Читать книгу Dreams & Desires - Kat Cantrell - Страница 9

Two

Clare shot Parker one of those looks. This one seemed to say, Seriously, did you really just call me that?

But a month ago she would have completely ignored him, so that was progress. Right?

“They called you about Janey?” he asked her.

“Erratic vitals,” Clare said, her concern for the infant clear on her face. Janey had made an emotional impact on everyone in the NICU, but Clare seemed more attached to her than anyone. He couldn’t deny that Janey’s case had tested his objectivity from the minute she was admitted to the hospital, barely clinging to life. And now, with treatment options diminishing, he was feeling the pressure.

There had to be something he was missing...

“She’s not getting better,” Clare said as if she were reading his mind.

“No,” he agreed. “She isn’t.”

A code blue was called over the PA for the fourth floor. Parker looked at Clare, and she looked at him, and they cursed in unison. Their fragile patient had gone from unstable to arrest.

Knowing it wouldn’t do a bit of good, he stabbed the button for the fourth floor again. Janey could be dying and the two people responsible for her care were stuck on a damned elevator.

“If this thing moves any slower I’ll have to get out and push,” he told Clare.

It felt like an eternity before the elevator dinged for their floor. They stood side by side, like sprinters at the starting line. The instant the doors slid open they broke into a run. By the time he reached her, Janey was in full cardiac arrest. Nurses stood around watching anxiously as a pediatrics resident performed manual CPR on her pale and limp little body. The sight of it was so heartbreaking Parker had to dig down extra deep for the focus to perform his duties.

“Let me through,” he barked, and a group of startled staff instantly cleared the way. He never raised his voice to his team, or anyone for that matter, but this was bad.

“She’s not responding,” the resident said as Parker took over the heart compressions.

“Call her cardiologist,” he barked to no one in particular, knowing someone would do it.

He tried to find a pulse, and couldn’t. “Come on, little one. Fight for me.”

He continued the compressions to no avail.

Damn it, he had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. “Paddles,” he said, turning to his left where Clare always stood, surprised to find a different nurse there. He glanced around and found Clare standing way over by the door. Her face looked pale and her eyes wide, and for an instant he was sure she was about to either be sick or lose consciousness. Unfortunately he had a sick infant who took priority.

Even using the paddles it took almost thirty minutes to get Janey stable, and afterward everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief, including him. She was okay for now, but that had been a really close call. He turned to find Clare, who he had assumed wouldn’t leave Janey’s side for the reminder of her shift, but she was gone.

He texted her, checking the hallway as he waited for an answer, but after several minutes the message was still tagged as unread. Clare always read and answered her messages.

He frowned. Something was definitely up.

Assuming she’d gone back to the nurses’ station, he headed that way. “Have you seen Nurse Connelly?” he asked Rebecca, the nursing assistant sitting there.

“She walked by a second ago.” She looked up at him through a veil of what he was sure were fake lashes. “So, I was thinking we could get together again this weekend.”

Oh, no, that was not a good idea. He liked Rebecca, but she was a party girl and these days he could barely stay awake past eleven thirty. His father used to tell him, You’re only as old as you feel. After a night of partying with Rebecca and her friends, he felt about eighty. She was fun and sexy, but the inevitable hangover wasn’t worth it. He could no longer stay out till 3:00 a.m. then make it to work by seven and still function. He was pushing forty. His party days were over.

He checked his phone but still no text.

“Did you see where Nurse Connelly went?” he asked Rebecca, ignoring her suggestion completely, which she didn’t seem to like very much.

“Sorry, no,” she said tartly.

He doubted he would be getting any more help from her. Ironically, this very situation was probably why Clare didn’t date people from work. A lesson he clearly hadn’t learned yet.

So, where the hell had she disappeared to? Did she go back down to the cafeteria? Had she slipped past Rebecca and gone to the elevator? No, he thought with a shake of his head. Knowing Clare, she wouldn’t want anyone to see her lose her cool, so where would she go for guaranteed privacy? At the end of this hall there was a family waiting room—the last place she would go—and the door to the stairs...

Of course! That had to be it. He’d taken a breather or two in the stairwell himself. Or used it to sneak a kiss with a pretty young nurse. She had to be there.

He found Clare sitting on a step halfway between the fourth and fifth floor, arms roped around her legs, head on her knees so her face was hidden.

“Here to harass me in my moment of weakness?” she asked without looking up.

“How did you know it was me?”

“Because that’s the kind of day I’ve been having.” She lifted her head, sniffling and wiping tears from her cheeks with the heel of her palms.

Tears?

Clare was crying?

Just when he thought she couldn’t be more interesting, or perplexing, she threw him a curveball.

“And I know how your shoes sound,” she added. “From hearing you walk up and down the halls.”

He would be flattered that she paid attention, but she paid attention to everything on the ward.

“Are you all right?” He offered her one of the tissues he kept in his lab coat pocket. He dealt with parents of sick children on a daily basis. Tissues were a part of the uniform.

She took it and wiped her nose. “I’m okay. Just really embarrassed. I don’t know what happened in there.”

“You choked,” he said, knowing Clare would want an honest answer. “It happens to the best of us.”

She lifted her chin stubbornly. “Not to me it doesn’t.”

If she had been standing, and was a foot taller, he was sure she would be looking down her nose at him. “At the risk of sounding like a tool, all evidence is to the contrary, cupcake.”

Outraged, she opened her mouth, probably to say something mean, or respond to the cupcake remark, then something inside her seemed to give. Her face went slack and her body sort of sank in on itself. She dropped her head to her knees again, groaning, “You’re right.”

He was? She really must have been out of sorts because she never thought he was right about anything.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“You know those days when you feel like you could take on the world? When everything goes exactly the way you want it to?”

“Sure.”

She looked up at him with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. “This is not one of those days.”

He cringed. “That bad, huh?”

She dropped her head back down to her knees. “Choking on the job is just the icing on the cake.”

Clearly. “So you really never choked?”

She shook her head, making her messy bun flop from side to side, and said, “Not even in nursing school.”

He took a chance and sat down beside her. She didn’t snarl or hiss, or unsheathe her talons, so that was good. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Shoot me and put me out of my misery.”

“I think you’re being a little hard on yourself,” he told her. He had heard of surgeons who choked during surgery and never got their confidence back, but this was different. This wasn’t a matter of confidence, this was pure human emotion.

“What if it happens again, when she needs me?” Clare said, looking up at him. She had the prettiest eyes, and she smelled amazing. It would barely take anything to lean in and kiss her. Her lips looked plump and delicious. It might even be worth the concussion afterward, when Clare clocked him.

“If there hadn’t been fifteen other people in the room to compensate, if it had been just you and me, or even just you, I have no doubt that you would have performed admirably,” he said.

“It’s getting more difficult to be objective with her,” Clare said, looking genuinely distraught. “When they called the code I thought for sure that this was it, that this time she wouldn’t snap back. It made me sick inside, like she was my own flesh and blood.”

“Your compassion is what makes you such a good nurse.”

“Yeah, I’m awesome,” she said. “I was so limp with fear I barely made it out of the elevator. I was sweating and my heart was pounding and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and all the way down the hall it was like I was walking through quicksand.”

It sounded like a panic attack, but to suggest it would probably only make her feel worse. “These are special circumstances.”

“How do you figure?”

“Until they find Janey’s mother, or get her into foster care, you and I are the only ‘parents’ she has. She may be a ward of the state, but it’s up to us to see that she gets the best care. That’s a huge responsibility.”

“You’re right,” she said, sounding cautiously optimistic. “Maybe that’s why I have this deep need to protect her.”

“Right now, she needs protecting.”

She looked up at him and there were those lips again. Plump and juicy and pink. She had pale, flawless skin and the brightest, clearest green eyes that he had ever seen.

He would never forget the day he’d met her, when she’d walked into the staff meeting and the administrator had introduced them. He had been totally blown away. He’d probably held her hand a little too long when he shook it, and all through the meeting he hadn’t been able to stop staring at her. Which, in retrospect, might have seemed a little creepy. Maybe they’d just gotten off on the wrong foot.

“I’m not sure if I’ve ever said it, but you’re a really good doctor,” she said.

He wiggled his brows and said, “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“Now if we could just do something about your personality,” she grumbled with an exasperated shake of her head, but there was the hint of a smile, and a twinkle of something sly and impish in her eyes. She was teasing him.

“Admit it,” he said, teasing her right back. “I’m starting to grow on you.”

“I admit nothing,” she said, nose in the air, trying not to smile, but he could see that she was having as much fun as he was. “Though I will say that after this, it might be a little more difficult to dislike you.”

He grinned and wiggled his brows. “Then my evil plan is working.”

* * *

Clare laughed. She couldn’t help it. Because it was just so Parker. And boy did it irritate her that she knew him well enough to say that. Five minutes ago she’d felt lower than low; now he had her laughing. How did he do that?

Try as she might to push him away, he always pushed back a little harder. Was this campaign to keep him at arm’s length a futile waste of time? Was falling for him an inevitability?

She refused to believe that. She would just dig extra deep for the will to resist him.

No meant no, not maybe.

“You know that I don’t date people from work,” she said. “Especially doctors.”

He grinned. “Who said anything about dating?”

The way he was looking at her mouth... If only he knew how tempting that really was.

On second thought, it was probably good that he didn’t know. “I don’t sleep with people at work either,” she said.

“We definitely won’t be sleeping. And we won’t be doing it at work.” His grin was teasing, but there was a fire in his eyes, and it was one hell of a blaze. He was so damned sexy and he smelled so good. He’d missed a small strip of stubble on the underside of his chin. Any other man would look sloppy or unkempt. On Parker it looked sexy and charming. And she wanted to kiss him there. And pretty much anywhere else.

Okay, why was she saying no? He had a body to die for; he was beyond gorgeous. Not to mention nice, with a really good sense of humor, and she had the feeling that he would not disappoint in the bedroom. Maybe, if they could keep it a secret...

No, no, no!

What was wrong with her? She was a strong, independent woman. When she made up her mind about something, there was no changing it. So why this sudden ambivalence? What was it about being around this man that made her go all gooey?

The dynamics were fairly simple: rich doctor, bad.

Parker was watching her, looking amused. “Penny for your thoughts.”

Considering the semismug grin he wore, her inner struggle must have been pretty obvious.

Swell.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Since you seem to be having a rough time with this, I’m going to give you an easy out.”

Why would he do that?

Suspicious, she asked, “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. If you can honestly tell me that you aren’t attracted to me, and that you want me to leave you alone, I promise I’ll back off.”

Really? After all this time he would really just give up? “I’m not attracted to you,” she said.

His smile was smug. “That was great. Now tell it to me, cupcake, not your shoes.”

Darn, she was hoping he wouldn’t notice the lack of eye contact. The truth was, she was a terrible liar. As a child she could never get away with anything.

There was no avoiding it—she had to look at him, and the instant their eyes met, she was totally tongue-tied. He seemed to know every button to push and he pushed them liberally. But that was what womanizers did, right?

“You are evil,” she said.

“Nah, just irresistible.” He stood and held his hand out to give her a boost. “We’d better get back on the floor before someone misses us.”

Without thinking, she took his hand, realizing as he pulled her up how insanely stupid it had been. Though they bumped elbows and shoulders occasionally, other than a handshake when she met him, they had never deliberately touched each other. And while she didn’t actually see any sparks arcing between them as his hand wrapped around hers, boy did she feel them. And so did he.

“Interesting,” he said, with a slight arch of his brow. “Very interesting.”

That single word spoke volumes. But mostly it just told her that she was in big trouble.