Carrying The Surgeon's Baby

“Why? We’re not married and I don’t want to be a mother. My career is my focus now.”

“I have a right to know!”

“You do. I just told you, but it’s done. Now we can both move on.”

He shook that memory away. He hadn’t wanted to be a father, but by the time he’d come back to New York after a business trip Morgan had already terminated the pregnancy and the relationship.

He’d been kept in the dark.

Apparently, history was repeating itself.

And he was scared by the prospect. He just had to handle this delicately.

“You look good, Emily.”

“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head.

“What?”

“You know what.” She looked toward the ICU pod. “That is a pediatric patient.”

“With a traumatic spinal cord injury,” he answered, confused. “I did what was best for transfer from Portland.”

Emily bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “Therapeutic hypothermia is not tolerated well in pediatric patients.”

“The boy is ten,” Ryan snapped. “He’s not an infant and I put him in a medicated coma. He’s old enough to tolerate it for a short time and he’s young enough to bounce back. There won’t be significant loss in brain function that he can’t recover with extensive physiotherapy, which he was going to need if I left him a quadriplegic.”

She sighed and her expression softened. “I assume you got the parents’ permission.”

“This is not my first time performing this on a preteen pediatric spinal cord injury. We’ll reverse the hypothermia and I’ll repair the spine,” he snapped, annoyed she was questioning him. And he realized this argument had nothing to do with his treatment plan of the patient and everything to do with the pregnancy and divorce papers.

She was angry.

Well, he was angry too.

“Is it mine?” he asked, catching her off guard.

“Yes.” She blushed, the pink creeping her way up into her high cheekbones. “So, you did get my emails?”

Ryan cocked an eyebrow. “What emails?”

“I sent you an email when I found out I was pregnant and then several others. There was no response so I assumed you didn’t want anything to do with me and the baby.”

“You assumed?”

“You didn’t answer me,” she hissed.

“I didn’t get the emails, Emily. I didn’t know that you were pregnant.”

Emily was going to say something further when Dr. Teal returned with scrubs.

“I have the surgical scrubs, Dr. West.”

“Thanks,” Ryan said, taking them from the intern. “Can you prep an operating room for me?”

“Of course, Dr. Gary.” Dr. Teal left and Emily glared at him.

“She’s a surgical intern. She’s here to learn under my guidance today.”

“And isn’t it her job to prep the operating room? It was when I was a surgical intern,” Ryan said.

Emily’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll want a resident. Dr. Sharipova is one of the best and most promising pediatric surgical residents. He’s been an invaluable asset to me.”

“Thank you. I’m sure he’ll be great help, but I would also like you in there. I was told that you would be in the operating room with me on this and I told the patients’ parents that the best pediatric surgeon on the western seaboard would be assisting me in the operating room.”

“Of course I’ll be in there.”

“Good.” There was more that he wanted to say to her, but he didn’t want to say it in the middle of the ICU with patients and other staff members around them. This was not the place to talk about their baby or their marriage.

Of course, after calling her his wife in front of her surgical intern that secret was going to spread around the hospital like wildfire.

“Can you show me a place I can get changed into my scrubs and possibly store my stuff? All my luggage is being shipped to my rental in Seattle, so I don’t have a bag or much with me.”

Her expression softened again. “Sure, I’ll show you where the attendings’ lounge is. Follow me.”

Emily could feel all the eyes on her as she and Ryan left the ICU. She was pretty sure that most of the staff by now knew what he’d called her. Not that she could blame Dr. Teal for saying something. It was pretty shocking and she felt bad that Amanda had been mixed up in that tense moment.

She was feeling bad for calling Ryan out and for putting Amanda into the middle of all those emotions she was feeling.

Although she’d never used therapeutic hypothermia on a patient, she shouldn’t have questioned his tactics. He was a brilliant surgeon. Her reaction was not keeping her emotions out of the mix. If anything, it was causing more problems.

Her plan had been to treat Ryan like any colleague and it was rare that she called out another practitioner on their methods in public like that. Especially when neurosurgery was not her specialty. And especially since it wasn’t even about that. She was angry he’d never responded to her and then he’d made her look like a fool in front of Dr. Teal. She’d hated it when Robert had done that to her.

Usually she was calm, cool and collected. She prided herself on professional behavior. Behavior she’d worked so hard to learn. What she’d just pulled was not her usual behavior and she was annoyed with herself for letting her emotions get the better of her.

The attendings’ lounge was, mercifully, empty.

“There’s an empty cubby over there.” She pointed to the one that was furthest from the door but she stayed close to the door, because it was an escape route.

“Thanks.” Ryan walked over to the cubby, slipped off his leather jacket and placed it inside. “I did get one message, by the way.”

That shocked her. “Oh?”

“The divorce papers.”

“But not news of my pregnancy. I sent you ten emails.”

“I told you the night we got married that I had to catch a flight. I was overseas and in an area where internet connection was spotty. I wasn’t trying to ignore you.”