Page 21 of Operation Annulment (Silent Phoenix MC)

nineteen

Nate

I walk into the physician’s lounge for breakfast before my next case. I left Kate sleeping in bed, grabbed a quick shower, and ran out the door. We spent all day Sunday getting her moved in with me. There’s still a lot left at her apartment, but she’s got enough to get through the next sixty days.

My first case was at six-thirty, so it was still dark when I pulled up outside the hospital.

I expected work to feel as surreal as my personal life was at the moment, but it didn’t.

It felt completely normal to be in the hospital, doing what I loved, even as nothing else in my life was going according to plan.

I grab a coffee and a sausage biscuit from the buffet before finding a table in the back corner of the room. I chart my first case on my laptop in between bites of food. Just these simple acts leave me feeling much more like myself.

Almost as if nothing happened.

My phone buzzes from the clip on my waist, and I see it’s a text message.

Kate: Good morning. I hope you slept well and made it to work on time. I’ve been thinking about what you said Saturday night and want to know your favorite meal. Maybe I could make it for you for dinner.

At the mention of Saturday night, images of her standing in nothing but her underwear flood in, and I exhale slowly.

Easy, Nate.

Do not get a hard-on in the middle of the physician dining lounge.

I tap out a quick reply.

Nate: Good morning to you. I slept well. Lasagna is my favorite meal.

It doesn’t come across as affectionate, but I’m not sure we’re there yet.

Are we?

I can’t think about that right now. I need to get downstairs for my next case. I toss my stuff in the trash and head to the elevator. Just as the doors close, I catch a flash of blonde hair.

That looked like Dakota.

I get off the elevator and step around the corner, out of sight of anyone getting off. Sure enough, the doors open a few seconds later, and Dakota walks out.

She immediately begins looking around before approaching the nurse’s station.

“Yes, excuse me. I’m looking for a man with blue scrubs and lots of tattoos. He just got off the elevator before me.”

One of the nurses, Monica, makes eye contact with me, and I shake my head.

What the hell is she doing here?

Monica gives Dakota a bored look. “And you are?”

She giggles. “How silly of me. I’m Dr. Quinn, Woman of Medicine.”

I damn near bite my tongue in half, trying to hold it together. I don’t think she has any idea that she just referenced a nineties television show featuring Jane Seymour.

Monica appears to be choking. “Dr. Quinn? Are you kidding me right now?”

Dakota frowns. “I was worried that my reputation as a ball-buster would precede me. Do not be afraid. I’m not here to fire anyone.”

Another nurse pipes up. “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman?”

Dakota nods. “Close. Woman of Medicine is my official title. Now, I was pulled off the tennis courts and told to get up here—I don’t like wasting my time. Roderick is strict with my lessons and takes my leaving very seriously.”

My eyes are streaming at this point. I don’t know what medical shows she’s been watching, but I’ve never met a doctor that talked like that. It’s like a cross between Little House on the Prairie and Downton Abbey .

I can’t take it anymore. “What are you doing up here, Nancy Drew?”

Monica checks the computer and interrupts before Dakota can answer. “Dr. Davis, your patient is in pre-op.”

Dakota’s face turns bright red. “Y-you’re a doctor?”

I wrap my arm around her shoulder and steer her away from the nurse’s station. “So are you, Dr. Quinn, Woman of Medicine.”

She laughs weakly. “I had to say something so they’d take me seriously. Why does that sound so familiar?”

I shake my head. “It was a television show, way before your time.”

She bites her lip and glances back at the nurse’s station. “Did they catch on, you think?”

“Nah. I think you fooled them. So, are you stalking me?”

Her smile returns. “No, well, yes. It’s complicated. I was here to get paperwork from my new doctor.” She pats her stomach.

“Are you—” I don’t know how to finish the question and ensure that my balls remain attached to my body.

She cocks her head to the side. “Kate didn’t tell you? Yeah, I’m about six weeks along. I expected she would’ve told you. Congrats on the marriage, by the way. I can’t see any way that could fail. How dumb do you have to be to get married in Vegas?”

I resist the urge to call security and smile instead. “About as dumb as someone who gets knocked up at twenty-two. You do know how that happens, right?”

She clenches her teeth, looking a lot like Kate as she does it. “Yes, I know how that happens. I don’t understand how you tricked Kate into going to Vegas to marry you. And if you two are so happy, why didn’t you know I was pregnant?”

I glance down at my watch. “Sorry to cut our little reunion short, but I have to be in surgery. Also, I didn’t know you were pregnant because Kate’s been pretty broken up over stuff with your dad. Nice talking to you.”

I’ve made it three feet when she responds. “Yeah, finding out your dad’s alive is pretty nerve-wracking. And just so you know, Jeremy is the one my sister should be with. He was there comforting her when she found out. Where were you?”

My teeth are going to crack under the pressure I’m putting on them.

Her dad’s alive.

Why wouldn’t she say something? Why would she lie?

And just how the fuck was Jeremy comforting her?

I pass Monica on my way into pre-op. “Call security.”

I grab my bag and toss it over my shoulder.

My last case ran over—I went in for a routine gallbladder removal.

I could do this surgery in my sleep, but I was off.

I nicked the mesenteric artery and had to reopen him, repair the artery, and then sew until my motherfucking hand wanted to fall off.

I almost lost the patient because my head wasn’t where it needed to be.

And now, I’ll be about an hour late for dinner.

“Nate. ”

I’m so lost in thought that I almost miss the voice.

Almost.

I turn, and there’s Jess, curled up in a chair in the ED waiting room. She looks like a shadow of her former self. Her eyes are rimmed in dark blue circles, and she’s lost a lot of weight since I last saw her.

When was that?

The last time I saw her had to have been the night I picked her up from the hospital and let her stay with me. It was just over a month ago, but it might as well have been years.

“Jess, what are you doing here?”

She struggles to smile. “I’m having trouble keeping anything down, so I came in for fluids.”

“Are you sick with a bug? Or is this related to the headaches you were having?”

She nods. “It’s the headaches. I had an MRI done on my brain, and they found lesions.”

She says it as though it’s nothing more than a bump or bruise. I shouldn’t care—she broke my fucking heart—but I’m suddenly that twenty-two-year-old kid again when it comes to her.

I sit down in the chair next to hers. “Are they looking at surgery? Or chemo? What’s going on? Who’s your surgeon? I can see if there are some strings I could pull.”

She smiles sadly. “Nate, I’m fine. We’re not together anymore. Go home. I’m sure you’ve had a long day.”

I look down at my shoes, spinning my wedding band as I try to think of something. She looks at it, and I swear, her face pales even more. “I uh—I got married over the weekend, Jess.”

Her smile disappears, and she stiffens slightly. “Wow, congratulations. I guess I always knew it would happen one day. I just convinced myself that it would be a long time from now.”

“I’m sorry?—”

She cuts me off. “Why are you sorry, Nate? You don’t owe me an explanation.

I wasn’t any good for you. I just got so preoccupied with the next best thing I missed what was right in front of me the whole time.

What is it they say—hindsight is 20/20? I’m sorry for what I put you through while you were trying to make a better life for us. ”

I can’t sit here and listen to this shit. Shit, she should’ve said three years ago. I stand up and walk back through the doors again, stopping one of the nurses.

“You’ve got a patient out there—Jess Davis. I just wanted to see if we could get her into a room and start an IV.”

She consults her clipboard. “I was just going to get her, Dr. Davis. Is she your patient?”

I shake my head. “No, just someone I knew.”

I decide to leave the building through the side door. I can’t go back out there and see her like that. She never once apologized for anything in our marriage—it was always someone else’s fault. She’s fucking with my head again, and I can’t be a part of it.

I have Kate to think about now.

My wife.

The woman who lied to me about her father. Why would she keep that from me?

And what kind of a man fakes his death?