by Annie O'Neil
He gave her a grumpy glare and flopped down onto the snow beside her, where they lay in silence for a few moments. He’d thought he’d lost her just now. Lost the love of his life.
Okay, firebrand...cool your jets. You’ve both had a shock.
He shot a sidelong glance at Katie and saw her all wide-eyed and... Seriously? Was she grinning? That grin near enough sucker punched the rest of the breath out of his chest and he only just managed to reel in the angry words.
His emotions were running so wild it was impossible to tell if he should just whip out those stupid divorce papers and give her his signature right now. Then maybe they could both get on with their lives.
He swiped at the snowflakes clustering on his lashes. There was no way he could move on. Not like this. Not yet. And if Katie didn’t give a monkey’s about him she wouldn’t be flinging herself off the sides of buildings on Christmas Eve. So...it was a silver-linings moment. A weird one. But a moment to count himself lucky. Blessed.
It didn’t stop him from needing to expunge a bit of “grumpy,” though.
Eyes rigidly glued to the heavens, he leveled his voice before starting. “Well, isn’t this cozy?”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Katie grumbled.
“This a new Idaho thing? Hurling yourself off the side of buildings without an audience?”
“Something like that.”
“Any reason in particular, or did whimsy just overtake you?”
“Yeah,” she bit back drily. “That’s how I roll. Got it in one, Josh. Crazy Katie West, hitting the fast lane again!”
“West?” He tried not to sound hopeful.
“Whoever.”
He let the words settle for a moment. It took one to know one, and she was calling him out. She always read life’s instruction book. He barely looked at the book’s cover before flinging it away and just going for it. Especially once he’d met his wife. With Katie by his side he had felt invincible.
“It was pretty reckless.” He couldn’t stop the words choking him as they came out. He sounded like his dad.
“Yeah? Well, the fact you couldn’t see the four-foot-deep drift of snow I was aiming for probably gave you the wrong idea. I calculated the risk in advance and determined there was little to no damage that could come to a girl trying her best to have a little alone time and make herself a blinking snow angel! And if you want to talk about reckless, you’d better be careful with Jorja. She’s got a reputation.”
Josh pushed himself up on his elbows and gave her his best what are you talking about? look. “Jorja?”
“Yes. Jorja.” Her voice went singsong as her hands started to make the beginnings of angel wings in the snow. “Josh and Jorja, sitting in a tree...”
“What are you talking about?”
“The mistletoe?” Her arm movements widened and her legs joined in, occasionally giving his own hand or leg a bash as she worked out her frustration on her snow angel.
“You think I made out with Jorja under some mistletoe?” His voice rang with pure incredulity.
“I saw you!” Katie all but snarled.
“No, you did not!” Josh retorted, dredging up his best five-year-old’s retorts. “You might’ve seen me standing there—but dodging mistletoe in that hospital of yours is as easy as avoiding patients!”
“Which—by the looks of things—you’re doing a pretty good job of. You were hired to work—not to gallop round like an errant King Arthur, swooping up damsels in distress at every hint of a berry! You’re a doctor, if my memory serves me correctly! Shouldn’t you be behaving responsibly for once? Doctoring?”
Katie’s words hit him with rapid-fire precision—her body was moving as quickly as she could speak. Josh had never seen her like this—in full flow. Her arms and legs swinging hither and yon. It was going to be one hell of a snow angel.
He couldn’t let her words go. Wouldn’t stay silent. He was hurting, too. Always had. Putting on a brave face had been the hardest thing he’d done, but he’d thought that was what she’d needed from him.
“You’re the one in charge, Katie. Shouldn’t you be down there, bossing people around? Making sure everything’s in order? Everything in its right place?”
Again and again he’d bitten back words like these in the depths of their grief. But this was Last Chance Saloon time. Despite the widening shock in her dark eyes, the words continued to fly, unchecked, past his lips.
“C’mon, Katie—you always seemed to know what was best for me. What would you advise? What would you suggest I do now?”
“What—what do you mean?” She pushed herself up to stand, distractedly brushing the snow off her clothes, discomfort taking the place of fury.
“You’re really good at laying down guidelines. Heaven knows how they’re getting on down there without little Miss Perfect dotting the ‘I’s and crossing the ‘T’s. How would you recommend I comfort myself after seeing my wife take a swan dive off of a building?”
He was all but shouting, rising to his full height before they both awkwardly swung themselves over onto the roof, then stood for who knew how long like two cowboys frozen in a standoff.
“I wasn’t—” Katie finally broke the silence then stopped herself, unable to resist glaring at him while she tried to regain her composure. Her common sense.
They’d had a variation on this fight a thousand times and she didn’t have it in her to have it again. Didn’t want to. She’d seen the fear in his eyes and she’d never meant to be cruel to him. Not then. Not now. But this very moment was proof positive that they couldn’t be together. Not when they couldn’t even bring a bit of good out of the other as they had once done. They needed to wrap this up. It was the only way to go forward.
“Why are you here, Josh? What exactly is it that you want?”
“You,” he answered. “I came here because I want you.”
The air between them grew electric. With unspoken words. Unspent desire.
His blue eyes told her a thousand things at once. Gone was the recrimination. The anger. In their place was the heady, crackling energy that had never failed to draw them together. Katie hadn’t realized how much she missed Josh on a physical level.
He didn’t wait for an invitation.
Two of his long-striding steps and he’d pulled her up and into his arms. All thought was gone. She was reduced to sensation only, such was the power of his touch. She felt his lips against hers, both urgent and tender. Her every pore ached with the immediacy of her body’s response to his touch. Winter jackets, woolen hats, leather gloves—none of the clunky gear of the season detracted from the pure, undiluted hunger Katie was experiencing.
Somewhere out there in the far reaches of her mind she knew she should be pushing him away. Knew she shouldn’t be returning hungry kiss after kiss, each one filled with two years’ worth of need. His hands cupped her jaw as the kisses grew deeper still. A low moan met one of his as they pressed tightly against the other. Everything felt familiar and new—as it always had—but their connection was... It felt unbreakable. Timeless.
Had she been wrong to send him away?
A vibration jostled at her waistline. Her pager.
Another one sounded. Josh’s.
She pulled back, wondering if her mouth looked as bruised with kisses as Josh’s did. Her fingers fumbled with the pager, her eyes still glued to her husband’s face.
He was part of her. She knew that now. Making him leave had been ridiculous. No amount of time or distance could sever the ties between them. But what they had wasn’t healthy. Wasn’t meant for long-term—especially if she were ever, one day, to hold a baby of her own in her arms.
“Multiple injuries. We’d better get down there.”
“What?” Katie shook her head clear of the “Josh and baby” fog.
“Read your pager. Ambulances are due in a few minutes.”
“Right. Yes.” She grabbed her phone from her pocket, relieved it hadn’t been lost to the snowdrift in her snow-angel frenzy, and punched out the numbers of the ER desk. “It’s Dr. McGann. Are the teams setting up the trauma units?”
Josh watched as Katie listened, responded, thumbed away the stray wisps of lipstick from around her mouth and tugged her clothes back into place. Moment by moment she became Dr. McGann again. This reinvention of herself who was all business. The Katie he’d first met. Not the one who came alive each time they touched or when their eyes lit upon the other. This Katie’s eyes were near enough devoid of life. His heart ached to put back each and every spark he knew lay dormant within them. Now wasn’t the time.
He shifted his hips. His body was trying to fight down the force of desire kissing Katie had elicited in him. She felt good. Ridiculously good in his arms. It made the idea of Paris even more insane if she weren’t by his side.
The peal of ambulance sirens became faintly audible.
If he’d had a spare half hour he would have made a snowman up here and then kung fu’d its head off. It would have been satisfying. For about a second.
He shook his head and took up the pace Katie was setting to the roof door. At least he knew work would keep him distracted for the next hour or five, depending upon how bad the traumas were. Snow and automobiles? The onset of darkness on Christmas Eve, when everyone’s expectations were just a little bit higher than any other time of year...? Yeah. It wasn’t going to be pretty. Not in the slightest.
CHAPTER FOUR
KATIE STOPPED IN her tracks. Now, this she certainly hadn’t expected. The first ambulance had pulled into the covered bay with a horse trailer attached to it, and the crew, along with the help of a teary girl dressed up as the Virgin Mary, were unloading a donkey.
“Can you help Eustace, please?” the girl wailed when her eyes lit on Katie.
Eustace the donkey?
“Ooh! A nativity donkey!” Jorja appeared alongside Katie, rubbing her hands together and blowing on them as her feet sashayed her from side to side.
“I think we’d better take a look at you first.” Katie’s eyes were on the girl who, through the folds of her costume, was clutching her side. “What’s your name, hon?”
“Maddie.”
“What a lovely name! Is there anyone you can leave in charge of the—Eustace—while we bring you inside?”
“No!” The girl’s eyes widened in fear, and as she and the donkey stepped into the bright light of the ambulance bay outside the ER, Katie could see she also had a cut on her forehead over what appeared to be a growing lump. “I am not leaving Eustace. He is my best friend and we have to get to Bethlehem tonight!”
“Maybe we can find a hitching post for Eustace.”
“But he’s bleeding!”
“What have we got here?”
Josh’s voice shot along Katie’s nervous system as she approached Maddie. Her fingers flew automatically to her lips, and she wished the remembered pulse of their kisses weren’t so vivid. She pushed down the thoughts and forced herself to focus. A Mary intent on getting to Bethlehem and a donkey with quite a serious cut to his haunch. Hospital protocol to adhere to...
A lightbulb went off. Josh’s passion for medicine had come about by fixing the local wildlife and working under the wing of the country vet on the ranch his father had managed. It wasn’t really playing by the rulebook, but... Were there different rules at Christmas? Or at least a bit of Yuletide flexibility? The emergency vets were on the other side of town, and using ambulances to tow livestock trailers had already been done—
“What do you say we pop you on a gurney, Maddie? Out here? That way Dr. McGann can take a look at you and I can stitch up... What did you say your pal’s name was?”
Mind reader.
“Eustace!” Maddie replied with a broad smile, then another wince.
“Eustace! I had an Uncle Eustace, and he was as stubborn as a mule. Did you say your Eustace was a mule or a donkey?”
“A donkey! Can’t you tell the difference?” Maddie giggled through her pain.
Katie couldn’t fight the smile his words brought. Josh’s way with patients—especially children—had always been second to none. He still had the magic touch. Something she’d worked hard at and never fully achieved. Especially after the baby.
The thought instantly sobered her. They had two or even three more ambulances due in from the same crash, so they needed to get down to business, bedside manner or no. Maddie’s parents, or whoever had been driving the truck pulling the trailer, must be incoming. Otherwise they surely would have shown up with Maddie and Eustace.
“Jorja, can you—?”
“Already on it!” the nurse called, halfway through the electric doors.
“Hey, fellas!” Josh was signaling to the ambulance drivers to move the livestock trailer outside of the bay so the other ambulances would have room to pull in when they arrived.
Katie’s two interns had appeared, with a gurney each, and Jorja had shouldered an emergency medical kit.
“Where would you like this one, Dr. McGann?” asked Michael. She smiled gratefully at the curly-haired intern and pointed over to a well-lit spot by the sliding doors. He was quiet—very committed and ultraserious. Birds of a feather. They got on well.
“Make sure those brakes are on.” She pointed at the gurney wheels. If they needed to whisk Maddie inside for any reason, they could—but out here they needed to be as safe as possible.
“Where are your parents, honey?”
“Be careful with his halter.” Maddie’s eyes were glued on Josh as he expertly knotted Eustace to a pillar, petting and soothing the donkey, who seemed also to have fallen under Josh’s spell. Dr. Doolittle strikes again!
Maddie threw tips at Josh for keeping Eustace happy, her fears about his welfare quelled by his verbal updates. Katie gave an internal sigh of relief. If Maddie had been in that livestock trailer when the crash happened, she was bound to have had a heck of a knock, and inspections for broken ribs were less than fun. If she was properly distracted that would help.
“We’re going to put a little numbing agent on Eustace’s rump, here. Is that all right, Maddie? Do we need your parents’ permission to go ahead and give him stitches?”
Katie shot him a look. She received a nod of response. One that said he knew what was going on and was playing the Distraction Whilst Gathering Information Game.
“Michael,” she whispered, “can you get me some scissors, please? We need to cut these off.” Katie needed to get the layers of robes off Maddie without moving her ribs. If she lifted the robes off over the girl’s head and there had been any acute breaks or internal injuries, the movement might make things worse. Broken ribs were one thing... Punctured lungs were a whole new kettle of fish.
“Dr. McGann.” Shannon, her other intern, tapped her on the shoulder, magically appearing with a pair of scissors in hand. “A second ambulance is five minutes out. They’ve got a male patient presenting with suspected fractured wrist and extensive leg injuries and another young adult male presenting with a broken nose and other minor injuries from an air bag.”
Katie nodded whilst deftly dividing the robes of Maddie’s costume. The girl’s face was growing paler, and the sooner she could get her lying down for an examination the better. “Want to give me a hand here, Shannon?”
“Sure, but don’t you want me to do the incoming—?”
Shannon was always keen to be first on scene for whatever “A-list” injuries came through the emergency room doors, but Katie had been very careful to divvy them out between her gore-hungry intern and Michael, whose “ladies first” attitude Katie hadn’t quite figured out. Nervous or just genuinely polite?
Ton
ight wasn’t about politics, though. It was about priority.
“If you could help me get Maddie out of these robes and then make sure there are two triage areas prepped, nurses on standby with gurneys and a couple of wheelchairs, that would be great. There doesn’t sound like much the EMTs won’t be able to handle in terms of stabilizing. Let X-Ray know someone will be on the way up.”
Shannon’s lips pursed in disappointment, and Katie knew better than to think the evening would run smoothly. If you relaxed, things went south. That was how it worked in an ER. That was how it worked in life.
“Ouch!” Maddie gasped and wobbled.
Katie and Shannon each reached for an elbow as the last of the biblical robes dropped away. Maddie’s hands flew to her side, where blood was seeping through her shirt, and Eustace brayed softly, as if he knew his owner was in pain.
“You cut my robes?” Maddie was properly tearful now.
“Easy there, boy. I just need you to stay steady,” Josh was saying.
“It’s all right, honey. We can get those stitched back up for you—no problem.”
Katie’s eyes flicked back to Josh as he made a general callout for an electric shaver. The donkey’s winter coat was making the topical numbing agent less effective, and she could tell he was trying to play by the rules as much as possible. They could use xylocaine without too many questions. But proper injectable painkillers...? Less easy to explain where vials of lidocaine were—much less to write up a chart for Eustace. Off the books was best—even if it bent the rules.
Katie thought for a second of stopping him. This was how doctors got fired. Risks. She never took risks. Josh never needed to think twice about it.
“Nurse!” he called, without looking up from what he was doing.
Katie flinched infinitesimally as Jorja appeared by Josh’s side in an instant. He had said it was all a mistake. The mistletoe mishap...
She pulled her gaze back to Maddie, whose eyes were widening at the sight of the blood on her white shirt.