Chapter 2

I was back in the same ER twelve hours later. Cole and I both work it. He runs days, I run nights. We hand the floor to each other and don't touch.

I told myself I'd get through the shift. I almost did.

Just before two, the ambulance doors blew open.

A fire crew came through first, soot-black, shouting numbers, wheeling in a boy who wasn't breathing right.

The one at the head of the gurney was big enough that the room made space for him without being asked. His hands were shaking.

His voice was not. He read my badge once and didn't look away. Wyatt.

I did my job. Tubed the boy, sent him up. There was no room to notice anything else.

Then the doors opened again.

Renee.

Robe half-closed, hair everywhere, Lily limp in her arms under a blanket, cheeks an unnatural red.

"Cole! Where's Cole?!" She didn't ask for a doctor. She asked for him.

Cole came off the central desk before anyone could stop him.

He dropped to his knees in front of her and reached for the child like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Lily's eyes cracked open, fever-glazed. She found his face. "Daddy…"

"I'm here, baby. I've got you." It was out of his mouth before he could think.

The ER went dead. The triage nurse stopped typing. The tech froze with a tray in her hands. Wyatt's crew went still by the doors.

Everyone in this building knew Cole was married to me.

He lifted his head and found me. Ten feet away. Another patient's blood still drying on my sleeve.

"Mara—" His face caved. "She's delirious. She doesn't know what she's saying."

I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I looked at the chart, not at him. "Bed three. Get the pediatric cart. Someone evaluate her airway."

Then I turned and walked into the break room, and I made it exactly until the door clicked shut.

My knees went. I caught the counter with both hands before I hit the floor.

My lungs pulled and nothing came in. Eight years of nights. The man who taught me to hold a coding patient together with my own two hands.

And the whole world just heard a child call him daddy.

Through the little window in the door, I could see them. Staring. Not at Cole. At me. The wife. Waiting to see how she'd take it.

Then a shape moved in front of the glass and blocked all of them out. Wyatt.

Turned outward, not looking in at me, just standing there wide enough to be a wall.

"Give her some room." That was all he said. He didn't need more.

He didn't bring me coffee. He didn't tell me it would be okay. He just made them stop looking, and walked away.

It was the first kind thing anyone had done for me in months. And I was still alone on that floor. And by morning, the whole hospital would know.