by Lucy Ryder
Sometimes the people they revived in the ER didn’t make it, and sometimes they went on to live long, happy lives—she liked to think because her knowledge, skill and training had made it possible. But it was cases like little Timothy Nolan that grabbed her and didn’t let go. It became a necessity, driven by some deep inner need, for her to follow up.
So when she heard that he was finally out of surgery Dani took advantage of the usual Thursday night lull and headed for the elevators, pressing the button for the tenth floor when the doors swished open.
She wanted to see for herself that he was okay, that everything she’d done for him had been enough to save his arm. That, she admitted to herself, was always a worry. That she’d done enough, done her best...when sometimes her best wasn’t always enough.
But at least Timmy was healthy, and the hands he’d been passed on to skilled. The best, according to the grapevine in Vancouver. She didn’t know if that was fact, or just the opinion of too many starry-eyed women.
It was after two-thirty a.m. when she headed down the passage toward Pediatric ICU, hearing the thin wail of a terrified child punching through the stillness. She spared a moment to think about the parents of that sick child and what they must be going through. And if she grieved the fact that she would never experience those highs and lows of parenthood for herself, she shoved it deep where it couldn’t hurt.
It couldn’t hurt as long as she didn’t think about it. And she’d certainly become adept at ignoring things she couldn’t change.
Something else she’d ignored was thinking about...him. Then she walked past the nurses’ station and saw him, standing at the window of a small private room in the ICU. With his feet spread wide, one arm folded across his wide chest and the opposite elbow resting on his wrist, while long tanned fingers scratched his jaw, he looked big and tough and just a little bit dangerous.
Still dressed in black scrubs, the soft material stretched across the width of his shoulders, he might have been an intimidating figure if not for the dark strands of hair sticking up in places, as though he’d spent the night shoving his fingers through it.
The rasp of his fingers against the eight-hours-past-five-o’clock shadow had her steps faltering along with her pulse. Her breath caught and for one panicked moment she wanted to turn and bolt before he saw her. But then common sense reasserted itself. She was entitled to check on a patient who had gone through her trauma bay. Besides, now that she’d seen him she was prepared. She was fine. She was—
His head turned abruptly and she felt pinned to the spot by the force of that laser-sharp gaze. She froze, and for just a split second his expression remained closed, intense and just a little bit somber. Her pulse lurched for another reason altogether and she felt her gut clench.
Oh God, something had gone wrong.
Then he blinked and the intensity cleared. A gleam of...well, something she wasn’t ready to identify, lightened his gaze.
Rubbing her chilled arms, she took those last dozen steps toward him. “You look tired,” she said quietly, a little jitter sneaking through her when one dark brow arched.
“I do?”
“Tired...” She forced her gaze to search his. “But satisfied.”
Feeling inordinately proud that she’d managed a coolly professional observation when she was feeling so self-conscious, she turned to look through the window to where a young couple stood huddled by the bed, their expressions filled with a desperate kind of love. Her gaze went unerringly to the boy’s left arm, swathed from shoulder to wrist in bandages. The small fingers looked swollen but the color was pink enough for relief to relax her shoulders.
“It went well?”
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his scrubs pants and rocked back on his heels. “Yeah...” he murmured.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him turn to look at her, and steeled herself against that perceptive probe that seemed to see everything she wanted to hide.
Keeping her attention locked on the little family of three and her expression bland, she challenged softly, “So...he’ll be able to play for the Canucks one day?”
His laugh was a rough slide of velvet against nerve-endings scraped raw by the past, the late hour and the reluctant knowledge that she was attracted—completely against her will—to a man who made her ex seem like an unpopular loner.
The self-deprecating amusement in its deep sound had Dani’s gaze jumping to his. He looked mildly disconcerted, as though she’d surprised him but that was probably just a trick of the light. Surgeons—especially the hot, hunky ones—tended to think they had a private line to God.
“You don’t ask for much, do you?”
“Are you telling me the rumors are wrong and you are just a pretty face?”
The look he sent her was filled with an irritated kind of exasperation. “What did I tell you about listening to gossip, Dr. Stevens?” he demanded, taking her arm and steering her to the door. “And, for your information, men aren’t...pretty.”
No, she thought, that square jaw, the bold slash of his cheekbones and the high, broad forehead could hardly be called anything as frivolous as “pretty.” He was too strong for that, too virile. But there was no doubt he was a ruggedly handsome man—a man with the kind of masculine sexuality that made women weak at the knees.
And in the head, she reminded herself.
He looked so pained that Dani would have grinned if she hadn’t been blinking in surprise at finding herself expertly maneuvered out of Pediatric ICU toward the bank of elevators.
She stopped abruptly, wondering how it had happened. “What are you doing?”
He paused to grin down at her and she had to steel herself against the impulse to return it. Dammit, she thought, he’s sneaky.
“I’m going to buy you dinner.”
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Dinner?”
The door opened behind them and a couple of nurses emerged, their curious gazes taking in the long fingers wrapped around her upper arm and the almost intimate familiarity of their bodies.
Fighting embarrassment, Dani edged away. The last thing she needed was to be linked even casually to Dr. Hot-and-Hunky.
He muttered a curse and dropped his hand as well as his voice, turning away even as he nodded at the women. “Yeah, you know... That meal you eat at the end of the day.”
“It’s three a.m.,” she felt compelled to point out, ignoring the jitter in her belly.
His grin was lightning-fast. “Yeah, and I’m starving. So how about it? I know this great place in the West Wing that serves turkey sandwiches and hot coffee any time of the day or night. The atmosphere isn’t the best but at least it’ll be quiet this time of night.”
And that was kind of the problem, she decided. The quiet intimacy of the twenty-four-hour bistro on the ground floor was a far cry from the bright cafeteria in the East Wing. Then there was being alone with him in a dim booth... Something that smacked of a date—something she’d avoided since her divorce.
“I’m on shift,” she hedged, determined not to spend any more time in his company than was professionally necessary. “I just came up to see how Timmy was doing before heading back.”
He punched the call button. “He’s doing better than expected but only time will tell.” He leaned against the wall and studied her with an unreadable gaze. “But then, you already know that.”
She inclined her head in agreement, pretending he wasn’t making her nervous. “So, how is the ER?” he asked, his eyes taking on a glint of amusement. As though he knew exactly what he was doing to her.
“Hopping,” she replied, feeling her eyelashes flutter and cursing the faint heat climbing up her neck into her face. “Which is why I should hurry back.”
His lips twitched and amusement gleamed in the gaze holding hers. “It’s like a morgue down there, isn’t it?”
Caught out in her lie, Dani rubbed her nose and contemplated lying again. The elevator arrived and she stepped inside. He followed, punching the ground-floor button before leaning back against the wall. When she avoided looking at him he chuckled, the sound low and deep in the confined space. Finally, she couldn’t stand the suspense and sneaked a peek at him—which he caught. His brow arched, his eyes filling with amused knowledge of her prevarication.
She sighed. “How did you know?”
“I remember my ER rotation and...” He hitched a shoulder, the move straining the seams of his scrub top. “You’re here. If it was hopping you would have waited until the end of your shift to check up on me. Make sure I know what I’m doing.”
Unable to dispute his logic, Dani rolled her eyes and reminded him smartly, “I’m taking a break.”
“From Y-chromosomes or from the ER?”
He gave a crooked smile that was entirely too casual and appealing for her peace of mind. It left her jittery because... Dammit, she didn’t know the because. And that was what worried her.
“It’s just coffee and turkey sandwiches with a colleague,” he said, following her out of the elevator when the doors swished open on the ground floor. “Besides, I thought you’d want to know how the surgery went.”
* * *
Danielle Stevens looked at him out of the corner of her suspicious eye. He could practically see the wheels grinding away in her head and he bit back a smile. If he’d wanted to delay her departure, he couldn’t have picked a better way.
She frowned. “You want to discuss your patient with me?”
“Your patient too,” he reminded her cheerfully, telling himself that she wasn’t really his type and wondering why he was suddenly so sure that she was. She wasn’t beautiful—at least not in a classic way—and she wasn’t sophisticated. But there was just something so...appealing about her that his gaze kept being drawn back despite himself.
She’d shoved the jumbled mass of her dark curls into a messy topknot that left tendrils escaping every which way. Her nails were short and round and though she wore no rings, her hands were long and elegant, as though they were meant to wear beautiful things. She wore no make-up except a swipe of mascara on those long, lush lashes as a careless nod to feminine vanity.
He dropped his eyes to her wide, unpainted mouth, with its full bottom lip and slightly longer upper lip, and wondered if it was as soft as it looked...if it tasted as sweet as he’d dreamed.
She shook her head. “Not anymore.” A long curl swung against her cheek and she brushed it aside with unconscious impatience. “Not once I sign off.”
And then there was all that wary mistrust in her heavily fringed gray eyes when she looked at him, as though she expected him to turn into a raging jerk. The women he dated—his usual type, he admitted wryly—were confident, sophisticated women who knew the score. Women who looked at him as if he was the next best thing to a Tiffany bracelet, not as if she expected him to grow fangs and snarl.
From the looks of Dr. Danielle Stevens, she didn’t know there was a score and would probably back away from a sparkly bauble as though it might bite her...as though he might bite her.
He had to admit that he was tempted to sink his teeth into that wide, soft mouth. Just to taste, he assured himself, even though he knew he was lying.
He wanted more than a taste of Danielle Stevens.
She intrigued him, balancing a determined efficiency with something soft and fragile. She was both tough and gentle, sweet and tart. And beneath the smell of disinfectant he detected the warm scent of woman with a trace of cool freshness. It reminded him of a forest on a hot day—cool, mysterious and more than a little intriguing. It made him want to bury his face in her neck and breathe it into his lungs, to see if she tasted as cool and fresh as she smelled.
Which startled him. Because he couldn’t ever remember wanting to smell a woman’s neck before. Or at least not with such...need. The thought surprised him, because it had been a long time since he’d needed anything. Especially a woman.
He paused and pushed open the door to the bistro just as her phone rang, and if he hadn’t been studying her with such brooding intensity he might have missed the odd expression that flitted across her face as she checked the screen.
Dylan swallowed a chuckle because although she’d frowned down at the caller ID she hadn’t been entirely successful in masking her relief.
It was the second time a phone call had interrupted his plans for the night, he admitted ruefully but although he’d been relieved by the first, he couldn’t help feeling just a little frustrated now the shoe was on the other foot. And did she have to look so damn eager to escape?
“I have to go,” she said, using almost the exact words he’d used to his mother.
And without waiting for a response from him she turned and hurried away. Leaving him for the second time in less than a week to watch her walk away.
Realizing that he was watching the way her hips swayed—the sweet curve of her bottom in the shapeless scrubs and the long, slender legs eating up the distance—Dylan pressed his thumb and forefinger against his tired eyes and dragged air into his lungs.
It appeared he’d just discovered a weakness for sweet, sassy brunettes with sad gray eyes and a penchant for clumsiness.
Oh, yeah, he thought with a chuckle. Dylan St. James was a goner.
* * *
Dani pushed open the employees’ door to find the city bathed in bright early-morning light. It had been a crazier than normal Friday night.
Aside from the rogues’ gallery—drunk idiots who had been left to sleep off their stupidity—her most challenging case had been a middle-aged high society woman with a bunch of puzzling symptoms. It had turned out she’d unwittingly taken a cannabis overdose from helping herself to her nephew’s marijuana cookies. And, while it had taken most of the night, a whole bunch of tests and a lot of frustration, it had been satisfying to discover that her instincts about it not being a brain tumor or a heart problem had been spot-on.
Recalling what the shift supervisor had said about the full moon, Dani turned in a circle to study the sky. Either Rona had been mistaken or it had dipped behind the mountains.
“Whatcha looking at?” ER resident Theo Anderson demanded as he and Amy descended the stairs. He looked up to scan the clear sky. “A bird? A plane? Or maybe a flying squirrel?”
“Isn’t that supposed to be Superman?” she murmured, reaching up to pull the band from her hair and shake out the heavy, messy mass.
“Not in Vancouver,” Theo said with a head-shake, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “But I can be your hero, if you like.”
Laughing, Dani shoved him away. “I’m good.” She gave in to a huge yawn, dreaming about hot food, hot coffee, a hot shower and her bed.
She wasn’t dreaming about a hot man. Nuh-uh. Nope. Because they were the worst kind of trouble.
“No heroes required,” she said, because she didn’t need rescuing.
Okay, she mostly didn’t need rescuing, she amended silently. Especially by someone who reminded her that she was a red-blooded woman.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught Amy studying her with a concerned frown. “You do know that not all guys are like your ex, don’t you?”
Hiding a grimace, because the last thing she wanted was to discuss her past on such a beautiful day, Dani watched Theo perform a magic trick for Wendy, a pediatric night nurse, and murmured, “I know that. Some of them are like Theo.”
Amy snorted and pulled her sunglasses from her bag. “Okay, so I can totally see why you’re off guys.” Her smile faded. “But you can’t hide forever, Dani. It’s not healthy.”
“I’m not hiding,” Dani argued. “I just haven’t met anyone who’s tempted me, that’s all.”
Instantly an image of a tall surgeon with hot green eyes, a sexy mouth and big warm han
ds popped into her head, and suddenly she was experiencing the kind of shiver that made some women pull out their lip gloss and check their hair.
Fortunately she wasn’t one of those women. Mentally crossing her fingers, because she wasn’t usually one of those women, she said, “When the right guy comes along I’ll go for it, I promise.”
Yeah, like you did last week...and the other night?
Shut up, she told the voice, pushing out her bottom lip to blow an impatient breath.
“You thought Richard was Mr. Right,” Amy pointed out with a logic that Dani would have liked to dispute but couldn’t.
Okay, maybe she hadn’t thought he was the right guy but she’d been embarrassingly geeky and inexperienced. He’d been the first guy to pay her any real attention and she’d been hugely flattered that someone as handsome and popular as Richard had been interested in her.
Probably the reason she’d fallen so fast and so hard.
“Maybe you should look for Mr. Wrong instead?” Amy suggested. “Get out of your head and have a little fun for a change.”
Before she could respond, Theo called out, “We’re heading for Harry’s tonight. You two coming?”
Dani shook her head, glad of the opportunity to escape because once Amy got her teeth into something, she rarely let it go. “I’ve got a thing.”
“A thing?” Amy demanded, her brow arched skeptically. “What thing?”
Yeah, Dani. What thing?
She shrugged helplessly, too tired to think up a legitimate excuse. “A thing thing.”
Amy narrowed her eyes and pointed accusingly at Dani. “There—see. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
She blinked. “Huh?”
“You’re allergic to fun.”
Dani couldn’t help feeling a little insulted as she stared at her friend. Was that how people saw her? “I’m fun,” she argued. “I go out with you guys all the time—and wasn’t it just last month that you had to stop me from dancing on the tables at The Gateway?”