Chapter 22 – Catalina
Daniela: Hey sis. Have you seen mom and dad yet?
Catalina: No. I’m at the hospital.
Daniela: Why?
Catalina: I’m still PRN there.
Daniela: Yes… but why are you there? Did someone need a consult? Or are you just there because you can't stay away from heart surgery for too long?
I hesitate, debating whether to be honest with my sister about why I’m here. Maybe I haven't always been open to sharing every little detail of my life with her, but I don't want to lie now either.
Ever since I took the job in Whitewood Creek and we became closer while living in the same city, things have been different between us.
It felt like we were headed in the right direction to repair and strengthen our relationship right before I left for the Iron Horn Series.
The problem is I know how she's going to react if I tell her the real reason I’m back at my old hospital.
And I know the conclusions she's going to jump to, all of which are completely false.
I decide to go with the truth anyway.
Catalina: Davis needed me for a consult on one of his patients.
There’s a full three-second pause before her reply.
Daniela: Tell him to go fuck himself.
Catalina: I’ll be sure to let him know that you said that.
Daniela: Good.
Daniela: And tell mom and dad that Lawson and I can’t wait to see them in a few months when they come to visit us. You should come with them. Autumn here is beautiful. You didn't get the whole experience when you lived here.
I think about what autumn in Tennessee might be like. I bet it’s gorgeous, too. Then I stuff that thought down deep inside me because there's no reason that when the summer ends, and the Iron Horn series ends, I'd be going back there with Jensen.
Nope. No reason at all.
Catalina: I don’t know where I’ll go next. I have to go.
Daniela: Love you! Have fun tonight! We'll be watching the ride at Regan and Hayes house on TV! Tell Jensen we said good luck!
I roll my eyes and slide my phone into my bag before smoothing my shirt, the deep red one that borders on burgundy but doesn’t scream Christmas in July.
I think this shade makes my eyes look brighter, my skin warmer, my hair that I'm wearing down long, richer.
I look like a woman who chose this on purpose—not someone who threw on scrubs in the dark on her way out the door.
I also know Jensen likes this color on me.
California might be mild this time of the year, but I’m not here for a runway show.
I’m here to work. And still, I can’t help noticing the way these fitted white dress pants hug me better than they ever did in the past, or how my mahogany-colored heels click confidently against the hospital tile.
It all feels… foreign and a bit exciting being back here like this.
Like I’m wearing someone else’s life. Or maybe just stepping back into mine as a different person.
Colleagues pass me in the hallway with expressions ranging from polite confusion when they realize it's me, to straight-up shock.
I lift a hand in a half-wave at each of them and wonder to myself...
Do I really look that unrecognizable? Did I really spend years blending into the walls of this place with my attire and personality?
I round the corner and nearly collide with my old surgery tech, Jordan, who's been by my side for nearly ninety percent of the procedures I’ve performed. She spills half her coffee down her front with the contact.
Fortunately for her, she's wearing all black.
“Oh my God—I’m so sorry!” she blurts, immediately reaching to fix my shirt that she didn't get a drop on.
“It’s fine,” I promise her. "You didn't get me. I'm sorry. Your shirt's soaked."
She finally looks up at me, and it’s like watching a movie in slow motion the moment recognition dawns on her face.
“Um… Oh my... God. Doctor Alba?”
I give her a smile. A real one. Apparently, that’s even more terrifying than seeing me in a red shirt and white pants.
“What are you?” she demands, as if I’m an alien. The question doesn't even make sense. What am I? A surgeon? A daughter? A woman... I don't know? Is she going to finish that sentence?
She doesn't.
I glance down at my outfit, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
“Do I have something in my teeth? Is the outfit too much cleavage? Not enough?” I adjust my shirt.
She shakes her head, blinking hard. “I just… I didn’t recognize you. I’m sorry.”
“Is it the outfit?”
“No,” she says, shaking her head rapidly. "The outfit is fire. You look incredible. Have you been working out?"
Not unless you count lots of sex.
"Is it the hair?" I subconsciously twist a lock of my dark brown curls around my finger. Hair that I've never been able to let breathe outside of the buns I always wore when I was working here. It has to be the hair.
“Well, maybe a little that, but also... You’re… glowing.”
My hand freezes in my hair. I know why that is.
Because before I left for the hospital this morning, Jensen came to my hotel room where the rest of the team is staying this weekend and buried his tongue inside my pussy until I screamed his name into a pillow with tears in my eyes.
Then, he shoved his thick, hard cock inside me while fingering my asshole.
I've never had that done before and I'm a little ashamed to admit just how much I liked it. How much I like everything he does to me.
Somehow, he’s seeped into my skin, shifted something I didn’t realize had solidified. My aura, his word, probably, because that seems like a thing that he'd say, is softer and more vibrant.
When we landed from Nashville yesterday, I immediately had to attend a staff meeting with Craig.
Jensen went the opposite way to meet with physical therapy for a check-in on his shoulder and to prepare for his first ride back tonight.
I already know it looks good. I checked it personally on the plane ride to the west coast and knew I’d sign off.
But I needed him to meet with Heath first so that it didn’t look like I was circumventing him just because we’d spent the last five days together. Naked.
I swore that what happened in Tennessee would stay there.
But though we haven't talked about what exactly happened between us…
and what happens next… Jensen must have had different plans.
Very different plans. Especially because when he left my hotel room so I could come over to the hospital he whispered in my ear.
“This pussy’s mine tonight just as soon as I finish my ride.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s just clothes, and I let my hair down." And red nail polish that matches the bull rider who fucked me this morning, and makeup. "C’mon—take me to this consult and update me on the way.”
Without missing a beat, I slide right back into surgeon mode. Jordan keeps pace as she rattles off stats, and it feels almost like old times—late nights, adrenaline, the quiet dance of knowing a person’s life depends on your next move and not taking that lightly.
God, I miss it. Okay, maybe just a tiny bit.
But there’s something heavier beneath the nostalgia I’m feeling, settling deep in my bones as we move past familiar faces and the antiseptic scent that used to cling to me for days.
A voice inside me whispers: This will always be here.
But a real life with people who are looking forward to you getting off work will not be.
Every day, every night, I’d show up, fix valves, patch up hearts, hand people second chances, and lecture them not to waste them. The irony is that all along I was wasting my own and never seemed to realize it until my heart got broken and I took a step away from it all.
Maybe leaving this hospital really was my second chance and I should take my own advice. Don't waste this second chance.
“So, who called the consult?” Jordan asks as we reach the chart outside the room. She yanks it off the wall and starts flipping through the paperwork rapidly.
I inhale. Slow. Controlled. Fully knowing that she's going to hate this maybe even more than I will.
“Doctor Davis,” I say.
Her eyebrows slam together. Jordan is one of the few people in this building who never liked my ex-fiancé—the esteemed Chief of Orthopedics.
Honestly, it was always one of my secret favorite things about her even when I'd chastise her sternly and reminder her that he was my fiancé, and a gifted doctor.
I think it's because everyone saw him as sunshine and light, a healer of bones, and me as cold and closed off. Which is ironic since I was healing the thing that pumped life through their veins.
He got the glory, even if his surgeries weren't necessarily lifesaving.
I got the awards because they had no choice but to give them to me.
I certainly didn't earn any personality points with the board.
During one of my reviews, it was strongly encouraged that I try to smile more.
I told them all to fuck off and let me do my job.
“He probably hated calling you and admitting that you're the best heart surgeon in the country,” she mutters.
“Maybe,” I say, aiming for indifferent and landing somewhere closer to tired, because when he called me this morning, he actually sounded thrilled to hear from me. Which is somehow much worse.
Her eyes sharpen. “Or maybe… He enjoyed it? And now he’s doing this to win you back?”
I shoot her a warning glare. She throws her hands up.
She knows everything—how he betrayed me, how he got his mistress pregnant, how I walked away from the life I thought I was building because of him.
But not because of him. Just like I told Jensen, I refuse to give him the glory for changing my life.
Even if his motive to get me here is for selfish reasons—which it isn’t—it doesn’t matter. He might be a homewrecker, and she might be too, but I’m not. And I refuse to be the reason some child grows up confused about where they belong because he tried to bring his ex-fiancée back into the fold.
No, he chose this woman; he's going to follow through. Even if I have to force him to.
I push open the patient’s door, a practiced smile settling on my face semi-naturally.
This used to be the worst part of the job for me.
Selling the surgery, comforting the fear, playing the role of empathetic, concerned doctor.
I always cared, but my facial expressions and emotions didn’t always convey that.
With a patient like Jensen, it was easier. He didn’t need convincing when he was flown to my hospital. He trusted me, or maybe his trainer who’d recommended me had. I didn't even meet him in pre-op. They knew I was the best and they wanted the best for their star cowboy.
Today, I can already tell there won’t be much persuading.
My sweet patient, a tiny thing with round hazel eyes and bangs she clearly cut herself, is sitting up in bed with monitors stuck all over her tiny chest. Her arm’s in a cast, and there’s a teddy bear squeezed tightly to her ribs.
I smile at her, and that’s when I realize she’s talking animatedly to my ex-fiancé who's holding a gigantic, brown, stuffed puppy dog in his hands, smiling like he's the funniest person on earth.
Something sharp twists beneath my ribs as I watch them together.
Maybe there was a time when I wasn't sure I wanted kids, but a small part of me had still imagined what that life might look like with Davis.
I always knew he'd make a great father. The kind who'd turn every ordinary moment into an adventure.
Now he gets to be that man with someone else. Someone who isn't me.
I'm happy for him. Relieved, even, that I found out the truth. But that doesn't stop it from hurting to be reminded of the life that was taken from me.
“Hi, Olivia,” I say as I round the bed.
I don’t look at Davis, but I feel his eyes on me with every step. It’s a weight that I can’t explain. Almost like he’s surprised by my appearance. Guess I'm shocking everyone today with my new style.
I force another smile. “I’m Doctor Alba, and I’m here to check on your heart.”