Broken Trust (Badge of Honor 13)

“I’m disappointed and angry with myself,” she said. “I didn’t recognize the signs and I should have.”

“You were distracted. It’s understandable. I take all the blame for that.”

She remained silent, clearly in deep thought.

“But we can try again,” Matt said. “Right?”

He met Amanda’s eyes. They were puffy and red—and he saw that they did not appear to support what he just said.

“What I do know,” Amanda then said, softly, “is that we now have more time.”

“Time?”

She nodded. “Maybe . . . maybe we were rushing all this a bit because of the baby. And I think that maybe a little time apart can be helpful.”

Matt felt a huge knot in his stomach.

He glanced at her left hand and was relieved to see she still wore her engagement ring.

“Amanda, what are you saying?”

“I’ve been approached to be a visiting professor in an emergency medicine residency program.”

“What? Where?”

“It’s a joint Army–Air Force facility, a military medical center in San Antonio.”

“Texas?”

She nodded.

“When?”

“Initially,” she said, “I turned them down—I’ve mentioned that I get requests regularly that I have to decline for many reasons, and this time I’d just found out about the pregnancy—and then I forgot about the offer. But then a follow-up e-mail came saying that the doctor who accepted it had had a family emergency and the position remained open. And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to immerse myself in work in a fresh environment.”

She paused, then added, “A family emergency. Some irony, huh?”

“When?” Matt repeated.

“Next week. For an initial thirty days.”

Matt’s eyes grew wide.

“You’re leaving next week? For a month?”

Amanda bit her lower lip again. She nodded.

Matt could not believe what he was hearing. He absently reached up and loosened his necktie, then opened the collar button.

“Military medicine,” she then said, “particularly burn and trauma as a result of the wars, and the IEDs—those evil, improvised explosive devices—has been making huge, innovative leaps. It’s a chance for me to learn firsthand from their doctors’ methods and teach their residents about what I know from all the work we get here.”

Matt said nothing as he looked past Amanda, his mind racing.

After a long pause, Amanda said, “I think it’ll be good for both of us, Matt.”

He looked at her, then said, “I don’t know what I was thinking. Sure. I should have no trouble taking the time off. And San Antone is beautiful.”

She pursed her lips and shook her head.