Page 44 of Between Our Hearts

“You could never lose me.” Sadie’s relieved exhale washed over his lips as he brought their foreheads together. “I’m right here. Whenever you want me, I’m always right here.”

Then those soft kisses, like the ones they’d shared in Lottie’s bathroom, rained over his mouth, and he lost the ability to breathe. Only when she climbed on top of him, pulling him back from the emotional abyss, did he gratefully regain control over his muscles.

?Chapter 23?

“Talk,” Sadie muttered to her soap-sudded hands, scrubbing into her last surgery of the day.

Even the word by itself sent this itchy tension crawling up her spine and unease volleying between her shoulder blades. Late last night, they’d agreed that today, after Lottie’s bedtime, they would sit down and have the conversation that she’d been avoiding since her first miscarriage.

Though she’d gotten this far in life without having to expand on her inner workings, she had the ominous feeling that that was about to change. Growing up, her brothers had bullied the small, flickering instinct to put words to the emotions that stirred in her veins.

Mad at Alden? Sucker punch him to the ribs and run. Don’t bother trying to explain that him destroying the stethoscope Auntie Beth bought you for Christmas meant you’d lost your most prized possession. Sad after finding a dead baby bird? Don’t let Duke see the tears in your eyes—he’ll never let you live it down. Terrified of the dark? Don’t let Jasper know that you hug an illuminated flashlight once everyone else is asleep.

The only emotion she understood growing up was love. Every time her father picked her up and placed her on his strong shoulders, affectionately called her “my girl,” or defended her desire to play soccer instead of take ballet lessons, she felt this overwhelming warmth flood her muscles. Daddy had been the only person who’d truly understood her. Who’d loved her just as she was. Who’d never asked her to change.

Until she met Clark.

“Prepped and ready for you, Dr. Carmichael,” Baylee, Sadie’s favorite circulating nurse, called out from the swinging OR doors.

“Be right there.”

Baylee’s verbal nudge alerted her that she’d been scrubbing for too long. The reason Baylee was her favorite was because the seasoned nurse kept everything on schedule—including the surgeons, if need be.

Her back met the metal door before she stepped into the outstretched gown waiting in Baylee’s hands. Once she was fully gowned and gloved, Sadie nodded to the room. “Let’s start the time out.”

“All right, folks. Confirming that this is patient Harold McMillan, right anterior superior iliac . . .”

???

Three hours later, Sadie’s back and feet were starting to ache. Filling a cup of water from the cooler in the OR interim area where surgical support staff would rest, relax, or eat between surgeries, she sank into a padded chair. The inevitability of tonight pricked at her right temple.

She warred with the duality of her thoughts. She loved Clark and meant what she’d said—that she didn’t want to lose him. But she wasn’t sure she’d be able to operate as a functioning person if she let loose everything inside her. She’d just learned that he desired her as much as she did him, but would he feel the same way after learning the depths of her sorrow?

Resting her elbows on the table, she settled the notch of her brows onto her steepled fingers. That slightly burnt scent from the electric cauterizer still clung to her skin, even though she’d been completely covered by either fabric or latex. Scrub techs passed by, laughing before they swiped their badges at the electronic clock beside the exit to the surgical wing. A deep breath filled her lungs as her head lifted to stare at OR 6.

The memory of the first time she’d been in that room at the early age of eighteen flashed through her mind. She’d been certain entering college on a full ride scholarship that she wanted to be a surgeon, so she’d applied for the pre-med program and joined the pre-med fraternity. Through an extension program, she’d shadowed a cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. Strickland, several times during her freshman year.

The woman was incredible—barely five-two but a force to be reckoned with. Sadie shadowed with her as much as she could before the surgeon moved to chair a cardiothoracic program in Texas. Often, she’d taken Sadie aside after surgery to impart her wisdom.

“You’re going to have to work twice as hard for half the result. They say equality in medicine is coming, but it sure as hell isn’t here yet.”

“Every day’s going to be a trial. If you don’t want to fight every day of your life, you should pick something other than surgery.”

One day, after a particularly gruesome code and the death of the patient in OR 6, Dr. Strickland had bought Sadie a coffee, and they’d sat in the open courtyard.

The aroma of artisanally burnt beans mingled with the heavy scent of flowering lilac bushes.

“That one was rough. You okay?” Dr. Strickland asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Sadie replied automatically.

“Good.” She nodded. “Some days will be like that. Some days nothing will go right, and everyone will die, but whatever you do, don’t show vulnerability. Do it once and they’ll walk all over you.”

A stubborn smile laced her lips. “No need to worry about that, ma’am. I’m the youngest of three callous brothers and a disapproving mother. I stopped being vulnerable at age five.”

Dr. Strickland grinned and paid her the highest compliment. “I think you’re well suited for this, Miss Carmichael.”

Sadie tore her eyes from the OR doors as her stomach twisted.

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