Page 48 of The One Who Never Left: Colter

“Come on, stay with us,” Sutton murmured again, thumb brushing fur she shouldn’t have been touching, but needing to give him the soft reassurance that someone had him.

In the surgery suite, everything narrowed and the outside world ceased to exist. No coffee or happenstance breakfasts. No questions about boundaries or bosses or things she wasn’t ready to name. There was only the dog, splayed carefully on the table, and Colter at the center of it all.

“Prep the abdomen,” he said. “We’re going in.”

A beat of silence followed—too long for an operating room. Then Dr. Porter cleared his throat. “You’re sure that’s necessary?”

Colter didn’t look up from the table. “Blood pressure’s unstable, abdominal distension, pale gums. He’s bleeding internally.”

“Hm.” Porter stepped closer, peering over Colter’s shoulder like he was the attending doctor. “Could be shock. Fluids might stabilize him without cracking him open.”

Sutton saw Colter’s spine go rigid beneath his scrubs. Not with hesitation but annoyance.

“We’ve already pushed fluids,” Colter said evenly. “It’s not holding.”

Porter folded his arms. “You’re jumping to surgery awfully fast.”

Colter finally looked at him then, his gaze calm and focused—steel under the politeness. “With respect, if we wait any longer, we’ll be operating on a corpse.”

The words were sharp, slicing through the hum of the machines.

Porter’s mouth thinned. “I trained you better than to rush.”

“And you trained me to trust my gut,” Colter shot back. “This dog doesn’t have time for a committee decision.”

Sutton stayed quiet, hands already moving, prepping for the incision like the call had never been in question. Because Colter wasn’t guessing, he was reading the room, the vitals, the patient. He knew the best course of action.

Porter watched her for a moment, then Colter again. “You’re certain?”

“Yes,” Colter said firmly, with no qualifiers.

Another long second passed. Then Porter stepped back with a dismissive wave. “Fine. It’s your call.”

It wasn’t permission Porter was giving, it was a challenge. One Colter didn’t react to. He just turned back to the table. “Scalpel.”

Sutton placed it in his hand without comment, their fingers brushing for half a second longer than necessary. His grip was steady but hers was too.

Sutton could see it in him—the way once he committed, there was no space left for doubt. No room for second-guessing or ghosts from the past whispering that he didn’t know what he was doing. When he chose something, he chose it fully, and that kind of certainty was impossible not to notice—or fear.

As he moved, Sutton watched him for a second longer than necessary. The man from the diner and the man from the operating table were the same person, she realized.

And that might be the most dangerous part of all.

CHAPTER 18

By the time the clinic slipped into its end-of-day quiet, Sutton’s nerves were humming like live wires.

Patches lay in recovery, chest rising and falling in shallow, careful breaths, a web of tubes and monitors doing the work his body wasn’t quite ready to do on its own.

She watched Colter at the window, arms folded, eyes laser focused on the patient, watching for any change. A twitch. A hitch. Anything.

“Vitals are steady,” Dr. Porter said behind him, already half out of his scrubs. “But he’s not out of the woods.”

“I know,” Colter said. The man hadn’t moved in twenty minutes.

“He’ll need someone to stay over,” Porter said as if this was his decision—his operating room.

“I know,” Colter repeated. “Dr. Lee is on call.”