized. “We should have realized there might be a problem with the IV sooner.”
“No harm done to the surgical sites, thank heavens,” Blake commented. “I’ve seen some unruly kids back in the States, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of them snap a splint in two.” He shook his head in amazement. “I’d like to sit here and watch her for a few minutes. Ask someone to send up a couple of dinner trays.”
So much for her plan to avoid spending time with him outside the OR suite. “Do you think that’s necessary?” Moriah asked, glancing down at their patient. “She’s seems better now. And Greta is here to watch her.”
“Greta will be busy when the patient in OR suite four comes out in another five minutes. Besides, I’d rather make sure she’s all right for myself, especially since the meds you gave her will soon wear off.”
Unable to come up with another argument, Moriah reluctantly sat, as Blake crossed the room and used the wall phone to order a couple of dinner trays. At least this wasn’t as bad as sitting across from him in the intimacy of the hotel restaurant.
Greta’s presence on the other side of the room was enough of a reminder that they were still at work.
Louisa lay peacefully in her cubicle as they ate their dinner at the main desk.
“Why did your brother call? Are your parents all right?” Blake asked casually.
Feeling foolish, she nodded. “Yes, they’re fine. Just worried about me, I guess. I haven’t had time to find one of those internet café places to send them a message.”
He frowned. “You should have said something. There’s a small restaurant with internet access just down the circular road a little ways. I could have taken you over there.”
Why was Blake suddenly concerned about her family? Very odd. “That’s not the only reason he called. He wanted to let me know he’s getting married.”
“Married?” Blake’s frown deepened. “He’s far too young to get married, isn’t he?”
She laughed. “He’s only two years younger than me, which makes him twenty-nine.” To a guy like Blake, forty-nine was probably too young. And her thirty-one suddenly seemed incredibly old, especially if she hoped to have children. “I’m very happy for him. He’s thrilled to have found the woman of his dreams.”
He paused in the act of lifting his fork to his mouth. “Do you know her well?”
“No, actually, I haven’t met her yet.” Moriah toyed with the food on her plate. “But I do know that if she loves my brother, she’ll fit into the family just fine.”
“You don’t know that for sure.” Blake carefully set his fork down and pushed his plate away, as if he couldn’t eat any more. “Some people don’t like big families. I hope, for your brother’s sake, the woman he’s chosen isn’t one of them.”
“Like you.” She hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, but the guilt in his eyes only confirmed, with sick certainty, what she already knew.
Blake had seriously meant what he’d once said. He didn’t plan to have a family. Ever.