by Radclyffe
“Uh-huh.” Wynter had a feeling that Pearce often lost track of time when it suited her to stay at work. She respected her for her ambition, but didn’t share her single-mindedness. She had a life outside the hospital, and even though at the moment that consisted primarily of her daughter, that was reason enough to leave when she could. Pearce looked tired, and for a second, Wynter contemplated urging her to leave, but then she decided that what Pearce Rifkin chose to do was none of her business. “Do you think I should go down to the emergency room to see if the chief needs any help?”
“I was just going down to make sure that the patient gets up to the OR before he blows that aneurysm and bleeds to death down there.”
Wynter stopped in the middle of the hall and turned into Pearce’s path. “I’m on call tonight, and I’m supposed to be the most senior resident in the house today. I’ll go down and take care of it.”
“Why don’t you go check on the boys and make sure things are under control on the floors.”
“Pearce,” Wynter said quietly. “I know you’re the chief, but—”
“That’s right, I am,” Pearce replied just as quietly.
Wynter flushed, realizing that Pearce’s suggestion had not been a request. “Right.” She pivoted and started toward the elevators, wondering if she would have any opportunity at all to manage things on her own if Pearce was always around.
“I’ll page you when the patient is in the holding area,” Pearce called after her. “You can scrub the case.”
Convinced that she was never going to understand Pearce Rifkin, Wynter halted once more and looked back. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” Pearce said with a grin, wondering why the hell she was giving up a great case. “You take it. I’ll just hang around to put out fires until you’re free again.”
“Okay. Thanks,” Wynter said, frowning slightly. She didn’t get her, not at all.
*
Six hours later, Wynter made her way wearily toward the surgeons’ lounge, her scrubs soaked with sweat, her body feeling as if she’d spent the day performing manual labor. The case had been difficult, as all major vascular emergencies were. If they could not remove the diseased portion of the patient’s aorta and replace it with an artificial graft, the patient would lose his leg or die. It was one of those procedures that needed to be done right the first time, because there were no second chances. Nevertheless, Rifkin had been calm and cool and methodically proficient. He’d even let Wynter perform a portion of the anastomosis, sewing the Gore-Tex graft into the section of diseased artery. It had surprised and thrilled her.
She was halfway to the soda machine in the surgeons’ lounge when she realized that the resident sacked out on the couch, whom she had initially ignored since it was such a common sight, was Pearce. They were the only ones in the room. An empty pizza box sat in the middle of the coffee table in front of the sofa where Pearce slept. Wynter was willing to lay odds that had been Pearce’s supper.
Pearce lay on her back, one knee slightly bent, an arm dangling half off the edge of the green vinyl sofa. Her face was unlined, youthful, beautiful. Wynter watched the slow, steady rise and fall of her chest, noting the swell of her breasts and the long hollow curve down her abdomen to the jut of hipbone. Her hand was open, supplicant, waiting. Wynter was glad they were alone—she didn’t like to think of strangers seeing her this way, so innocent and exposed. She had the urge to cover her, to protect her from prying eyes while she slept.
She debated letting her sleep and then decided that Pearce would want an update on the case. Plus, she really did need to go home. She leaned over the sleeping woman and gently shook her shoulder. “Hey. Pearce.”
Pearce opened her eyes, which were hazy and unfocused. After a few seconds, she smiled. Wynter bent over her, her eyes soft with welcome. It was a wonderful way to wake up. “All done?”
“Yes,” Wynter said softly, resisting the urge to brush the damp strands of hair off her cheek. When Pearce sidled over to make room, Wynter sat next to her without thinking, their hips lightly touching. “It went great. Thanks for letting me do it.”
“No problem.” Pearce stretched lazily, her hips coming off the sofa as she raised her arms over her head and rolled her shoulders. Her scrub shirt had come untucked while she slept and rode up now to expose an expanse of smooth, tanned belly surrounding a tight, shallow navel.
Wynter tracked the path of fabric over flesh and was struck by the unexpected beauty of muscles playing beneath soft skin. She saw bodies every day of her life, clothed and unclothed, in every stage of health and disease, but she couldn’t remember ever seeing anything quite so lovely.
Pearce followed Wynter’s gaze, and the muscles in her belly twitched as if stroked. In an instant, she was aroused. She searched Wynter’s eyes, wondering if she knew what her glance had stirred, hoping that her own hunger did not show. Her voice was hoarse when she said, “I should probably get home.”
Abruptly, Wynter stood, backing away as she spoke. “Yes. Everything is quiet here, I take it?”
“As the grave.” Pearce swung her legs to the floor and rose. Wynter was already feeding coins into the soda machine with her back turned. “You should get some dinner. You can’t afford to lose any more weight.”
Wynter turned, her expression questioning. “What do you mean?”
“You look thinner than I remember you. Surgery residencies will either pork you up or cause malnutrition.”
“Oh, you mean when we first met?” When Pearce nodded, Wynter smiled. “This is my baseline. I was pregnant then.”
Pearce grew suddenly very still. “You’ve got kids?”
“One. A little girl. She’s three.”
“Jesus,” Pearce whispered. She’s straight and she has a kid. Oh, man. You need to stay far, far away from this one.
Busy opening her soda, Wynter didn’t see the shock on Pearce’s face. “So, can I buy you dinner?”
“No, thanks,” Pearce said hastily. She gestured toward the wall clock. “It’s late. See you tomorrow.”
Hurt by the sudden shift in mood, Wynter watched her hurry away, certain she would never figure Pearce out. And just as certain that she didn’t care.
Chapter Eleven
“Okay, let’s take it from the top,” Pearce said, as she did every morning at 5:30 a.m.
“1211, Myzorsky, three days post fem-pop bypass,” Wynter began, as she had every day for the last month except for the Saturday and Sunday, a week apart, when she had not been on call. She could barely remember a time when she had not been a resident at University Hospital. Spending twelve to twenty-four hours a day immersed in what amounted to a self-contained society with its own particular rules and regulations had inculcated her quickly to the habits and expectations of her fellow residents, the nursing staff, and her attendings. She had a good sense of what everyone wanted—everyone, that was, except Pearce. She studied her senior resident as the other residents began their run-down of the patients assigned to them.
Pearce had dark half-moons smudging each lower lid, as if the delicate, pale skin had been pinched by brutal fingers. Shadows danced in her even darker eyes, whispering of thoughts Wynter could only guess at and tried not to. Since the night she had awakened Pearce in the surgeons’ lounge, they’d had no interaction that hadn’t been strictly clinically related. Pearce was a fair and highly competent acting chief, and Wynter appreciated how much teaching Pearce provided everyone on the service, including her. But there had been no more offers of dinner, no detours to Pearce’s secret hideaways, and no stolen moments to exchange a personal word between cases. As the days passed, Wynter found it more and more difficult to believe that they had shared such an easy connection over dinner the night she had arrived and impossible to accept that there had once been a connection so immediate they had almost kissed. Clearly, whatever had drawn them together in that singular sliver of long-ago time had disappeared with the years. Even as she accepted what she could not deny, this new distanc
e between them made her edgy and short-tempered, which was wholly unlike her.
“Does that meet your approval, Dr. Thompson?” Pearce asked dryly, wondering where Wynter had drifted off to. Her blue eyes were stormy and distant.
“What?” Wynter jumped, aware that she had not been listening. “Sorry?”
“I just said you can take Liu through the hernia this afternoon. Marksburg is a hands-off attending and will probably only stick her head in now and then. Of course, if you’re too busy—”
“No! Of course not. That sounds great.” She purposely slid her eyes away from Pearce, who was staring at her so intently she feared her thoughts might be visible. She gave the first-year resident, who looked both excited and frightened, an encouraging nod. “That will be fine. Make sure you review the patient’s chart before you come to the OR.”
“Oh, I will,” Liu said. “For sure.”
Wynter hid her smile, remembering those first few times she had been given responsibility for performing an operation. It had taken her several years to appreciate that she was not really operating at all, but following the subtle directions of those more experienced as they led her by the hand through the procedure, guiding her movements with small verbal and physical cues. The experienced surgeon could perform most of the operation without her even noticing, so that when it was over, she felt as if she had done the procedure. Eventually, she realized that had she been left to her own devices, she would have foundered in the middle of the case with no idea what to do. But a good teacher left her feeling accomplished rather than lost and inadequate. That caliber of instruction was a balancing act that only the very best could perform. Pearce was that kind of mentor. It was just one of the many things that Wynter admired about the difficult but irrefutably talented chief resident.
Pearce wondered at the small frown line that creased the smooth skin between Wynter’s brows. Obviously, something was bothering her. And that bothered Pearce. That was foolish, and she knew it. Whatever was going on in Wynter’s life was no concern of hers as long as it didn’t affect her work. She reminded herself of that at least once daily. In recent weeks, Pearce had been very careful not to infringe on personal territory. The day Wynter had arrived she’d been so surprised to see her that she had behaved completely unlike herself. She still felt mildly embarrassed to think that she had taken Wynter to the old residents’ lounge, as if she were a kid showing off her favorite rock collection to an adult she wanted to impress.
“Everybody knows what to do.” Impatient with her own wandering thoughts, Pearce collected her paperwork and stood. “So let’s get to work.”
Pearce detoured to the cafeteria counter for a cup of coffee that she didn’t really want so that Wynter and the other residents could get ahead of her as they dispersed for work rounds. As she held down the lever to refill her cup from the stainless steel urn, she felt a not-so-subtle brush of fingers over her ass. She didn’t have to look to know who it was.
“Not here,” she murmured.
“Where have you been?” Andrea said in a low throaty voice. She moved closer and skimmed her hand inside Pearce’s lab coat, playing her nails up and down Pearce’s thigh.
Pearce took a sharp breath and drew back. “Busy.”
“So busy you don’t get horny anymore?”
“Look,” Pearce said, sliding away even though her coffee cup was only half full. “I gotta be in the OR in a few minutes. I’ll catch you later.”
Andrea wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, a moist pink flicker of invitation. “Next time, I’ll take care of you first.”
Skip Ronito, a resident in Pearce’s year, snickered as he passed with a breakfast tray laden with bacon, eggs, and a six-inch stack of toast. When Pearce followed him to the checkout line, he muttered, “Hey, Rifkin, if you don’t have time for her, I’ll take your place. Just thinking about her gives me a boner.”
“Now there’s a news flash,” Pearce said. “Be my guest.”
He looked at her quizzically. “You really don’t care?”
“What Andrea does is none of my business.”
“Does she…you know…swing both ways?”
Pearce shrugged but she definitely doubted it. “Ask her.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Skip said, glancing over his shoulder. Andrea looked past him as if he were invisible, her gaze riveted on Pearce. “Yeah,” he added with a sigh, “right.”
“Here,” Pearce said, dropping a dollar on his tray. “Get my coffee, will you?”
Not waiting for an answer, she edged around him and beat a hasty retreat before Andrea could catch up to her and make another offer that didn’t interest her any longer.
*
“Whoa, whoa. Slow down,” Wynter said sharply. “That thing you’re about to cut is the spermatic cord, and I don’t think this guy would like it very much if you chopped it in half.”
Liu looked where Wynter pointed, now clearly able to discern the round tubular structure as large as his little finger. “I don’t know how I missed that.”
“Well, how many times’ve you seen it in a living person?”
“This is the first time.”
“That’s how you missed it. So be careful and look before you cut. It’s good to be fast. It’s bad to be sloppy.”
Liu nodded earnestly and resumed dissecting the filmy hernia sac from the surrounding muscles and fascia in the groin of the twenty-five-year-old weightlifter. Wynter heard a small snort of disgust and looked over the top of the ether screen at her friend Ken, who was managing the anesthesia for the procedure. He rolled his eyes at her and she grinned behind her mask. Because anesthesia had a shorter training period than surgery, Ken was in his final year of training. He had seen hundreds of surgery residents come and go, and like most anesthesia residents, shared a mostly good-natured rivalry with his surgery counterparts over who had the ultimate authority in the operating room. All surgeons felt that the operating room was their kingdom and often opined on the fine points of appropriate anesthesia management. The anesthesiologists invariably took offense and often vented their frustrations by heckling or deriding the hapless junior surgery residents.
“You’re doing fine, Liu,” Wynter said, ignoring Ken’s grumbling about the longest hernia repair on record. “There…right there. See that little pink half-moon? Poking out right next to the vas? That’s a loop of bowel. Do not cut it.”
“Okay, okay,” Lu muttered, sweating as if he were defusing a ten-megaton bomb without a shield.
From just behind her right ear, Wynter heard a soft, sensuous voice ask, “Having fun?”
She didn’t look around, but her pulse sped up and her stomach tightened. Keeping her voice cool and professional, she said, “We just isolated the hernia sac and are about to tie it off. It’s small.”
“Good,” Pearce said, moving closer so that she could see over Wynter’s shoulder. Careful not to overbalance and push Wynter into the field, she rested her fingertips on Wynter’s back to steady herself. Since nothing behind a surgeon was sterile, she didn’t risk contaminating anything. She watched the first-year resident work for a few moments, automatically following his progress as all of her senses became absorbed by impressions of Wynter—the slight sheen of sweat on the back of her neck, the movement of firm muscles as she reached for instruments, the scent of her skin like the flowers that ringed Pearce’s grandmother’s porch, their petals heavy with early-morning rain—sweet and fresh and rich. Unconsciously, Pearce swept her fingers in a slow rhythmic arc along the curve of Wynter’s shoulder blade. “Looks great.”
“Yes.” Wynter imagined she could feel Pearce’s breath against her skin, although she knew that Pearce’s mask prevented that. With effort, she cleared her mind of the feel of Pearce’s hands on her back, the gentle pressure along her body that she knew came from Pearce’s breasts and thighs just touching hers as the other woman leaned over her shoulder. Carefully, she massaged the adventurous loop of small intestine back into the abdominal cavity where
it belonged. Holding the bowel firmly out of the way, she directed, “Now put your suture just above my fingers. You want to be careful…Ow…ow, damn it…damn!”
“You get stuck?” Pearce asked briskly as Wynter reflexively jerked away from the table and slammed into her. She was already reaching for the bottle of alcohol from beneath the metal prep cart as Wynter swore again and jerked off her glove. Blood streamed from the pulp of her index finger onto the floor. “Here, hold out your hand.”
“God, that hurts,” Wynter said, gritting her teeth as she squeezed her finger to force the blood from the puncture site. At the same time, Pearce doused it with alcohol, adding to the pain but making her feel better, at least psychologically. She looked back at the operating table, where Liu was watching her with wide, panicked eyes. “It’s okay. Just put a moist sponge on the field. I’ll be back in a second.”
Pearce grasped Wynter’s hand when she tried to pull away, ignoring the blood that dripped into her palm. “Wait a minute while I pour some Betadine on it.”
“Now I have to rescrub,” Wynter protested halfheartedly. “And you’re getting blood on you.”
“I’m not worried.” Pearce grabbed several gauze pads from a nearby stack and pressed them to Wynter’s finger. “Looks deep.”
“Deep enough,” Wynter muttered, fighting a wave of nausea. Surgical needles were razor-sharp, heavy steel. The puncture had struck bone.
“What’s the story on your patient?” Pearce asked, dabbing at the still-bleeding site. She had an insane urge to kiss it. Like her chin. She chased the image away. “Anything we should worry about?”
“No. No history of drug abuse. No transfusions. Straight, as far as we know. Mr. Joe College.” Wynter shook her head. “It’s no big deal.”
Pearce met Wynter’s eyes. They both knew that needle sticks were par for the course in the operating room. Everyone got stuck at least once a month. Fortunately, the needles used for suturing were not hollow, so they were far less likely to transfer contagious viruses than syringe needles. Despite the deadly threat of HIV, the possibility of hepatitis was much more likely and often as debilitating. “After the case, stop by employee health and get baseline bloods drawn. I’ll order an HIV and hepatitis screen on this guy just to be sure.”