by Kimberly Fox
“Alf? Like the alien guy?”
“Yes. Like the alien guy. He showed it to me proudly. God knows I could barely see it under all of his thick arm and shoulder hair.”
“You wanted me to hook you up with a doctor and I did,” I say, starting to panic.
“Yeah, but I was thinking George Clooney in ER, and the guy you set me up with was more like Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. He had a comb-over! Why would you set me up with a guy who has a comb-over?”
Looking back on it, I can see that it was a mistake, but at the time I just wanted my boss to have a distraction so that he would get off my back. Talk about a backfire. He’s even worse now than he was before.
“Can you just call him back?” I plead. “He’s making my life a living hell.”
“I did my part, sweetie,” she says. “I’m out. Plus, I’m already seeing someone.”
“You are?” How does she find these guys so fast? Anabelle seems to have a date every weekend. I’m lucky if I have one a year. “Where do you find these guys?”
“It’s not hard,” she says. “Just put down whatever boring medical textbook you’re reading, unbutton the top three buttons of your shirt, walk out onto the sidewalk, stick your tits in the air, and wait. It’s like fishing, really. Throw the bait out there and wait for the fish to nibble.”
“That’s so romantic,” I say with a roll of my eyes.
“It’s more romantic than watching Netflix every night by yourself. Gotta go. My salad is ready.”
“Enjoy your fries, I mean salad,” I say with a grin before hanging up. I walk out of the closet and find my resident waiting at the door of my office.
“Here’s some medicine for the doctor,” Ralph says as he hands me a foam cup of coffee.
It’s cold, weak, and tastes like someone used it as an ashtray—Cherry Valley Hospital’s finest brew. But I still drink it. I wouldn’t be able to get through my grueling twelve-hour shifts without it. Especially when those grueling shifts start at ten P.M. like the one tonight.
“Thanks, Ralph,” I say between sips. “Let’s get started. What do we have first?”
My resident-in-training pulls the clipboard out from under his arm and frowns as he looks it over. His long shaggy brown hair falls over his furrowed brow whenever he concentrates. I’d like to prescribe this kid a haircut.
I’m already moving down the hall as he struggles to keep up while still looking over the notes.
“Walter is still here,” he says as he narrowly avoids the garbage can. “The day shifters still haven’t diagnosed him. I suggest we take more blood and—”
“Who?” I ask, skidding to a stop.
“Walter,” he says, furrowing his brow as he looks at me in confusion. “The accountant. The big guy with the bushy mustache.”
“Oh,” I say with a quick shake of my head before I start walking again. “You mean Mr. Thatcher.”
“Sorry,” he mutters when he catches up to me. “I thought you knew his first name.”
“I don’t want to know anything but the patient’s last name and medical condition,” I say as we pass the elevators.
“How come?” Ralph asks. “Wouldn’t it be better if—”
“Look,” I say, interrupting him as I spin around. “Never get close with a patient. Never get personal. Never get attached. When you’re in this building, it should only be about medicine.”
He brushes the long hair out of his eyes, and I get a strong urge to grab the nearest scalpel and do some surgery on his bangs.
“But maybe you could help the patients more if you open up a little,” he says with the wide innocent eyes of a resident-in-training. He hasn’t been through what I’ve been through. He doesn’t know what I know. He doesn’t know how hard this place can be.
He doesn’t know the kind of devastation that can result from bringing your personal feelings onto the job. I know. And I’m never going to put myself in that kind of position again.
“Maybe if we get to know them we can use that information to help them better,” Ralph continues, sounding so childlike, so naive. He reminds me of me when I started. “Love and compassion can heal too. Isn’t love the best medicine?”
I step in close, locking my battle-hardened eyes on him. “Medicine is the best medicine.”
My pudgy sidekick takes a defeated breath and drops his eyes to the floor.
I rest a hand on his shoulder. He’s still young and thinks he knows it all, but after he loses a few, he’ll be singing a different tune.
“Just keep any emotions inside here,” I say tapping his chest, “until after your shift. Keep all that love for Lacey and the new pups.”
He looks up at me and nods.
“How’s that going?” I ask as we continue walking. The stray Labrador that Ralph’s roommate brought home had been pregnant, and she recently gave birth. On his living room carpet.
“How do you think it’s going?” he asks with a shake of his head. “I have nine puppies pissing, shitting, chewing, and drooling in my little apartment. Do you want one? They’re really cute.”
“Yeah,” I say with a laugh. “They sound adorable. But I’ll pass.”
I step into Mr. Thatcher’s room with Ralph on my heels. He’s lying in the hospital bed, gazing down at the picture frame in his hands. I try to keep my eyes off it, but I see that it’s a young pretty girl. Probably his daughter.
The room smells like fresh flowers from the arrangement beside him, mixed with the sterilizing smell of bleach.
“Hello, Mr. Thatcher,” I say as his heart monitor beeps steadily in the background.
“Good evening, Dr. Mendes,” he says, placing the picture frame on the nightstand beside him. I keep my eyes off it. I don’t want to know anything but his symptoms. His face breaks out into a wide smile when he sees Ralph behind me.
“Did you finish it?” Mr. Thatcher asks as Ralph walks past me and sits on his bed. “I’ve been dying to find out.” My resident grabs the patient’s hand in his and smiles.
Ralph shakes his head as I watch with confusion. “One chapter to go.”
“Promise me you’ll let me read it when you’re done,” Mr. Thatcher says.
“You’ll be the first one I give it to. I promise. Hopefully, you’ll be out of here by then and you can read it in your favorite chair.”
Walter smiles. “As long as I’m out before my daughter’s wedding, I’ll be happy.”
I force out a cough, and they both look up at me.
“I’m writing a Sci-Fi book,” Ralph says with a nervous grin. “Walter helped me with some ideas for the end.”
I resist the urge to shake my head as I grab the clipboard at the foot of the patient’s bed.
“Still having abdominal pains, Mr. Thatcher?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Has the severity of them increased? Pain-wise?”
“No. They’re just as bad as before.”
I tap my pen on the clipboard as I look it over. This guy’s case is a hard one to crack. Abdominal pains. Kidney damage. High blood pressure.
“Dr. Preston,” I say, nodding to Ralph. “Take some blood from Mr. Thatcher. I want to run some more tests.”
Ralph smiles at the patient as he gets up. “Maybe I’ll rename the villain after you,” he says with a laugh.
“Nah,” Mr. Thatcher says with a shake of his head. “I like Doctor Mendestra better.”
I follow Ralph out into the hall, grabbing his arm as he hurries away. “Doctor Mendestra?” I ask him with my eyebrows raised.
He smiles nervously. “She’s an evil alien from planet Turkot.”
“It sounds suspiciously close to my name,” I say, pulling him closer as I narrow my eyes on him. “Doctor Mendes?”
He cringes. “Coincidence?”
“Sounds like a Freudian slip to me,” I say, squeezing my grip on him.
I let him go and take a deep breath. “Ralph,” I say, softening my voice. “This is what I was talking about. You get too
close to the patients. What if he dies tonight? Or tomorrow?”
“Or what if knowing that his doctor cares keeps him alive for an extra night?” Ralph turns and hurries away to get the syringe before I can respond.
A small part of me envies his wide-eyed optimism, but a larger part of me wants to call him an idiot. He should keep his feelings to himself and let the medicine do its job.
My thigh buzzes and I pull out my phone. It’s a text from Anabelle with a picture of Alf. In a few years, guys who look like this are going to be your only prospects. Get ‘em while you’re still hot!
I roll my eyes as I slide my phone into my pocket, grab my now stone-cold coffee, and continue down the hall to finish my rounds. But Anabelle’s words keep lingering in my head. I do have to do something. I have to be proactive. I can’t stand here thinking that Mr. Right is just going to bump into me.
“Ow,” I shout as a stretcher slams into my ass, making me spill my cold coffee all over my shirt.
“Sorry,” one of the ambulance drivers says as he rushes past me. There’s a man lying on the stretcher groaning. Tim, the ambulance driver, looks back over his shoulder as he rushes down the hallway. “Coming, Dr. Mendes?”
“Yeah,” I say with a sigh as I squeeze the excess coffee out of my shirt. “I’m just redesigning my outfit first.”
“Well, make it quick,” he says when he stops at the elevators. “We have a hot one here.”
My mouth drops when I hurry over and take a closer look at him.
“You got that right,” I mumble under my breath. He’s definitely a hot one.
Gorgeous, in fact. Even with the black eye and dried blood on his face, he’s gorgeous. His dark hair is matted with blood and dirt, but strangely it suits him.
My eyes wander down his shirtless body, looking for injuries, but all I can see is a massive chest, shredded abs, sculpted tattooed arms, and colorful motocross pants.
He’s perfect. I have to save him. I have an obligation to the human race to save this guy. He’s too beautiful to have his DNA eliminated from the species. He has to reproduce.
For the sake of all humanity.
“What happened to him?” I ask Tim as the elevator bings open and we push him inside.
“Dirt bike injury,” he says as I press my stethoscope to his hard chest. “He was competing in the Motocross Championship and wasn’t wearing his seatbelt.”
I stare at the patient’s face as I listen to his heart. The rate is fast. Just like mine.
“We’ll get you fixed up, Mr. Right,” I whisper to him only loud enough for him to hear.
He opens his green eyes a crack, and looks up at me through the glossiness. His mouth curls up into a weak smile.
The moment is over too soon. The elevator door bings open, and we rush him out to the ER.
It’s time to get to work.
Chapter 3
Madison
I’m on hour six of my twelve-hour shift when one of the nurses named Shondra peeks her head into the examination room where I’m putting a cast on a drunken girl’s broken arm. The girl was dancing on the bar in a club when she slipped on some spilled vodka and then did a spill of her own, right onto the floor, breaking her arm in the process.
It was a closed fracture, so she’ll be fine, although she’ll be waking up with more than a hangover tomorrow.
“I can finish that up for you,” Shondra says as the girl snores on the examination table. “You’re needed in room 312. Mr. Winters is awake.”
“Who?” I ask as I stand up, letting Shondra take my place.
“Mr. Motorcycle,” she says with a wicked grin. “He can rev my engine any day.”
I turn away from her to hide my blushing cheeks. I’ve been thinking about him for the past five hours, obsessively wondering if he was going to wake up during my shift.
He was banged up pretty badly. He had some serious spinal cord compression, which is going to limit his mobility for a while, but he’s really lucky he didn’t break his back. I gave him an epidural steroid injection to relieve some of the swelling and the worst of the pain, but it’s too early to tell if he’s going to need surgery or not.
On top of that, he had a few gashes that needed stitches, a fractured rib, and a slight concussion.
But it’s not his injuries that are on my mind. I can’t stop thinking of how his hard, muscular body felt under my trembling fingertips.
Stay professional, Madison. Save it for Mr. Sparkles.
I take a deep breath and leave the room as a warm shiver flows through me. I better stop and get some batteries for Mr. Sparkles on the way home. I think I’m going to need some backups.
My heart is pounding nervously when I arrive at his room. One of the nurses, Takara, is in there with him. She’s giggling like a teenage girl after her first kiss. So unprofessional…
I take a deep breath, fix my hair, and walk inside. Mr. Winters’ eyes lock on me, and I involuntarily freeze on the spot.
His green eyes take me by surprise. They’re as bright as a patch of grass in the desert, as striking as a jade gemstone atop a pile of dull rocks. Green has never been so sexy. Did you know that green could be sexy?
His sexy lips curl up into a smile, and it awakens something dormant inside of me—something that wants to kick Takara out of the room and do things that will get my medical license revoked. He’s lying on the reclined bed with his naked chest and shredded abs in full glorious view. His two tattooed arms are raised in slings to prevent his back from moving while the swelling in his spine goes down. Somehow, he’s impossibly managing to make slings look sexy.
I don’t know who helped him out of his gown and bunched it up around his waist, but they’re about to get a raise—even if it has to come out of my own paycheck.
“I’ll be back in a bit, Shane,” Takara says as she leaves with a wide grin on her face. I don’t know why, but I have a sudden urge to hit her over the head with my clipboard to put her in the coma ward.
It’s just the two of us in the room now. I haven’t been this nervous around a patient since my first day.
I can’t seem to make my feet work, so I look down at the clipboard in my hands, seeing nothing but blurred words and cartoon hearts floating around me. I narrow my eyes, pretending like I’m reading, but all I’m doing is threatening the blood rushing to my cheeks to try and convince it to head the other way.
Stop turning my cheeks red or I’ll head straight to the blood donor clinic where they’ll put you in a bag and freeze you. Would you like that, blood?
Shockingly, my blood doesn’t listen.
Plan B. Time for a pep talk.
All right, Madison. You’re a professional. Start acting like it. This man is hurt and needs a qualified doctor, not a blushing schoolgirl who wants to run her hands all over those big arms and sexy chest and… I wonder what those abs feel like… God, that chest is pure perfection. I wonder if that bitch Takara gets to give him a sponge bath. Would it be against the rules for a doctor to give a patient a sponge bath? I’ll check the manual once I finish my—
“Hello?” he says, waving his hand at me, ripping me out of my perverted trance.
“Yes,” I say with a cough. “Hello. I’m Dr. Mendes. I’m going to be your doctor.”
“Lucky me,” he answers with a grin.
“No,” I say as I narrow my eyes on him. “Not lucky you. You’re in bad shape with some serious injuries. You almost died.”
He shrugs his round shoulders. “It’s not the first time.”
“Well, it was almost the last.”
He just smiles. His complete lack of giving any shits that he almost died gets to me. Why is he not terrified right now?
“Are you single?” he asks.
Now he’s really getting to me.
“You can’t feel your legs, and the first question you ask your doctor is if she’s single?”
“I want to get the important stuff out of the way first,” he says with a grin.
&nbs
p; I just glare at him as my chest tightens.
“The nurse told me it was only temporary,” he says when it’s clear that I’m not going to answer.
“The nurse told you,” I repeat under my breath. The annoyance is clear in my voice. “Was she single?”
“I don’t know,” he says with a sexy smile. “She’s not my type.”
I let out an audible gulp. I’m his type?
“So, is that a yes or a no?” he asks. He glances at my ringless wedding ring finger and smiles.
I can’t believe the nerve of this guy. He has temporary paralysis, a fractured rib, a mild concussion, his arms are in slings, and the only information he’s asking is about my personal life.
“You must have hit your head harder than I thought,” I say as I approach his bed.
“No,” he says with a laugh. “I’m always like this.”
“Well,” I say as I sit on the side of his bed with a straight face. “Good to know that your concussion didn’t hamper your ability to sexually harass women.”
He flashes his beautiful white teeth. “We finally agree on something.”
“Mr. Winters…”
“Shane,” he says, interrupting me.
“Mr. Winters,” I repeat with a little more force in my voice. “You almost broke your back. This is serious. We took an MRI of your spine, and the nerves around your vertebrae showed some significant swelling. We gave you a steroid injection while you were asleep, and you’ll be on anti-inflammatory medication until the swelling goes down. You’re going to be immobile for a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“A few days,” I say. “It depends. You’ll gradually start getting the sensation back in your legs, but until then you won’t be able to walk.”
“So, I’ll be your guest for a few days?”
“You’ll be my patient,” I correct.
“What about these?” he asks, looking at the slings wrapped around his arms.
“Those will be off in a few hours,” I say. “We want to keep your back stabilized while the steroids do their job. Do you have any more questions?”
“When you go home,” he says, staring at me with his mischievous green eyes, “is there going to be a man in your—”