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Only, it was one thing to try and resist Luke from 5,000 miles away. It was another entirely to think that she'd be able to do it when they were both back in San Francisco, meeting regularly at family events.
One touch, the slightest stroke of his fingers against her skin, and she knew she was going to be lost.
She'd loved him too deep, for too long.
Janica had never settled for anything her whole life. But if Luke could only love her part of the way, maybe settling for whatever he could give her was something she'd need to learn to live with.
Not even bothering to pick up her luggage, she stepped up to the ticket counter and got herself on the return flight out to San Francisco. A dozen hours later as she got off the airplane, knowing she couldn't go another second without seeing Luke, she told the taxi driver to take her straight to the hospital.
And then, from out of nowhere, she felt the truck in the lane beside them clip the back bumper, spinning the taxi off into the center divider on the freeway. Everything went black.
* * *
"Taxi crash. Twenty-nine-year-old woman. Head wound. Possible internal bleeding."
Luke was heading into his tenth hour for the day and had just downed his fifth cup of coffee. He'd worked much longer hours in the past, but now the days seemed longer than they ever had. Coming off his four-week leave, he still felt tired, like he was dragging all the time.
And yet, at the same time, his hours in the ER were the only time he even felt remotely alive.
Somehow, none of the things that used to give him a rush, not even a car accident victim who would need every ounce of his concentration, set off a spark inside of him. Whereas Janica, with nothing more than a wicked little smile, had made him feel like it was the Fourth of July every single day.
Every single moment.
He was still amazed to realize that in less than a week she'd taught him how to have fun. How to appreciate everything around him. And how incredible it was to share his life with someone else.
How had he screwed everything up so badly? And how the hell could he possibly win her back?
The first time she said “I love you” he should have been right there with her, showering her with everything he'd felt for her for so long—and had so stupidly held back. He'd been scared to love and lose again. But he'd had no idea just how much it would really hurt. Especially when the losing part was entirely his fault.
Grabbing the chart from the paramedic, he moved to the quickly moving gurney and finally looked at his patient.
Oh God.
No.
Please, let this be a nightmare.
Please, God, please let this not be real.
But the blood across Janica's forehead and cheek, dried in clumps in her soft hair was real. Her pale skin, her closed, bruised eyelids were real. Her small body, so still and lifeless beneath the thin white sheet—so completely different from the way she normally was, the woman who didn't know how to stop moving—was real.
All of the patients he had ever worked on throughout his years in the ER came down to this moment.
The moment when he needed to save the woman who meant everything to him.
One of the first things he'd learned as a doctor had been that emotions had a time and place, but not in the operating room. He'd always known how to segment the surgeon from the flesh-and-blood man.
He called out instructions one after the other, held out his hands for the nurse to put on his gown and surgical gloves, while his brain worked methodically to assess the damage to Janica's body.
Sweetheart, please hold on. I'm going to save you. I promise.
But before he could lay even a finger on Janica, he felt a hand on his arm.
Luke looked at Robert, frowned as his colleague said, "You're crying."
Without thinking, Luke reached up to touch his face. He couldn't feel any wetness through the latex of his glove. And yet, he knew Robert was right about his tears.
Because no matter how hard he tried to push his emotions into the appropriate box, it just wasn't possible. Not this time.
Not with Janica up on the operating table.
"Do you know her?"
"She's the woman I love."
It was as easy as that.
They all watched him carefully, the operating room nurses, the doctor he'd worked with and socialized with for so many years. No one said anything. No one made the suggestion that he should step away. No one told him he wasn't equipped to do this job right now. No one tried to make him see that Janica would be better off in somebody else's hands.
Thank god, this time they didn't need to say it.
Walking away from the operating room with Janica on the table bleeding and hurting, trusting someone else to heal her and make her whole, was going to be the hardest thing he ever did.
But he had to do it.
For her.
“Please,” he began, but Robert just shook his head, letting him know he didn't have to say anything more.
“We'll take good care of her, Luke. Don't you worry for even one second about that. You're going to have a long life with her. I promise you that.”
Luke's feet felt like lead as he left the operating room. He couldn't go to the waiting room. But his legs wouldn't hold him either. Slowly, he slipped down against the wall until he was sitting on the floor. His head was in his hands and his heart, well, his heart was barely beating.
As the minutes slowly ticked down, he could feel himself alternating between numb and scared.
Scared shitless.
But although he had been crying in the operating room, he wasn't crying now. He didn't even have the relief of tears.
If anything happened to her, anything more than the crash, if something went wrong on the operating table, Luke knew he'd never feel anything again.
He simply couldn't live without her.
Somewhere in the back of his brain he knew he should call Lily, that she needed to know her sister was in the hospital, but he couldn't do it. Not until he knew more.
And all the while, the urge to bust into the OR and take over was so strong it took every ounce of control he possessed not to storm back in there and yank the instruments out of Robert's hands.
"Luke? What are you doing here? On the floor?"
He lifted his head, as heavy as a bowling bowl, and saw Dr. Jones, the woman who'd sent him off on leave, standing in front of him.
"Waiting."
He was surprised when she joined him on the floor. "Waiting for who?"
"Janica."
He didn't say anything more. He didn't say that she was his sister-in-law. He didn't say that he had been in love with her for so many years, there was no pinpointing the exact date or time when his feelings had become clear. He didn't tell her that Janica had offered to give him everything he'd ever wanted, even when he was giving her nearly nothing in return. He didn't tell her that he'd screwed everything up.
