Читать книгу Bachelor Doctor - Barbara Boswell, Barbara Boswell - Страница 8

Trey remained stock-still, as if he’d been turned to stone. It felt that way. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak.

He especially could not divert his gaze from Callie. So he just stood there, staring at her, watching as she snatched the scrub pants from the floor to hold them in front of her for additional cover.

But her alluring image already had been seared in his brain. In his mind’s eye, he could still see the smooth bare skin of her belly, her legs, her breasts. Her belly was flat, her navel intriguingly deep; her legs were shapely, slender and well toned, her breasts pleasingly full.

Amazing how much detail he’d managed to absorb in those few burning moments.

He could accurately visualize her bra and panties, too, pristine white cotton, quite modestly cut. Plain, functional and practical underwear, the polar opposite of those sensual confections labeled lingerie, the stuff that was supposed to inspire male fantasies.

It seemed that Trey needed no such inspiration. Simply the sight of Callie Sheely in her serviceable underwear sent a shock wave of arousal through him so fast that within moments his body was hot and hard.

Instinctively he took a step closer to her.

“Trey, just in case you haven’t noticed, you’re in the women’s locker room,” Callie informed him through gritted teeth.

Trey’s eyes widened and he was suddenly aware of the hyena-like screeching in the background. He cast a quick glance at the blond nurse, then looked back at Callie.

And blinked. “What?”

Callie groaned. “I feel like I’m trapped in an especially stupid episode of a very bad sitcom. I would’ve never thought you were capable of looking dim, but somehow you’ve nailed that ‘huh?’ the scene requires.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” growled Trey, gathering his wits. It took longer than expected, and he blamed the surreal atmosphere. “I don’t watch much TV and I certainly don’t waste my time on bad sitcoms. And why would anyone bother to watch an especially stupid episode of anything?”

“Maybe to find a way out of a ridiculous situation—like this one,” Callie said tersely. She shot a glare over his shoulder. “Jennifer, please stop screaming. Remember, he’s Trey Weldon, not Dracula.”

“Are you two having a big fight?” the blonde demanded a bit hoarsely. “A domestic-dispute kind of thing? Did he come raging in here after you, Callie?”

“Damn,” muttered Trey. “Is that the story she’ll spread all over the hospital?”

“Well, there’s always the stock sitcom solution to fall back on,” Callie murmured. “Shall I try it?”

Trey wondered if the dim “huh?” expression she’d accused him of had reappeared on his face. “Try what?”

“You took the wrong door by mistake, Dr. Weldon.” Callie’s voice was clear and firm. “You made a wrong turn and ended up in here instead of the men’s locker room.”

“Oh sure, like I’m going to believe that!” Jennifer was scornful.

Trey couldn’t blame her. “As excuses go, that’s exceptionally poor, Sheely.”

“Of course it is. That’s the point, I think. The excuse is so dumb, it somehow works,” Callie whispered back to him. “Or else the scene fades to a commercial break. Too bad we don’t have that option now.”

“What were you going to do to Callie, Dr. Weldon?” Jennifer’s voice had a definitely accusing edge. “What would you have done if I hadn’t been here?”

Trey decided her inquisition was worse than her shrieking, because the questions raised disturbing ones of his own. What would he have done if Jennifer hadn’t been screamingly present?

He felt another flash of sexual heat streak through him. What in the world was happening to him? Here he was in the women’s locker room, after deliberately barging in on Callie Sheely, not even caring that she had retreated to a place off-limits to him.

She had run off in the midst of their argument, leaving him frustrated and exasperated, but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t experienced frustration and exasperation before.

He had, plenty of times. It came with the territory when you were the smartest—and usually the youngest—in any class since the age of three. But for his feelings to turn physical, sexual, driving him to act impulsively like some kind of macho hothead…

Such behavior was totally uncharacteristic of him; he’d made sure of that. He saw himself as a thinker, a planner, a careful strategist, and that’s exactly what he had become. Cerebral and controlled. The quintessential neurosurgeon, if one ascribed to the surgeons’ personalities matching their specialties’ stereotypes.

“He simply walked in here by mistake, Jennifer,” Callie kept insisting. “Dr. Weldon is a brilliant surgeon, but he is pathetic when it comes to knowing his way around. He’s always getting lost, takes a left when he should go right and a right when he means to go left. I think he could be classified as directionally challenged. Right, Trey?”

Trey almost automatically denied it. He had a superb sense of direction and prided himself on it. He’d had no trouble adapting to Pittsburgh’s one hundred plus bridges crossing the three rivers, or to all the hills and winding streets, many of them one-way. He didn’t bemoan the infamous lack of road signs that caused so many motorists, even lifelong residents, to get hopelessly lost. He didn’t need them.

No, one thing he definitely was not, was directionally challenged.

He glanced down at Callie, about to lodge his protest. She rolled her eyes heavenward and grimaced.

“Oh, yes,” he said quickly. “Right.”

How could he forget, even for a split second, that Callie was making excuses for him, in order to convince the melodramatic Jennifer that she’d drawn all the wrong conclusions?

Which meant that once again he was faced with the question that plagued him, tantalized him, too. Without Jennifer’s presence, just what would he have done with Callie Sheely?

Sheely, his ever-reliable assistant, his capable second-set-of-hands who’d stood before him, her bare skin so smooth and silky, her no-nonsense underwear covering more than it revealed, paradoxically inflaming him more than any racy black thong or see-through brassiere.

Trey swallowed, hard. “Sorry. I, uh, made a wrong turn. A mistake. I’m…distracted today.” He turned and abruptly strode off.

Inside the women’s locker room, Callie and Jennifer faced each other.

“He made a wrong turn, did he?” Jennifer said archly. “He came in here by mistake? So that’s your story and you’re sticking with it?”

“Pretty much.” Callie shrugged. She hoped it appeared artless, that she seemed unconcerned.

Which she most definitely wasn’t. Her insides were churning. She could still see Trey’s intense blue gaze fixed on her. She could still feel his eyes on her, as if he had physically touched her. If Jennifer hadn’t been here….

“I noticed that his shirt was inside out,” Jennifer persisted. “Like maybe you’d been in the middle of—something physical—and then you ran away and he pursued you into—”

“We were in the middle of neurosurgery for the past six hours or so, Jen. You can check that out if you want. And I…I didn’t notice his scrubs or how he was wearing them. It’s not something I ever pay attention to.”

Jennifer snickered her disbelief. “If you say so, Sheely.”

Callie quickly snatched her sweats from the locker and pulled them on. She caught a glimpse of herself in a nearby mirror. Her body was lost in the baggy navy pants and Penn State sweatshirt, which she’d thrown on this morning for the drive to the hospital.

At 6 a.m. on a dark, chilly March morning, when she would go immediately to the locker room to change into OR scrubs, it didn’t matter what she wore. She didn’t care what she looked like now, either, Callie tried to convince herself.

So what if Trey was waiting for her outside the locker room and she looked shapeless and rumpled? Another glance in the mirror revealed her tousled bangs; her ponytail definitely needed to be brushed, too.

Well, she wasn’t going to do it. She wasn’t going to primp, because Trey undoubtedly wouldn’t be out there waiting for her. He’d already done the unthinkable today by rushing in here after her. Cool, stringently self-disciplined Trey Weldon would never do the unthinkable twice!

What if he did? Callie’s heart jumped.

Her dark eyes appeared feverishly bright to her in the mirror. Her cheeks looked as flushed and hot as they felt. Her lips were pale and bare, her lipstick long gone after the grueling hours in surgery.

There were two tubes of lipstick in her purse, but Callie wouldn’t allow herself to retrieve either. She was not going to apply any makeup in the off chance that Trey Weldon might see her.

She grabbed her purse and headed for the door. “Bye, Jennifer.” She hoped she’d achieved a credibly cheery tone.

“By the way, I’m not going to ask Trey Weldon to the Springtime Ball,” Jennifer announced. “I am not the type who goes after another woman’s man.”

Jennifer thought Trey Weldon was her man. “As if,” Callie murmured under her breath.

She tried to ignore the lonely little voice deep in her secret heart that cried, “If only.” It was juvenile and silly and—

“Sheely.”

The sound of her name stopped her cold. Callie whirled to see Trey standing beside the wall, just a few feet away from the locker room door. He still had his scrub shirt on inside out. Not that she paid attention to how anyone wore their scrubs.

Instantly a picture of Trey in his low-slung scrub pants, shirtless, flashed before her mind’s eyes, clear as a photograph.

Too jittery to keep still, Callie started walking.

Trey fell into step alongside her. “I guess your friend is already cooking up some gossip that will speed through the hospital faster than a rumor on the Internet.”

“You think?” Her lips twitched into a smile she couldn’t suppress.

There was a civil war going on inside her, between euphoria—he had waited for her!—and her common sense trying to dispel it. For a few moments euphoria won, and she savored the sensation of walking beside him, their shoulders lightly brushing.

Until Trey moved a few steps away, making any accidental physical contact between them impossible. That successfully dissolved Callie’s silly burst of joy.

“I apologize for putting you in a position that might possibly be misinterpreted, Callie,” Trey said stiffly.

He’d called her Callie. For the first time.

She wondered if he was even aware of it.

Callie stole a furtive glance at him. She was always “Sheely” to Trey. During the entire year they had been working together, he’d called her nothing else.

Her surname was also used by most hospital personnel and had been since her nursing school days. It seemed that certain people were inevitably known by their last names while others were forever called by their first; Callie wasn’t sure why, but that’s the way it was.

She was pondering this, along with how odd yet wonderful “Callie” sounded coming from Trey, when he spoke again.

“I created—an embarrassing situation, Sheely. I don’t blame you for being angry.” Whether intentional or not, his voice held a cajoling note.

Callie realized that he had misinterpreted her silence.

“I’m not mad at you,” she blurted. “Actually, when you stop and think about it, the whole thing is pretty funny.”

“Hilarious,” Trey muttered. “Can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. That woman’s screams were a virtual comedic highlight. And my ears are still ringing.”

“That woman?” Callie repeated drolly.

“I think I met her before, but I don’t remember,” grumbled Trey. “Should I?”

“Her name is Jennifer Olsen, and she was about to ask you to the Springtime Ball when you came charging through the door like a…rhino in scrubs.”

The taunting sound of her voice was as disconcerting to Callie as the words themselves. They had tumbled out before she’d had a chance to censor them.

“Ask me to a ball?” Trey looked aghast. “Give me a break, Sheely.”

“You don’t like to dance?” Callie dared to bait him. “Or you don’t know how?”

Insight struck. So this was why she’d mentioned the ball and Jennifer’s near invitation…in the hope that Trey would react exactly this way, appalled at the prospect. He didn’t want to go with lovely, tall, blond Jennifer. Callie tried hard not to look pleased.

“I can dance.” Trey was grim. “It took four miserable years of Miss Martha’s Ballroom and Etiquette Classes, but I mastered it.”

“Miss Martha’s Ballroom Classes, plus etiquette, too,” repeated Callie dryly. “I learned to dance watching the older kids at teen night at the VFW hall. It was pretty easy, but then, we didn’t have to master the intricacies of ballroom etiquette.”

“Not just ballroom etiquette. We also had to learn these arcane rituals that might have been relevant a century ago but—” He sighed. “I understand the necessity of instructing youngsters in the basics, and knowing how to dance is useful I suppose, but I swore that as an adult I would never subject myself to further torture along those lines.”

“Miss Martha must have run those dance classes like a gulag commandant. Dancing is supposed to be fun, not torture.”

“Is it?” he challenged. “Do you think dancing is fun, Sheely?”

“I guess it all depends on who you’re dancing with,” Callie heard herself reply.

And was promptly horrified with herself. She couldn’t have said something as blatant as that! Why, she sounded like her ditsy sister, Bonnie, a compulsive flirt since the age of ten—and probably the least-subtle flirt in the universe, too.

Having watched and winced over Bonnie for years, Callie had made a studied effort to be her opposite. To hear herself throw out such an obvious come-on line made her cringe.

Worse, she could feel Trey studying her, his expression unreadable.

She was certain he was patronizing her when he replied in cool, measured tones, “And who do you like to dance with, Sheely? Scott Fritche?”

“I’ve assisted Scott Fritche in the OR from time to time. I don’t dance with him.”

“But you’d like to?”

“Oh, please, give me credit for having a little taste. Scott Fritche dates teenage student nurses. Any woman over twenty-one is too mature for him. He’s a perpetual adolescent.”

“Well, Fritche is sounding less and less like neurosurgery material.” Trey frowned, his mind back on the surgical track. He seldom left it for long.

Callie was inordinately relieved. She’d come close to making a fool of herself with Trey, not that he seemed aware of it. One of the advantages of his never taking any personal notice of her, she decided wryly.

They reached the bank of elevators at the end of the corridor and could either leave the OR floor or go back to where they’d come from, the lounge and locker rooms adjacent to the operating and recovery rooms.

Trey glanced at his watch. “We do the astrocytoma with the laser in less an hour.”

Callie nodded. “The patient is Doug Radocay. I, uh, mentioned that his grandmother lives in my old neighborhood near my parents’ house.”

“Yes, you mentioned that. Among other things that I won’t go into. Feel free to thank me for my restraint, Sheely.”

She was fairly sure he was kidding but not sure enough. “Thank you,” she replied seriously. “It’s very diplomatic of you to resist bringing up…those other things, especially since we agreed to disagree on them.”

“If you say so, Sheely.” Trey arched his brows. “Did I tell you that I happened to overhear you on the office phone when you bullied Mr. Radocay’s HMO into approving the referral to me? They were against it, but you persuaded them to loosen the purse strings and pay up. You were impressively alarming, Sheely.”

“I was simply following your lead, Dr. Weldon.”

“Were you?”

“Uh-huh. I asked myself what would you say in a similar situation since you always manage to make those pencil-pushing bureaucrats on the end of the line bow to your will. I imitated your technique, right down to the blood-chilling tone and not-too-subtle threats.”

“Thank you. And let me return the compliment, Sheely. In proper form, you too can freeze the blood of the pencil pushers.”

He pressed the call button to summon the elevator. “I’m grabbing a bite to eat from the cafeteria. Are you going there?”

“I guess.” She glanced down at her less-than-flattering outfit. “I meant to bring my lunch and eat in the lounge today but I forgot it. I, uh, I didn’t expect to be seen in public looking like this.” She shifted uneasily from one foot to another.

“You look fine,” Trey said, as if on cue.

Callie’s head jerked up. “That wasn’t a bid for a compliment.”

But it had sounded that way, she chided herself. “I look like a slob and I know it,” she added sternly.

The elevator arrived, and they stepped inside the empty car.

“Let me put it another way, then.” Trey pressed the button for the cafeteria located in the basement, and the doors snapped shut. “A suitably uncomplimentary way. You don’t look any worse in that getup than you do in those oversize scrubs, Sheely.” He grinned. “Better?”

Callie stared up at him. Trey didn’t smile often. Quiana had once accused him of rationing his smiles, and he had somberly agreed that he was not the smiley sort. Therefore his grin—teasing, lighthearted—packed a potent wallop.

She felt slightly dazed. “Those scrubs are marked One Size Fits All. I’ve often wondered ‘all’ of what?”

“Gorillas, maybe?” suggested Trey.

“So if you happen to live on the Planet of the Apes, they really would fit all.”

“And be worn in simian ORs,” murmured Trey, his lips quirking, as if picturing one.

He successfully warded off the impulse to smile again. “We need to eat and get our blood sugar levels up. We’re verging on giddy.” His face was devoid of any further trace of amusement.

“Don’t worry, Trey. Nobody would ever accuse you of being giddy, or even verging on it.”

She glanced up at him, and their eyes met again. Callie tried to suppress the frisson of heat that raced through her. Trey looked calm and collected, and immaculate as usual, despite the grinding hours of surgery and disconcerting locker-room scene. Not even his inside-out scrub top detracted from his aura of dignity.

Callie ran a self-conscious hand along her bedraggled ponytail and then attempted to smooth down her bangs. Even with a concerted effort, could she ever acquire a tenth of the elegance that Trey seemed to naturally possess?

The elevator lurched to a stop and the doors opened. A crowd was waiting to board. The cafeteria was only a few yards away, and Trey and Callie walked toward it.

“Sandwich line?” he suggested. “Since Swiss steak is today’s hot special.”

“Sandwich line, definitely. Their Swiss steak is only for the very young and foolish, with ultrahardy digestive tracts. I remember eating it during my student nurse days, which are long gone—along with my ability to consume Tri-State’s Swiss steak.”

“You’re not that long out of nursing school, are you, Sheely? You look like a kid.”

“Thanks, I think. But I haven’t been a kid for a long time. I’m twenty-six,” she admitted. “As of last month,” she added, because being twenty-six was still hard to fathom.

There had been a time when twenty-six seemed ancient to her. Now that she’d actually reached it, it did not feel old at all.

You’re on the wrong side of twenty-five now, Callie, her sister, Bonnie, had joshed, as Callie blew out all the candles blazing on her birthday cake. Bonnie, four years younger, still considered twenty-six to be ancient.

“Last month? Uh, happy birthday, Sheely. Belatedly.”

Callie didn’t bother to respond to the perfunctory wishes. She knew very well that he had no interest in things like staff birthdays; he’d made it his personal rule not to participate in the inevitable collections for cards and/or cakes.

“Twenty-six.” To her surprise, Trey picked up the thread of their conversation. “That’s still young, Sheely. At least it is to me. I’ll be thirty-three in October.”

He looked slightly astonished by the fact, and Callie knew exactly what he was feeling.

“You’re very young to be regarded as a respected authority and leader in your field,” she pointed out. “But that’s to be expected since you graduated from college in less than three years and medical school in only—”

“You’ve been reading the med center’s press releases about me, Sheely. Gearing up to hit me for a raise?”

Callie blushed. If Trey only knew how much she knew about him, had read about him…he would probably peg her as an obsessed fan!

“I just wanted to remind you that you’re still considered the Boy Wonder around here.”

“Boy Wonder,” he repeated. “That was my identity for a long, long time, but once you’re thirty, you stop being a boy anything.”

“Some men don’t ever stop being boys,” Callie said, with a touch of acid. “No matter how old they might be—which goes to prove you don’t have to be young to be foolish, I guess.”

She thought of Scott Fritche and his penchant for young student nurses, of her brother, Kirby, a year and a day younger than her, a self-described slacker living rent free in their parents’ basement while he pondered what he wanted to do when he grew up.

“You’re right.” Trey looked thoughtful. “And it works the other way, too. Kids can be quite sagacious. I was, and I’m sure you were too, Sheely.”

“Well, I never actually saw myself as a ‘sagacious’ sort of girl,” joked Callie. And if she had been one, it was too bad she’d grown up to be a foolish woman, she added silently, one harboring a futile, unrequited crush on the unattainable Trey Weldon.

“Don’t make light of your accomplishments, Sheely. I don’t believe in false modesty. You were the valedictorian of your high school class and of your nursing school class, too. Those are not the accomplishments of a foolish girl.”

“How did you know about all that?” She had never mentioned her scholastic achievements to him, though it was hardly a secret if anyone cared to check.

“I checked, of course. Before I offered you the position as scrub nurse on my team.”

“You told me at the time that you’d been observing me in the OR and my experience there was why you—”

“I also checked your academic records, Sheely. I wanted to make sure you were the real thing, the complete package. Knowledge and character supported and enhanced by skill. I had no intention of choosing anything less for my team.”

“Oh, that’s me, the complete package.”

Grabbing a tray, she took her place in the sandwich line. There was a backup at the grill, with only one short-order cook working today, when at least three were needed.

Knowledge and character supported and enhanced by skill? Trey could very well have been describing Sister Benedicta, the stalwart principal of her old alma mater, Guardian Angels High School.

Could he make it any plainer? She did not evoke any romantic feelings within him at all. Callie unsparingly faced the truth: her insipid crush on him was even worse than hopeless, it was just plain absurd. Thank heavens nobody knew.

And then she thought of the glint in Jennifer’s eye in the locker room earlier.

I am not the type who goes after another woman’s man, Jennifer had said. Hadn’t her expression been just a shade too perceptive?

Callie flinched, imagining the speculative gossip that might already be spreading via the ever-efficient hospital grapevine. When confronted, would a breezy laugh of denial be enough to counter the rumor, or should she offer some sort of explanation?

“You are, you know,” Trey said quietly.

Callie’s train of thought, already derailed by the probability of gossip, wrecked completely as Trey came to stand closely behind her.

Her senses seemed to take over, making her intensely aware of everything about him. Of the feel of his chest brushing against her back. Of the size and strength of his muscular frame, which seemed to surround her.

When she inhaled, his scent filled her nostrils with a musky mix of male sweat and pungent, antiseptic OR soap.

The temptation to lean into him, to press back against the hard heat of his body was so fierce that Callie came dangerously close to giving in to it. To throwing caution and restraint aside and acting on her feelings, showing him that there was more to her than knowledge and character supported and enhanced by skill.

There was desire and need, and it was all for him. What if she were to take a chance and let him know?

“Dr. Weldon.” A male voice sounded behind them.

Callie jumped and turned her head to see Scott Fritche approaching Trey. Hot color suffused her skin, right down to the tips of her toes. Her head abruptly cleared. She was herself again, and she offered mental thanks that she had not—impulsively and unprofessionally—nestled against Trey. She was horrified by her near lapse in sanity.

“Fritche.” Trey frowned at the younger man who’d joined them. “I intended to talk to you sometime today. I suppose now is as good a time as any.”