She found a set of bottoms she could wear, due to the horrors of a drawstring waist, paired it with a tentlike top, then hit her suitcase for better shoes, a hairband and a stethoscope. Scrubs weren’t meant to flatter a person, and she hadn’t come home to win some kind of fashion award.
Later she’d let herself feel guilty for being glad someone needed her help. Having any kind of focus would let her meet Ares on a professional front, put all that personal stuff away—or at least make it clear to her brain what was important to the Erianthe of today: work. Personal emotional wounds, no matter how grievous, couldn’t bleed out or cause sepsis.
She’d worked cordially and professionally with both lukewarm ex-boyfriends and jerks she’d rather kick in the face than speak to, and she had never lost her cool with them. Even when there had been good reason to lose her cool. This would be no different. He was no different from any other colleague.
Closing the office door, she headed the way she’d been directed, grabbing her coffee and snack in transit, and practically inhaling half before she arrived at the patient’s room.
She reached for the knob of the exam room door, but before her hand closed on it Theo appeared at her side and immediately grabbed her in a quick hug that required she hold her arms out in a wide V to avoid dousing him in coffee.
Ever affectionate, even after the years of absence and neglect she’d forced on them both by staying so far away that his only choice in seeing her had been to come to her, this small display of affection when she was already worked up caused her throat to constrict. There was nothing she’d have liked better than to take shelter in the arms of someone she knew would always have her back. If she ever let herself ask.
It galled her how close to the surface those old feelings had risen since she’d gotten off the boat.
Turning her head, she kissed his cheek—something she could do—then stepped abruptly back. “Careful—you’ll end up with coffee down your back.”
“Glad you’re here,” he said, in that laughing way of his. “We’ll catch up after, shall we? Are you up to seeing her? Do you need anything from me?”
He was worried about her—and probably the patient too. Theo always worried about her, and one thing she hoped to accomplish by coming home was relieving that worry without burdening him with the secrets she’d hidden from everyone. Seeing this first patient to the best possible outcome would be a good start.
She smiled, but then it wasn’t hard to smile at her almost inhumanly good-natured brother. “I didn’t walk here, or cross loads of time zones. I’m completely fine. I’m waiting for the blood work to get back to call it officially, but I’d be very shocked if there are no signs of infection. If she needs surgery, then I’m assisting.”
He considered her for the swiftest second, then nodded. “Whatever you say. You’re the only obstetrician on the island since last spring, so you’re automatically picking up a full load of patients. We stay pretty busy, and we’re always looking for more people, but you’re going to need to hire a midwife and nurses. We’ll talk about that later.”
More bits of information to file away for later. Good. All good things. Fill her head with work—best thing for her.
Work had always saved her—or had done since the convent. The shock to her system from being sent away from everything and everyone she knew had helped kill the rebellious bent of her teenage years, but it had been the desire to provide for her child that had turned her life and her attitude around. And afterward study had been the only thing she’d had to cling to. She’d developed steady hands, a steady voice and eventually steady thoughts.
But seeing Ares again would hurt, and even walking into a room he might already be in felt like reaching into an oven without gloves on—stupid, dangerous, damaging...
She knocked and entered. Her eyes sought every corner of the room, and when they failed to find Ares anywhere, they found their focus instead.
Cailey had peeled the paper backing off a bandage and applied it to the crook of Jacinda’s arm; the blood was already drawn.
The husband hovered, tears in his eyes.
Her patient, now in a hospital gown, lay curled on her left side. When she moved, and another pang hit her, her face crumpled in a way that drew attention to how young she was—just on the other side of twenty. But she didn’t cry out. She was not giving an inch to her pain, with the will of someone who’d already survived more than this could amount to in her life.
Five minutes later Erianthe had double-checked for signs of early labor, gotten up to speed on her patient’s medical history, and was gingerly palpating her right side in the waist region when Ares burst in.
She’d almost started to relax, but that ended the second he arrived. He said nothing, and she didn’t look over at him, but she felt him there—like the tingle of power in the air after a lightning strike.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see his height, knew him to be taller than he’d been before, but couldn’t bring herself to look at him directly yet.
“I’m Dr. Xenakis.”
A pang vibrated in her belly, like a gong calling every cell in her body to attention.
That voice wasn’t the voice that had whispered in her ear, murmured the sweet, artless words of a lust-drunk teenager, it was deeper and more resonant. Different. But the way he spoke...
She’d never have mistaken his voice for another. There was a sort of roundness to his speech, an almost magical way of making simple words luxurious, like things you wanted to touch, to wrap yourself up in.
It took her aback, and if she was going to function at all, she had to stay in the present, not go back to when she’d believed him to be the very essence of warmth, love and safety. Better to stay here, where she knew his promises had been knit with strands of bitter lies and had shattered under the weight of a few firm words.
No protection. No safety. No love.
It was different, because she knew better now.
The others—Theo, Chris, Deakin and all the professional organizations who had licensed him—trusted Ares with patients, and so would she. Because she had no choice. And it wasn’t as if she had to count on him tomorrow. Just today. She wouldn’t fall into that well of longing if she looked at him.
That little reminder made it possible, even a little easy, to finally look at him.
“Dr. Nikolaides said we had a—” His words came to a sudden, jarring halt when he focused on her.
Different, her mind reminded her simplistically. Hairy was the next descriptor. He’d always been polished, with his dark hair cut every three weeks to keep the curls from taking over. Now his hair was long. Long enough to wear in a ponytail at the back of his head. But it was the beard that really brought the difference into focus. She’d never seen a doctor, let alone a surgeon, with such thick facial hair.
The air around him still said Ares, and his eyes—those vibrant green eyes that made her hate the first leaves of spring—were the same. But nothing else matched the Wildman in Scrubs she saw now.
Still, her hands shook. Her breath shook. Her heart and belly and all parts in the middle... For a second she even thought it might be a late aftershock hitting the island, but no one else looked alarmed or off-kilter. Just her. And him—staring at her with cavernous silence.
“Appendicitis.” Erianthe forced the word out, then took Jacinda’s hand, turning her attention back to her patient.
He’s just another doctor. Just