Surgeon Boss, Surprise Dad

“Liz?” Why was he looking so intently at her? “If you can hear me, blink your eyes.”

Blink her eyes?

Why Adam’s friend would ask her to do that she couldn’t comprehend, but she’d play along with whatever game her coworkers had going. She tried to blink, but her eyes didn’t co-operate.

“Liz,” Mona said softly. “Blink your eyes, honey.”

Honey? What was with that? Her friend since nursing school never called her honey. But Mona waited patiently for an eye blink. Focusing all her energy on her eyes, Liz blinked.

“Oh, Liz.” With an emotional gasp, Mona covered her mouth with her hand. She looked ready to cry. “Thank goodness. You can hear us.”

Did they think she couldn’t? Liz wanted to look away as Dr Graviss shone a light in her eyes…almost as if he was checking her pupil reflexes.

The deep cold inside her body began to thaw, leaving her brain fuzzy. Although she was sure she meant to confront her coworkers to find out what was going on, she closed her eyes and drifted into sweet nothingness.

A nothingness where Gramps was still alive, healthy. A nothingness where Adam loved her with all his heart, and they’d be a happy family.

Adam tore into the emergency room without bothering to stop to ask where Liz was. There were only six bays in the Robertsville emergency department. He’d find her quicker than someone could tell him.

The moment he entered the emergency room, he caught sight of Mona Davenport. Mona and Liz had gone through nursing school together and the petite brunette was one of Liz’s friends. He could tell she’d been crying. The lost look on her face twisted his insides.

“Where is she?”

Mona glanced toward bay two. “You can’t go back there.”

“Why the hell not?”

Mona winced. “Dr Graviss wants to talk with you.”

All the horrible scenarios he’d envisioned during the hellish drive to the hospital washed over him anew.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Why else would Larry want to talk to him first? His knees wobbled beneath him, threatening to give way and dump him on the hospital floor. He’d lost Liz. For ever.

Mona’s eyes closed, her mouth compressing while she appeared to be trying to pull herself together.

His heart turned inside out. Fate couldn’t be that cruel, couldn’t snatch Liz away. Couldn’t have his last moments shared with her be of him hurting her, telling her he didn’t love her when she’d poured out her heart.

Liz couldn’t be gone when she had so much life to live. When the only reason he’d pushed her away was so she could live that life. Not die thinking he hadn’t cared.

He cared. God, how he cared. Enough that he’d let her go so she could have a life.

“She’s not dead, Adam,” the nurse said slowly, failing to hide her own pain. “She’s banged up really bad, going in and out of consciousness, but she’s alive.”

What Mona was saying registered. Liz was alive.

He made a beeline for bay two. He had to see for himself. Had to tell her…what? That he was a selfish fool and wanted her in his life always? That he couldn’t bear the thought of a world without her in it? That he’d thought he had to follow that old adage of “If you love someone you’ll set them free”?

Adam pushed the curtain back, but the hospital bed was empty. Mona stepped up behind him. “I told you that Dr Graviss wants to talk to you first,” she reminded him.

“Where is she?” He spun, facing the sniffling nurse who was dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

Mona sighed, gave him an empathetic look. “She’s having tests done to assess her head injuries.”

“She hit her head?”

The police officer who’d come to his house hadn’t been able—or willing—to share the details of Liz’s crash. Since she was going in and out of consciousness a head injury made sense.

“Against the steering-wheel,” Mona said. “I can’t figure out exactly what happened. Liz wouldn’t have been driving without her seatbelt on a night like tonight.”