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Adam refused to name the emotion pulsing through him at the sight of Liz, standing in the hallway, looking unsure whether to slap him or kiss him.
She was hurt, confused. He could see it on her face, in her golden brown eyes. She deserved so much better than what he was giving her.
“Liz,” he started, then paused. He couldn’t flat out say they were finished in the middle of the hospital hallway, but he couldn’t give her reason to think they’d work through this either.
“Mrs Sanchez is ready to be discharged, but I’m not so sure about Robert Keele,” Liz said in a professional tone, her spine straight. However, her gaze couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than personal. She wanted to know what was going on and wouldn’t sidestep the issues any longer.
He needed to put some distance between them.
“Whether or not Mrs Sanchez is ready to be discharged is for me to decide. Not you.”
Liz’s eyes widened. She gave him a doe-caught-in-the-headlights stare. A doe who had just been fatally struck by the hunter she’d mistakenly trusted. Him.
He could do this. No matter that his insides wrenched. No matter that his heart felt like it might explode. No matter that he’d rather die than hurt her this way.
She pinned him with her stare. “Have I
done something to upset you? I know I’ve been distracted with Gramps’s death. If I’ve said or done something wrong, I’m sorry.”
He cursed the disease running through his body, the disease that made reassuring Liz wrong.
“I’ve got several patients to see and need to get back to my office for afternoon clinic. We’ll talk later.” He turned, kept his back as stiff as hers had been, and entered Robert Keele’s room.
Determined to focus on his patient rather than the stunned woman he’d left in the hallway, he greeted the man he’d done a hernia repair on earlier that morning. “How’s your pain this afternoon?”
“I hurt, but I expected to,” the fifty-three-year-old said, scooting up onto his pillow, wincing in the process.
“Be careful,” his wife warned from the uncomfortable-looking chair pushed up next to the hospital bed. “You don’t want to pop anything open.”
“Definitely not,” Adam agreed, although he’d done a good job with Robert’s procedure and the site wouldn’t easily “pop open”. He pulled back the thin white blanket so he could check the repair site.
Liz entered the room, but Adam refused to look her way, refused to acknowledge her presence despite every single cell in his body crying out for him to look at her, hold her, love her. He continued to examine Mr Keele and was pleased with what he found.
“I last changed his dressing about thirty minutes ago,” Liz said from beside Adam. Her voice was almost emotionless, cluing him in to the fact that she fought tears.
He knew every little nuance about this woman. That she’d learned long ago to keep a tight rein on her emotions when in public, but that tonight her tears would flow. Because of him.
He bit back an apology.
He owed her one. This was his fault. If he had any decency at all he’d tell her it was over and let her get on with her life.
Liz ducked behind the nurses’ station and grabbed a stack of papers without looking to see what they were.
“Liz?”
She didn’t meet Kelly’s eyes.
“Is something wrong?”
She couldn’t answer.
“Liz?” Her friend’s concern heightened her voice.
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just tired.” And I want to throw up.
How could the man she’d loved for months act as if she was an inconvenience he wished would go away?
“I don’t believe you,” Kelly said, her hands on her hips and a determined gleam in her voice. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
