Page 1 of Unforgettable
PROLOGUE
The sky over Rochester burned quiet and blue. It was the kind of blue that promised everything would go on exactly as it should.
It was a lie.
Dr. Brewer “Brew” Clay
Inside Mayo Clinic’s Gonda Vascular Center, time did not move the same way it did outside.
It narrowed. Focused. Breathed only when the circumstance allowed it.
His head surgical nurse, Millie, anticipated his next move as he ordered.
“Clamp.”
His tone was calm, steady, controlled in a way that made the room obey.
Gloved hands moved with precision honed by years of discipline… and something deeper, something carved into him long before medical school, before Mayo welcomed him, before the world knew his name.
Dr. Brewer Clay did not just repair vessels. He restored futures.
Thirty-eight years old, he was the youngest microvascular specialist ever recruited into Mayo Clinic’s elite program… and the most requested. Because his hands did not shake. Because he saw what others missed.
Because when he leaned over a patient, something in his presence relayed:You are not lost yet.
Millie placed the instrument in his hand. He didn’t look up.
“Time?”
“Two hours, twelve minutes, Doctor.” She replied.
He knew those in attendance were probably thinking it was taking too long. He knew sweat was heavily dotting their brows and soaking their scrubs. Not his. He was calm, confident, not self-assured in a cocky way. Nurses never had to pat the sweat from his brow.
The time it took was not for him.
It was for the tissue, every second mattered when it came to assure blood flowed to where it was needed to keep the tissue and organs alive, escaping deterioration, or promoting death.
His raven-black hair, casually hung past his shoulders, but was tied low at the nape, and tucked under his surgical cap. When he first arrived at the Vascular Center, he was the topic of conversation. It followed him everywhere. Rochester was the third-largest city in Minnesota. It was impossible to avoid the stares, the clammer about that new arrival… the Indian … no way was he a top surgeon.
He leaned closer. The surgical loupes he wore offering 4.5 magnification. His eyes, sharp and unwavering, delicately tracked the damaged vessel ‘s location with his jeweler’s forceps like a warrior intricately hunting its prey, reading tracks and signs.
It was instinct.
The same instinct his father carried on open land beneath the endless Montana sky where his wild mustang ranch was located. Brew missed the untarnished smell of the air, the Pryor Mountain Range bordering their lands, and the vast meadows the mustangs still roamed since his people the Crow, Apsáalooke, brought them to the region from the Spanish in the early 1700s.
For a fleeting second - just one - his mind betrayed him with an uncontrolled flashback.
A massive moving cloud of dust is created by the thunder of a hundred hooves. An excruciating, painful scream rants the air and cuts short as his father tumbles from his saddle, his left hand crushed.
Brew shook his head to clear his mind. Because someone didn’t care enough. Because someone wasn’t skilled enough. Because someone didn’t fight hard enough to aid the red skin, his father’s hand had to be amputated.
Brew’s jaw tightened beneath his green surgical mask. He never forgot. He never forgave, and he never-everfailed.
“Flow returning,” the assisting surgeon across the table from him said quietly.
A beat.
Then … color.
