Reunited With His Runaway Bride

Bree knew what had to be done and drew on reserved strength to get the words out. “We have to take the baby.”

“Not yet,” Sean said, a tortured fierceness on his face she’d seen only once before—the day they’d broken up. “Is OB on the way? We can wait till then.”

“We can’t wait. We have to do it now or we’ll lose both of them.” She hated that her last words came out in a near sob. How emotional. How unprofessional. But Emma was her friend, and for a split second Bree had seen the overwhelming love in her eyes as she’d cupped her belly, so happy to soon be holding her baby in her arms. If they couldn’t save Emma, they could at least save one life. Bring this precious baby, a part of her, into the world.

“A few more minutes. Emma’s got a strong heart. She—”

“Dr. Donovan is right,” Kurz said. “You take over chest compressions while we do a crash and burn C-section to get the baby.”

“I’ll do the prep and assist,” Bree said as she snapped on gloves. For Emma. For Sean. For the baby who might never know his mother.

Kurz nodded and Sean opened his mouth to argue more, but the look on Kurz’s face was clear, and, as he was senior ED doc running the code, the call was his to make. Wordlessly, Sean took over compressions, rhythmically pushing on his sister’s chest. As she saw the mix of determination and anguish on his face, Bree’s heart cracked.

“You ready?” Kurz asked Bree as she quickly swabbed Emma’s belly with antiseptic.

“Ready.” It wasn’t true, she wasn’t ready for them to bring this baby into the world without his mother, but it had to be done. Saving this child was at least one thing she could do to try to make up in some tiny way for driving her car into harm’s way.

Barely aware of a different nurse rolling a warming cart next to her, Bree handed Kurz the scalpel and watched as he made a full, midline incision as fast as he could. They delivered the baby and suddenly the NICU team was right there, swooping in to grab the baby up, leaving Kurz to refocus on Emma. Numb, Bree kept glancing over to watch them give the infant chest compressions and oxygen before rubbing him all over to stimulate him. Surreal that, at the very same time, Sean and the team were insistently working on the baby’s mother in nearly the same way.

It seemed to go on so long with no response at all from the tiny boy, she started to lose hope. She glanced up at Sean, who was still doing strong, unrelenting chest compressions on his sister. Emma’s heart rate had dropped to barely a blip on the screen. But Sean was still determined. Still believing.

Losing both of them would take a terrible toll on the man so close and connected to his family. Hadn’t they already lost the father they’d dearly loved? She tried to swallow down the deep pain choking her when she thought she heard a weak cry that sent her attention flying to the NICU team and the baby. Her heart lifted, soared, when his cries strengthened. His deep purple color lightened and slowly pinked up.

Her gaze moved back to Sean, who was looking at the baby while still performing steady chest compressions. Awe slid across his face, mingling with that fierceness as their eyes met. Her throat closed when, even in the midst of his intense work trying to resuscitate Emma, he gave Bree a quick, nodding salute.

Bittersweet emotion tangled around her heart as the team placed the infant in the warming cart and took off with him, doubtless heading to the NICU to be stabilized and evaluated. Tears stung Bree’s eyes as they met Sean’s, and she prayed again that the baby would be okay. That Emma would still, somehow, survive. That she’d be here to hold her infant son in her arms.

* * *

Seeing Bree’s beautiful green eyes fill with tears made Sean somehow even more determined to save his sister’s life. As though he weren’t already giving it everything he had in him to make that happen.

His mother had already been through too much tragedy. And if Emma died? He knew that blow would practically kill his mom, too. And not only did Emma have a lot of living yet to do and a child to raise, he was not going to have Bree feeling some kind of lifelong guilt because the two of them had obviously been in that car crash together. Most likely she’d been driving, but she was so good behind the wheel, he knew it couldn’t have been her fault.

For all those reasons, his sister was going to live. That was all there was to it.

“Sean.” Kurz reached to touch his shoulder, and he knew what was coming. “I’ll take over.”

“No. Keep up with the epinephrine and blood transfusion for another minute. I’m not being crazy. I’m going to make this happen. She—”

“Sean.” Bree’s tone of voice was completely different than Kurz’s had been. Held a tentative, then rising excitement. “Sean, you did it! Heart rate’s...heart rate is rising to...eighty!”

He glanced at the monitor. What he saw there nearly made him fall over, as though he could feel the world slowly turning on its axis. Emma’s heart was in normal sinus rhythm, etched on the screen in steady, perfect, neon green spikes. For real.

His whole body started to shake. “Notify the other surgeon on call and any GYN available,” he somehow managed to croak out. “Get her to the OR to figure out what all’s going on.”

Everyone moved into action. Sean stood there motionless, because at that moment moving a single muscle felt impossible. He watched them roll his sister from the room, the terrifying details of her bruised and battered body seared into his brain. He looked down at his hands, Emma’s blood still covering them from when he’d inserted the tube, and didn’t want to think about how close he’d come to losing her.

How he still might.

Somehow, he moved toward the sink, feeling as if every bit of support in his legs had disappeared. Kurz must have realized he didn’t feel like talking. Just clasped his shoulder in a tight grip for a lingering moment before he left the room. A smaller hand pressed against his back, and he didn’t have to turn to know it was Bree.

For a lot of reasons, he didn’t want to talk to her, either. The adrenaline—and, yes, the terror—of the past twenty minutes was leaching from his body pretty fast, leaving behind a mental and emotional shakiness and upheaval he didn’t want to admit to, or show, to anyone. Least of all her, the woman who’d left him with plenty of the same kinds of disturbing feelings to deal with for the past six months.

“Tough day,” Bree whispered.

Tough? The way she said the word had him realizing how tough it must have been for her, too. In the middle of the crisis, he hadn’t been able to process that. Tough to be in what must have been one horrific crash. Tough to go through whatever had happened at the scene after. Tough to see Emma code, and, despite all that, step up and help bring her baby into the world without a second of hesitation.

Iciness crept through his veins as the full reality hit him in the gut, knocking what wind he had left right out again. Bree had been in that car, too. Tough? The word didn’t exist that could describe how he’d have felt if Bree had been seriously injured in that accident as well. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t a part of his life anymore. Then as soon as that thought came, he knew that was only partly true.

It mattered because she’d be a part of him forever.

He turned, and her soft hand moved to his arm. He rested his palm on top of it, and that simple connection somehow soothed the raw chaos burning in his chest.

“Even tougher day for you, I’m guessing. You okay?”

“Okay. I’m...I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry?” Was she blaming herself after all?

“I was driving. It technically wasn’t my fault, but...you know. I have to wonder if I could have prevented it somehow.”

“No, you don’t. Because I’m not wondering, and I’m sure Emma isn’t either. You may be a hellion on wheels, but you’re a damned good hellion. Always beyond alert behind the wheel, and I’ve never once seen you cross the safety line.”

“Thank you. I think.” A tiny, wobbly smile touched her lips, despite the tears swimming in her eyes. “Obviously, we both know Emma’s not out of the woods yet. But she sure showed she’s one resilient woman, didn’t she?”

“Yeah.” They hadn’t even learned, yet, the full extent of her injuries. Who knew what it would take for her to recover? “But somehow, I know she’s going to be all right. Even if that sounds stupid.” Maybe it was some mysterious, brother/sister connection, but from the second he’d tried to bring her back, he’d known it wasn’t over. Known with utter certainty that he’d get to see her again. A little like he’d known when their dad had finally given in to the cancer he’d fought for so long.

“Doesn’t sound stupid. I may not have a sibling, but I’ve heard plenty of stories. There seems to be some sort of ESP about one another.” The green eyes staring into his were deeply serious. Questioning. Hopeful. “I don’t suppose that ESP extends to the baby?”

“No gut feeling about the baby, unfortunately.” A baby he’d been upset with Emma about, wondering how his little sister had gotten herself pregnant without a husband, and even angrier that she stubbornly refused to say who the father was. But the deep, wrenching grief he’d felt when he’d first seen the baby, blue and seemingly lifeless in Bree’s remarkably steady hands when she’d delivered him, had made him realize with a shock that he already felt a connection to the little guy in spite of all that.

Which had him wondering about the same question he’d asked a hundred times. How was it possible that Bree didn’t want that kind of connection someday with a child of her own?

Everything in him seemed to squeeze until he couldn’t breathe. Since he didn’t know how to manage the band of emotions strangling him, he forced himself to ease away from Bree, not wanting to think about all that. About her relationship with Emma, about how and why his life and Bree’s had gotten tangled up then ripped apart. About the day his sister had introduced her freshman dormitory roommate to him, insisting they should meet after Bree had moved to San Diego to work in the same hospital he did.

His first sight of her was still branded into his brain. He knew it would be branded there forever.

She’d stood silhouetted in his doorway wearing a pale yellow sundress. Tall and proud, lean and fit. Backlit by the bright, Southern California sunshine, a confident smile tipping the corners of her beautiful lips. Her lively, intelligent eyes had met his and held—eyes that were such a mesmerizing sea green he’d almost forgotten how to breathe. Her thick, shining hair, a color somewhere between golden honey and liquid fire, had skimmed her tanned, bare shoulders, and he’d had to stop himself from reaching out to see which was softer—those silken strands or her smooth skin.

He’d never believed in love at first sight. Who did something so stupid as that? Who let themselves fall in love because of hormones or lust or chemistry, and not because that woman and you were truly compatible? Not concerned with whether or not they shared a mutual vision of the future? Whether or not that person might break your heart?

Who did that? Him, apparently, and he had the deep scars on that vital organ to prove it.

Bree’s nearness, the caring softness in her eyes, made him really look at her. Made him take in the sight of her beautiful face marred by disturbing swelling, scrapes and blood. Those physical reminders of how easily she could have been even more badly hurt, or worse, made his throat close and his gut clench. Had him wanting to pull her close, wanting to take care of her.

Wanting to never let her go.

But wanting that and having that were two very different things. Wanting that still tied him in knots.

Having that had proved impossible.

He lifted his hand to her banged-up face, carefully stroking his thumb across a cut on her cheekbone liberally smeared with dried blood. The full reality of what had almost happened tonight slammed into him all over again, and he had to try twice before he could speak. “Time to get yourself looked at. Get these cleaned up and make sure there’s nothing more serious that you’ve hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

Of course she was, despite what she’d gone through tonight. That was his independent Bree in a nutshell, wasn’t it? Except she wasn’t his anymore.

He dropped his hand from her cheek. The hollow ache in his chest seemed to physically hurt, his body started to shake again from the inside out, and he knew he had to get out of there before he did something horrifying. Like grab Bree up and plead with her to change her mind, to come back to him again. Beg her to love him again.

The room suddenly felt claustrophobic, and he gulped in a breath, trying to get air. “I need to go to the OR, see what injuries Emma has.”

He strode out the door and could feel Bree’s eyes on his back. Imagined pain in them, the hurt, maybe, that he wasn’t sticking around for her when she’d obviously been through hell and back in the past hours.

His steps slowed and he nearly turned. Until he remembered how vehemently she’d assured him she didn’t need a man in her life to take care of her. That she’d never need that, when all he’d wanted had been for them to take care of each other, form a partnership, the way his parents always had. What his father had said he wanted for both of his children—a deep love with one special person, having children together, to form the best kind of foundation for their adult lives.

She’d claimed that his vision for their future had somehow been all about him trying to change her, or be someone different from who she was, and how she’d figured that he just didn’t understand. There wasn’t one single thing he could think of that he’d want to change about Bree Donovan, except her conviction that children would never fit into her life. He couldn’t deny that making a family with her was a vision he’d had a hard time letting go.

Somehow he forced himself to keep walking. But the distance felt as if yet another seismic shift shook his heart, sending the cracks that already crisscrossed throughout splitting wider than the Grand Canyon.

CHAPTER TWO

“ANYBODY KNOW WHERE Dr. Latham might be?”

Bree had asked that question at least a dozen times in the past half hour as she’d roamed the hospital hallways. The emergency department, the surgical floors, the Trauma ICU, the NICU. She got the same answer as all the previous times, which was no.

Where in the world was he? And why wouldn’t he answer his darn phone? She was positive he wouldn’t have just gone on home while Emma was in critical condition. Knew that she’d just missed him when she’d finally been able to go see how Emma was doing. Knew he’d been to the NICU to see the baby, too, who was thankfully doing remarkably well, considering his terrifyingly abrupt entry into the world.

But all that had been over an hour after she’d left the ER. Dr. Kurz had insisted on a battery of tests and X-rays to make sure Bree didn’t have some kind of underlying injury that might surface later, which had been a frustrating delay. But she’d known it was necessary. Head injuries were no joke, and, since she’d been briefly knocked out, she was glad she didn’t seem to have a concussion. So all she had to deal with, which in comparison was nothing, were the aches and pains she felt from head to toe now that the crisis with Emma was over. At least, over for now, but her condition was still far from stable.

Maybe there was someone else who just might need her right then in a way that unconscious Emma didn’t. How could Sean not need comfort after the shock and scare of nearly losing his sister? And if he did, no matter what, she wanted to be there for him.

His family was so very different from her own. It almost seemed that being aggravated with one another sometimes was part of their love and closeness, and Bree couldn’t figure that out. Her own family’s disappointments and frustrations with one another ran deep, keeping them farther apart instead of closer.

She knew from the way Sean talked about his mother and sister that he loved them unconditionally. Knew from the indulgent expression she’d seen on his face most of the time he was looking at them, from the smile in his eyes, even when he was giving them grief about something. Obviously similar to the way Emma had told her their father had loved them. Bree wished that she could have met the important, missing piece to their family. Gone, but still with them in their hearts, in so many ways, every day.

Bree’s family? From the time she was little, she’d learned excelling at something was the best way to get her father’s attention. Winning a tennis match, or a surf competition, being on the dean’s list, getting into medical school. He’d left her and her mother when Bree was ten years old to marry a high-powered lawyer, and after that she rarely saw him. He did keep in touch, though, sending her notes when she did something he approved of, or had her photo in a surf magazine. The occasional phone call from him? Those were surprising and happy moments that showed he was proud of her, and made her feel pretty proud of herself, too.

She remembered chiming in with him many of the times he criticized her mother for focusing all her attention on her only child. Consumed with Bree’s life and her accomplishments, hovering and smothering, which drove her crazy. He’d often asked her mom why she never had any interest in actually doing something worthwhile on her own, when she easily could have done with her trust-fund money behind her, and Bree knew her mother’s lack of accomplishment and independence was why he’d left. Now that she was older and more mature, Bree felt bad that she’d gone along with her dad’s unpleasant comments, though her mother’s feelings never seemed hurt by it, thankfully.

She shook her head fiercely. Why was she even thinking about all that now, anyway? She’d learned long ago not to care. Must just be from worrying about Sean and Emma and their mom. Feeling unsettled after such an awful day.

Time to focus on what was important here, which was how Sean must be feeling. She knew holding him, comforting him, would rip open the wound on her heart she was trying hard to heal, but their time together in the ER today had already done that. Maybe he wouldn’t open up to her, especially considering their present relationship. Non-relationship. But she had to at least try.

Except it was looking as if she’d never find him. The longer she looked, the bigger the worry in her gut grew. Until the aha! moment came that should have occurred to her when she first started searching. “Of course,” she whispered to herself as she pivoted toward the elevator. Part of her dreaded heading where she knew he’d be. Had avoided going there for months because she didn’t want to think about the last time she’d been there with him. To feel the deep disappointment drench her with disbelief and pain all over again.

She stepped out onto the hospital’s rooftop, and the cool, night breeze of August soothed her sore face. To her left was the brightly lit helipad, but her attention went straight to the benches in shadow to her right. To the balcony railing that, in one direction, overlooked the twinkling lights of the city and the other, the ocean. And just as she’d expected, the unmistakably tall form of Sean Latham stood there leaning against the railing, his broad back to her.

She stood there a moment, letting the feelings wash over her. The good ones along with the really bad ones. Thinking about the joyful times they’d spent up here celebrating a good outcome with a patient they’d worked on together. The times they’d joked and laughed about some silly, unimportant thing going on at the hospital. The times they’d held one another when things hadn’t gone so well.

The tender times they’d just needed to get away from the hustle of the hospital and had come up here to smell the ocean breeze, to kiss and talk and connect with one another.

As she stared at his back, the memory of the last time they’d stood here together pinched her heart. She’d been so angry, so hurt, so confused, she’d yanked off the engagement ring he’d given her and thrown it right at him. The blinding, midday sunshine had caught the diamond, sending a prism of sharp white light searing across both of them just before the ring bounced off his muscular chest, pinged along the concrete and dived right off the side of the building.

At that moment, she hadn’t cared. Later? She’d felt a deep regret at losing that beautiful ring, and what it had meant. Or what she’d thought it meant. She wouldn’t admit it to a living soul, but for days after she’d searched the streets below, finding nothing but bits of asphalt and leaves and trash until she’d finally given up.

Probably, though, it was all symbolic. That ring had disappeared along with the future she’d thought she and Sean would have together.

She willed her feet to move toward him, reminding herself she wasn’t here to dredge up and rehash the past. Her goal was to be Sean’s friend tonight. To be a sympathetic ear after an unbelievably horrible day and uncertain future for Emma, not to mention the future of the baby who just might still lose his mother.

She moved to within a few inches of Sean’s side and gripped the railing, feeling the warmth of his arm near hers. Took in the scene in front of them, thinking about the disconnect of it all. How peaceful and tranquil it seemed compared to the churning going on inside her and doubtless Sean, too. To the life-and-death battles going on that very minute inside the hospital.

He didn’t move, didn’t speak, and she wondered if maybe he just wanted to be alone. But after looking for him the past hour, she was going to offer comfort if it killed her. Then leave if it wasn’t welcome.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Fine.”

Okay... She drew the cool breeze into her lungs and tried again. “What do you think about Emma’s prognosis?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Liver laceration’s been repaired, ruptured spleen removed. C-section’s closed. Chest tube’s not draining any more blood, so they’ve removed it. Broken arm’s been put back together, and her broken ribs are going to hurt like crazy, but I imagine she’ll barely notice, considering everything else.”

He didn’t have to say the situation could still get worse fast. Why wouldn’t he look at her so she could see his expression? His tone was flat and emotionless, giving away nothing. It reminded her too much of the way he’d sounded after she’d told him it was over between them.

“Baby seems healthy, at least,” she said, forging on. “Remarkable, really.”

“Yeah.”

“Did Emma tell you what she’d decided to name him?”

“No.”

Not a surprise, really, since Sean had made his dismay over Emma’s life choices very clear, and she’d distanced herself from him the past months because of it.

“She’d decided on Wilson—your mother’s maiden name. She laughed about it, saying his uncle Sean would think it was a weird first name, but she plans to call him Will. I think Will Latham has a nice sound to it, don’t you?”

“Mom will like that.”

At least he’d answered in more than a monosyllable, but he still didn’t turn to look at her. Guess there hadn’t been much point in her coming after all.

“That moment in the ER when we thought we’d lost Emma. That was...” She stopped, because she couldn’t come up with a word even close to how it had felt. She knew how much he loved his sister, and pressed her hand to his warm back as she had earlier, thinking maybe that connection would help him let go and share. “That must have been incredibly hard for you.”

“Hard?” He suddenly swung to her, and the surprise of it had her taking a step back. He grasped her arms and pulled her flat against him, practically knocking her breath from her lungs. The dark eyes staring down into hers were again fierce, anguished, his features taut granite. “Damn it, Bree. You were in that car with her. It could have been you, too. You lying there dead on that table. I could have lost all three of you at once, in one second. Might never have seen my nephew, might never have been able to give my sister grief about her choices or her life again. Might never have been able to see your beautiful face and feel so mad at you I could barely keep from going ballistic. So angry that you left me I wanted to punch something.”