Flirting with the Society Doctor / When One Night Isn't Enough (21 page)

Jared took a deep breath, channeling calm, understanding it was easier to blame the doctor, knowing that pointing out the obvious—his patient had been at least one hundred and fifty pounds overweight, smoked two packs of cigarettes per day and led a sedentary lifestyle—wouldn’t
negate the fact that a forty-seven-year-old husband and father was dead.

And, despite his best efforts, Jared had been unable to resuscitate him.

“Sometimes,” Jared said, looking down into watery brown eyes, working hard to keep his voice calm so his own anger and frustration didn’t show, “no matter how hard we try, things don’t turn out the way we want them to.” Put those words to a nifty jingle, and they could be the theme song to Jared’s life. “I did everything within my power to save your dad.”

As if someone had stuck him with a pin, the tough teen deflated against him. “I don’t want him to be dead. What am I going to do without him?”

Jared grabbed the boy in a tight hug, holding him upright, which took a good amount of strength. “I’ve been where you are,” Jared said, agonizing over what the kid would go through in the next few days, weeks and months. “You’re going to get through this.” But it wouldn’t be easy, and he’d never forget this day.

“He yelled at me to turn off my music,” the boy said in between sobs. “I didn’t listen. If only I had, maybe I would have heard him call for me. Maybe he’d be alive right now.”

Jared remembered the “if only” scenarios that had run through his head when, at the same age, he’d been alone to deal with his own father’s heart attack. If only his mom hadn’t gone to the store to buy antacids, leaving him in charge of his sick father. If only he hadn’t listened when his dad had told him not to dial 911, the delay the reason the ambulance had arrived too late to save him. If only he’d taken the CPR elective offered the first quarter of his sophomore year of high school. If only he’d run next door to see if Mrs. Alvarez, a nurse, was home, instead of
staying by his dad’s side, holding his hand, watching him take his last breath.

“Your dad was not a healthy man,” Jared said, patting the boy’s back. “He suffered a massive heart attack. There’s nothing you or I or anyone could have done to save him.”

“What do I do now?” the boy asked in a small voice.

Jared placed both hands on the kid’s shoulders and took a step back so he could look him in the eye. “You go back into the E.R. You pick up your little sister and reassure her you’re still here, and you’ll look after her just as well as your dad would have. You kiss your mom on the cheek and tell her you love her, and you’re there for her, and you’ll do whatever you can to help her.” Jared shook the kid to make sure he had his full attention. “Don’t just say the words. Mean them. Live them. And no matter what happens, do not let your mother push you away.” If only Jared hadn’t, maybe things wouldn’t have fallen apart.

Maybe he’d have been able to honor his father’s final plea:
“Take care of your mother.”

“There you are.” Ali walked over to them. He hadn’t heard the electronic doors open. How long had she been standing there? How much had she heard? “Are you Jimmy?” she asked the boy, who nodded. “Your mother’s looking for you.”

Jimmy turned away from Ali, inhaled a shaky breath and wiped his eyes.

“I’m so sorry about your dad,” Ali said, placing a caring hand on Jimmy’s shoulder.

“Me, too,” he replied, and, with a composed look that earned Jared’s respect he took a deep breath, straightened his spine and walked into the E.R.

Jared turned back to the parking lot, needing a few minutes to regain his own composure, remembering the ride home from the hospital, his mother’s anger, her harsh
accusations and the years of being treated as if he didn’t exist that followed.

To quell the painful memories trying to escape the remote part of his brain where he’d locked them, Jared contemplated his favorite topic of recent weeks. Nurse Ali Forshay.

He remembered their first interaction, before he had known she was his friend’s girl, in the close confines of the clean utility room. He’d brushed against her, reaching for a roll of tape, and they’d both gone still, shared a stunned did-you-feel-what-I-just-felt look. More than a tingle, he’d been jolted by an awareness, a powerful attraction that’d had him on the verge of taking her into his arms and kissing her, a women whose name he hadn’t even known.

Soulmate? Maybe.

His type of woman? If he allowed himself to have a type, she’d be it.

Pretty. Smart. Funny.

A great nurse with an unparalleled bedside manner.

If he were free to shack up for a while, she’d be at the top of his I-want-her-in-my-bed list. But he wasn’t free, mentally or legally.

“You okay?” Ali asked, coming to stand beside him.

“Just peachy. How about you?”

“You were great with Jimmy. I’m sorry you lost your dad so young.”

He couldn’t look at her. “It’s why I became a physician, so no kid would have to deal with what I went through. I’m doing a great job of it, huh?”

“You’re not God.” She set her hand on his forearm, sending a flare of soothing warmth throughout his body. He craved her touch with a ferocity that excited him as much as it unnerved him.

“You coded Jimmy’s dad twelve minutes longer than
any other physician here would have,” she said. “You did your best.”

He tilted his head down and to his left, and their eyes met, held. Hers conveyed genuine concern, empathy. He’d seen it dozens if not hundreds of times over the months they had worked together, directed at her patients, never at him. Yet, instead of using the moment as an opportunity for a sincere conversation between them, he chose to ignore the unwanted, long-suppressed feelings starting to stir deep in his damaged soul for a chance to play, to forget.

“Careful, Kitten,” he said in an exaggerated whisper, taking care to make sure there was no one around to hear his term of endearment that delighted him as much as it aggravated her. “I might get the impression you’re starting to like me.” His mood lifted. “That as hard as you’re trying not to, you can’t help yourself.”

“Nah.” She looked down at her watch. “The hospital pays me to be kind and compassionate. Lucky for you I’m still on the clock.”

“Good.” He leaned in close to her ear. “Maybe we can go someplace private and you can give me a little more of your commm … passion.”

She pinched him.

Good for her. The girl had spunk. “Ouch.” He rubbed his upper arm. “Where’d the kindness go?”

She looked up at him, her light blue eyes narrowed.

“I’m on the verge of breaking down.” He wiped at his dry lashes. “I think I feel some tears coming.”

She turned and walked back toward the E.R. without giving him a second glance. And she looked just as fine from the back as she did from the front, her lavender scrub pants hugging her perfectly shaped rear, her long brown hair up in a loose knot and sensible little gold hoop earrings curving under her kissable earlobes.

“Don’t women like it when a man shows his emotions?” he called after her.

She stopped. “Lust is not an emotion, Dr. P.,” she answered over her shoulder.

“It sure is. Come over to my place after work and we’ll do a Google search. Whoever’s right gets to choose what we do next. You wanna know what I’ll pick?”

Ali hit the button beside the electronic doors.

As they started to open he called out, “Time’s running out, Ali.”

She hesitated before walking back into the E.R.

Jared waited a minute, trying to contain his smile. He knew she wouldn’t bite, but provoking her was so much fun. No one entertained him like Ali. For the first time in the two years he’d worked as an agency physician, traveling from hospital to hospital throughout New York State, Jared might actually miss someone when an assignment ended. A sure-fire sign it was past time for him to move on.

Relationships, loving someone, getting married, weakened people, made them dependent and vulnerable. His father’s death had crushed his mother’s spirit, left her brokenhearted, angry and unable to find joy. His wife’s deceit, desertion and the resulting legal problems that had him fighting to stay out of jail had almost done the same to him.

No. He preferred to go it alone. No attachments, no expectations, no one for him to disappoint and no one to disappoint him.

Ali took the patient chart her coworker held out to her. “I’m heading down for break,” the other nurse said. “I put a D&D in Exam Room One.”

A drunk and disorderly isolated in a private room at the
far end of the inverted T-shaped hallway. “Thanks,” Ali said with mock appreciation.

“His friends are helping him change into a gown.”

Super-de-duper. A bunch of rabble-rousers to egg him on. She glanced at her watch. Four-twenty-two in the morning on the night shift that would not end. Opening the folder, she reviewed the Reason for Visit: patient injured at strip club. Attacked by bouncer during lap dance. Pain in left eye, left cheek, jaw, abdomen and right ribs.

Ali listened outside the door before knocking. All was quiet until a male voice called out, “Come in.”

“My name is Allison,” she said as she pushed the wedge under the door to keep it open. “I’ll be your nurse.” Before entering, she evaluated the room’s four occupants—three visitors with their dress pants and button-down shirts disheveled, two of whom were slumped in chairs, one leaning with his back to the wall. They looked tired. Sedate.

Good. She placed the patient chart on the counter by the sink and walked toward the dark-haired man sitting with his bare legs hanging over the side of the stretcher, his head hanging low, both arms braced at his hips, not quite holding him steady. “Can you tell me how much you’ve had to drink tonight?”

She placed her hand on his wrist to take his pulse and began her assessment. AOB—alcohol on breath.

He looked up. “Enough to make you the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Gee, thanks.” Left eye swollen, partially closed, mild bruising, dried blood in the outer corner. Left cheek swollen and red. Dried blood noted to the left nostril.

He blinked as if trying to clear his vision. “Ali?” He lowered his eyes to her name badge. “Well, hot damn.” He turned to his friends, swayed and latched on to the bedrail
for support. “Looks like my chances of getting lucky are on the rise, my friends.”

Hell. A guy she knew from high school. His face battered, she hadn’t recognized him. “Your pulse is fine.” She snapped the plastic covering over the thermometer probe. “Hold this under your tongue.”

“There are other things I’d rather do with my tongue.” He stuck said body part out and flicked it rapidly from side to side. His friends snickered.

“And as soon as you leave the E.R., you can do them all,” Ali replied. “But right now I need you to lift it and hold this thermometer under it.”

He smiled and slid the probe between his closed lips. Slowly.

Ali took a moment to return to the chart to document his pulse rate and learn his name. Robert Braylor. Oh, no.

Bobby “B.B.” Braylor.

A beep sounded. Bobby’s sojourn into silence ended. “Ali here is my favorite backseat cowgirl,” he said. “She likes a hard ride. Isn’t that right, Cream Cheese?”

Cream Cheese.
Bobby’s high school nickname for her. Because her thighs were so easily spreadable. As a stupid teenage girl she’d found it amusing. As an adult she recognized it for what it was, a shameful and humiliating moniker for a girl so desperate for affection and love she’d tried to find them in the arms of boys who’d doled them out in ten-minute increments. Usually while half dressed, in the backseat of a car, in the woods, or, if she was lucky, in a bed when no grown-ups were around. Good for sex and nothing more.

Ali considered walking out of the room, letting someone else deal with Bobby. But no. She was a trained professional, skilled at handling every type of patient. So she ignored his rude comments and proceeded with her evaluation. The
sooner she finished the quicker she could leave, without shirking her duties.

Removing the blood-pressure cuff from the metal basket on the back wall, she fastened it to Bobby’s upper arm. “After I take your blood pressure I’ll get Dr. Padget. He’ll probably want some X-rays.”

Ali tightened the cuff around Bobby’s arm, ignoring a twinge of dread at the thought of Bobby meeting Jared, the two of them discussing her, Bobby reinforcing Jared’s opinion of her. Instead she listened through her stethoscope, focusing on the beats while she watched the mercury in the sphygmomanometer drop. One eighteen over seventy-four. Ali removed the cuff and placed it back in the basket.

In the few seconds it took to reach over the head of the bed, Bobby stood, grabbed her by the waist and ground himself against her butt. “I’ve got another pressure that needs tending before you go.”

Ali swung her upper body around. They were alone—the visitors had left, closing the door to the room behind them. “Stop it, Bobby.”

“Come on, Ali.” He ran a hand up her belly to her chest and squeezed her breast. Hard. “For old times’ sake.”

“No.” She tried to pull away, did not want this. She was a different person now, didn’t sleep around anymore.

He turned her to face him, pushed her back into the wall, forced his body against hers, making it difficult to expand her chest to take a breath. He jammed his erection between her legs. She tried to move. Couldn’t. Alcohol had not affected his strength one bit. When had he gotten so tall? Aggravation turned to fear.

“I know I was one of your favorites,” he said.

Because ten years ago he’d had a car, a fake ID and a never-ending supply of money for beer and cigarettes. For
a wayward fifteen-year-old girl looking to escape her life, he had been the perfect date.

“I need you so bad,” he said, moving one of his hands to the back of her head, crushing her mouth to his so hard she tasted blood. His other hand fumbled with the drawstring of her scrub pants.

“Get your hands off of me,” Ali yelled. She tried to twist away, to lift her knee. Neither worked. So she bit his lip. When he jerked back his head she screamed, “Help! Dr. P. Anyone. Help!” She prayed someone would hear her.