Читать книгу It Happened in Vegas - Amy Ruttan, Amy Ruttan - Страница 9

JENNIFER WAS GLAD to get all the paperwork and HR stuff done in enough time to head down to the ER and actually practice some medicine. She hadn’t had a chance to do any in a month, what with trying to find another job and moving across the country after her ex-fiancé had published the research they’d shared and been given a promotion at her old hospital in Boston.

She’d planned to stick it out. After all, he’d jilted her the previous year. She’d held her own and had faced him every day because she’d refused to be bullied out of the career she’d built, but then, when she’d let her guard down, he’d betrayed her.

The hospital board had backed him. After all, he’d been a surgical rock star, a god in their eyes, and he’d bring in lots of money.

Jennifer had been a nobody, as far as they were concerned. Just an easy, replaceable trauma surgeon.

So she’d given them the proverbial finger and left, leaving their trauma department to be run by a moron.

All Saints Hospital in Las Vegas had offered her everything to come and run their trauma department. And they were building a state-of-the-art facility better than that at Boston Mercy. So that was a plus. Even though it felt like she was returning home with her tail between her legs, she wasn’t. No, she was going to make All Saints Hospital shine like a star, like a supernova.

She smiled to herself as she slipped on the disposable yellow isolation gown over her dark green scrubs. The dark green scrubs marked her as an attending, while the interns and residents ran around in orange.

Jennifer shuddered. It wasn’t even a nice orange. Maybe she could have a talk with the chief about changing the color scheme of scrubs at the hospital.

Why the heck are you thinking about color schemes at a time like this?

She sighed. She didn’t need to be having this weird internal dialogue with herself. Ever since David had jilted her, people hadn’t treated her the same. They’d pitied her and she’d retreated a bit into her head.

That was another reason she’d had to get away. Though she knew the people at All Saints knew about her past. She could see it in their eyes, but she didn’t care. She was going to hold her head high.

She was not some screwball, crazy, jilted-bride-type person. She was a surgeon. A fine one.

No. A damn good one.

A neutron star.

Okay, your obsession with astronomy really needs to stop now.

“Dr. Mills, the ambulance is seven minutes out!” a nurse shouted as Jennifer walked into the triage area.

“Thanks.” She headed outside to the tarmac to await the arrival of the ambulance, craning her head, listening for the distant wail. It was a quirk of hers to know exactly how far away an ambulance was by the siren. Only with All Saints being right near the strip, Jennifer couldn’t drown out the rest of the noise to hear anything.

“What do we have coming in?”

She spun around to see Dr. Rousseau in an isolation gown standing next to her.

Damn.

“I thought you were on a break, as in napping in the on-call room?”

“Disappointed that I’m not?”

Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Hardly, but I heard it’s something minor. Something coming from one of the casinos. It’s probably just a myocardial infarction. You know, too much excitement at the slots.”

Nick cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, I think it’s something a bit more than a minor myocardial infarction. Though I doubt you could call any myocardial infarction minor.”

“You know something. Don’t you?” she asked, scrutinizing him. “What do you know?”

“If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you. I want to see the look of surprise on your face when the ambulance comes in.”

“That’s unprofessional.”

Nick grinned. “Hey, it’s Vegas and what happens in Vegas …”

“Stays in Vegas. I know. I’m from Nevada.” She crossed her arms and stared up at the sky. The buildings from the strip loomed from behind the back of a casino. You could see the top of the Eiffel Tower if you craned your head a certain way.

“It’s priceless. Trust me. It’s a great initiation.”

“I’m the head of trauma. We’re not supposed to be initiated or hazed.”

Nick shrugged. “Come on. It’s fun. Think of it as a morale booster.”

Jennifer was going to say a few more choice words when the ambulance came roaring up. The paramedic jumped out and opened the back door.

“Jack Palmer, a twelve-year-old male who has a three-inch laceration to his forehead.”

As the paramedics were bringing down the stretcher, Jennifer leaned over to Nick. “How is a three-inch lac supposed to be an initiation?”

Nick just grinned. “You’ll see.”

The little boy groaned as the stretcher was placed on the ground. His head was bandaged, there was blood coming through the gauze and the boy was hiccuping between groans. Jennifer stepped beside it and heard a tinny hum of “Happy Birthday.”

“What’s that noise?”

Jack hiccuped. “It’s my birthday card.”

“Where is it? I can hold your birthday card for you.” Jennifer looked on the gurney, while a paramedic was stifling a chuckle and Nick was grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat.

“No, you can’t.” Jack hiccuped again.

“Why not?”

Jack shook his head and his face flushed. Jennifer looked at the female paramedic. “What’s going on?”

“The card is the reason he got the head injury. He swallowed the music player from the card.”

Jennifer’s eyes widened and she looked down at the patient. “What?”

Nick signed off on the patient and the paramedics mumbled “Good luck” before leaving. Jennifer and Nick wheeled the boy inside.

When they got Jack in a triage room with the door shut, he hiccuped again, playing that annoying tune. Jennifer turned away residents because it was just a simple head lac and as Jack was obviously embarrassed about his situation, she wanted to give him some privacy. For the time being, anyway. The news would get around the hospital and she would need to take a couple of residents in when she surgically removed it.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

“Jack, please tell me the paramedics are joking.”

“Would I be here if they were?” Jack winced again, hiccuped another verse of “Happy Birthday.” “Darn.”

“How did this happen?” she asked.

“It was a dare. I swallowed it, choked and hit my head on the table.”

“Order a CT scan. Stat,” Jennifer said to Nick.

“I’m on it,” Nick said, rushing out of the room.

“They’re all going to laugh at me now. Aren’t they?” Jack asked.

“No one is going to laugh at you, Jack. Not on my watch.” Though it was very hard not to laugh just a little, but she kept it together. She peeled off the gauze and began to inspect the head wound, getting it ready to clean and stitch.

Nick had the feeling he was being watched. Intently. He had a sixth sense about when he was being watched. Actually, when he was being studied.

“More suction, please,” Nick said to the intern who was working with him.

“Yes, Dr. Rousseau.”

It was in that brief moment when the intern was suctioning that Nick snuck a glance up at the gallery. There was only one person in the gallery, watching his routine appendectomy, and that was Jennifer.

Not Jennifer. Don’t call her by her first name. She’s your boss.

She was Dr. Mills.

Only he couldn’t think of her as Dr. Mills. She was Jennifer, and he watched her sitting in the gallery, watching his surgery, her arms crossed in a very serious pose.

So different from when they’d been on the beach at Lake Tahoe.

What he wouldn’t give to be back there again. Right now.

Then again, that was a dangerous thought.

One he didn’t particularly want to think about because he couldn’t indulge it, and he so wanted to indulge it, which was bad.

Nick tore his gaze away from her and focused back on the appendectomy. He tried to ignore the fact she was in the gallery. He’d known there was someone in there, watching him. Other surgeons and interns had watched him before. It didn’t faze him, but the moment he’d glanced up into that gallery and seen it was her, it was different.

And it irked him.

Why was she affecting him so much?

Maybe he shouldn’t have flirted with her, but he couldn’t help himself when he was around her. It was like he lost all control.

And control was important.

Control meant that he wouldn’t act before he thought.

That behavior in the past had been disastrous for him. He just had to look at Marc to remind himself of that daily.

“Don’t go out there. Are you crazy?”

“I have to, he’s my friend. I’ll be okay.” Nick ignored his brother’s arguments and ran out into the fray. Bullets whizzed past him, his brother screaming his name behind him.

Nick forced himself to focus as he pulled on the purse strings and inverted the stump into the cecum. He couldn’t think about that right now.

“Your recklessness cost you your brother.” Those had been the last words his father had said to him.

When he thought of that moment, he became angry. He lost control.

So he couldn’t let Jennifer into his head.

When he did, he lost the control that he fought so hard to maintain. He was a respected surgeon. He did his job well.

His anger wouldn’t get the better of him.

No one’s life was in danger and the window-smashing had been a one-off. He rolled his shoulders, tension creeping up his spine. He had to get out of there.

“Why don’t you close, Dr. Murphy?” Nick said to his resident as he stepped away from the patient.

Dr. Murphy handed his clamp to a nurse and moved around to finish off the appendectomy as Nick walked toward the scrub room, with one last look up at the gallery.

Jennifer wasn’t there anymore. She’d left.

He was going to have to try to avoid her. It was for the best.

Of course, he’d said that to himself before, and what had he done? He’d thrown her an interesting case, to watch her reaction. The patient had probably been one of the first of the interesting cases she’d see, working in the trauma department of All Saints Hospital.

He could’ve taken that case instead of surprising her with it.

Once he’d realized how much he’d been enjoying the banter with her, he’d left the room. Left her to deal with the patient on her own and found his own case.

An emergency appendectomy.

He pulled off his soiled gown, tossed it in the laundry bin and threw the gloves in the waste receptacle before heading to the sink.

“Thank you for that.”

Nick glanced over his shoulder and stepped on the bar under the sink, turning on the water so he could scrub.

“For what?” he asked, feigning innocence, though he was anything but. He knew exactly what she was talking about.

“You know very well.”

Nick shook the excess water into the sink and grabbed a towel. “I thought you deserved an interesting case on your first day.”

Jennifer raised an eyebrow. “Swallowing part of a birthday card isn’t very interesting.”

“How can you say that? He serenaded you with every hiccup.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It was an annoying song.”

“How many of those have you seen?”

“None.”

Nick shrugged. “Then I don’t really see the argument. You got an interesting case.”

“Which I promptly passed on to a resident to retrieve through an endoscope.”

“You gave it up?” Nick gasped.

Jennifer just rolled her eyes and walked away from him.

Just let her go.

Only he couldn’t. He followed her. “I can’t believe you gave it to your resident.”

“It was easy for my resident to do.”

“I gave you an interesting surgery. You could’ve had my appendectomy instead.” He fell into step beside her. “I could’ve kept it.”

Jennifer snorted. “I wish you had. As it is, Dr. Fallon is an excellent surgical resident and I’m sure I left the patient in capable hands.”

“I’m sure you did.”

Jennifer stopped and turned to face him. “You did well in there. I mean, I didn’t have a good view way up in the gallery, but you have a good touch with your interns and residents in the OR.”

Her admiration, her praise pleased him. A lot of people had avoided him since his mishap when he’d first arrived. It’s why he was known as a lone wolf, though he wasn’t. Not really.

Nick nodded. “Thank you for your professional appraisal. Is that why you came to the gallery?”

She hesitated and tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. “Of course. Why else would I come?”

Nick didn’t believe her for one second. He didn’t know her well, but he knew when someone was lying. It was a sort of superpower of his, and she was lying.

“I thought you wanted to call me out on the carpet for a swallowed birthday card.”

Her brow furrowed and a flicker of a smile played across her pink, kissable lips.

Get a hold on yourself. Stop thinking about them as kissable.

“It did keep playing the music over and over. I hope his birthday wasn’t totally ruined. However, my appearance in the gallery was because I’m evaluating all my trauma surgeons.”

“Should I be worried?”

She smiled slyly. “Is there a reason why you should be worried?”

Nick chuckled. Run. Turn and run.

Tension hovered between them and he longed to kiss her again. All he had to do was reach out and touch her. Put his arm around her and bring her close to him, pull her against his body and—

His pager went off before he even had a chance to do anything. Saved by the bell.

“Let’s go, Dr. Rousseau.” Jennifer held up her pager. “Large trauma coming in.”

She pushed past him and ran down the hall.

Avoiding her was harder than he thought.

He was doomed.

Jennifer watched him work across the ER. A large pileup on the interstate had flooded the hospital with crash victims. Thankfully, there were no interesting cases. Just regular trauma—not that it was good, but at least she could scrub in instead of having residents fish music makers out of kids’ stomachs.

She’d gone to the gallery to call him out, but then she’d watched him do the appendectomy. Had seen how he’d taught his residents and interns. He’d been so calm and the fluid motion of his hands as he’d inverted the stump had been pure poetry.

Her ex-fiancé wouldn’t have lowered himself to do an appendectomy. Even though he was a cardiothoracic surgeon, an appendectomy was beneath him. Best left to the general surgeons and residents.

Appendectomies were easy. What he’d wanted had been the high-profile cases. The cases that would get him the press coverage, would give him the glory.

When she’d first met David, she’d admired his drive and she’d swooned when he’d paid her attention. He’d made her feel like a princess, but all she had been was a trophy, and when he’d found something brighter, something shinier, she’d been dropped.

David had got what he’d wanted from her. The publicity, the research and her heart.

Nick seemed to revel in simplicity. Or at least that’s what she got from watching his surgery, his easygoing attitude, but he was guarded.

There was a wall there, one he used flirting to hide, but he was keeping people out. In her brief time talking to other staff members, they’d said he was a bit of a loner. Kept to himself, ate his lunch alone and not many people knew much about him.

The only conversations he engaged in were medical. Case files, papers. The only other thing the staff knew about him was that he had served in the military and been decorated. Something about bravery, but no one knew for sure.

There was also an incident about him getting angry with another surgeon and smashing a window in the doctors’ lounge. Anger issues, which had been swept under the rug. It had happened so soon after his return from overseas that people had given him the benefit of the doubt, but for the most part the staff stayed away from him.

Jennifer would’ve never pegged him to have anger issues.

Everything about him was a mystery.

And she couldn’t help but wonder why.

Don’t wonder. Just keep away.

It was for the best. She was here to work. To be a surgeon. She didn’t need or want love.

When the hubbub of the ER died down and she was scrubbing out of surgery, she saw Nick again. He was rushing down the hall, his surgical gown billowing out behind him as he pushed a gurney to Recovery.

He was a mystery man and she had a thing for mystery men.

Damn.

She glanced at the clock. She still had six hours left on her shift and it was now after midnight. She really needed to get some sleep.

Jennifer headed to the nearest on-call room and collapsed on a cot. As she lay down, she glanced at the nightstand and saw a medical journal.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” She picked up the magazine and stared at the grinning face of the man who’d left her standing in a white puffy dress while the press had snapped thousands of pictures of the disgraced, heartbroken and jilted senator’s daughter.

The journal was touting Dr. David Morgan’s medical breakthrough and how he was up for an award for excellence.

With a tsk of disgust and rage, she tossed it at the door just as it was opening, thus beaning Nick in the head, right between the eyes.

She held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t get angry with her. Instead, he rubbed his forehead and bent to pick up the magazine.

“Uh, is this your way of telling me you want me to read more medical journals?” He glanced down at the cover. “Ah, I’ve been meaning to read this one. I’m eager to read all about the Morgan method for aortic dissections.”

Jennifer kept her snort to herself and rolled over in the cot. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to catch about thirty minutes of sleep before I’m paged again.”

The door shut and the room went dark, but she knew she wasn’t alone as she heard him move across the room and the mattress creak across the way.

The room was silent, and even though she was dog tired, she couldn’t sleep knowing that he was across the room. Lying there, all mysterious and handsome, and she knew he was a good kisser. She’d experienced it firsthand.

Damn.

“Are there any private on-call rooms in this hospital?” she asked.

“Nope.” Nick yawned. “Is my presence disturbing you?”

“No, I just don’t know if you’re a snorer or not. I’m a light sleeper.”

“I don’t snore. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve been up for twelve hours.” The mattress creaked again as he moved.

“Good.” She rolled back over and closed her eyes, trying to will herself to fall asleep, but it wasn’t working.

“You know, of all the ways I imagined us sleeping together, this wasn’t how I envisioned it.”

Jennifer’s cheeks heated. “Excuse me?”

There was a chuckle in the darkness.

“What’s so funny?” Jennifer asked.

“I get under your skin, don’t I?”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

Jennifer cursed under her breath and sat up. “I’m going to sleep on a gurney down in an abandoned hall.”

“No, no. I’ll let you sleep.” The bed shifted again and then the room filled with light. “Have a good sleep, Dr. Mills.”

The door shut and Jennifer lay back against the pillow. She didn’t think she was going to fall asleep after her run-in with Dr. Rousseau, but once she closed her eyes again, sleep came easily.

The pager vibrated in her hand and she woke with a start. She flicked on the bedside lamp and saw it was coming from the ER.

It was her first twenty-four-hour shift, and even then she wouldn’t go home after her shift was done. She had something to prove here and she would stay here as long as it took.

This was going to become her second home. Besides, her condo was sparse and empty. If she went home, there would be messages from her father. Invitations for her to go out campaigning with him, to show the voters she wasn’t a pathetic loser like they all believed she was.

She just wanted to escape the stigma of it all.

She wasn’t any of those things. She was a surgeon, for heaven’s sake.

Only the more you listened to the naysayers, those creeping doubt weasels, the more you started to believe it.

And she hated that loss of control.

She hated that her confidence was all shot to heck.

Jennifer clipped her pager back to the waist of her scrubs and headed down to the ER. When she got there, it was relatively quiet.

“Who paged me?” she asked the charge nurse.

“Dr. Rousseau. He’s in Room Three, needs a consult on a patient.”

Jennifer groaned inwardly. “Thank you.”

What patient had he dug up now?

Did this one have a tiger coming out of his chest? Tassels glued to the forehead? Cards embedded in the abdomen?

“Dr. Rousseau, you paged me?”

Nick glanced at her briefly. “Yes, the patient is adamant that they’re seen by the head of trauma.”

Jennifer approached the bed and then froze when she saw her father was on the gurney. “Dad, what happened?”

“Ah, there she is.” Her father grinned. “I had a fainting spell during a speech at the convention center and they brought me here. Or rather I asked them to bring me here. I said I would be in good hands with my daughter.”

Nick’s eyebrows rose.

Jennifer pinched the bridge of her nose. “Dad, that’s all well and good, but as I’ve told you before on numerous occasions, I can’t assess you.”

Her father looked shocked. “Why not?”

“Because you’re my father. I can’t treat family.” She sighed. “You’re in good hands with Dr. Rousseau.”

Her father looked confused. “Why can’t you do it?”

“I don’t have time for this, Dad.” She turned to Nick. “Please keep me informed, Dr. Rousseau.”

“Will do, Dr. Mills.”

Jennifer turned and left the trauma exam room, but Dr. Rousseau was close on her heels.

“Can I speak to you for a moment?”

Jennifer paused and crossed her arms. “Sure.”

“I’m sorry I paged you. He was making such a fuss. I thought discretion would be the best bet. There’s lots of reporters out there.”

Jennifer’s stomach clenched. The press. She hated the press. The damage they did, looking for sensationalist stories, but then again she was biased.

“It’s okay, Dr. Rousseau.”

Nick cocked his head to the side. “I don’t think it is.”

“No, it really is. Just … just don’t spread it around that my father’s here.”

“Okay. I’ll keep it to myself.”

“Thank you. He doesn’t need any more attention drawn to his campaign.” She turned to walk away and then stopped. “When is your shift over?”

Nick grinned, his hazel eyes twinkling. “Are you asking me out?”

She blushed. “No. I just wanted to implement some changes to the schedule.”

“Oh.” She noticed he looked a bit disappointed, but then he shrugged. “As soon as I take care of your father, I’ll be going home. I won’t be in for another shift until Wednesday.”

Jennifer nodded. “Thank you.”

Nick nodded curtly and headed back to the exam room.