Suddenly, Duran felt tired, drained by the emotional roller coaster ride he'd been on for what seemed like years now. He heard himself, a damning echo in his head, admitting Noah was dying and all the fear, grief, and worry he'd been shouldering alone for so many months welled up in him, tearing at his control.

Turning away from the sympathy in Lia's eyes that served as a reminder of everything he could lose, he leaned his hands on the back of a chair, head bowed, struggling to regain his composure. There was a pause, a whisper of sound, and then a gentle hand touched his shoulder.

"You're doing everything you can," she said softly.

"It hasn't been enough so far, what if it isn't enough now?"

Her fingers tightened, gripping lightly. "Then you keep trying. Because even if it isn't enough, that's all you can do."

If it wasn't enough, it would break him. There would be no compromises with his emotions, no comfort in telling himself he'd done his best. "I can't let that happen," he said, but instead of coming out as clear, hard resolve, it sounded desperate, already cracked with sorrow.

"Duran - " Lia reached around and laid her hand against his jaw, turning him to face her. Whatever she saw in his expression prompted her to abandon what she intended to say and before he understood, he was in her arms, she was holding him or he was holding onto her, and it didn't matter because it had been so long since he shared the burden, that giving even a little of it up, for however short a time, was like being able to breathe again.

The moment stretched into many, into time he couldn't measure, before the comfort she offered and he grasped at became too much to accept and he very carefully pulled out of her embrace. Still within touching distance, they stood looking at each other and for the first time, he saw her as a woman and not the doctor who'd stepped in to help a stranger in need. She was barely to his shoulder, on the thin side of slender, and there was a delicacy about her, as if she were finely made and vulnerable to the rigors of life. Her dark red hair was gilded with copper and gold in the dim light, her eyes an unusual shade of light brown. He might have, at first glance, dismissed her as merely decorative, with little substance, expect he had felt the strength in her hands, seen the intelligence and empathy in her eyes, been touched by her warmth even when he thought himself immune.

She accepted his study for a minute or two and then dropped her eyes and took an uncertain step back. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have - "

"Don't be." Duran resisted the urge to reach out to her, to reassure her that she'd misinterpreted his moving away from her; that he'd been alone for so long it had become habit to throw up his defenses when he was most vulnerable. "I appreciate everything you've done so far. You've gone way out of your way to help us."

"Yes, well, that is my job," she said briskly, in an obvious attempt to distance herself from those moments when the lines between professional caring and the comfort of woman to man had blurred. As if to prove her reason for being there with him, she avoided eye contact with him and busied herself taking Noah's temperature again. "I'll have the nurse check him again in a couple of hours. If there's no change, then we'll start the IV. But we'll keep our fingers crossed he won't need it this time. I'll be back first thing in the morning, unless there's a problem before then."

For some reason, her determined return to detached concern irritated him. It felt jarringly out of place, though by all rights, it shouldn't have. Yet he didn't bother to try and explain it to himself. "Does this mean I have to start calling you Dr. Kerrigan again?"

"You haven't called me anything," she said. A slight smile touched her mouth, bringing back a whisper of the warmth. "At least out loud."

"Okay, Lia," he said deliberately. "Then we'll see you in the morning."

This time the smile blossomed. "Count on it."

From the book "Healing the MD's Heart"
By Nicole Foster
Silhouette Special Edition
April 2009
Copyright © April 2009
by Danette Fertig-Thompson and Annette Chartier
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher.
The edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S. A.
For more romance information surf to: http://www.eHarlequin.com

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