Читать книгу Doctor In The House - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 13

Bailey’s first inclination was to grab her discarded scrubs and cover herself up as much as possible.

The only thing wrong with that plan was that she’d tossed the scrubs into the dirty laundry receptacle and it was now approximately ten feet away from her. She sensed that a mad dash to retrieve the discarded clothing would undoubtedly amuse the chief neurosurgeon who seemed to have materialized out of thin air. She was willing to bet double her staggering medical school loan that if she did that, Munro would make some sort of humiliating, condescending comment about her pubescent reaction.

So instead of making a laughable attempt to somehow cover up the lacey pink bra and panties, and the skin that was above, between and below, Bailey raised her chin and turned around. She looked the neurosurgeon straight in the eye as if she were dressed from head to foot in a suit of impenetrable medieval armor. Only for a moment did she have the impression that he wasn’t looking at her as if she were wearing impenetrable medieval armor. But at least he wasn’t leering.

“Actually, yes,” she replied as coolly as possible under the circumstances. “There is a problem. Someone seems to have snapped my lock shut.”

She couldn’t read his expression, but in her heart she just knew he was laughing at her. “That’s why they make locks. To lock.” And then he allowed a sigh to escape, as if this was all incredibly boring to him. “Use the combination.”

“If I knew the combination, Doctor, that would be an excellent suggestion.”

This time she saw his eyes slowly pass over her body. He seemed neither impressed nor disappointed. There appeared to be no reaction at all. She couldn’t help wondering if he had spent too much time viewing people only as patients. At another time, she might have begun to speculate about his personal life, but right now, only hers, and how she was going to live this down, concerned her.

Goose bumps formed along her arms and legs in response to the lowered temperature. “Do you have any other suggestions?” she asked, her mouth growing annoyingly dry.

“Yes.” He said the single word so slowly, it seemed to drip out of his mouth.

A beat passed. Nothing followed.

“Well?” she pressed, doing her best not to sound frantic. What if someone came in and saw her like this? Then what?

“Sorry.” Ivan shook his head. “Nothing I can readily repeat out loud without offending the sisterhood.”

Then he was reacting to her near nude state. She didn’t know whether to be flattered for having gotten to the almighty Ivan or offended. Added to that, she hadn’t a clue what he was referring to.

“The what?”

“Sisterhood,” he repeated, then waved his hand as if to move the word aside. “Or whatever organization you and other females belong to that goes around bringing the male of the species up on inflated charges of harassment.”

Frustrated, Bailey turned her back on him and gave the lock another tug, a harder one this time. It had the same results as the first one did. Nothing. The lock hung there, mocking her. Just like Munro.

“Really should have committed the combination to memory,” he told her. He leaned forward just a touch, but not enough to actually come close to her. “Gnawing on it won’t help, either.”

She turned around, her anger eradicating her embarrassment. “Thank you.”

He nodded, as if the exchange was of an ordinary nature. “I assume you don’t intend to spend the rest of your days at Blair Memorial like that.” For emphasis, Ivan’s eyes slid down and then up along her torso.

She struggled hard not to shiver, even if she told herself his gaze was clinical. “No, I don’t.”

Raising her chin again, Bailey strode past him back to the laundry receptacle to retrieve the shirt and pants. She couldn’t just continue standing here, talking to him while wearing only the amount of material used to produce a minor bikini.

About to take out the two items, the sound of Munro’s voice stopped her.

“I wouldn’t recommend that.” She didn’t turn around, but she did stop and wait for him to continue. “Germs, you know. Those scrubs were in the O.R.”

He had a point, but so did she and as far as she was concerned hers trumped his. “Well, I don’t really have a choice now, do I?”

In response, she heard him laugh. Tired of being his source of amusement, the high she’d sustained watching him operate completely dissipated, Bailey swung around to face him. Superior or not, she was ready to give him a piece of her mind, the consequences be damned. Someone needed to take this man down a peg and it might as well be her last act at Blair.

But whatever words she attempted to hunt up died in her throat as she saw what the neurosurgeon held in his hands. Neatly folded scrubs, both top and bottoms. “You could put these on.” He raised one eyebrow quizzically. “Size small, right?”

“Right,” she murmured, surprised. The scrubs had not been there before. And the ones she’d obtained earlier for herself had come from the supply area. “Where did you get those?”

“Magic,” he informed her dryly. And then he nodded toward the closet behind him. “Scrubs for visiting surgeons are kept in there.”

Something else she hadn’t known. The list of things she needed to familiarize herself with was growing astronomically. And then she replayed his words in her head. “I’m not visiting.”

“Yes,” Ivan acknowledged with more than a tinge of sorrow, “I know.” He looked down at the scrubs. “If you don’t want these—” He raised the uniform blues up over his head and completely out of her reach.

“No!” she cried. Not knowing what the man was capable of, she made a lunge for the scrubs to retrieve them. Her body brushed up against his as she reached up as far as she could.

She felt the same way she had in physics class when she’d accidentally touched a live wire. Electrical current zapped through her body.

If her momentary panic amused him, he didn’t show it. Neither did he seem affected by the fleeting contact of her barely covered anatomy against his.

Instead, Ivan lowered his arm and very soberly presented the fresh scrubs to her. She snatched them up as if she didn’t trust him to surrender the clothes to her.

“I’m making afternoon rounds in five minutes,” he informed her as he turned on his heel. With that, he walked out of the locker room.

Bailey all but hopped into the blue scrubs while making her way to the door, grateful to finally put something on her body. Punching her arms through the sleeves, she caught up to him on the other side of the door.

“What about my locker?” she asked. She still had a problem.

His tone was completely disinterested. “What about it?”

She was beginning to understand why some residents used his picture as a dartboard. “I still need to open it.”

Passing the nurses’ station, he picked up a file without breaking stride. “Not now you don’t.”

“No,” she agreed. Bailey glanced down and saw that one of her laces was untied. She knew better than to stop to tie it. That was going to have to wait for a lull, too. “But later—”

“Is later,” he told her with finality, and it was obvious that as far as he was concerned, “later” had no place in the present. “It’ll take care of itself.”

Not without help, Bailey thought. She made a mental note to find either a janitor or a pair of bull cutters, preferably the former wielding the latter. She didn’t care about going home dressed in scrubs, even though it was chilly outside, but her locker, the locker she’d purposely left with an open combination lock hanging from it, also contained her purse, her keys and all of her identification. She couldn’t drive her car or get into her house without them.

She supposed, Bailey thought, shoving a loose pin back into her hair, she could hook up with either Adam or Jennifer and they could drive her home. But even if she did, that still didn’t solve the problem of getting her things out of the sealed locker.

“You’re panting, DelMonico,” Ivan observed, making a left at the end of the corridor.

No, she wasn’t, but she knew that arguing seemed pointless. “You’ve got on your seven league boots again, Doctor.”

His glance was just short of belittling as he slanted it in her direction. “I guess you’ll just have to get a pair, DelMonico.”

She nodded as if he’d just made a perfect plausible suggestion. She had a hunch he got a certain amount of pleasure rattling people and she refused to accommodate him. “Just tell me where to shop,” she replied without missing a beat.

Bailey thought she heard Munro mutter something under his breath but decided that she might be better off not knowing exactly what that was.

Christians, one. Lions, zero, she thought with a suppressed smile.