Yet her gaze still had the power to take his breath away.
“Luke,” she said simply, her voice a bit more mature, but still as soft and melodious as he remembered.
“It’s Dr. Wynter now.”
He regretted his response the moment it left his mouth. It probably sounded as though he was flaunting the medical degree he’d fought long and hard to earn. Instead he’d only meant to validate himself in her eyes. To let her know a lot had changed since her brother had died and she’d shut him out of her life.
That she could trust him now.
She cleared her throat as though still trying to take it all in and decide how she felt about it. “The nurse mentioned Carrie was being examined by Dr. Wynter. But I had no idea…”
“I can understand why.”
“How is she?”
“Stable,” he said. “For now. But she’s critical. Come with me. Let’s talk in private.”
He led her down the hall to the room set aside for giving a patient’s family bad news. Not that he would paint a dark picture. It was too early to tell for sure. But the guy who beat Carrie had nearly killed her, and she was a long way from being out of the woods.
It was a painful walk—more so than any other he’d had to make. His mind scurried to find the right words. But not so much about her friend.
All that had separated them before jumped to the forefront, just as real and heartbreaking as the day she left San Diego and never came back.
As they entered the small room, with its pale green walls and living room-style atmosphere, he asked Leilani to have a seat.
She chose the floral-print sofa, but sat on the edge as if wanting to bolt.
He could relate. He felt like hightailing it out of there, too.
For some reason, he would have preferred to be outdoors when he talked to her, away from the four walls that sometimes closed in on him when he was faced with grieving friends and family members who struggled with the shock of an accident, illness or death.
He might be a whiz when it came to treating bullet holes, knife wounds and broken bones, but he wasn’t good at handing out sympathy along with the tissues or saying the right thing. Hell, if he’d had any gifts in the emotional support department, maybe his mom wouldn’t have chosen to end it all a few years back.
Luke took a seat on a beige vinyl recliner. To say neither of them had expected to see the other, to be sitting across the table face-to-face, was an understatement of gigantic proportions.
“Leilani,” he said, realizing that her name, as Hawaiian as the island on which she’d grown up, slipped off his tongue as though the last twelve years hadn’t gone by. As though they were still kids tripping over their hormones.
Yet the past hovered over them like a vulture ready to swoop down and consume the remnants of innocence—her brother’s and hers. As much as he’d wanted to apologize years ago—to explain his version of the story—that wasn’t why she was sitting across from him. Nor was it what she wanted to hear right now.
Luke always remained detached from his patients—for their sake as well as his own. He merely assessed injuries and illnesses, then provided emergency treatment until the patients could be passed to the appropriate specialists or sent home to recover. He struggled to do the same this evening, but it wasn’t working very well.
He suspected it was because he’d let Leilani down before and was hoping to provide her with a better outcome this time.
“Is Carrie going to die?” Those pretty golden-brown eyes searched his for answers he didn’t have.
“It’s too early to know. I won’t beat around the bush. She’s hurt badly. And her pregnancy complicates things.”
“How’s the baby?”
“Alive. I’m afraid we don’t know much right now. But the neurosurgeon and obstetrician will determine the best treatment for her.”
Her gaze, wide-eyed and luminous, lanced his chest, making him feel like an awkward adolescent with a crush on the new girl at school—an exotic beauty who’d been blessed with the best genetics her Anglo father and Hawaiian mother could offer.
And in spite of the voice inside begging him to step back, to pass not only the patient on to other doctors, but to pass Leilani on, too, he found it tough to do so.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“Me?”
Leilani wasn’t sure what to tell him. Needless to say, she was deeply concerned about her friend and the baby. But running into Luke Wynter had never crossed her mind. And the fact that he’d turned his life around merely added more surprise to the mix.
“I’m okay,” she said, although that wasn’t entirely true. There was a lot of history between the two of them, and Luke didn’t know the half of it.
A wave of guilt rolled over her, as well as the ever-present resentment she felt whenever she’d thought of him over the past twelve years.
“I didn’t realize you were back in town,” he said. “I’d heard you relocated to Los Angeles.”
“I’m just visiting my aunt.” She glanced at the garnet ring on her right hand, an heirloom that once belonged to her mother, and fingered it. When she looked up, she added, “And I also came to see Carrie. She’s a friend I met in Los Angeles. She relocated a while back….”
He nodded as though that made sense and didn’t press for more information. She was glad; she wasn’t ready to renew their friendship.
Their friendship?
God. They’d become involved as teenagers on the cusp of adulthood.
Young lovers who’d been wrong for each other.
A nurse poked her head through the doorway. “Excuse me, Dr. Wynter. But there’s an important call for you from Dr. Kim. And those lab results for Mrs. Rosenberg are back. You told me to let you know the minute they were in.”
Luke nodded.
He’d grown up and filled out, Leilani realized, yet he still wore his hair the same—attractively unkempt. And apparently he didn’t shave every day, which left him with the rugged look that had always appealed to her.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, his voice settling over her like a sense of déjà vu.
“Of course.”
She was pleased to know Luke had made something of himself—something noble and respectful. Yet the fact that he had also made her feel guilty about the secret she’d kept.
A secret she’d decided to keep when Luke had been little more than a delinquent and she’d expected him to spend the bulk of his life behind bars—especially after her brother’s death.
When she left San Diego, she’d had every intention of forgetting Luke Wynter, but she hadn’t been able to.
Not when their eleven-year-old son reminded her of him daily.
Early the next morning, when his shift was over, Luke did something he rarely did; he went to check on a patient he’d handed over to specialists.
But it wasn’t just any patient.
It was Carrie Summers, who was in a coma.
He read her chart, then spoke to the nurse who’d been assigned to her. Carrie was, so far, holding her own.
On his way out of the ICU, he stopped by the waiting room where he spotted Leilani seated on a sofa. She was wearing the same white blouse and black slacks