by Melody Anne
Suddenly, his face was only an inch from hers, and what was burning in his eyes had her feeling a whole new level of desire. “Don’t ever mistake me for a gentleman, Dr. Banks.”
Oooh, the man was lethal. Take-me-to-my-grave-with-a-big-smile-on-my-face lethal.
“My mistake,” she whispered, using the last of her strength to back away from him. Her fingers shook, so she clenched them together. But nothing was going to stop the wild beating of her heart.
“No, I would fully agree that you aren’t a gentleman,” she huskily whispered.
“I would be more than happy to show you how a man treats a lady,” he offered, sliding back into her personal bubble.
“A real man doesn’t have to take something that isn’t offered,” she challenged. If her voice was stronger, then maybe she would be more convincing.
He paused, his warm breath fanning her face and weakening her convictions by the second. But then, he backed away, and she realized she was holding her breath.
“What would you like to eat?” His change of subject threw her off for a minute, and she had to shake her head before she could clear the fog that had infused her brain.
Sage looked around at the different options and found a Cinnabon. That’s where her cravings led her, but she knew she should have something with a bit more nutritional value. Maybe if she ate a salad first, she could finish with a big, warm, gooey cinnamon roll. That was a plan. Yes, she’d get a sugar high and then crash, but it was her day off, so she’d be fine.
“I’m getting a salad,” she told him, and walked over to a counter with no line in front of it. Of course there was no line—people wanted pizza or Chinese food, not salads.
After she was handed her salad, she glanced over at the pizza place and saw Spence getting something to eat there. She made her way to the Cinnabon counter and placed her order. The two of them finished about the same time; he was carrying a box with pizza in it and a couple of plates on top, plus two steaming cups of coffee.
She thanked him warmly, oddly pleased that he knew how she liked her coffee. It was something silly, but it meant that he paid attention. Okay, quit reading so much into this, she warned herself. It’s just a stupid cup of coffee.
“Nice . . . lunch,” he said with a chuckle as he pointedly looked at her massive cinnamon roll and its embarrassing side of extra frosting.
“I have a salad,” she said in self-defense as she speared some lettuce. “I even went for the vinaigrette instead of ranch.”
“Ah, a good patient,” he replied as he lifted a piece of pizza with extra cheese.
Her mouth watered. Pizza was good for you—it had something from all the food groups in it, even fruit if you got Hawaiian. Maybe she should just go get some and give up on the salad. She wasn’t a rabbit, after all.
Before she could make a decision, he put a slice on an extra plate and slid it over to her. She knew she should refuse, but it smelled so good. What the heck! Lifting the pizza to her mouth, she groaned as she took her first bite.
“There is absolutely no good pizza in Sterling,” she groused. “No pizza at all, in fact, but the frozen kind. Someone should really open up a place.”
“I heard that someone turned in a proposal at the last city council meeting, but I didn’t follow through or ask any questions. I don’t care that much, I guess.” He shrugged eloquently.
“How can you not care about great pizza?” She knew she was overreacting, but as she finished her slice, having a nearby pizza parlor seemed of utmost importance. She’d worry about healthier eating when she was in her thirties—heck, maybe her forties.
He looked at her with a supremely serious expression. “I will make sure to take far more notice of all pizza locations within a hundred-mile radius.”
Sage realized how ridiculous she was being. Sitting back, she grinned as their eyes met. “Okay, that was a bit extreme. I blame it on working too much.”
“If we should be worried about anything in Sterling, it should be the lack of a good barbershop. I mean, I have seen some horrendous haircuts in our town.”
“I understand where you’re coming from. When I was in California, a bad haircut was grounds for calling in sick and hiding away in your ridiculously tiny cockroach-infested apartment.”
The two laughed as they began comparing stories of her time in California and his in Seattle. Sage was thinking that she’d been the one who’d gotten the bad end of the deal. Though Seattle was much colder and rainier than Stanford, at least he hadn’t had to deal with the mind-blowing bug population she’d put up with for the last four years.
“Will you go back when you’re done?” Suddenly, he was serious, all traces of a smile disappearing from his face.
Sage thought about it. When she’d first arrived in California, she’d been convinced it was where she’d live the rest of her life. And yet now, after being back home for a mere five months, she knew she was a small-town girl.
The saddest part was that the place she’d been living for four years had been more than easy to walk away from. She’d been able to fit her minuscule amount of possessions in her car, and it had taken only a couple of phone calls to change her address.
There were no connections, no friends she’d ever call again. She’d gone out a few times, but the faces would soon fade away. They were temporary friends in a shallow world. That wasn’t who she was, wasn’t who she wanted to be.
“I would go to the beaches on the coast, but I could never live in California again. It was fun, and I’m glad I got out of Sterling for as long as I did—I hope to take a great job somewhere else eventually, but not in a huge city. It’s just too impersonal, too hard to make friends. Everyone seems to be so focused on their own lives and their futures that there isn’t time to build real relationships. Living here, I know that if I disappeared tomorrow, a search party would begin almost immediately. It’s not like that in big cities, I didn’t even tell my roommates I was leaving; I just left them a note with the final month’s rent. Not one of them has bothered to call to see if it was legit. That’s how much my leaving was noticed.” She winced almost imperceptibly.
“Well, it’s their loss, Sage, and our gain,” Spence said as he reached across the table and took her hand.
For a moment, she was unable to speak, unable to look away from his beguiling gaze as his thumb rubbed across her knuckles. Every moment she was in this man’s presence another chink in her armor was chipped away. If she believed this was all real, she would gladly climb into his lap and beg him to take her. But how could it be real? All the rumors spoke of him being nothing more than a playboy, that he liked the conquest and then lost interest. With how intensely she already felt about him, she didn’t think she would be able to emotionally handle being one of his castoffs.
“I’m not worried,” she finally said, firmly tugging on her hand as she tried to regain her equilibrium. She couldn’t keep having these intense moments with Spence. If she continued to get lost in his eyes, he’d never take her word that she wasn’t interested in him. His next words proved that.
“Why fight so hard against it, Sage? It’s obvious we’re attracted to each other. We can keep it professional at work and . . . not so professional afterward. I think we have just the right amount of chemistry to set off some explosions.”
She was melting slightly at his words until he finished his last sentence. Then she was fighting a grin. “Explosions? Really, Spence?” It was exactly what she’d needed to hear to clear her head.
“What?” He looked confused.
She finally got her hand free and felt slightly superior. “I have to admit that you were pulling me in there with your suave talk—just a little—and then you said ‘explosions.’ If that hadn’t been such a cheesy line, with little to no imagination, you might have just had my heart racing,” she said with a saucy smile.
“I wasn’t being cheesy.”
“Oh come on, Spence. You’re a surgeon, for goodness’ sake. Your ego is
the size of a small country—no, scratch that, we’re talking Russia. I’m amazed you manage to fit through doorways with such a big head. To top that off, you’re wealthy and gorgeous, and you have a body that should be illegal to display in public. You can wipe the grin off your face. I’m in no way complimenting you. I’m just saying that with all that going for you, you certainly don’t need to chase me to get your rocks off, and you really don’t need to use cheesy pickup lines. Why don’t you just go stand on the street corner and smile? You’ll most likely cause a car to crash into you and then be lucky enough to have female paramedics stripping you down to give you a full exam.”
His mouth was hanging open as she stood up from the table. She gathered her packages and leaned down to encroach on his space. It was nice to feel in charge for the first time since he’d taken the job as her boss.
Shock therapy. If only she’d realized that sooner.
“I have to say that you look even better all wide-eyed and speechless,” she whispered huskily before turning and walking from the food court with a self-satisfied smirk. She would give herself ten points for ingenuity and a hundred points for leaving the oh-so-popular Spence Whitman dumbstruck. Surely that was a first.
As she climbed into her car, her smile faded just a tad. She’d doubtlessly face retribution when he had a second to catch his breath. Still, her moment of victory had been well worth it.
The heater actually turned on in her car, and Sage found herself whistling as she made the drive back home. And to top it all off, the roads were clear.
“Sage, can you come in here please?” Mo always had a way of making things sound like an order, even when phrased as a question. That was probably why she was so feared and respected at the same time. The thing was that most of the time the woman was right, and had a killer gut instinct about people in general. It was either because she’d been a nurse for thirty-plus years or because the woman was a psychic, or maybe she was just a freaking genius.
Upon entering the room, Sage noticed that Mo had the new male nurse with her who had a habit of knowing everything even though he was just beginning in his profession. He’d graduated top of his class and therefore didn’t think he had anything to learn. Sage almost felt sorry for the boy, because she knew that Mo was now taking him under her wing and before long, he would be sobbing at the woman’s feet.
“Sage, have you been formally introduced to Brian?” Mo asked with her knowing smirk.
“No, not yet,” Sage said as she came closer.
“Nice to meet you, Sage,” Brian said as he shook her hand a little longer than necessary. Then the boy, who in actuality was only a couple of years younger than her, took it a step too far and began openly undressing her with his eyes. Her sympathy for him washed away as she sent a look to Mo that told the woman to give him everything he deserved. Mo sent Sage a wink.
“If I had known they made doctors as sexy as you, I would have certainly gone to medical school instead of taking the nursing program.”
Apparently undressing her with his eyes hadn’t been enough. Sage sent him a syrupy sweet smile, and then patted his head before speaking.
“Honey, you couldn’t have handled medical school.” He looked confused for a moment when the tone of her voice didn’t match what she was saying, and then his eyes narrowed the slightest bit before his lips turned up in an arrogant smile.
“Ah, I love a woman with a sense of humor,” he chortled, making her want to kick him.
“And I love a man who knows his place,” she said back, beginning to lose her cool just the tiniest bit. This kid was a punk.
“Brian, this is John Duncan,” Mo said, interrupting what soon would have been an entertaining tirade by Sage. “He’s a patient who comes in here frequently after overdosing on narcotics.”
“Looks pretty harmless,” Brian said as he looked disdainfully at the guy on the table who was in a narcotic-induced slumber.
“Sage, I was thinking we needed to reverse his overdose with Narcan.”
It took a moment for Sage to realize what was going on, and then it took everything inside her not to give away what she knew what was about to happen.
“Yes, I agree,” she said with a straight face. Any of the staff who had been at the hospital for even a month knew John well as a frequent patient to the ER. It was also well known that he was very sensitive to Narcan, and when it was administered he would wake up suddenly and start swinging at whoever was closest to him.
Although Sage’s disdain for Brian was growing by the second, she felt guilty about throwing him to the wolves, so the least she could do was give him a bit of a warning.
“Brian, John is very sensitive to Narcan, and when it’s given too quickly it will reverse his sleeping state immediately and you may get hurt if you’re standing too close.” As she was warning Brian she saw Mo leaning up against the wall sipping coffee to hide her smile. Mo always did enjoy a good show, especially on a slow night as this one had been.
“Listen, I may be new, but I’m not stupid.” Sage had to control her own temper as he looked down his nose at her before he took the syringe full of medication, walked confidently to John’s bedside, and injected it into his IV hard and fast. Then he turned to smirk at Mo and send another leer to Sage.
That was his first mistake.
His second mistake was swiveling his head just in time to catch John Duncan’s fist with his face. The sudden punch landed him hard on the ground and knocked him out cold.
Mo’s laughter rendered her useless as she was doubled over, spilling her coffee. Sage simply looked at the entire scene in disbelief and then took the next few moments to reassure John that everything would be okay before she decided she’d better check on Brian.
“Mo, that was mean,” she said as she kneeled next to the unconscious nurse.
“He was asking for it. The pompous little twerp won’t let me teach him and acts like he knows everything. Besides, you did give him fair warning. He ignored you,” Mo said between fits of laughter.
“You know, one of these days, you’re going to get in trouble,” Sage warned, but her own lips were twitching as Brian slowly began to come to on the floor.
“Ah, girlie, I don’t do it to the good ones,” Mo said, not at all remorseful.
“Wait a minute. Did you do anything to me?” Sage asked as she tried to recollect any mishaps while with Mo in the very beginning.
“That’s something you’ll never know,” Mo said with a wink as Brian awoke fully and sat up, still in a daze.
“You’re a terrible woman,” Sage said, her words carrying no bite.
“It’s what keeps me young and beautiful,” Mo said with another wink.
“What in the hell happened?” Brian yelled, making John stir in his bed.
“You didn’t listen, that’s what happened,” Mo said, directing the young nurse’s attention to her.
“What the hell? Did that guy punch me?”
“He sure did. And I thought you said he was harmless,” Mo said, not even trying to hide her mirth.
“I could sue you,” Brian said, hatred flying from his eyes.
“Go ahead and try it, sonny,” Mo said, her lips no longer twitching.
Sage almost, not quite, but almost felt sorry for the nurse because she knew he wouldn’t be working at the hospital too much longer, probably not beyond the night.
“Why don’t we take you to one of the on-call rooms so you can lie down?” Sage said, not wanting to touch the man, but trying to help him stand.
“I don’t need you to doctor me. You’re just a freaking resident,” Brian snapped, no longer flirty.
“That’s fine with me,” Sage said as she stood upright and backed away from the spluttering kid.
Spence and two other nurses arrived just then to see what all of the commotion was about. It only took a few moments for them to assess the scene, and all three of them covered their mouths as they tried to hide their amusement.
“This woman mes
sed with my training and put me in a situation to be harmed,” Brian gushed as he looked up at Spence.
Spence stuck out a hand and helped the nurse up before turning to Mo. “What happened, Mo?” Even though he was asking, it was already pretty obvious.
“John came in again and we woke him up. Sage warned the new nurse what happens when John wakes up, but he refused to listen,” Mo said, a twinkle back in her eyes.
Turning to Brian, Spence got a stern look on his face. “I’ve had several complaints that you refuse to listen. This time, it landed you on the floor.” There was no arguing with Spence when he used that tone.
“I’m so through with this Podunk town and this crappy teaching hospital,” Brian snapped as he glared at each of them and then stomped from the room.
Spence turned and looked at Mo with a brow raised.
Mo held her hands up in mock defense. “Hey, I was only trying to show the kid the ropes. It’s not my fault if he doesn’t listen.”
“Well then. It looks like you’re going to have a new nurse to train tomorrow, Mo,” Spence said as he turned and walked from the room.
“I knew the first night that boy wouldn’t last,” Mo said to Sage as they followed Spence and the other nurses from the room.
Sage thought that John Duncan must be scratching his head, thinking he’d been admitted into a psychiatric hospital instead of his usual place. Yes, it was crazy, but tonight had been pure entertainment.
“I’m sure glad I haven’t gotten on your bad side, Mo,” Sage said.
“Ah, girlie, you’re too pure to get on anyone’s bad side,” Mo replied with her cackle.
“I don’t know. Spence sure as heck gets irritated with me often enough.”
“That’s because you’re a hot woman,” Mo said as she moved toward the exit. “I’m taking a smoke break. Unless the entire town of Sterling shows up, I don’t want to be interrupted.”
With that, Mo left Sage, and the emergency department went back to its calm setting. At least Sage couldn’t say that her job was boring. There always seemed to be something new happening.