CHAPTER 9

LIAM

"So, why'd you leave then?" Clint asked as we made our way from one hospital room to the other.

"You act like I had a choice," I replied as we entered the room. In it was an elderly woman that was relatively fine. We simply had to check her chart and make sure that she wasn't in immediate danger.

"You could have called in sick? Or said your car broke down. Or something."

As Clint droned on with a list of possible excuses I could have made, I couldn't help but think that maybe he was right. The call that I had gotten was from an intern who needed my approval on a procedure he was going to recommend. Although he was my intern and he was right to ask me, I could have easily pawned him off on someone else. Someone who was at the hospital at the time.

But no. Instead, I chose to hurry to the hospital like the good lap dog that the hospital had trained me to be, and as a result, I had left Kate alone, without much of an explanation, probably lamenting the fact that she had ever said yes to going out with me in the first place.

What was worse was that I still hadn't called her, either. I had left her the previous night, and it was now well into the next day, and I had still avoided putting a call through. Just a simple “hello,” and “'I'm sorry,” probably would have solved everything. But I hadn't even done that yet.

The truth was that I was scared. I was scared that she would be furious with me, and thus, I opted to do nothing. For all my talk of getting her to fall in love with me again, I seemed to be doing everything in my power to stop that from happening. And here I thought I had changed. I thought I’d learned from my past mistakes with Kate, and I would be a better man for her this time around. I thought I would be the man she deserved to be with, not the old shitty me who didn’t appreciate what he had.

If I couldn’t change who I was, maybe I didn't deserve Kate after all?

"Hello, doctors," Sandra, the nurse, cooed as myself and Clint entered the next room. Sandra was the head nurse at the hospital, and that had nothing to do with her age or sex. She was in charge because of her skill and experience.

She was quite young for a head nurse. In her mid-thirties, she was also nothing short of beautiful. She had flaming red hair and porcelain white skin that was offset by the most vivid, green eyes I had ever seen. She also had a little bit of a thing for me and flirted with me incessantly. And yet, despite all of that, I just couldn't find myself to like her in that way. It was nothing against her. She just wasn't my type.

"Nurse Sandra," I said as I walked to the patient lying in bed. "And what seems to be the problem here?"

"Oh, nothing," she giggled, slapping me on the arm. "I can handle this one. I'm sure someone like you has far more important patients to worry about." And another slap on the arm.

"Aren't they all equally important?" I asked. Not in a rude way, but more of a doctorly one.

"Oh, of course," Sandra hurried. "I just meant... it's just that... I thought..."

"Sandra, I'm kidding, don't worry." I could sense that she was getting flummoxed, and I thought it best to throw her a bone.

One she took willingly as she slapped me on the arm again and shrieked with laughter.

"Hey," Clint suddenly cut in, tapping me on the shoulder. "Isn't that Kate?"

He pointed just outside the door to the nurse's station where Kate was standing. It looked like she was trying to get information from one of the nurses.

"Yeah. What is she doing here? I'll be right back."

I hurried from the room, leaving both Clint and an off-put Sandra behind.

Kate looked terrible. Her hair was a mess, she was wearing old, un-ironed clothes, and she was sporting heavy bags under her eyes. If I was to guess, I would say that she hadn't done much sleeping last night.

"Kate," I said as I approached her. As I did, I reached out, touching her under the elbow and going in to kiss her on the cheek. Although she let me do just that, her response still seemed cold to me. "What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk," she said in a cold manner that perfectly matched her body language.

As she spoke, I felt a sudden wave of anxiety wash over me. I would have liked to have thought that the reason for her sudden visit was to do with me leaving her the previous night. But something told me that wasn't it. The way she looked at me, the way she felt, I sensed that it was much worse.

To me, there was only one possible reason for her being there. She remembered. Her memory had come back. She knew who I was, and she was there to confront me.

I braced myself, not sure what I was going to say, or how I was going to say it. Maybe I should admit to it straight away? Before she had a chance to confront me?

"You can probably tell that I didn't do much sleeping last night," she began, indicating her disheveled appearance.

"Me, either," I joked, or at least tried to.

She wasn't having any of it though. "I didn't sleep because, look. I was up most of the night thinking about you. About us."

"Us?" I asked, trying to sound casual about it.

"Yes. I know it's early, and I know that we've only been out one time, but I don't know. Last night felt like more than just a one-time thing? It felt right. Natural even. I don't know about you, but I'm sure I have never felt anything like that before. I mean, probably. And I can't believe that you have either. Tell me I'm wrong."

I didn't know what to say. She was right, of course. The sex was unbelievable, and not just in how good it was, but in how right it felt. We had instantly slipped back into our old routines, ones which had never gotten stale in the first place. I felt it the whole time, and now I knew that she felt it, too.

"And then..." She took a deep breath, obviously struggling with what she was about to say. "And then, you picked up and left. And I know you're a doctor. Hell, you’re my doctor. And I know that sometimes you will need to go at a moment's notice. I just need to know that this isn't going to be a common thing. I need to know that I still matter to you? Please."

If it was anyone else, I would have assumed she was moving way too fucking quickly. Christ, one date and one night in the sack, and she was showing up at the hospital to give me shit. She might have lost her memories, but her opinions on my work schedule hadn’t disappeared.

Lucky for her, it wasn't anyone else. It was Kate. And after what we both felt the previous night, I couldn't blame her for the question.

And all I wanted to do was assure her that it was a one-off thing and that it wouldn't happen again. But I couldn't. It was the same thing that had happened when we dated last time, and it was that which caused friction between us. She had threatened to break up with me over it, before I did that for us. I told myself time and time again that I wouldn't let the job interfere if I got a second chance with Kate, and yet, I kept letting it.

And then, as if to prove a point, my beeper suddenly vibrated. I bit my lip, picked it up off my belt, and looked at it. It was a call I couldn't ignore. There was a code blue in the ICU that I had to be at.

"I'm sorry, Kate. I promise to call you later, okay?"

I kissed her on the cheek and ran down the hall. As I did, I dared a glance back over my shoulder to see what her reaction was. As I feared, she didn't have one. The kiss on the cheek felt cold, and her body language was even colder. As I ran toward the ICU and away from Kate, I was almost certain that I had fucked everything up and lost her forever.