Читать книгу Her Little Spanish Secret - Laura Iding - Страница 7

Four and a half years earlier …

KAT had never seen so much blood—it pooled on the floor and stained the walls of the O.R. suite. Dr. Miguel Vasquez, along with two other trauma surgeons, had worked as hard as they could to stop the bleeding but to no avail. Their young, pregnant patient and her unborn baby had died.

After the poor woman’s body had been sent to the morgue, Kat was left alone to finish putting the supplies and equipment away while the housekeepers cleaned up the blood. Only once they were finished did she head over to the staff locker room. Thankfully, her shift was over, she was exhausted. Yet as tired as she was physically, she was emotionally keyed up, and couldn’t get the horrific scene from the O.R. out of her mind. They hadn’t had a case like that in a long time.

After she changed out of her scrubs into a pair of well-worn jeans and a short-sleeved sweater, she found Dr. Vasquez sitting in the staff lounge, holding his head in his hands. He looked so upset and dejected that she stopped—unable to simply walk away.

“Please don’t torture yourself over this,” she urged softly, as she sank down beside him on the sofa close enough that their shoulders brushed. “Her death wasn’t your fault.”

Miguel slowly lifted and turned his head to look at her, his eyes full of agony. “I should have called the rest of the team in earlier.”

“You called them as soon as you discovered her abdomen was full of blood and they came as soon as they could,” she corrected. “No one knew she was pregnant, it was too early to tell.”

“I should have examined her more closely down in the trauma bay,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “Then we would have known.”

“Do you really think that would have made a difference?” she asked softly. “Even if the other two surgeons had been notified earlier, they wouldn’t have been able to come right away. Dr. Baccus said they were resuscitating a patient in the I.C.U. All of us in the O.R. suite did the best we could.”

He stared at her for a long moment, and then sighed. “I can’t help thinking about what I should have done differently. I know we can’t save every patient, but she was just so young. And pregnant. I can’t help feeling I failed her.”

She put her hand on his arm, trying to offer some reassurance. “If three of the best trauma surgeons in the whole hospital couldn’t save her or her baby, then it wasn’t meant to be.”

A ghost of a smile played along the edges of his mouth, and she was glad she’d been able to make him feel a little better. Because what she’d said was true. Everyone talked about Miguel’s skill in the O.R. He could have stayed here in the U.S. once his fellowship was finished, even though he’d made it clear that wasn’t part of his plan.

She reluctantly slid her hand from his arm and rose to her feet. But she’d only taken two steps when he stopped her.

“Katerina?”

She hesitated and turned to look back at him, surprised and secretly pleased he’d remembered her first name. They’d operated on dozens of patients together, but while she’d always been keenly aware of Miguel, she had never been absolutely sure he’d noticed her the same way. “Yes?”

“Do you have plans for tonight? If not, would you join me? We could get a bite to eat or something.”

She wasn’t hungry, but could tell Miguel didn’t want to be alone, and suddenly she didn’t either. Word amongst the O.R. staff was that Miguel wasn’t in the market for a relationship since his time in the U.S. was limited, but she ignored the tiny warning flickering in the back of her mind. “I don’t have any plans for tonight, and I’d love to have dinner.” Or something. !

“Muy bien.” He rose to his feet and held out his hand. She took it and suppressed a shiver when a tingle of awareness shot up her arm.

But she didn’t pull away. Instead, she stayed close at his side while they left the hospital together.