Tracy smiled a little nostalgically. Ben could see he’d hit a nerve.
“Love, you say?” he drawled. Suddenly they were not doctor to doctor, boss to subordinate—they were a dad and his son.
“I have to admit I’m relieved this didn’t happen sooner.” He ran his hands through his hair and paced to the windows overlooking the street. “She’s all I think about when I’m not working. And even when I am working she pops into my head all the damn time. I’d have never made it through school if she hadn’t quit and disappeared.”
Because he was sure, from the moment she’d stepped out of Jude and Petra’s house before their date the night before, that she was it for him. Always had been, always would be. For that matter, if he’d been paying closer attention, he might have realized it the second he recognized it was her he’d been admiring at the key party that first night.
“Maybe there was more than one reason that happened,” Dad said.
Ben gave him a look over his shoulder.
He grinned. “You don’t believe in fate, so don’t give me that serendipity crap.”
“I do believe you were meant to become the best doctor you could, and you wouldn’t have been able to do it if she’s that big of a distraction.”
He had a point. When Ben thought she’d just taken off without giving him a second thought, he’d been motivated him to put that fleeting notion of having a real girlfriend out of his mind. If he’d had any idea she was as interested as he now knew she was, his focus would have been divided. And probably not evenly.
“I have to admit you make a pretty good case regarding policy.” His dad sat on the front corner of his desk. “But you’re a couple of hours too late. She came in to see me earlier and took herself out of the running.”
Ben went still. He was sure he hadn’t heard right. “Rachel was here today?”
“She was in the parking lot when I got here this morning, wondering if I had a minute to talk to her. She withdrew her application.”
“She can’t quit before she has the job.” He half sat, half leaned against the window sill. “She wants it so much, and she’d be great.”
“I agree with you.”
Ben looked toward the door without really seeing it, his mind racing.
He looked back. “There has to be something we can do.”
* * * * *
After the talk with his dad, Ben spent some time working in the center, then accepted an invitation from Dr. Li to have dinner with him and his wife at their house. Dinner at the Li residence was always an elaborate seven-course affair, in which they both cooked and served, inviting their guests to help out in the kitchen if they wanted. Not that Ben could cook anything more than the basics necessary for survival, but he always had fun learning this tip or that technique from them when they had him over.
He’d had a terrific time as usual with the Lis, but he’d left their house feeling restless and not at all ready to go home. Torn between wanting to see Rachel and respecting the plans she’d told him she had with Petra and Bree, Ben was relieved when Jude, also bored and on his own for the night, called and asked if he wanted to go out for a drink.
No sooner had Ben told him about what was going on with Rachel, the job at the wellness center and what she’d done by pulling herself out of the running than Jude suggested they crash girls’ night.
Blondie was blaring on the sound system as Ben and Jude entered the roller-skating rink. Colored lights were flashing and the disco ball above the skating floor was throwing bright spots of light over everything and everyone.
Jude had explained the skating rink held late hours on certain days for adults only. After the suburban junior high kids went home at ten, the doors opened to people twenty-one and older until four in the morning.
The crowd was mostly made up of women, but there seemed to be a fair number of couples as well. Ben spotted two small groups of men not wearing skates sitting at tables, drinking beer and laughing among themselves. Everyone else was out on the floor, looking as though they were having a great time.
He spotted Rachel right away as he and Jude made their way closer to the rink. She was easily the tallest woman on the floor, and those sexy curls of hers made her that much easier to identify at a distance. She was skating with Bree, who was disco dancing as if she’d stepped straight out of the late seventies, occasionally hip bumping Rachel as best she could with their considerable height difference.
The music changed to Joan Jett’s cover of Crimson and Clover as he and Jude got closer. A younger guy in a striped referee’s shirt swooped over to Bree as the colored lights dimmed, leaving just the flashing of the disco ball. She laughed and gave Rachel a look before she agreed to skate with him.
Ben leaned on the railing surrounding the rink, content to watch her having fun while he waited for her to spot him on her own. As they watched, Petra swung around backward in front of Rachel and they started to skate together.
“Now that’s a sight,” Ben said to Jude.
“Just wait until they see us.” Jude slid him a knowing look. “It’ll get better.”
Ben looked at him.
“They’ll put on a show for us,” Jude clarified.
“Hmm,” he hummed thoughtfully. “I think I’d like to see that.”
“Oh, you do,” Jude agreed.
Petra spotted them first. She gave them a wave and a naughty smirk. Rachel turned and met Ben’s gaze and he was caught off guard by the happy smile that lit up her face. It was so open, so full of what appeared to be genuine joy to see him.
Jude gave him a nudge. “See?”
Sure enough, Petra said something to Rachel that made her grin. They shifted closer—Rachel’s hands resting lightly on Petra’s waist, Petra’s hands framing Rachel’s face—and then they went down. Another couple went down on top of them. Yet another tripped and fell near them and someone cried out in pain.
He and Jude bolted across the floor at the same time, dodging skaters and ignoring the shouts from those who hadn’t seen the accident. At first he couldn’t tell who was who in the tangle of bodies as they approached. From somewhere nearby he heard a whistle blow in two short bursts and the music cut out and the lights came up.
He and Jude helped the two people who’d fallen on top of their girlfriends off the floor and made sure they were all right. Both seemed more concerned with Rachel and Petra who were still lying on the floor, Rachel lying eerily still over Petra.
Ben slipped his hands under Rachel’s arms and lifted her off Petra. He got her to her feet, but she looked dazed and there was something wrong with her right arm. The prominent bone in her wrist was shoved too far down her hand and the ulna itself was broken to the point it looked as though it was close to puncturing her skin.
“It’s okay, baby, I’ve got you,” he assured her quietly. He held her tight but cradled her wounded arm gently, keeping her steady when she slipped on her wheels.
She looked down at it as he helped her up the short step to the carpeted area, horror registering on her face.
“It’s broken, Ben,” she said, her voice quiet and frightened as she let him lead her toward a table. “My arm is broken.”
“I know.” He spoke to her calmly and settled her into a chair. “We need to get you out of your skates so we can go to the hospital.”
“Is Pete all right?” she asked, craning her neck to get a look.
Petra was sitting up. She was rubbing the back of her head with one hand, laughing as Jude unlaced her roller skates.
“I think she’s going to be all right,” he said to Rachel, who’d gone pale and was starting to tremble. An odd sort of calm came over him. He had to show her how to gently cradle her right arm with her left so he could have his hands free. He tucked the hair that had fallen in her eyes behind her ear and leaned into her line of sight.
“It’s starting to hurt,” she whispered, wincing as tears sprang to her eyes.
“I know, baby,” He raised up on his knees
and pressing his lips to her forehead.
He looked around for Bree. She was already rolling toward them at an alarmingly high speed, her arms full of their shoes and purses.
“She says she’s all right. I’m going to take her to the ER anyway, just in case,” Jude said as he and Petra reached the table.
“We’re coming too. Rachel’s arm is broken.” Ben finished unlacing Rachel’s skates and stole a glance, quickly checking her for signs of shock.
“I’m the DD tonight,” Bree said, handing him Rachel’s shoes. “Who drove?”
Ben could hear in her voice she’d slipped into ER nurse mode, coolly taking control.
“I did,” Jude said as he took Petra’s shoes and motioned for her to sit.
“You take Petra, I’ll drive Ben and Rachel so he can sit with her.”
Ben looked up at Rachel, who was with it enough to share a smile with him.
“All right, boss,” she said to Bree in a shaky voice.
Northwestern University Hospital was surprisingly slow for a Friday night. The admissions clerk took one look at Rachel’s obviously broken arm and called for someone to take her back right away.
He held her free hand while the doctors worked on her, feeling unexpectedly nervous and sick when she cried out through them resetting her broken bones. How many times had he done the same thing during medical school? Never once had the sights or sounds bothered him, yet he found himself cringing because it was her.
He kissed the fingers of her free hand and whispered encouraging words to her when she broke down and cried, the gravity of what her broken arm meant setting in while the doctor wrapped her arm in a neon-pink cast.
She wasn’t going to be able to work for a long time and she knew it. She told him she’d taken a job with a high-end spa in the city after she’d talked to his dad, but she was going to have to back out of that one as well. He assured her she didn’t need to worry about it right away, stroking that wild, curly hair out of her face until the stronger pain meds kicked in and helped her fall asleep.
She was still sleeping when Jude and Petra found them hours later.
“How is she?” Petra asked as she slipped past the privacy curtain separating them from the prying eyes in the rest of the emergency room.
“She’s a brave soldier,” Ben said, getting out of the chair next to her bed to stretch his stiff back. “We’re just waiting for the attending to sign her discharge papers. Her nurse told us the second bad car accident of the night came in a few minutes ago, so we might be here a little while. How are you?”
“I’ve got a big bump and a nasty headache, but no concussion.” She touched the hard cast on Rachel’s arm. “Is Bree still here?”
“She left about an hour ago.” He held Rachel’s good hand when she stirred and mumbled something in her sleep.
“Do you want us to sit with her for a while? You could go home, get some sleep.” Petra offered. “We can take her home with us once she’s released.”
“I’ll wait. I’d like to take her home with me so I can keep an eye on her later. I can call a cab when they release her if the two of you want to get out of here.”
Petra gave him a long look before she leaned across the bed and kissed his cheek. “You’re a good guy, Ben Richards,” she said, and then she and Jude left.
He heard yet another emergency call go out over the hospital PA system, this one calling for all docs who were free throughout the hospital to come to the emergency room. Kicking off his shoes, he slowly and gently rolled Rachel onto her good side and tucked his rolled jacket under her arm to keep it elevated. Then he settled himself into the space behind her, took a deep breath of the scent of her hair and slept.
Chapter Eleven
Was there anything more erotic than a man’s hairy forearm?
Rachel lay there staring at Ben’s arm. He was sound asleep, curled up behind her with his arm under her neck, sandwiched between her shoulder and the pillow they were sharing, his long fingers hooked over the safety rail in front of her.
There was something about the way that soft, black hair lay across his skin, all the way down to where it became sparse and fine over his wrist, that made her stomach flutter deliciously.
And his hands—the definition of the tendons to his fingers, that sexy dip between his thumb and the heel of his hand practically begging for her tongue to touch him there. She loved his long, straight fingers and well-kept fingernails. The way those fingertips felt when they traveled over her skin…
She moved to touch him but a lightning bolt of pain reminded her why she was lying in a hospital bed in the first place. She gave the bright-pink cast a withering glare, laid her broken arm on the…what was that propped in front of her?
Slowly, she became aware there was someone else in the room. It felt as though it took her a long time to move her eyes. When she could, she found Ben’s mother, Dr. Lindsay Marks, standing near the foot of the bed, observing her. She spent a long, moment wondering what on earth his mother would be doing there before she remembered she was a doctor and probably had every right to be there.
“A new patient of mine was born this morning,” Dr. Marks said quietly, her smile kind. “I heard you were here so I thought I’d check in. How are you feeling?”
Rachel pried her dry lips open and said, “I think I’m pretty high on painkillers.”
Dr. Marks laughed softly and moved around the edge of the bed. She put the electronic tablet she was holding on the counter behind her.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said. “I just saw Dr. Ombrowski in the hall,” she said, meaning the emergency room doctor who’d reset Rachel’s arm. “It looks like he should be in to release you shortly.”
She pulled a chair close to the bed and sat elegantly on the edge of the vinyl seat.
“He used to talk to me about you,” she said, catching Rachel off guard. “When you and I met at the center in Homewood last month, your name struck me as familiar. I remembered why later. He worried about the way you quit school.”
Rachel looked behind her to make sure Ben wasn’t awake.
“He sleeps like the dead,” Dr. Marks assured her.
Rachel didn’t mention she already knew how soundly he slept once he was out.
“You know, he tutored several students over the years, but you were the only one he talked about. He’d come home to do his laundry and go on about Rachel. Always Rachel. He got frustrated for you when you struggled, wishing he could help you understand your classes better. He’d tell me all the quirky things the two of you would talk about, and I think he admired the way you could eat as much pizza as he could.”
She groaned and turned her face into the pillow. “Great.”
“And when you left he made himself sick trying to find out if you were all right.”
Rachel looked at her for a long time, the painkillers putting a pleasantly numb haze over what would have otherwise been an awkward, embarrassing moment.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I think you should know.” Dr. Marks gave her a small, knowing smile. “And because I’ve never seen him like this before.” She stood and put the chair back in its place. “My husband’s birthday is next week. I’d love it if you came to dinner and celebrated with us.”
Rachel felt all kinds of giddy bubbling up inside her. “Thank you. I’d like that.”
“I’ll see if I can get Dr. Ombrowski to move a little faster.” She gave Rachel a wink, picked up her tablet and left the room as silently as she’d come in.
Rachel rolled onto her back slowly so she wouldn’t wake Ben, but he was already awake. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Enough to know my mother just spilled my deepest secret to my girlfriend.”
She flushed hot and had to stifle a ridiculous giggle. He’d called her his girlfriend.
Good Lord, she was really high.
He used his free hand to tuck his end of the pillow, raising his head.
>
“I had an interesting conversation with my dad this afternoon. Or rather, yesterday afternoon.” He smoothed an unruly curl off her forehead. “You backed out of the job.”
She wrapped the fingers of her good hand around his wrist and focused on the top button of the shirt he was wearing. “I did,” she said, unable to meet his steady gaze.
He tucked a finger under her chin and pressed until she looked at him. “Why?”
She took a long moment, steeling herself before she answered.
“I know it’s probably silly, but I can’t go back to being just friends, Ben.” That her voice was strong, clear and confident surprised her. “Having to be platonic coworkers after spending so much time together the past few weeks is out of the question. Even if you got up out of this bed right now, told me you never wanted to see me again and walked out of my life for good, it wouldn’t change my mind. I can’t stop seeing you because of a job’s rules.”
There was a long moment when he said nothing, where he simply looked at her, his expression unreadable. “You were at the top of a very short list of people they wanted for Homewood. The third interview they’d scheduled was really just a formality. I know how much you wanted this job, Rachel.”
“It doesn’t matter.” And it didn’t. She meant every word of what she’d just said.
Her heart was racing wildly in her chest. She could hear the hustle and bustle of the emergency room beyond the curtain and wished she could make it vanish. She traced his eyebrow, his cheekbone, the full lines of his mouth, suddenly lost in how much she was in love with him.
“No job is worth losing you again,” she whispered, her throat tight with emotion.
“Funny thing about that,” he said, catching her hand and pressing a kiss to her fingertips. “I’m pretty sure you could have had me all along.”
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