by Holly Rayner
Next on the schedule was the new doctor we’d been trying to get for the last month. His name was Doctor Vincenzo Marino, and his file was alarmingly thin. Mystery man, I thought, curiosity piqued.
I hoped he didn’t mind dealing with me half-asleep. The tea was doing absolutely nothing yet.
Weirdly enough, I was still waiting for the new doctor twenty minutes after the hour. He’s late. Starting to be badly late. As much as I liked the brief break, it started to make me worry. We were in a war zone, after all. What if something had happened to the man on his way here?
I closed my eyes, trying to stop the nervous fluttering in my stomach. Times like this made me especially tense. They reminded me too much of that day back in Miami when Karla had never come in. Knowing she was due in. Calling and texting, wondering if she’d left her phone, if she was sick, if a family emergency had come up.
Yet it hadn’t been a family emergency. Not sickness, not a dropped phone. It had been a bastard in an SUV the size of a small building, who had flattened her compact and then taken off. Not even stopping to see if she was alive.
Death had come suddenly in Miami, where it was bright and luxuriant, and death was supposed to be confined to hospital wards and shady tenements. It could come even more suddenly in Safirah. My stomach tightened further with every few minutes that passed; I tried to busy myself with paperwork, but I kept looking up at the clock.
Finally, a heavy, sure tread thudded toward me across the tile floor, and I looked up just as a large shadow crossed the screen that marked the front wall of my office. Then a figure filled my makeshift doorway, and I found myself blinking up at the most stunning man I had ever seen.
I had never been the shallow type. I could get a crush, of course. I had been on dates. I had gotten flustered over attractive men before. But not like this.
A pair of intense green eyes, cool and amused as a cat’s, stared into mine, capturing my gaze so completely that for a moment, I saw nothing else. Then I took in the intense, aristocratic face around them, the Roman nose and Cupid’s-bow lips, and the wavy, coffee-colored hair he had tied back for work. I broke gaze enough to look over the rest of him, and my mouth went dry.
Oh, my.
Tall and sleek, he was dressed in a simple but well-made suit beneath his doctor’s coat. He was carrying three large bags by their straps, standing casually as if their weight on his broad shoulders was nothing. Not only was he not hurt, but he also didn’t have a speck of dust on him. He also didn’t seem to notice that he was late.
“Are you Dr. Marino?” I managed, standing up.
He nodded and moved forward, holding a hand out for mine. “Yes, I am. Rose Phillips, I presume. I heard that you have need of a surgeon?”
No mention of his tardiness, still.
I pushed aside my mild annoyance at that and nodded. “Yes, we definitely do. I’ll get you oriented.”
He nodded once, coming over and setting his bags down. The chair creaked under his weight; he seemed to be all muscle under his clothes. I blushed as I caught myself thinking such things and focused back on my work.
“We’ll be starting you on shifts tomorrow morning,” I said as I grabbed the questionnaire and a pen for him.
He took them and the clipboard and started filling the blanks in rapidly, barely looking down at them as he wrote. He kept his gaze on me mostly; I wondered how he divided his attention so effectively.
“Go on,” he said.
“All personnel are considered on call in case of another attack. The clinic turns into the only functioning emergency room in this part of town, and with travel nearly paralyzed, that can overload us with needy locals fast—”
He held up a long-fingered hand. “I do not require briefing on the potential hazards. I’m also aware that I may be shot, or the building bombed, or supplies intercepted.” He didn’t sound annoyed, simply matter-of-fact, but I felt my cheeks heating up as he went on. “I am not one of your usual volunteers. I have operated in war zones multiple times before now.”
There was something so absolutely confident in his statement that in my tired, already annoyed state, it came off as haughty. I thought about the last six months and wondered what hellish place he had been in that he could dismiss my warnings so casually. Or was he simply that arrogant, thinking he knew it all and could handle it?
I looked at him piercingly as he kept filling out the questionnaire. If this was all ego with no expertise behind it, then we could end up in trouble very quickly once he started handling patients.
“May I ask where you received your medical training?”
“Oxford Medical.”
That explained his light accent. From the name I had expected him to have an Italian accent, but instead he sounded like he had grown up in London.
“You can request my records if there’s a means of doing so here.”
I frowned slightly. “If you have experience working in this kind of environment, then you know that there isn’t.”
He shrugged slightly. “Then there isn’t, and you’ll just have to see my expertise in action. It will speak for itself. As will my nerve, should a crisis hit.”
“When a crisis hits,” I corrected him firmly. “You came in on a quiet day. Less than twenty-four hours ago, people two blocks over were ducking bullets from another skirmish.”
He simply smiled at me brilliantly. “Then you’ll soon have a chance to see what I’m made of.”
I smiled patiently. Oh, brother. “I suppose we’ll see, then.”
I showed him around the facilities, the whole time feeling warm-faced, flustered, and a little annoyed. Competent or not, his ego had gotten on my nerves. I couldn’t let it mess with my objectivity, but I was concerned.
Even more concerning was how his big giant doctor’s ego didn’t do a thing to make him any less attractive. I found him in my head for a solid hour afterward, as I struggled to finish the day’s paperwork.
I really hope he won’t be a problem, I thought as I worked. We really can’t afford any more of those around here.
Chapter 2
Rose
Three days later, I still wasn’t very impressed with Dr. Marino. Oh, he was still beautiful, still charismatic and charming. But unfortunately he had proved to be completely full of himself.
“No, no, no,” he was laughing as he and some of the male doctors ate the military rations we were down to in the canteen. He didn’t complain, simply swilled down the reconstituted stew with the rest of us. But perhaps that was because he was too busy bragging.
“That matter in Guatemala was nothing. I was at ground zero of a hemorrhagic fever outbreak in the Congo. Two of my companions died from it. But there I was, spending three months in the thick of it to try and keep it from spreading. Meanwhile, the local warlord was breathing down our necks the whole time. You ever have a man threaten to machete you to death if you didn’t fix an incurable disease?” He chuckled and shook his head.
“Well, that certainly makes you look good,” one of the younger doctors grumbled. He was a lean redhead with a beaky nose and a voice that only got more nasal when he was annoyed. “Had you seen any real combat before then?”
Marino only smiled wider, his intense green eyes gleaming fiercely. “On three different continents. How about you?”
I sighed and turned my attention back to my own bland meal, poking at the dull brown chunks of rehydrated beef with my spork. Braggarts annoyed me. They thrived on attention, tended to embellish everything, and there was no telling how full of hot air they really were until you saw them at work.
And out of nowhere, to the relief of everyone but inconvenient to this purpose, we had gotten three whole days of peace, quiet, and nothing more serious than a case of pneumonia in the clinic. The days had been quiet. The nights had been still. The outdoor market had crept back to life, and in that moment I could even hear a group of boys playing soccer outside.
I wished the peace would last forever. But there was a p
art of me that thought Dr. Marino was coasting on this unexpected lull, and he would crumble under the strain when an actual problem hit. And that would lead to lives lost. I was bracing myself for it.
He was too handsome and dramatic to be as tough as he claimed, big and muscular or not. He was too boisterous, too hedonistic. His beautiful, graceful hands with their long fingers were made for playing piano or holding a wine glass, not fighting for his life. I couldn’t imagine him struggling for anything. He seemed more like the kind who had always had everything handed to him, or had charmed his way into what he wanted with just a smile.
Listening to him boast in his deep, booming voice was getting more annoying every time I had to listen to it, I had nothing against him personally, aside from being annoyed by his ego, but I wished I knew more about him and what he was like under pressure. Would he hold up? Or would he wuss out like many of the biggest braggarts seemed to do?
“A disturbing number of compound fractures in that population,” he was droning on while I felt my back muscles tighten. “Turned out to be a serious vitamin D deficiency in the population. The women and kids were indoors all day, and the men were in the mine, so…”
I tried to tune out his stories of how wonderful and brave a doctor he was. All of the doctors were doing it, talking themselves up and displaying their accomplishments. The difference was that this arrogant man was the newcomer here, yet to prove himself to any of us in any real way. He had not yet paid his dues. He had no business pretending he was better than the rest of the medical personnel. Especially since no doctor was any good without a good nursing team backing him up, and we never got any credit for it.
Water under the bridge. That’s not my job anymore. I need to calm down.
But I couldn’t. Twenty minutes into listening to him talk about himself, I was reminded so much of a bad date that my teeth hurt, even though he was halfway across the room.
I picked at my stew as he went on with another story of performing open-heart surgery in the field. It wouldn’t have been half as irritating if he wasn’t so…so…
Perfect. Brilliant, fit, good-looking, with a memory full of adventures that only being born to money could have provided. Even the curl to his hair annoyed me, it was so camera-ready. And the worst part of all of it was, he obviously knew just how talented and attractive he was. His smug air of superiority filled the space around him like an invisible entourage.
Rock star. I waited a little longer, until I couldn’t take it anymore and realized I wouldn’t be able to eat unless I did something about it. I wasn’t usually the confrontational type, but if there was one kind of person who knew how to take the wind out of a pompous doctor’s sails, it was a nurse.
Finally, too disgusted to continue without saying something, I got up, leaving my tray behind, and walked over to the doctors’ table. The other three docs saw me coming and harrumphed, quickly focusing on their meals. They were all thoughtful older men who had held too many bleeding children to prioritize their egos over harmony in the workplace.
Dr. Marino, on the other hand, responded by looking up at me with mild annoyance. “May I help you?”
“I was just wondering if you were done bragging about yourself,” I said in an arch little voice, one eyebrow lifted. My arms were folded, and the other three shifted slightly in their seats. One chuckled nervously.
Dr. Marino just smiled that uncaring, dazzling smile and said cheerfully, “My dear lady, if you expect men of medicine not to brag about our accomplishments, you must not have dealt with that many doctors.”
The irony was almost enough to make me burst out laughing. Instead I simply smiled. “That’s not the issue. The issue is that you come off as someone who never tells the whole truth about anything.”
He blinked slowly, smile fading, seeming genuinely startled. The three other doctors excused themselves to go flag down the tea guy. Dr. Marino lifted his eyebrows at me and glanced at the bench across from him.
“Perhaps you’d like to sit?”
I accepted the invitation stiffly. “You talk a big game for someone who doesn’t let anyone know any of the personal details of his life,” I said as I sat down. “But the thing is, none of us know you.”
He leaned back slightly in his seat, folding his arms. “Yes, well, I’ve been sitting here attempting to rectify that.”
He seemed annoyed. I didn’t much care. I didn’t want to alienate him, but the urge to call him on how selective what he said about himself was drove me forward.
“That’s not wanting to be known, that’s wanting to be admired. You keep framing yourself as perfect. Better than the rest of us. It’s abrasive, and from the point of view of total strangers, it’s completely unearned.” I stared into his beautiful green eyes and tried not to get too dazzled as I drove my point home.
He frowned slightly. “You seem to be taking this rather personally.”
“It’s difficult not to,” I admitted, keeping my voice measured even as I wanted to slap him. Personally. We’re trying to save lives here, and all you’re thinking about is your ego. “Because I have seen where this kind of out-of-nowhere bragging leads.”
“It’s not out of nowhere.” He put his smile back on, but it wavered slightly as he saw the look in my eyes.
No, no, no. You are beautiful, charismatic, perhaps even a medical genius, but none of that will change anything if we can’t rely on you when things go bad. “This isn’t about attacking you, it’s about making sure my team’s going to be all right.”
“Of course it will.” He might have intended it to sound soothing but his condescension made my mouth go tight. “I have vast experience with risky situations. The team is well in hand. You need not worry.”
“I’m trying to be completely honest with you, but that’s difficult when you continue to patronize me.”
I hated having to do this. I hated having to stand up to the guy just because none of his fellow doctors was willing to call him out. And I hated that this wasn’t the first time, or the fifth, that I had needed to do something like this.
“My apologies if you have gained that impression from my words,” he said, smile barely wavering. “But I assure you, there is nothing that this war can throw at me that I am not well equipped to handle.”
“I really hope that’s true.” Ugh. Why did you have to turn out to be an arrogant, overconfident jerk? “Let me tell you a story which may put this in more perspective.”
He relaxed slightly, sitting straighter and blinking at me. “Go on, then.”
The other doctor at the table—I had forgotten his name, and he was practically faceless next to the gorgeous man across from me—finished his meal in record time and stood to dispose of his tray. He hurried off faster than I had ever seen him move.
I sighed. Thanks for the backup, you big coward. You’re the colleague, you should have handled this.
“We got a doctor from the United States about two months ago. He was a great guy. Very talented. He came with references, unlike you. We knew he’d served in Afghanistan, so it wasn’t like he couldn’t handle himself in a war zone. Or so we thought.” I paused; he nodded for me to go on. “He talked a big game, just like you. But that lasted maybe twenty-four hours.”
I heard a faint chuckle from nearby. The three doctors who had gone for tea had settled at a table a bit away—within earshot, but not where they would have to get between me and the fresh meat. Maybe they knew better.
Ugh, I hate this. I’m no longer a trauma nurse, so why do I have to spend all this time keeping doctors on task?
“We had tried to warn him of what to expect. We had done our best to make sure he knew about the supply shortages, the malnutrition, the violence, the trauma, all the orphans he would see, all the procedures he would have to muddle through with only half the personnel and two-thirds of the supplies that he needed.” I stopped to rub my aching temple.
Dr. Marino was now watching me with full attention, seeming fascinated. “What
happened?”
“He actually rode out the first attack without running,” I said. “The insurgents tried to hit us for medical supplies. Then the occupying military pushed back, and a lot of people got caught in the crossfire. We worked all night to save those we could. Or…the rest of us did.” I rubbed my face and looked up at him tiredly.
He sat back slightly, blinking. “He deserted?”
I nodded sadly. “Left us a doctor down and overwhelmed with our biggest intake in months. We did our best we the resources we had, but I have no doubt that people died that night who shouldn’t have.”
Dr. Marino winced. Now he looked genuinely sympathetic. Had I misjudged him, I wondered. Or had he truly needed the reality check, and was only coming to realize it now that I was giving him my reason for confronting him?
I continued, my eyes fixed on his. “I can’t risk that happening again.”
His dazzling smile reappeared, and with it his irritating, unshakeable confidence. “It won’t. You’ll see for yourself, I imagine, soon enough.”
“I really hope that’s true, okay? But I have been here for six months, and have already seen ten volunteer physicians come and go.” I leaned forward slightly in my seat, steepling my fingers. “The proudest ones always crack the hardest when something finally goes wrong.”
“I don’t crack,” he replied firmly, a little gleam of anger in his eyes that I would question him on this.
“Maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re convincing yourself of that and we won’t actually know until something goes wrong around here. That’s the only way any of us know.” I glanced at the table where the three doctors had moved and saw all three look away quickly. You guys are ridiculous. “I want to see for myself how good you are. Not listen to you telling everyone how good. I want proof.”
“You’ll have it.”
He seemed a little agitated. Was he this unused to being challenged? Get used to it buddy. You’re part of a team, not the star. But then he tilted his head curiously.