Chapter 9: From the Gallery

Morven's POV

I had watched Nolan Hallett operate nine times in three years, and I had never told him.

I stood in the gallery above the operating room with my arms crossed on the rail and my chin on my wrists.

Below me, Mrs. Frawley lay under blue drapes with her chest open, and the only part of him I could see was his hands.

They were not hurrying.

That was the first thing I had ever noticed about him, years ago.

Everyone else in this building hurried, and he never did.

The first time I saw it, I was a new ER attending, and a teenager had come through my doors with a knife wound next to his heart.

I had called the cardiac surgeon on call, and it was Nolan.

He had come down the stairs in his socks, because he'd been napping in the call room.

He had put his hand on the boy's chest and said, "Okay. Let's slow this down."

He had saved him.

He had not looked at me once the whole night, and then he had said, "Thank you, Dr. MacDonough," and walked back up the stairs.

I had thought about that for three years.

I stood in the gallery now and watched him lower the new valve into place.

He lifted his head at one point and looked up at the glass, and I knew he couldn't see me through the light.

I stepped back anyway.

The nurse beside me, who had been watching me instead of the surgery, said, "You've got it bad."

"Shut up," I said.

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