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was in the past. Focus on the now.
    “Dr. Castle?” Reece turned to see one of his interns run toward him.
    “Yes, Dr. Brody?”
    Dr. Brody caught her breath. “Have you seen Dr. Maguire? She’s needed in the ICU.”
    “Is it something I can help with?”
    Dr. Brody shrugged. “I don’t know. Dr. Brigham told me to find Dr. Maguire. He heard she had come back to the hospital and was in the ER.”
    Reece nodded. “I’ll get her. Tell Dr. Brigham we’ll meet him in the ICU.”
    Dr. Brody nodded and ran back the way she came.
    So much for going home to have some sleep.
    He didn’t knock when he opened the trauma pod. “Dr. Maguire, you’re wanted in the ICU. Dr. Brigham is specifically requesting you.”
    Vivian quickly looked down at her mother. There was such love and tenderness between them. Reece envied it. His parents had never shown much interest in him. Except when he’d walked away from the musical career they had wanted for him in order to go to medical school.
    “You were invited to sing at the Opry. Singing at the Opry will launch your career. You can’t say no.”
    “I can, Dad. I’m going to be a surgeon.”
    “You have a gift. You’re throwing it all away.”
    “I have a gift, yes. A gift of medicine, Dad. I don’t want a musical career. I don’t want to be Ray Castille’s son and always live in your shadow.”
    Reece had never wanted fame and fortune. Not in music anyway. He loved music, but he loved medicine and surgery more.
    He wanted to be remembered for saving lives, not a gold record.
    “Are you going to be okay, Mama?” Vivian asked.
    “Sure. I’ll be fine. Go do your job.”
    “I’ll get a nurse to take her up to the neurosurgery floor and stay with her,” he offered.
    Vivian nodded and collected her things. They left the ER together after a nurse came to stay with Vivian’s mother.
    “I wonder what it’s about. I’m not on duty.”
    “Someone saw you come in,” Reece said.
    Vivian sighed. “I guess it’s to be expected, being the new kid on the block, right?”
    “Probably.” Reece held open a door for her.
    “Weren’t you on your way home?” Vivian asked.
    “I was, but I want to get your mother settled first. Besides, I figured you’d want help navigating the maze of Cumberland Mills. It has been seven years. Things have changed.”
    She laughed. “Good point.”
    “Exactly. I’m always right.” He winked.
    “I remember the first time I tried to navigate these halls. I ended up in Pathology and missed my rounds.”
    Reece chuckled. “I forgot about that. First day of rounds too. Boy, was Brigham mad.”
    “You mean Isaac, don’t you?” Vivian teased.
    “I’ve never been able to bring myself to call him that.” Reece held open the door for her. “He’ll always be Brigham the blowhard to me.”
    She laughed, her eyes twinkling. “I forgot about that nickname. Seems so long ago.”
    “It was,” he said and a blush crept up her neck. They didn’t say anything else to each other then.
    Dr. Brigham was waiting outside of an ICU room. “Ah, Dr. Maguire and Dr. Castle. Glad you’re both here. We have a donor who was deemed brain-dead in the ER six hours ago, but an intern insists the patient was decerebrate upon a recent examination. Problem is she won’t wake up on her own. She needs the ventilator to keep her alive. So all signs point to brain death.”
    “That’s common,” Vivian remarked.
    “I know. So we did a scan and found a tumor. My question is, Dr. Maguire, can we get it out and if so will the patient come through? She was in a bad car accident. She survived surgery, but can she survive another one?”
    “Can I see the scans?”
    Dr. Brigham motioned for them to follow him into a room, where the patient’s scans were brought up. Reece peered close. A routine scan in the ER had missed it, but it was there in the brain stem. A brain-stem glioma. Small, barely noticeable and a delicate place. If unsuccessful it would render the