Page 68 of Stuck with Doctor Grump

Ross didn’t ask how I knew. He trained me. He knew how my gut worked.

“How stable?”

“Marginal. We’ve got time. Maybe.”

There was a long pause. Then: “You need to lead it.”

My grip tightened on the phone. “I’m not in an OR anymore.”

“I don’t care if you’re in a wheat field, a back-alley barn, or a fancy clinic with fairy lights. You’re the only one in the region who’s done this. You know the anatomy, the rhythm, the pressure gradients. You saved five kids in New York with that defect.”

I leaned against the wall, the cool paint grounding me. “That was before.”

“Before what?” Ross snapped. “Before you got burned out? Before you ran away to find peace?”

I didn’t answer.

Ross’s voice softened. “Look, Damien. This isn’t about proving anything. This girl—thiskid—she doesn’t need peace. She needsyou. There’s no one better equipped to save her. Not here. Not even in the city.”

I stared through the glass window into the clinic hallway. A little girl in a tutu skipped past, clutching a juice box. Ava’s mom was sitting with her head bowed like she was praying to every god she could name.

“I’ll need a surgical team,” I said quietly.

“I’ll make calls. But you take point. We both know it’s what you’re wired for.”

I ended the call and stared at my reflection in the glass.

Not the gruff ex-surgeon in flannel, the small-town healer with a flower-loving girlfriend and dirt under his nails.

The man beneath all that.

I felt it again. The spark. The clarity.

The terrifying, exhilarating rush of purpose.

When I walked back into the room, the nurses snapped to attention. My voice was steady, my words direct. I ordered labs, called in a specialist to confirm imaging, and instructed the team on prep for transfer and surgery planning.

It was automatic. Not because I didn’t care—but because I cared so much, I couldn’t afford hesitation.

Later, when the room calmed and Ava was asleep, I sat at my desk and stared at my hands.

Steady.

Strong.

Hungry.

I’d walked away from the OR because I thought the pressure had poisoned me. That it cost me every personal connection I ever had.

But in that moment, I realized something far scarier.

I hadn’t left because I hated it.

I left because I loved it too much.

And because it made me forget to love anything else.

I took out my phone and stared at Ruby’s number.

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