His father’s dying words had been pleas to Charlie never to be controlled by what was in his pants, and a declaration that no woman was worth giving up one’s dreams.
“Marriage and kids suck the life right out of you, son,” his father had told him. “You go after your dreams and you make them happen. You be the best doctor this country has ever seen and don’t you let a woman stand in your way, no matter how pretty she is. In the long run, she will eat at your soul until you despise her for taking away your dreams.”
Those had been the exact words from his last conversation with his father. He’d heard similar all his life, had known that was how his father felt about his mother, him.
Although he’d become way too involved with Savannah for far too long, Charlie wouldn’t let any woman tie him down.
Not because of his father, but because of not wanting to relive the hell of what he’d grown up with. He’d been a burden to his parents, had ruined their lives; he’d been unable to protect his mother from his father’s abuse, unable to protect her from the misery he’d caused. Charlie would never marry nor have children. Never.
He’d ruined enough lives during his lifetime already.
“You hear something different, doc?”
Charlie blinked at the elderly woman he’d been checking and instantly felt remorse at his mental slip into the past. Crazy that this move had him thinking so much about his parents, his failure of a family, his past. All things he did his best to keep buried. Maybe that had been the problem over the past year. He’d kept his past so deeply buried that he’d forgotten all the reasons why he shouldn’t have gotten so involved with Savannah. No more.
“No,” he told the woman with a forced smile. “Just listening to your heart sounds. Your heart is in rhythm today.”
“My heart is in rhythm every day. Just some days that rhythm isn’t such a good one.”
He finished examining her, then saw the rest of his morning patients. Typically, this was the time he’d go to the cardiovascular intensive care unit, see his inpatients, see if his favorite CVICU nurse could sneak away to grab a bite of lunch.
He’d gotten too attached to Savannah.
For both their sakes, he’d been right to take the job in Nashville. She might not realize it yet, but he’d done her the greatest favor of her life.
* * *
“You don’t seem yourself today.”
Savannah glanced up at her nurse supervisor, who also happened to be one of her dearest friends. Should she tell Chrissie the truth?
If so, how much of the truth?
The man I thought I was spending the rest of my life with told me last night that he’s moving two hours away? Or, I’m pregnant by a man I was crazy about but currently just want to strangle?
Neither seemed the right thing to say at work, where she had to hold it together and not cry out her frustrations.
“I’m okay.”
Chrissie’s brow lifted. “You usually walk around as if your feet aren’t affected by gravity. I’ve not seen you smile all day. So I’m not buying ‘okay’.”
Savannah gave a semblance of a smile that was mostly bared teeth.
Chrissie winced. “That bad?”
Savannah nodded. “Worse.”
“You and Charlie have an argument?”
Had they argued? Not really. More like he’d told her he was moving and she’d verbalized that they were through.
“I heard he turned his notice in yesterday. I wasn’t going to say anything until you did, but you’ve looked so miserable today that I couldn’t hold it in any longer.”
There it was. Confirmation that he was leaving. Everyone knew. Charlie was leaving her.
“I’m not sure what to say. My boyfriend—former boyfriend,” she corrected, “is moving out of town. I was shocked by the news and haven’t quite recovered.”
Chrissie’s expression pinched. “You didn’t know?”
“You probably knew before I did.”
Her friend’s eyes widened. “He hadn’t mentioned he was considering a move to Nashville?”
Savannah shook her head. “Not even a peep.”
Chrissie looked blown away. “What was he thinking? He should have talked such a big decision over with you.”
Maybe her expectations hadn’t been unfounded if Chrissie thought the same thing as she had. What was she thinking? Of course he should have mentioned the possibility of a move. They’d been inseparable for months. Her anger was well founded.
“Apparently not.”
“You said ‘former boyfriend’,” Chrissie pointed out. “You two are finished, then?”
Savannah had to fight to keep her hand from covering her lower abdomen. She and Charlie would never be finished. There would always be a tie that bound them.
A child that bound them.
Still, she didn’t need him, would not allow herself to need him. Some fools never learned, but she wasn’t going to fall into that category.
Toying with her stethoscope, she shrugged and told the truth. “Yeah, as a couple, we’re finished.”
* * *
Wincing, Charlie paused in the hallway. Neither woman had noticed him walking up behind them. Neither one knew he was overhearing their conversation.
Should he clear his throat or something?
He shouldn’t feel guilty for eavesdropping. If they didn’t want someone to overhear their conversation they shouldn’t be having it in the middle of the CVICU hallway.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Chrissie told Savannah, giving her a quick hug. “I thought you two were perfect together.”
Perfect together.
They had been perfect together, but wasn’t that the way most relationships started? All happy faces and rainbows? It was what came along after the happy faces and rainbows faded that was the problem.
He was just leaving before the bright and shiny faded, before hell set in and people died.
Charlie absolutely was not going to be like his father.
If Rupert had been miserable at giving up his dream of a career in medicine, then he’d made Charlie’s mother doubly so until her death in a car accident when Charlie had been fifteen. That had been after a particularly gruesome argument that Charlie had tried to stop. He’d never forgiven himself that he hadn’t been able to protect her from his father. He’d tried, failed, and look what had happened, at what she’d done to escape his father—to escape him?
Guilt slammed him and he refused to let the memory take hold, instead focusing on events before that dreadful night. Why his parents had stayed together was beyond Charlie. They should have divorced.
They should never have married.
No doubt his mother would have been a hundred times better off if Rupert had walked away instead of marrying her and making her pay for her pregnancy every day for the rest of her life.
Regardless, Rupert had stayed with his wife and had instilled in Charlie the knowledge that giving up one’s dreams for another person ultimately led to misery for all involved. His mother had seconded that motion, and when she’d died it had confirmed that her son was not worth living for. Charlie wasn’t able to make another person happy, nor was he able to protect anyone from life’s harsher