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Only Ryder would do everything within his power to make sure Sawyer had a very different outcome from his sister.
“Did she survive?”
Ryder could feel McKenzie’s gaze boring into him but didn’t look her way. Couldn’t look her way.
Wishing he’d kept his past to himself, Ryder kept his focus on the Littles and shook his head. “Technology was very different a quarter of a century ago. Babies with hypoplastic left heart syndrome rarely survived. That isn’t the case now. Although there’s still a chance Sawyer won’t survive, odds are in her favor that she will.”
Ryder talked with them for a few more minutes, then he and McKenzie left the obstetrics room Sawyer’s mother was still in.
They walked in silence down the hallway to the elevator. Once inside, McKenzie’s gaze lifted to his and was full of such emotions it threatened to overflow the elevator car.
“Oh, Ryder,” she said with a sigh. “I’m so sorry about your sister.”
“Me, too.”
“Sometimes our job is so heart wrenching and I wonder why we do this,” she mused.
“Not me. I’ve always known I’d specialize in pediatric cardiology.”
Her look was full of empathy. “Because of your sister?”
“Yes,” he answered, wishing they weren’t having this conversation in an elevator.
Wishing they weren’t having this conversation at all.
“Life works in mysterious ways,” she murmured. “Your sister’s death led you to prevent many more.”
She glanced up at him, looked pensive. “Don’t take this the wrong way, because I truly am sorry about your sister, but I’m glad you’re a pediatric heart surgeon. Very glad.”
Ryder nodded. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.”
“It’s what you were meant to be.”
Maybe. He’d never considered any other profession, not even as a small child when friends would say firefighter, police officer, or professional athlete. Ryder had surprised people by saying he was going to be a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon.
And that’s what he’d done.
For Chrissy.
For his parents.
For himself.
A warm hand wrapped around his and gave a gentle squeeze.
Ryder’s gaze jerked to McKenzie’s green one and what he saw there had him feeling as if the elevator cable had snapped and they were spiraling downward.
Fortunately, he was saved by the elevator coming to a stop and the door sliding open.
He immediately pulled his hand from McKenzie’s, resisted the urge to shake away the electricity still zinging up and down his arm.
He needed to be careful.
It would be way too easy to forget she was on the rebound of a
broken heart.
CHAPTER FOUR
