“As far as I’m concerned, there is no potential situation. I’ll be gone in two months.”
Her dark eyes narrowed but, rather than say anything negative, she surprised him by saying, “Congratulations on your new job. I hear it was a nice promotion.”
“Thank you. It was.”
She hesitated a moment, then looked him square in the eyes. “You’re sure that’s really what you want, though?”
He frowned. “Of course it is. It’s a very prestigious position.”
“Hard to have a conversation with a prestigious position over the dinner table.”
She thought he was a fool for accepting the greatest career opportunity he’d been presented with because of Savannah. Let her think that. He didn’t care what she thought—what anyone thought. He knew he’d made the right decision. That he was doing what was best for Savannah by destroying her feelings for him.
Feigning that her look of pity didn’t faze him, he shrugged. “I won’t be lonely.”
She gave him a disappointed look. “No, I don’t imagine you will. Congrats again, Dr. Keele. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for in Nashville.”
“I’m not looking for anything in Nashville,” he told her retreating back. He wasn’t looking for anything anywhere.
Charlie grabbed hold of the bed rail and stared down at his unconscious patient for long moments.
Taking the Nashville job had been the right thing for all involved.
What hadn’t been the right thing had been getting so involved with someone. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
That might not be a problem anytime in the near future anyway. The thought of anyone other than Savannah just didn’t appeal.
How was any other woman supposed to compare to the way she lit up a room just by walking into it? To the way her smile reached her eyes and he knew what she was thinking without her saying a word? How she enjoyed the same things he did, shared his love of Civil War history and taking long hikes up on Lookout Mountain on the battlefield? To running with him at dawn along the Tennessee River near her apartment?
The reality was no woman ever had measured up to Savannah and he suspected they never would. The thought of sharing his days, his nights, with anyone other than her left him cold.
She was perfect and he wanted her to stay that way.
Leaving was the best thing he could do for all involved.
“CODE BLUE. CODE BLUE.”
Savannah rushed to the patient’s room. Her patient had just flatlined.
She’d been in the bathroom when the call came over the intercom.
She hated that, but her bladder didn’t hold out the way it used to. A symptom of her pregnancy, she supposed.
Chrissie was in the room performing CPR when Savannah got there with the crash cart. The man was on a ventilator so she was only performing chest compressions and the machine breathed for him, giving him oxygen.
Charlie rushed in right behind Savannah. A unit secretary was there acting as a recorder of all the events of the code.
“Give him some epi,” Charlie ordered, taking charge of the code, as was his position.
Savannah did so, then prepared the defibrillator machine, attached the leads to the man’s chest.
“All clear,” Charlie ordered and everyone stepped away from the man.
Savannah pushed the button to activate the defibrillator.
The man’s body gave a jerk and his heart did a few abnormal beats.
“Let me know the second it’s recharged,” Charlie ordered, having taken over the chest compressions for Chrissie.
“Now,” Savannah told him.
“All clear,” he warned.
As soon as everyone had stepped back, Savannah hit the button, sending another electrical shock through the man’s body.
His heart did a wild beat then jumped back into a beating rhythm. Not a normal one, but one that would sustain life for the moment.
“I’m going to take him into the cardiac lab. He needs an ablation of the abnormal AV node, a pacemaker, and a permanent defibrillator put in STAT.”
“Yes, sir.”
By this time, other staff had entered the room and a transport guy and Savannah wheeled the patient toward the cardiac lab, Charlie beside them.
Chrissie called the lab, told them of the emergency situation and that Dr. Keele was on his way with his patient.
Savannah helped to get the patient settled in the surgical lab, then turned to go.
“Savannah?”
Slowly, she turned toward Charlie, met eyes she’d once loved looking into. Now, she just wanted him to hurry up and leave.
He searched her face for something, but she couldn’t be sure what, just that his expression looked filled with regret. That she understood. She had regrets. Dozens of them. Hundreds. All centering around him.
She’d been so stupid.
“You did a great job back there,” he finally said, although his words fell flat.
She swallowed back the nausea rising in her throat and wanted to scream. They were broken up. He shouldn’t be being nice. And if he said, Let’s just be friends, it might be him needing resuscitation because she might just choke him out.
Rather than answer, she gave him a squint-eyed glare, then turned to go.
When she got outside the lab, she leaned against the cold concrete wall and fought crumbling. Fought throwing up. Fought curling into a fetal position and letting loose the pain inside her.
Two months.
She could do anything for two months.
Only, really, wasn’t she just fooling herself every time she thought two months?
Wasn’t she really looking at the rest of her life because, with the baby growing inside her, she’d have a permanent connection to Charlie?
A permanent connection she’d been so happy about, but now—now she wasn’t sure. How could she be happy about a baby when the father didn’t want her?
Would he want their child?
When was she supposed to tell him? Before he left? After he left? Before the baby got here? After the baby got here?
Never?
He’d find out. They shared too many friends. Nashville wasn’t that far away. Not telling him wasn’t an option, even if she could keep the news from him. She couldn’t live with that secret. On the off chance that he would want a relationship with their child, she had to tell him.
Would he think she’d purposely tried to trap him into staying? See her news as her trying to manipulate him? Would he understand that she didn’t want him to stay because she was pregnant when he hadn’t been willing to stay for her? That he’d destroyed the magic that had been between them forever?
She lightly banged her head against the concrete