I could sense the disturbance in the force before it arrived. Like a wave, attention rippled through the space outside of my room with nurses pausing mid-conversation, casting hungry glances as they tracked a figure walking this way. Even the male staff reacted, straightening their postures as if the man’s mere presence demanded a higher standard. The soft knock that came next might as well have been that jackhammer striking concrete.
The door slid open, and there he stood. Dr. Blake Morrison, somehow looking even more devastating than my memory had allowed. His dark hair was still that perfect mess that made my fingers itch to run through it, and his white coat did nothing to hide the athletic build underneath. But it was his eyes that undid me. Deep brown with flecks of gold, holding mine with a mixture of surprise and something else I couldn’t quite read.
The fluorescent lights, hum of voices, and antiseptic smell all faded away, leaving nothing but him, me, and years of unspoken words hanging between us like suspended scalpels.
“Tessa?”
One word. That’s all it took for my chest to tremble. He stepped closer, and I caught the familiar scent of his body wash … the same scent that had tortured me two years ago, when everything had changed.
He glanced at the monitor, then back at me, his doctor’s eyes too observant, too careful.
I wasn’t sure what was worse: the way my heart still did backflips at the sight of him or the fact that, in about five minutes, he might discover my secret.
Either way, I was doomed.
2
BLAKE
The trauma bay doors burst open with a familiar bang that echoed through Mercy Harbor’s ER. Male, mid-fifties, crush injuries from a collision. Another face joining the sixty-eight thousand patients who’d roll through these doors this year. Another shot at beating the seven percent mortality rate that haunted lesser doctors’ dreams.
While most doctors hated those odds and, frankly, burned out from the stress of the unpredictable nature of this job, I thrived on the chaos. It kept my mind sharp, my reflexes primed, and challenged me in ways that made every other department feel mundane.
My best friend, Ryker, had once told me I had a savior complex. He hadn’t been entirely wrong. Every life I saved in that ER had been an unconscious attempt to make up for that helpless moment when all I could do was watch my little sister’s blood seep through my fingers, my untrained hands desperate but useless to help her. The metallic scent of her blood still haunted me in the quiet moments of a shift, but those minutes of powerlessness had changed me forever. Every saved life had become a whispered promise to her: never again. Never again would I watch someone I love suffer while I stood by, helpless.
But there was another side to that coin, one my colleagues with their white-picket childhoods and Sunday school memories couldn’t understand. My path to medicine was born in blood, violence, and betrayal. Beneath this white lab coat, I wasn’t normal, and sometimes, I wondered if that darkness was just waiting for the right moment to surface again.
“Multiple rib fractures, decreased breath sounds on the left,” a resident stammered. “BP’s dropping?—”
“Push one gram of TXA and start two units of O-neg,” I cut in, my hands already moving.
Around me, nurses and residents scrambled to keep up. A woman’s hysterical sobs pierced the controlled chaos. Probably family.
“Ma’am, I understand you’re worried, but right now, I need complete focus to help him. Jennifer, could you please show her to the waiting room? I promise we’ll update you as soon as we can.” I kept my voice firm, void of any panic.
Emotions were dangerous in the ER. They could cloud judgment and slow reactions, and in this department, every heartbeat counted. Every second meant the difference between life and death.
The monitors screamed a warning as the patient’s oxygen levels plummeted. Other doctors might have hesitated, might have called for consultation, but hesitation killed more patients than any disease I’d ever encountered.
“Chest tube. Now.” My tone left no room for debate.
The resident’s hands shook as he handed me the kit, but mine remained steady. They had to.
“Vitals are stabilizing,” a nurse called out.
I breathed a silent sigh of relief, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, the beautiful sign that another person would make it home to his family. These were the moments that madethe brutal hours worth it. A quiet reminder of why I chose this path.
And soon, hopefully, I’d become chief of emergency medicine, and I’d be able to shape the kind of ER that saved even more lives.
“He should have worn his seat belt,” the resident muttered, typing notes into the chart.
I froze, my hands still steadying the chest tube. While I didn’t allow emotions to cloud judgment in my ER, I sure as hell didn’t tolerate disrespect either.
“See his wedding ring?” I snapped. “That’s someone’s husband who nearly died tonight. You think he won’t wake up hating himself for not wearing that belt? He’s facing months of PT, assuming he makes it through the night, and your medical insight is‘should have worn his seat belt’?”
The resident shifted, defensive. “I’m just saying?—”
“You’re not saying anything helpful.” My voice dropped low, controlled. “In this department, we treat patients with dignity. They don’t need lectures while they’re fighting for their lives. If you can’t manage basic human compassion, at least keep your judgments to yourself. Now get out.”
