Reunited With His Runaway Bride

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.”

His voice cracked on some of the words before his arms wrapped tightly around her and his mouth came down hard on hers.

Bree curled her fingers into his scrub shirt and let herself feel every emotion in his kiss. The fear, the anguish. The frustration and anger and pain. Everything she’d felt, too, from the second she’d been able to focus enough to look across her car console. To see the mangled door pressing in on Emma. Everything she’d felt in the emergency room as everyone desperately worked to keep Emma alive. To deliver Will alive.

Everything she’d felt when they’d broken off the relationship that had seemed so foolishly perfect. Today’s intense emotions were confusingly tangled up with Sean and their past. From their instantaneous attraction and passion to the final argument six months ago, and that anger and frustration and pain had been nearly as unbearable as today’s.

Sean was holding her body so close against his, she wasn’t sure where he ended and she began, but his kiss began to change. It felt less about all those consuming emotions, and more about a deep relief mingling with the simple and profound connection they used to have. Softening into a tenderness that flipped Bree’s aching heart inside out, reminding her with excruciating clarity how good it had been between them. How delicious and wonderful and like nothing she’d ever experienced before.

“Bree.” His mouth barely separated from hers enough to whisper the word. “Bree.”

His fingers slipped into her hair, gently holding the back of her head as his lips caressed hers again so sweetly now, so leisurely, it weakened her knees and made her heart thud in slow, heavy strokes as the kiss changed again. Still sweet, still tender, but deeper now, stealing every molecule of breath from her lungs. Shaking, she slid her hands up his chest to cup the sides of his strong neck, to feel the warmth of his skin.

How could she survive without this?

Through her misty, single-minded focus on the feel of him and the taste of him, she became vaguely aware of a rhythmic sound, growing louder. The drone of an engine and the whup-whup of helicopter blades. Somehow, she managed to separate her mouth from his and open her eyes to see Sean’s lids lifting at the same time. His eyes were black, glittering like onyx, staring at her. His face was still tight, his jaw clenched. His chest heaved against hers as they stared at one another.

Bree took that moment to memorize his face, and, even as she did, inwardly mocked herself. Memorize it? Who was she kidding? Every curve and angle was forever etched deep in her mind and heart, and the vision of it appeared, unwelcome, all too often as it was.

Still, they just stood there, and she couldn’t make herself pull away, even though her preservation instincts told her she should. Reopen the wound on her heart? Their kiss and current closeness had made doubly sure of that, with some serious bleeding sure to follow.

The roar of the chopper landing on the helipad, the wind whipping her hair into her eyes and across both their faces, finally forced them to slowly separate. Sean briefly shut his eyes, and his chest lifted in another deep breath before he looked at her again, wordlessly grasping her elbow to lead her across the asphalt to the elevator.

Bree wanted to bang her head against the metal doors. She supposed a kiss between them should have been expected after all the big emotions of the day. But, oh, how she wished they hadn’t, because she didn’t need another ache inside her body to join the outer ones hurting plenty at that moment.

Sean stood in silence as he punched the button to the NICU floor and they didn’t speak as it lowered there. And what was there to say, after all, that hadn’t already been expressed one way or another? With that “another” way having left her legs still stupidly wobbling.

She followed him down the corridor, her attention instantly caught by how sexily disheveled his thick, dark hair was. Noting the width of his shoulders tugging at his shirt, how incredibly good the man looked in scrubs. The acrid hurt that he was no longer hers—had never really been hers—threatened to creep its way inside her internal organs all over again, and that really ticked her off.

Get over it. It wasn’t meant to be.

Resolutely, she turned her focus to the baby as they approached his incubator. A feeling of utter exhaustion began to seep through her, leaving every muscle a little limp. Between the accident itself, the crises of Emma and the baby in the ER, and the mixed emotions of being with Sean, she was physically and emotionally spent. Her next shift started in a mere six hours, and, if she was going to be functional enough to work, she had to get some sleep.

With any luck, it would be the deep kind of sleep little Will seemed to be enjoying. So still, he appeared to not even be breathing, but the steady beep of the monitors reassuringly showed he was fine. Which meant she had to spend only a few more minutes with Sean, and then she could say goodbye. If all went well, Emma would improve and be out of Intensive Care fairly soon, and Bree’s interactions with Sean would be brief and limited. Then, in eight days, off to Honolulu for her surf competition, new job and career advancement, and no more thinking about the man ever again.

And wouldn’t that be wonderful? Darned unlikely, too, since she hadn’t been able to accomplish that the past six months, and even more now that he was standing close by her side, hands in his pockets, looking down at little Will in the NICU bassinet. All too aware of the way his body radiated more warmth than the heat lamp glowing over the baby. Aware of the lines of his handsome profile, of the way his big body made her feel small, which didn’t happen often to a five-foot-nine woman.

She took a side step away from all that so she could breathe and focus. “He looks good,” she said, hoping he knew she was talking about the baby, and not talking to herself about Dr. Sean Latham. “They don’t even have him on oxygen anymore.”

“Yeah. He looks a lot better than he did when you first brought him into the world.”

“Does your mom know?”

“Haven’t been able to reach her. I contacted the cruise line to give her a message to call me, but I’m not sure how they’ll get her home. Might have to wait until the ship docks in a few days.” He turned to her, pinning her with those dark eyes of his. “Tell me about the accident.”

The accident. Last thing she wanted to talk about was that nightmare. But as her gaze met his somber one, she figured he deserved to know at least a few details about how his sister got hurt.

“I’d picked her up from the airport. Maybe you knew she was staying with me until your mother gets back from her cruise?”