Her Hometown Hero

by Melody Anne

  “How does it feel to be back home?”

  Spence kicked back, sipped on his favorite cognac, and smiled. “It feels a lot better than I thought it would. When I was last here and Dad wasn’t feeling so hot, I got worried. So when the position opened up, I knew I had to take it.”

  “I’m sure glad to have you here. Don’t get me wrong. Doc Thompson is great and has served the hospital well, but if I need to go to surgery, I think I’d rather leave my life in your hands,” Hawk said as he sipped his Pepsi. He was on the clock, and if the fire alarm sounded, he needed to be sober.

  “Hell, Hawk, I think you could fix yourself,” Spence said with a laugh.

  “Well, we both know I’d make a damn fine surgeon if I had any desire to be a cocky bastard like you and go to med school.”

  “You’re so full of crap. There’s nothing you want to do that you won’t,” Spence said.

  “Yeah, I guess that’s true. By the way, don’t think I haven’t forgotten the one hundred and fifty you still owe me.”

  Spence looked at his friend with a question in his eyes before the night of the party flashed back to his mind.

  “I haven’t lost the bet yet. I’m back home now, around for more than just a few days here and there,” Spence said, not even worried.

  Sure, Sage hadn’t given him the time of day over the last five months, but now he was going to be around a lot more.

  “I want you to know that Sage is a good girl. If this is only a game to you, then maybe you should just take a loss on this one,” Hawk said, suddenly serious.

  “I’m not a complete ass,” Spence said, taking another long swallow of his drink as he squirmed in his seat.

  “Come on, man. You can’t BS me. I used to be you before I met Natalie.”

  “Just because you stunned us all by getting yourself hitched to the hot little schoolteacher doesn’t mean the rest of us need to follow in your footsteps down the matrimonial aisle,” Spence said, almost in a panic.

  “Well, your brother seems pretty dang happy with his bride,” Hawk pointed out.

  “Yeah, well, Alyssa is one of a kind, and after all the hell that Jackson went through, I’m really happy that he ended up finding her. And I can’t complain about my niece. She is simply amazing,” Spence said, getting slightly misty-eyed even thinking about her.

  “Well, since you were the one who saved Angel’s life, you think the sun pretty much rises and falls on her,” Hawk said.

  “Ah, Hawk, she was a fighter from the moment she was delivered. It didn’t matter that I was the one to do surgery on her, she was—and still is—a champion, and she would have made it no matter what.”

  “How in the world can you be such a softie when it comes to your niece and also love your sister-in-law so much, but still not understand the female sex?” Hawk asked, sitting back with a confused look on his face.

  “I do understand women. They are essential to our happiness. I just choose to stay with them until the times are no longer fun.”

  “Okay, I really want you to explain this one,” Hawk said.

  “All relationships start out in the honeymoon phase, where it’s all love and roses, and then when the couple gets comfortable with each other, they start to bicker, and eventually, they can’t stand to even be in the same room anymore,” Spence said, though he didn’t sound convincing.

  “So, according to you, Natalie is going to grow two heads and become a monster one of these days?” Hawk questioned.

  “No. Won’t happen to you, because you found one of the sane ones,” Spence said.

  “And your sister-in-law?”

  “Nope. My brother also found one of the good ones.” Spence was emphatic.

  “So then, it sounds to me like you’re just full of crap. There seem to be a lot of good ones,” Hawk pointed out.

  “Yeah, I think I just might be full of crap,” Spence admitted with a lopsided smile.

  “All righty then. If you can admit that, then are you admitting that Sage might just be someone special, too?”

  Spence thought a few moments before answering his friend. Did he think Sage was special? Hell yes, he did. She was talented, smart, and funny, and quick on her toes. Did he think the two of them had a future together? It was way too soon to even think about that.

  “All I know for sure is that since that moment in the hospital when she looked at me like I was Satan’s love child, I’ve been infatuated with her. I want to get to know her. It’s not a game,” he told his friend.

  “Well then, you’d better step it up. I like the girl, but I also like winning, so I won’t have a problem colleting my hundred and fifty,” Hawk said, lightening the mood, making Spence let out a relieved breath.

  “Triple or nothing,” Spence said with a wicked grin.

  “Ah, it will feel good to take your money,” Hawk said as he stuck out his hand and shook.

  “Get this person intubated now!”

  The surgical staff moved efficiently around her—completely resourceful, all of them knowing exactly which role they were there to play. Sage was a part of this drama, a part of the process of saving lives. She thrived on it—lived for it. She was where she belonged.

  Almost without thought, Sage was tipping the patient’s head back and feeding a tube down his throat. Her hands were steady, her pulse calm. She was performing a procedure she’d done a hundred, maybe even a thousand times—first on dummies, then on real patients.

  She still felt a pinch of nerves each time she did such a tricky procedure. It would be very nice when that was no longer the case, when she was as confident as the doctors who had been doing this for years. She would get there—it was only a matter of time.

  While the nurses stripped the patient down and threw a hospital gown over him, she focused on the job at hand. That’s why this worked. They all knew their jobs and they moved together as one.

  “He needs a unit of blood, stat. That gash on his leg is still bleeding. Let’s get the blood loss stopped.”

  Orders. Lots of orders. Shouted orders. Everyone responding. It was awe-inspiring. They were going to save this man’s life, and she was right there, right in the thick of it.

  “Dr. Banks, what comes next?”

  Sage’s head snapped up as she looked into the eyes of Dr. Snyder, the surgeon who was on call that night. He was new, someone she didn’t know and didn’t feel comfortable with, which made her slightly nervous.

  When she didn’t answer, he shouted out his next order. “Finish cleaning that leg wound. I want him in surgery ten minutes ago!”

  Sage moved to the patient’s leg and didn’t hesitate at the sight of the protruding bone. This she could handle—blood, bodily fluids, torn skin. From the time Sage was eleven years old, or so her grandma told her, she was meant to be a doctor. That was when she’d brought home a kitten that had been run over and had a nasty wound on its side.

  Most kids would have panicked at the sight, but she’d wrapped up the kitten, slowed the loss of blood, and ended up saving its life because she made sure they got it to the vet in time. The vet had been so impressed that she’d let Sage watch through the window as she operated. After this swift trip down memory lane, Sage Banks, MD, pulled herself together again and focused on cleaning John Doe’s wounds.

  “This is Mike Smith. Forty-year-old male, was skateboarding with his son when a car slammed into him. He went flying about fifty yards, so we could have some major internal damage,” the paramedic called out as he read the man’s chart to them.

  “Got it. Is the OR ready?”

  “Yes, Dr. Snyder. Ready to go.”

  “Let’s move.”

  Sage started to follow when Dr. Snyder turned. “Stay in the ER. There will be more incoming. It’s Friday night.” With that, he was gone.

  Sage sagged against the wall and took her first deep breath since the trauma patient had come into the ER. This was an unusually busy night, but at least she wouldn’t be bored.

  SAGE’S FEET
FELT as if they would just fall off as soon as she undid her laces and removed her shoes. And doing that would take more effort than she had right now. She’d certainly had some long nights when she was in medical school, and whole days without any sleep, but none of it compared to the way she was feeling at this moment.

  Add to it all the fact that she was frozen solid—her car had refused to start for a full ten minutes, and once it had started, the blasted heater hadn’t worked, so she had to leave her windows down to keep her windshield from fogging up. In short, she was a broken Popsicle.

  Rushing inside the apartment she and Grace shared, Sage moaned loudly as a blast of warm air encircled her. If she even thought about another cup of coffee, she was going to heave. She needed a nice cup of hot chocolate, followed by a steaming hot bath, and topped off by about twenty-four hours of dreamless, blissful sleep. Of course, she wasn’t going to get even six hours. This was the life she’d signed up for. And despite everything, she was still sure she’d made the right career choice.

  Her grandmother hadn’t been nearly as upset when Sage had moved in with Grace as Sage had thought she’d be. As a matter of fact, Bethel had practically pushed Sage out the door, making her think her grandmother might be up to something. It was so nice living with Grace, though, that she refused to worry about it. She wished her friend was home. It would be nice to tell her about her hellacious day, and Grace probably had her own stories to share.

  Focusing on other people’s problems sometimes helped Sage feel less like a loser. After walking into the small, spotless kitchen and turning on the teakettle, she sat down and rolled her shoulders. The pot finally whistled and she added cocoa mix to her cup, stirred in the hot water, and topped it off with a nice fat dollop of whipped cream. She grabbed a package of cookies to round out her meal, and she soon found herself stretched out on the sofa.

  “Mmm, this is exactly what the doctor ordered,” she said with a smile.

  But the smile fled when she looked down at her feet. It was past time for the wretched shoes to come off, and Sage didn’t know whether she could bend far enough to undo them.

  “I’ll never know if I don’t try. Hey, maybe I should seek psychiatric help for talking to myself. I’d probably get a professional discount.” Her words made her giggle. Maybe it was good Grace wasn’t home.

  Suddenly, the lyrics “rub my feet, gimme something good to eat” were running through her head. If she had even an ounce of energy left, she’d get up and put on her Shania Twain CD. Too bad she had no honey to come home to.

  Just as she’d finished her hot chocolate and was beginning to nod off on the couch, the doorbell rang, making her sit straight up, then cry out at the kink in her neck. Rubbing her neck, she walked almost in a haze toward the front entry and opened the door like a zombie. Yes, she might have looked through the peephole first, but this was Sterling, Montana, where crime was a foreign word.

  Okay, maybe some crime happened. There was the cow tipping, after all.

  “Are you Sage Banks?”

  “Yes?” She waited.

  “I have a delivery for you. Sign here.”

  Sage took the clipboard and signed, and the man handed her a long, surprisingly heavy box and told her to have a nice day.

  Oooh, she couldn’t remember when she’d last received flowers. Come to think of it, she never had. Smiling, she took the box to the table and grabbed a kitchen knife, cut it open, then gasped at the aroma drifting upward. Inside were a dozen stargazer lilies, a couple of dozen pink roses, and so much greenery that it looked like a nursery was having a going-out-of-business sale.

  After taking the flowers out carefully, she opened up the package inside the box and found a stunning crystal vase.

  “Grandma?” she thought out loud before picking up the card.

  I look forward to working with you. See you tonight.

  Spence

  Though she struggled valiantly not to be thrilled, she still couldn’t stop the smile from breaking across her face as she filled the vase with water and began arranging the flowers inside it. She’d be sure to have a sore back from lifting the thing, but it was well worth it. She inhaled the fragrance of the flowers as she placed them in the center of the kitchen table.

  After admiring them for several minutes, she turned her back and let the smell follow her from the room. The flowers were a welcome surprise, but she was going to have to let Spence know that he was her boss, and nothing more. They would have a strictly professional, working-only relationship. She’d have to discourage him from any further signs of hot pursuit.

  A man like him was only out for the challenge, anyway. For probably the first time in his life, a woman wasn’t falling at his feet, and he didn’t know what to do. There were two possible outcomes for her. She could trip over her own feet in gratitude and he’d grow bored in a flash, or she could continue giving him the cold shoulder.

  Either way, he’d eventually get tired of the game and it would end. At least if she shunned his advances, she’d have her pride when it was all over. Heaven forbid that she descend into the depths of obsession with that man again.

  As she reached her room, she knew taking a nice long bath was out of the question. The second she climbed into the tub, she’d be out like a broken bulb and would probably drown beneath the water. As appealing as eternal rest sounded right then, she loved her life—for the most part—and had no desire to be found wrinkled, bloated, and blue in a bathtub.

  After a quick shower, she dragged herself from the bathroom and practically fell into bed. In about five hours, the whole routine would start again. Work, eat, sleep. Ah, this was the life.

  Wrapping her coat just a bit more tightly around her shoulders, Sage still shivered as she wandered through an outdoor mall in Billings. It was a day off and she’d made the insane decision to go Christmas shopping instead of staying in her pajamas all day long and alternating between taking naps and eating.

  It seemed she never got enough food anymore. Yes, her job burned a lot of calories, but surely not enough to explain her constant hunger. And most of the foods she ate were empty calories, despite the lectures her grandmother had given her when she was young. As a doctor she knew what was healthy—she just chose to ignore all the good advice.

  Stepping inside a store, not even bothering to look at the name, she shivered in the entry. This shopping wasn’t going to last much longer. She’d found her grandmother a beautiful glass Eeyore that was sure to thrill her—the woman adored Winnie the Pooh—and a new cross-stitch project that would keep her busy all year.

  Now to find something for Grace and she’d be all set. Why was it the hardest to buy gifts for your best friend? Probably because you always wanted it to be perfect, but you felt like you’d failed every time. Grace would never complain, so she should just grab something and go—make the half-hour drive back home and spend the rest of the night in her jammies, which really seemed to be calling to her. No. Grace would know for sure that she hadn’t put forth any real effort. Dang it.

  She could have at least gone to an indoor mall. Then she wouldn’t feel like she was about to lose her fingers and toes. But the store she’d just entered pleased her instantly. It looked like a country cottage boutique instead of a modern store, and it had a nice selection of unusual gift items. If she wasn’t able to find something for Grace in here, she might as well give up.

  As she turned down an aisle, totally focused on the treasures in front of her, she bumped into another customer. Before she had a chance to apologize, the man spoke.

  “Are you stalking me, Dr. Banks?”

  That voice could melt butter on a below-freezing day. Spence was out shopping in the exact same place she was. What were the odds?

  “After the flowers, I should be concerned that it’s you stalking me,” she replied, her heart beating a few paces faster than normal.

  “I wish I were. We could have driven here together.”

  “Well, you know what they say about
wishes,” she said, causing a sparkle to light his eyes. “I’m sure you’re very busy, as am I, so I’ll see you tomorrow night at the hospital.” She turned and bolted in the opposite direction. Grace didn’t need a gift after all.

  He caught up to her swiftly and followed her out of the store. “Since we’re both here, let’s have lunch together. I’m starving. Didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast.”

  “I ate a late breakfast. Couldn’t possibly have another thing,” she lied. Good thing there was a lot of traffic outside or he’d hear the rumbling from her very empty stomach.

  “I wanted to give you a performance evaluation. This is the perfect time,” he said, playing his trump card.

  Though it was her time off, she was curious what he thought about her work. She could cry inappropriate behavior, but something like this wasn’t unusual in their community. Well, that he was chasing after her might be slightly unusual, but mixing business with pleasure—more specifically, eating—happened all the time.

  “I suppose a cup of hot coffee wouldn’t hurt,” she said, and before she could change her mind, he had wound her arm through his and was leading her down the festively decorated sidewalk.

  The tingling sensation of his fingers wrapping around her had nothing to do with hunger, well, not hunger for food, that was. No matter how much she tried to avoid this man who she knew was only playing a game with her, he seemed to always be there. And if the sparks she had felt for him while she was a teenager had been strong, the passion building inside her as a woman was out of this world.

  As soon as he opened the door to the food pavilion, a loud growl broke the silence, and there could be no doubt that it came from her stomach. She was almost grateful, though, as it took her mind away from the fact that she was craving something much less proper.

  “I thought you weren’t hungry,” he said with a quiet laugh.

  “A gentleman wouldn’t call me on that.”