Sizzling Nights with Dr. Off-Limits

by Janice Lynn

  The boy had been admitted with multiple fractures and traumatic brain injury. The emergency-room physician had given him poor odds of surviving.

  The CT of his head had shown active brain bleeds. If he wasn’t taken to surgery to relieve the pressure and stop the bleeds, he’d be dead before midnight. If he did manage to survive, he’d likely have permanent damage from the increased pressure on delicate brain tissue.

  Probably because Emily had volunteered when Cassie Bellows had needed emergency surgery, Emily’s charge nurse had informed her she was being shifted over to the operating room to assist Dr. Cain along with the rest of the assembled surgical team.

  “But I have patients,” she reminded her, not wanting to go back into the operating room with Lucas.

  “Meghan and Amy are down to one patient. I was going to have to send one of them home. I’m going to reassign Jenny and Cassie to them and send you to the OR rather than someone having to be called in.”

  What the nurse manager said made perfect sense. But Emily fought the urge to beg the woman not to make her.

  Although she opened her apartment door to Lucas night after night, she tried to avoid him as much as possible at the hospital. She didn’t want others to see how he affected her. She didn’t want others to associate them together.

  She didn’t want to deal with the aftermath at work when things fell apart.

  Been there, done that, had ended up leaving the job.

  Whereas during Cassie’s surgery Emily had been assigned care of Cassie, this time she was assigned to directly assist Lucas.

  Which meant she’d be right beside him.

  Which meant there was no avoiding him.

  Which meant she’d have to touch him, albeit through sterile gloves and under harsh lights and circumstances.

  She was still mentally bemoaning having to assist Lucas while she scrubbed up. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy being in the surgical suite. She’d enjoyed the time she’d worked there, but she’d missed direct patient care.

  She entered the surgical suite, made sure she had everything Lucas would need on her tray and winced a little on the inside at how tiny the boy looked on the hospital bed when he was wheeled in.

  A sterile decked-out Lucas followed him into the suite and the surgical team jumped in to try to save the little boy.

  An hour into the procedure, Emily was dabbing sweat from Lucas’s forehead and studying the exhaustion showing on his face.

  * * *

  An hour later, he still meticulously worked, doing all he could to stop the tiny bleeds in the boy’s brain.

  By the time Lucas finished, Emily’s heart hurt for him, but because of the others in the room, she didn’t say anything, didn’t offer comfort.

  The surgery had gone past the end of her shift, so she performed the rest of her duties, cleaning her area, changing back into her own scrubs from the hospital-issue surgical scrubs, then clocked out.

  Prior to heading home, she went by to check on Jenny and Cassie and was pleased to find them stable.

  She swung by a take-out shop and picked up enough food for two. Who knew if Lucas would have eaten when he came by later that night?

  Only, as the clock minutes ticked by, Lucas still hadn’t shown at close to 1:00 a.m. Unable to stand it anymore, worried about where he was, but not wanting to wake him if he had just gone home to sleep, she texted him.

  Where are you?

  Within seconds her phone sounded with a texted reply and relief spread through her body.

  Outside your door.

  What? She got out of bed and practically ran to her living-room door, peeped through the viewer and undid the chain and dead bolt.

  “Why didn’t you knock?”

  “I left the hospital and had just gotten off the elevator when your text came through.”

  “Oh.”

  “Did you miss me?”

  She could lie. She could tell him she hadn’t. But he looked so exhausted, so much as if he needed her to tell the truth, that she did.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” That was all he said. Good. Then he stepped inside her apartment, waited while she relocked the door and safety chain, then took her in his arms.

  “What took you so long?”

  “Kevin Rogers died.”

  Emily’s breath caught. The little boy had died?

  “Oh, Lucas!” She winced, then wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry. You did all you could.”

  “Did I?”

  His question caught her off guard. “Of course you did. I was next to you all those hours you searched for bleeds, making sure you stopped each one.”

  “Obviously, it wasn’t enough.”

  She hugged him. “You aren’t God, Lucas. You can’t heal what’s too broken to mend.”

  “I know that, but that little boy shouldn’t have died. He was too young to die.”

  “Age has nothing to do with injuries. You know that.”

  He swiped his hands through his hair. “Is it okay if I take a quick shower? I headed straight here and I’m a mess.”

  She nodded. “Have you eaten?”

  He shook his head.

  “Lucas, you’ve got to take better care of yourself. You don’t sleep. You don’t eat. What am I going to do with you?”

  “Let me shower, then I’ll show you exactly what you can do with me.”

  “I’m going to heat you up something to eat while you shower. After you’ve eaten, we can discuss whatever you want to show me.”

  “Deal.”

  * * *

  The shower had turned off long ago, but Lucas still hadn’t joined her in the kitchen, where she’d heated up the leftover takeout she’d brought home.

  She’d put on hot tea and sipped on a cup while she waited.

  Bless him that he’d taken the boy’s death so hard. That, she understood. Didn’t she feel a similar responsibility for each person she took care of?

  She’d had patients die over the years. When you took care of the seriously ill, death happened.

  No doubt Lucas had lost patients in the past, too, but something about Kevin Rogers had clearly gotten to him.

  She glanced at her cellular phone, noting the time. He’d been in her bathroom for a long time. Was he okay?

  Intent on knocking on the bathroom door to see if he needed anything, she went to her bedroom and stopped just inside the room. Lucas lay on her bed, his hair damp, nothing on but a towel about his waist, and he was out cold.

  “Lucas?”

  No change in the even rise and fall of his chest.

  “Lucas?” She had to wake him. He couldn’t stay.

  Only, he still didn’t stir. Could she really wake him and send him away when he was so completely exhausted?

  She winced.

  She didn’t want him to sleep in her bed.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to wake him.

  She walked back into the kitchen, put away the food, flipped off the lights, stared at her sofa for long minutes contemplating how comfortable it would be, then sighed.

  She didn’t have to work tomorrow, but she didn’t think she’d sleep a wink on the sofa, either.

  Lucas wasn’t the only one exhausted.

  With her heart pounding and her insides shaking, she went back into the bedroom, studied the sleeping man in her bed.

  A man she’d loved. A man she’d hated.

  A man... What was it she felt for him now?

  She didn’t love him. She didn’t hate him.

  What was this feeling inside her? Definitely, she felt something. Sexual chemistry as she’d claimed? Yes, she felt that, but there was more.

  Looking closer, she noted the redness around his
eyes.

  Dear Lord. He looked as if he’d been crying.

  Emily swallowed the knot that formed.

  Had he cried in the shower over Kevin Rogers’s death?

  Her heart tightened to where she couldn’t breathe.

  Forget the sofa. She crossed the room, turned off the lamplight and snuggled up against a man she suddenly wanted to comfort and protect from the whole world.

  Not a feeling she welcomed. Not a feeling she wanted.

  But she hugged him and fell asleep with her arm wrapped around him all the same.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  LUCAS WOKE JUST as light began streaking into the room. A room he’d never seen bathed in the colors of sunrise.

  Emily’s bedroom.

  She’d let him stay the night after they’d had sex.

  He frowned. Actually, she’d let him stay even though they hadn’t had sex. Emotionally and physically exhausted from Kevin’s surgery, then death, he’d lain down meaning to catch only a few minutes of shut-eye to get a second wind and he’d passed out.

  Occasionally, a patient got beneath his skin and just got to him. The boy and the utter loss in his parents’ eyes when he’d met with them had done so. He’d wanted to be the hero, to repair what he’d known going in might not be fixable. He’d failed and that hadn’t been an easy pill to swallow.

  Why hadn’t Emily awakened him and sent him home?

  It was what he’d have expected. Only, she hadn’t. She’d crawled into the bed next to him and at some point they’d gotten under the covers. Currently, her backside was spooned up against him and he held her close.

  He took a deep breath, catching a faint whiff of vanilla.

  Emily.

  His Emily.

  He kissed the top of her head and realized there was nowhere in the world he’d rather be than holding her.

  His ex-wife.

  Closing his eyes, he buried his face in her hair and held her close. He wasn’t scheduled with patients today, wasn’t on call at the hospital. Emily had worked the past three days. She should be off today, too.

  If she’d let him, he’d spend the day with her doing whatever she wanted to do.

  Until then, he’d count his blessings.

  * * *

  Even on her days off work, Emily tended to wake bright and early. This morning had been different. She’d been snuggled against a hard male body and she’d slept hours later than she usually did.

  Then again, so had Lucas.

  She twisted around to look at him. His eyes were closed, but she wasn’t sure if he was asleep or awake.

  “Good morning, Emily.”

  Awake. Heat infused her face. “Morning.”

  His eyes opened and he smiled and whatever embarrassment she’d been feeling at getting caught looking at him disappeared.

  “Sorry I passed out on you last night.”

  “I guess you were tired.”

  “I guess I was. Thank you for not throwing me out.”

  “We both know it was probably a mistake in letting you stay.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Sleeping together is too intimate.”

  “Sex isn’t?”

  “Sex is...sex.”

  “Make no mistake, there is shared intimacy when having sex, Emily.”

  “I know that. You’re not understanding what I mean.”

  “Actually, I probably do. You want to keep distinct boundaries that everything between us is only physical.”

  “Exactly,” she agreed, smiling, glad he understood.

  “It’s not going to work.”

  Her smile faded. “Why not?”

  “Because I want more than physical with you.”

  She scooted away from him, sat up and pulled her knees to her. “I can’t be friends with you, Lucas. I just can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Too much has happened between us for you and me to be friends.”

  “We can be lovers, but not friends?”

  “I get the feeling you’re laughing at me. Whether you understand or not, I’m serious.”

  “I know you are and I don’t mean to tease you, Emily.”

  “Sure you don’t.”

  “Okay, so maybe I do a little. I always enjoyed teasing you. Like the time I...” He launched into a story about when she’d met his best friend.

  “How is Hank?”

  “Still same old Hank.”

  “Does he know you’re working with me?”

  Lucas nodded. “He knows.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing.”

  “He didn’t warn you that you were crazy or question why you were taking a job that would force you to see your ex-wife day after day?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Good question, and one you’d have to ask him.”

  “I doubt I’ll ever see him again.”

  “We could go out with him and his wife tonight.”

  “Hank is married?”

  “Two years ago. His wife just found out she’s pregnant a few months ago.”

  Pregnant. Emily’s empty uterus spasmed. Lucas almost sounded envious, but she knew better. Or maybe she didn’t. He’d said she’d been wrong about his not wanting children.

  Was that what had driven him to seek her out? That his best friend had settled down and Lucas realized he was the odd man out?

  The possibility seemed hard to fathom, but just his being there, having taken a job at Children’s, telling her he wanted to have a relationship with her, his ex-wife, all of it was hard to take in.

  “Do you think we’d have kids by now if we hadn’t divorced?”

  Lucas’s question gutted her as surely as if he’d stabbed her. She leaped out of the bed. “It’s too early in the morning for questions like those.”

  Not glancing his way, she rushed into the bathroom, shut and locked the door. She slid down to the floor and cried tears she refused to let have sound no matter how badly her body shook.

  * * *

  From the time Emily had emerged from the bathroom, Lucas knew something was different.

  There was a hollowness to her eyes, a blankness to her facial expression that told a deeper story.

  Plus, she hadn’t met his eyes a single time. Not even when he’d cupped her chin and tried to get her to.

  She was shutting him out and he felt the gap between them widening with every breath she took.

  She was going to end things. In his gut, he knew she was.

  A desperation hit him.

  He didn’t want Emily ending things between them.

  He needed her.

  A heavy realization to make.

  He needed his ex-wife.

  “I’m going to call the hospital and find out what Kevin Rogers’s funeral arrangements are. I feel I should go.”

  Staring into her cup of coffee, Emily nodded.

  “Will you go with me, Emily?”

  She glanced up, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. “Why?” Her voice squeaked.

  “I’m not good at funerals, and especially not a kid’s.”

  “I—” Her expression pinched. “Lucas, we really don’t need to be spending so much time together.”

  He’d known it was coming, but her words still punched at him.

  “Please go with me.”

  Her inner turmoil was palpable in the room, but in the end she nodded. “If you want me there.”

  “I want you there.” He needed her there, at his side, where she belonged.

  Because Emily belonged beside him.

  And he belonged beside
her.

  The tortured scowl on her face said now wasn’t the time to go spouting off about past feelings he’d realized weren’t in the past, but present at this very moment.

  “What would you like to do today, Emily? I’d really like to spend the day with you.”

  * * *

  Did Lucas not hear anything she said? Hadn’t Emily just said they didn’t need to be spending so much time together?

  Yet she’d agreed to go to a funeral with him. Because the memory of how he’d looked when he’d shown up at her apartment, at how his red puffy eyes had looked even in sleep, had left her unable to do anything other than be there.

  She hated that.

  She hated how entangled he was becoming in her life. If she didn’t put a stop to it, every aspect of her life would soon be taken over by him. Then what?

  She knew.

  If she let Lucas invade everything, when he moved on to the next phase of his life, she’d be a devastated wreck as she’d been five years ago.

  Only, she wouldn’t. Not this time.

  She was stronger. She’d picked herself up, rebuilt a life for herself even after suffering horrendous blows. She was a survivor, and no matter what he did, she would survive. Plus, she didn’t have crazy hormones influencing how she thought, causing a constant flow of tears.

  But she wasn’t so masochistic as to continue to let him worm his way into her very being.

  She needed time away from him.

  “I have other plans today, Lucas.” Actually, she really did. She was taking a bus to Brooklyn to visit her parents.

  Then again, her mother might take one look at her and know Lucas was back. That wouldn’t go over well. Maybe she’d bail on her parents and spend the day running errands or something.

  “Can’t you change them?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “I’d hoped to take you to visit the Statue of Liberty.”

  “Tempting, but no, thanks. I’m going to my parents’.”

  He winced. “I guess I wouldn’t be a welcomed addition.”

  “Not if I want to keep my father out of jail.”