“If you will let me pass, I’ll go and face the music with Dan.”
He stepped out of her way, remaining silent.
She opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. His silence was angering her now. First he wouldn’t look at her. Now he wasn’t talking to her.
She turned her head to the side, praying he wouldn’t see the tears glistening in her eyes. “Maybe you’d better try and sort out other sleeping arrangements. This situation is untenable.”
* * *
On the outside Sawyer was frozen to the spot, but on the inside he was a bubbling cauldron, full of sulfur and about to explode.
Dan had appeared at the worst possible time—that much was obvious.
And Callie was right. They both had to pray that he would keep things to himself; otherwise Callie’s authority could disappear in the blink of an eye. And in a situation like this that could be disastrous.
He knew that she’d been hurt by his lack of response but the truth was that she was right, he couldn’t look her in the eye. And after what they’d just shared Callie would have wanted some kind of sign. A sign as to whether this had been just a one-off mistake or if it could lead somewhere.
And the truth was he just didn’t know.
Every nerve ending in his body was on fire. Every place that she’d touched his skin seemed to burn. She’d been so willing, so responsive. If Dan hadn’t appeared, chances were nothing would have stopped them.
And how would he have felt then?
Feel.
That was the problem.
Sawyer had been down this road before. Meet a woman in a bar, exchange small talk, have meaningless sex, sneak out before morning.
But all of a sudden the road had changed direction.
No, scrap that, this was an entirely new road.
In the space of a couple of days this woman had started to get under his skin. To invade his senses. To make him feel things that he hadn’t felt since he’d first met Helen.
And it felt like a betrayal. It didn’t matter that Helen had been dead for six years. It didn’t matter that she would have never have wanted him to lead this closed-off life. His impersonation of the walking dead was growing stale, even for him.
But on any of his chance encounters before, he’d never felt anything. Apart from the obvious. He’d just been going through the motions. Making sure everything still worked.
This was different. This was nothing like that.
From the moment Callie Turner had appeared on his radar everything had turned upside down.
At first he’d thought he was annoyed because Callum was sick, then he’d thought it was because she was inexperienced. Or struggling. Or getting things wrong. Or all of the above.
But the truth was he was looking for a reason—any reason—not to like Callie Turner.
He was fighting the way he was drawn to her—was curious about her and wanted to know more.
The sight of her getting changed into her scrubs. The scar on her leg. The almost kiss in the treatment room.
The way he’d felt as soon as his lips had touched hers. The way she’d reacted to his touch. The feel of her skin next to his. The arch of her back. The tilt of her pelvis. The small groan she’d made at the back of her throat.
All of it driving him crazy. All of it making him act on instinct. Something he hadn’t allowed to happen in a long time.
How could he have gotten into this? How could he have ended up in a specialist containment unit for a seemingly extinct disease? All of this was so unreal. This had bad movie written all over it.
Wrong place, wrong time.
The words danced around his brain again. He’d first thought them when he’d raised the alarm about the apparent smallpox cases. The words had been so in tune with how he had been feeling. He couldn’t wait to get out of Chicago General. He couldn’t wait to get away from the whole situation.
But now the words made him feel uncomfortable. He still didn’t want to do any of the infectious disease stuff. But his Hippocratic oath had him firmly by the short and curlies. He had to stay here and help look after these people. He had to work with the team from the DPA. He had a responsibility. To them. To the patients. To the staff. To Callie...
Everything came back to her. No matter where his head drifted off to, she was always the thing he came back to. Like an anchor point.
He could almost see the picture of Helen that still sat on his desk at home. Her smiling face, dark hair and dark eyes. Home? When was the last time he’d gone home? When was the last time it had felt like home?
He sagged against the wall again. Everything was bubbling to the surface, thanks to the way he was feeling towards Callie, and he just couldn’t deal with this—not on top of the DPA issue all over again.
Did she even realize how hard this was for him? To be amongst these people again? To be amongst the people that reminded him at every glance of how much he’d failed his wife?
What kind of a husband couldn’t save his wife? Maybe for a regular guy that could be acceptable. But he was a doctor. And his wife had died from a medical complaint. One that, under normal circumstances, could have been treated and her life saved.
For a few hours with Helen he’d felt as if they had been trapped on a runaway train.
They hadn’t got to experience the joy of a positive pregnancy test. They hadn’t got to celebrate their child’s arrival, planned or not. He felt cheated out of so many experiences—all because they’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Worst of all, he didn’t know who to be angry at most.
Himself? The DPA? Evan Hunter? Helen?
It had been Evan who had sent Helen into the field, not him. Even though she hadn’t been feeling one hundred percent. None of them had had any suspicion she might be pregnant—not even Helen. But their baby had decided to defy the odds of their contraceptive of choice. And
by the time they’d known, it had been too late.
A ruptured ectopic pregnancy in the middle of nowhere. There had only been one possible outcome.
He had to get past this. He had to move on. Everything about this situation was wrong.
He couldn’t begin to work out his feelings towards his past and the guilt he felt, in this new situation and his pull towards Callie. He felt pressured. Callie was pressured. It wasn’t the right time or the right place. He had to step back. He had to step away.
And from the hurt look in Callie’s eyes, he’d already done that. Whether he’d planned to or not.
He could hear mumbled voices through the door. They sent a cool breeze dancing over his skin, covering his chest and arms in goose-bumps. He grabbed his scrub top and pulled it over his head.
He had to go out there. He had to act as if nothing had happened. He had to try and help Callie save face, because if word of this ever got back to Evan Hunter...
He had no intention of being around to face the fallout.
He glanced at his watch. Forty-eight hours. That was how long he’d lasted when a beautiful woman had been dangled under his nose.
The pull was just too strong.
But everything about this was wrong. They would be together for the next fourteen days. Fourteen days and nights with Callie Turner.
And he’d just made it all worse.
His hand hesitated on the door handle.
Because now he knew how her skin felt. Now he knew how she reacted to his touch. Before he could only have imagined. And that could have kept him safe. That could have kept him on a reasonably even keel.
But now...
He closed his eyes. And it was Helen’s face he saw. Helen’s eyes. Helen’s smile. The instant image made him jump.
The sear in his chest was instant. Like his heart was being twisted inside his ribcage. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do any of this.
Callie was a career girl. He used to be the same.
But now he was a getting-by kind of guy. In two weeks’ time, for the second time in his career, he would walk away from the constraints of the DPA. And nothing would give him greater pleasure.