LITMIR.BIZ

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she could give him confidence with. “Excellent.”

      “That’s your other job—assisting and maneuvering the wand so we can get and keep a visual on the appendix until I understand what I need to do.”

      “I can do that.”

      “I’m trusting you,” he said—which shouldn’t have made cold shoot through her, but did.

      She couldn’t bring herself to say anything, to pretend the sentiment was reciprocated. It wasn’t—except probably medically. Whatever might have been said or done between them, she didn’t trust him personally. She was just taking the only available exit from a burning building right now, and that was what made her stomach pitch and roll like a dinghy on the front edge of a tsunami.

      “The anesthesiologist—do we know if he’s put under a pregnant woman before? It’s not as deep a sleep. And there are frequent issues with reflux, so we need a good proton pump inhibitor.”

      He opened the door and stepped out, one curt hand motion beckoning her to follow after him.

      Inside thirty minutes they had Jacinda in the surgical suite, were both scrubbed in and had her under. Erianthe kept the anesthesiologist busier than normal, demanding that the heart rate for both mother and baby be announced at any change of more than three beats per minute.

      In her head, when she’d pictured how this surgery would go, she’d been standing on the opposite side of the table from Ares, with the patient—and space—between them. But with the introduction of the ultrasound she not only had to stand beside him, she had to be close enough that the fabrics of their surgical gowns brushed and rustled against each other.

      Something else to ignore.

      She focused on the ultrasound wand in hand and maneuvered the cart holding the unit with her foot, so that Ares could best see the screen.

      “Here—that’s the cross section of the appendix.”

      “Enlarged...” he murmured, confirming the diagnosis in that second.

      Why hadn’t she thought about ultrasound to image the appendix before? Because she wasn’t a surgeon. Because she was used to modern, fully equipped hospital situations. Because she didn’t even know what equipment was located at this facility—which had to change immediately.

      Moving on, she slid the wand to another position and pressed, showing the path usually taken in such a procedure. He had her move the wand a few more times, until he was satisfied with the visual and knew that he’d have room to move.

      As soon as he’d made his incision the ultrasound was abandoned, and her job shifted to handing over the instruments as he asked, holding back tissue with forceps, controlling the flow of blood.

      “How’s the baby’s heartbeat?” she asked the anesthesiologist yet again, probably ensuring that he’d never want to be on the same surgical team with her ever again, prompting him for readouts even if he’d only just given them.

      The pattern they fell into was surprisingly easy. Ares’s hands, always elegant in their masculine way, moved with a certainty and grace his current appearance contradicted.

      She’d gotten by on having faith in her coping mechanisms for so long, but she found that faith shaken before they scrubbed in. Chatter and keeping her mind occupied held the line between being shaken up and on the floor, but she couldn’t dismiss her doubts about how long she could keep it up.

      However, unlike what she’d expected, he was professional. And extremely skilled.

      And different.

      But then so was she.

      “I see it,” he said, and leaned over a bit, letting her visualize the swollen, enflamed organ.

      “Goodness, it’s big. But it looks clean.”

      “Doesn’t look like it’s ruptured either. I’ll extract—you examine it.”

      She passed over instruments, one at a time, allowing him to clamp the organ off from the ascending colon, then repeat the maneuver from the colon side so he could make a clean extraction.

      Once he had placed the faulty organ into the surgical tray, she maneuvered it around to look for any openings.

      “Intact,” she announced after pressing and examining for longer than she would probably have done under normal circumstances. She needed an extra layer of assurance that her powers of observation and attention were still functioning at a high level, even with the chaos going on in her head.

      Finally satisfied, she returned to his side to help flush the area with saline before closing up.

      “We’ll have to check our antibiotic inventory. If there’s one you prefer but we don’t have in stock, we can have it by the evening. I’m starting her on whatever’s the best we have in the meanwhile. Eri... Dr. Nikolaides...”

      Even with the face mask he wore, she saw his silent correction in the squint of his eyes. But she didn’t know what it meant. She didn’t know what any of this meant to him. He’d frozen, briefly, upon seeing her. And again when she’d reminded him what the health of her patients meant to her, but she still didn’t know what it meant to him.

      He could just be reacting to the worry that she was going to lose it in front of everyone and he’d have to answer difficult questions. Or he might not care at all about her, or the events that had rewired her brain to expect betrayal from those she loved.

      But she told herself she didn’t care about how affected or unaffected he was. She cared about Theo, Chris and Deakin. She had to figure out how to be around Ares without losing her senses, or all those years of keeping secrets from the rest would come undone, and that would mean she’d gone through all that alone for no reason.

      Theo, the quintessential protective older brother? She didn’t even have to wonder how he’d react. And, no matter what Chris and Deakin might think, knowing what had happened between Ares and her would divide the four close friends, probably forever.

      Even if the clinic didn’t rely on them all getting along and maintaining their long, loving, sibling-like relationship, she didn’t want to be the cause of their pain. Every single one of them had gone through enough pain in their lives without her adding to it now, when it could change nothing about the past.

      And she’d lost enough. She didn’t deserve to lose Chris or Deakin, even if they were more forgiving than her super-protective brother would be.

      “Dr. Nikolaides?” He said her name as if he’d said it before, and she finally realized what he’d said about the antibiotics. She hadn’t answered him.

      “I’ll look as soon as we’re done,” she said, clicking back to the present. What was the next step? “Does anyone in the lab stay around the clock? I’d like labs drawn tonight and in the morning, to track her blood count. And I want the bacteria in the appendix cultured to check for resistance.”

      “We can arrange it. If not, I’ll stay and do it. I’ve done them before.”

      “Do you do every job with your charity outfit?” He’d clearly learned pretty adept surgical skills there.

      “We all do whatever we have to, to keep things going. They’re even worse off for personnel than we are here.”

      He tied off the last suture and she clipped it, then took over swabbing the incision site and applying a good dressing. That was the next step. The anesthesia was out, and she grabbed a stethoscope to listen to the baby’s heart and then the mother’s.

      “And I’m good at what I set my mind to,” he added.

      Hearts were steady—both of them. Jacinda’s rate was a little higher than she’d like, but that happened with infection.

      “Do we have a recovery room? I’m guessing not...?” Erianthe asked, pulling the earbuds out.

      He’d

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