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“That’s okay. Dalia looks comfortable on the stretcher. Thanks for doing that,” Erin said, smiling at the nurse.
Tyler placed the child’s stretcher parallel to her mother’s bed.
“Here’s the call button. Press it if you need anything. Your surgeon will be here to talk to you soon. Any pain?” the nurse asked.
“No,” she lied smoothly, not wanting to be a burden.
“Not yet. You’re still partially under the effects of the anesthetic. Let me know when the pain starts.”
The nurse left, and Dr. Kent approached her bed.
“Try to sleep and don’t worry about Dalia.”
“I’m not. Please go now. We’ve caused you enough trouble.”
He tilted his head. “No trouble at all. You may have saved my soul from eternal damnation.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sometimes even a patient man reaches the end of his rope. His anger explodes, and he comes close to doing or saying the unforgivable. Fortunately, I left before doing something I might regret.”
What the hell was he talking about? She frowned.
He shrugged. “Don’t bother trying to figure it out. I have trouble understanding it myself.”
Too tired to make sense of his riddle, she shut her eyes, convinced he was regretting whatever had happened between him and his fiancée and the resulting breakup.
“Ms. Perino ... Sienna.”
She’d drifted off, but the sound of her name pierced the fog shrouding her brain.
“Yes?”
The surgeon, nurse, and Dr. Kent stood next to her bed.
She tried to turn toward them and grimaced with pain. “It ... hurts ... a lot.”
“Let me look at the surgical area.”
Dr. Kent excused himself. The surgeon uncovered her belly and looked at it, gently touching two spots. She sucked in a scream, afraid to wake Dalia.
He jerked his hand away, covered her, and talked to the nurse, then turned to her again. “We’ll give you something for the pain. You should feel better by morning. I’ll see you then.” He left, and she closed her eyes.
It was all she seemed able to do, open and close her eyes, open and... Dr. Kent peered down at her. Why was he still here?
“Your surgeon is pleased with the progress you’re making.”
“If you say so.”
With the doctor watching over her and Dalia, she felt secure and relaxed.
When Sienna opened her eyes again, Dalia still slept peacefully on her stretcher, and Dr. Kent was slumped in a chair at the foot of her bed. Did he often spend the night in an uncomfortable chair watching his patients sleep until exhaustion overcame him? She doubted it, but why was he giving her such special treatment? She wasn’t evenhispatient.
The door opened, and a technician pushing a cart approached her bed. “Morning. I need to take some blood. Is that okay?”
As if she had a choice? “Sure.”
Dr. Kent straightened and stood, then carried his chair away from the bed and placed it under the window.
