Kitabı oku: «Safe In The Surgeon's Arms»

Safe in the Surgeon’s Arms
Molly Evans

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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This book is dedicated to my friend, fellow Hurricane Hugo survivor and Williamsburg, VA, explorer: Jesse Bustos Nelson. You’ve been there with friendship and support since the beginning. Thanks, my friend!

Table of Contents

Cover

Excerpt

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

EMERGENCY NURSE Emily Hoover pointed the way to the trauma room as an air-ambulance crew surged through the department. She’d heard the radio announcing the arrival of the rescue chopper as it had landed on the roof and had even smelled the diesel exhaust through the HIPPA air-filtration system that was supposed to remove it.

Those were all expected, anticipated and not uncommon events in a hospital close to a major highway. Where there was trauma there was a busy ER and one of the reasons she’d come back here to her hometown. Reclaiming her life was the first reason. Working great trauma was the second. At least that was what she told herself as the crew swept past her.

What she hadn’t expected to see was an emergency surgeon riding atop the gurney, straddling the patient, both of them covered in blood. Her limbs began to tremble and sweat popped out on her back. Oh, man. The heartbeat she usually kept calm with meditation now raced uncontrollably in her chest as she recognized the man behind the dirty scrubs. He’d aged little in three years and was as handsome as ever. A tightness in her abdomen surged to join the erratic heartbeat. Fierce intensity showed on his face and confidence she’d never seen in him before. His hair, dark brown with a tendency to curl, was a mess. Those intense blue eyes blazed with a fire she’d never forgotten despite three years of separation.

“Get three units of whole blood going now. I need a central line placed and get OR on alert.” Trauma surgeon and emergency doctor Chase Montgomery gave orders as the entourage rolled through the door. Staff scrambled to the first trauma room that had been set up for the arrival of this patient.

Emily choked down her anxiety, shoving it aside in the face of a true emergency, and grabbed the cardiac leads, placed them on the patient so his heart could be monitored and placed the blood-pressure cuff on the only arm he had left. The trembling in her hands was likely not noticeable to the others, but to her it was. This wasn’t who she was, a nervous nurse on the first day of work. Like there weren’t ten years under her belt already. But this place. This man. Those were the things that made her tremble now. Thoughts of how they’d been together in the past made her quake.

“Get anesthesia in here. He has to be intubated now.”

“There was just an overhead page, Chase. They’ve been called to a code on the floor.” Liz, the charge nurse, supplied the answer, but picked up the phone on the wall. “I’ll see if there’s someone else who can help out.”

“Page any surgeon overhead. I’ll intubate, and someone else can do the IV placement. We need a central line right away.”

“Got it.” Liz made the call.

“IV set-up tray is ready, Doctor, but if you’d prefer to intubate first, I’ll get that one ready.” Though keeping her focus on the patient, Emily spoke in the direction of the doctor leading the situation. He stood with his back to her and was in the process of removing his lab coat when he froze.

Then spun.

Clearly astonished at her presence, he stared at her with his mouth open for a few seconds as he tried to force his mind to accept what his eyes were seeing.

Emily’s stomach tightened again; her heart beat as erratically as the patient’s. Chase had never looked better, and her heart was out of control. A look of stunned shock crossed his face for a second or two. His eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped and he jumped as if he’d been pinched. Only a few seconds of lapsed control, but she saw it, felt it in her chest. The depth of pain mixed with his surprise at seeing her would be etched in her mind forever. She’d done that to him. She’d caused the hurt he’d momentarily betrayed. Except for the shock on his face, he hadn’t changed in the three years since they’d broken up. Since she’d walked away from him.

“Emily?” He took a halting step toward her then stopped. “What are you doing here?” His blue gaze raked her from top to toe as if his brain still couldn’t comprehend what his eyes were telling him. “What happened to your hair?”

Before she could answer, what seemed like an army of people burst into the room and the focus returned to the critical patient in front of them. This was apparently the entire team of surgeons, from the senior fellow down to the first-year resident. At a teaching hospital staff seemed to move in large herds.

“Who called for a surgeon? We’re here.”

As the physician in charge, Chase forced his focus from Emily to the surgeon. “We need better IV access immediately. Can one of you put in a central line? Anesthesia’s tied up, and I’ll have to intubate.” Chase whipped off the bloody lab coat he’d worn to the crash site and threw it into a corner of the room.

The most senior member of the group emerged and nodded to Chase. “Sure thing.” He removed his lab coat and handed it to a student to hold.

“I’ll assist, Doctor.” Emily made the offer so she would be away from Chase’s penetrating glare and the waves of hostile energy flowing off him to flood the room. There was enough tension in the room already without adding more fuel to the fire she’d not been prepared for. Even though she’d known it would come, she wasn’t prepared for it on the first day. “I’ve got the tray ready.”

“Okay. Great. I thought this was going to be something difficult,” he said with a grin, and winked at Emily. Emily never knew whether to be relieved at the confidence of surgeons or shocked at their outrageous arrogance. “Hey, don’t I know you? Didn’t you work here a while back?” He, too, frowned, trying to make sense of his memory in the present situation.

“Yes, I did. Came back for more. Over here, Dr. Blaze.” Emily motioned him to the opposite side of the patient, and he moved around to where she stood. Relief overwhelmed her that he only remembered her from being an employee, not the rest. Or, if he did, he had the good graces not to say anything.

“Dr. Blaze. Ha! I haven’t been called that in years.”

“I remember with you everything was an emergency, wasn’t it? You flashed through rounds like your tail was on fire.” Emily smiled and her peripheral vision caught the glare Chase threw her way.

“Oh, those were the days.” He shook his head at the memory. “So what happened? He’s missing an arm.” He looked to Chase for answers.

“Trauma. Pinned under his truck. Had to amputate in the field.” Chase supplied the information, reinforcing one of the highest rules in trauma care: a limb for a life. Focus. That was what he needed right now—focus. Nothing mattered right now except saving this man’s life. That was why he was there.

It didn’t matter that he’d just had a bomb go off in the form of his ex-girlfriend appearing right in front of him in the middle of a trauma. He had to focus right now and ignore the kick in his pulse and the pain in his heart. He continued speaking to the surgeon, though he focused on aligning the patient’s head in the correct position for putting in the airway tube.

“Once he’s stable you can take him to OR and clean the arm up. It was pretty quick and dirty out there.” As an emergency surgeon, he was called on to perform such procedures as well as his normal shifts in the ER.

Though he would sound like he was in control to the others, Emily heard the tension in his voice, noticed the hardness in his eyes and the twitch of a muscle in his jaw. Always had been giveaways to his mood. He was brittle, and her shoulders tensed, waiting for him to snap. At her. She deserved it for not warning him she was going to be working with him again. But she’d been too chicken to call him and hear the intimacy of his voice in her ear and remember how that had used to feel. Now she could see it would have been better for her to have had someone let him know.

“Gotcha.” The chief surgeon turned to face Emily and accepted her assistance to don sterile garb.

“Liz, let’s get him intubated. Has next of kin been notified?” As the leading doctor in this case, Chase directed the care and the flow of procedures. This was his patient and his case until he turned it over to another physician.

“Family’s on the way in.” Liz expertly opened the tray and prepared it for Chase.

“Let’s get a line in this fellow, and you can get that blood into him, shall we?”

Though Emily had assisted in this procedure many times in her career as a nurse and had been a travel nurse in all manner of hospitals from small community centers to large teaching hospitals, she’d never had the added pressure of having her ex-boyfriend breathing down her neck. After a deep breath in, she let it out slowly, trying to calm her nerves, which had shot out of control. Why had she thought this was a good idea again? Facing fears and all that? What rot that was. Right now, on the edge of panic, she’d be happy to spend the rest of the shift hiding in a dark closet somewhere.

The procedure went as planned and as soon as the surgeon had secured the line with a few stitches she connected two pints of blood and opened the tubes full blast. The sooner she restored the depleted amount of blood the man had lost, the better his chances of survival.

The hum around her was comforting and familiar, even though some of the staff were strangers. As they moved past the trauma room she recognized people with whom she’d previously worked. Some excitedly waved to her; others waved, then a memory surfaced in their eyes and their smiles stiffened. Coming back here, she’d known it would be a risk to her privacy. Some people would only remember working with her; some would only remember what had happened to her.

Regardless, staff had jobs to do, and everyone seemed to be able to do it while talking about mundane issues like the weather or the upcoming sailboat races in the Chesapeake Bay. Now that the most emergent procedures had been carried out, they could take a breath and relax a bit.

Except for Emily. She could never relax. That word was no longer part of her vocabulary, and she didn’t anticipate it ever being again. Some days it was all she could do to focus on her work and not let the demons hiding behind every curtain or closet door terrorize her. Though three years had passed since the incident that had changed her life, there were times it felt just like yesterday.

“Liz, do you want me to call OR again?” She made the offer, hoping she could leave the room and make the call at the desk, give herself a bit of physical distance between her and Chase and draw a deep breath. Since the trauma she’d suffered three years ago, she had difficulty facing crowded rooms and tight spaces. Add stairwells and dark hallways to the list. Anxiety had been her dark shadow, and she hadn’t managed to kick it. Yet. Now, with Chase in close proximity, that dark demon had a choke hold on her and wasn’t letting go. She swallowed, trying to force down the memory of hands closing around her throat, assaulting her body. She coughed once, forcing her throat open, and clenched her hands into fists.

“No, you stay here and monitor the patient. I’m going to call them back. Their transport team should have been here by now.” She reached for the phone just as the corner of a gurney poked through the entrance to the room.

“We’re here. No worries.” One of the large men in scrubs held up his hands in surrender. He looked around the room. “Looks like you’re still at it. We’ll wait outside.”

“No, take him now. I’ll go along and give you a report on the way.” Chase spoke to the surgeon. “He was involved in a rollover crash that threw him from the wreckage, pinned his left arm beneath the vehicle.” He shrugged into his crumpled lab coat as the crew prepared the patient for transport.

“You must have gotten there pretty quick to get him here in time.” The surgeon also donned his lab coat and straightened his collar as if he were preparing to go to his office rather than about to perform a complicated emergency surgery. The man must have nerves of steel.

“I went in the chopper. That helped.” Chase took a deep breath, as if some of that memory bothered him, but she knew better. Nothing really bothered him. Not back then and probably not ever. He must be part duck, because everything just seemed to roll right off him. Not that he was cold or unfeeling; he just compartmentalized things. And she’d been shoved into a compartment that hadn’t fit her after the incident, and it was one she couldn’t remain in and survive. She’d broken out and run until she couldn’t run any longer.

Running never solved anything, but she’d had to figure that out on her own.

“Good times. Did you bring the limb with you? We might be able to reattach it. Vascular team is stellar.” Chase nodded to the heavy-duty cooler on a counter behind him and one of the transport team picked it up, put it beneath the gurney. Both men grabbed opposing ends of the stretcher and moved with the patient toward the elevators, with the entire surgical team streaming down the hall behind them. Their voices faded into the distance as Chase and the surgeon continued their dialogue.

“Emily? You okay?” Liz asked, as she began to clean the room, preparing it for the next patient. “Hey, there. You okay?”

“What?” She blinked, took a breath and realized she was staring after Chase. “Oh, yes. I’m good.” To hide her discomfiture, she shoved a handful of used gauze dressings into the hazardous waste can. Good thing it was a big one. “I can clean the room if you have other things to do.” She’d appreciate a moment alone after the shocking experience she’d just had, and she didn’t mean the patient.

“Let’s work together. That’s how we do things around here.” Liz carefully picked up the needles from the tray and disposed of them in the puncture-proof container hanging on the wall. “You might be used to getting all the crappy jobs as a traveler, but here we treat travel nurses the same as permanent staff.” She smiled at Emily. “Right off the bat you caught a tough case, so I’ll try to give you some lighter patients for the rest of the day. Not a guarantee, but I’ll try.”

“Thanks.” It gave Emily a surge of warmth in her chest to hear the unit philosophy hadn’t changed since she’d last worked there. She smiled and felt a little bit lighter as she talked, a little more at home.

Together they finished tidying the room and preparing it for the next patient. There would always be a next patient, a next trauma, a next disaster, and they had to be prepared for every kind that rolled through their doors.

“So, the next question is that you seem to have recognized Dr. Montgomery. Am I right?” Liz had the skills of a trained ER nurse and no denial was going to get past her. She’d see right through it. “And some other staff seemed to know you.”

“Yes. I used to work here with him. Three years ago.” She looked down and tried to control the beating of her heart. At one time Chase had been her heart, her life and her future, but that had all changed when she’d walked away from him. Though she hadn’t wanted to, she’d had to. “And there are other staff I know, too.” Some had saved her life in this very ER.

“There seemed to be more than just a recognition of a former coworker, though.” Compassion and curiosity hung in her words, as if she suspected what Emily was going to tell her.

“There was.” How much to tell without giving away her life story? “We dated at one time. But it was a while ago.” What seemed a lifetime ago. No need to tell Liz they had been a serious couple before she’d been brutally attacked by a serial rapist and had been forced to radically change her life. Without Chase.

That stopped Liz. “Is it going to be an issue between you? I mean, are you going to be able to work with him? He’s one of our finest doctors and if you can’t get along with him, we’ll have to reconsider your contract, maybe place you in another unit or something.”

“Oh, no. I’ll be fine. I’ll be nothing except professional with him. I’m certain he’ll be cordial, as well.” Work had always come first with him. His career, his work, saving lives had always come before her.

“If you’re certain.” Liz jerked the curtain back as the last gesture of room readiness. “I will trust you to let me know if that changes.”

“I will. I appreciate it.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her scrubs. She was an adult, and she would behave like one. Chase would probably just ignore her, anyway. Her brother had told her he’d been dating other women, many other women, so she was probably nothing but a blip on his radar at this point. “Now, what else do we have to do? I need to keep busy.” Keeping her hands busy kept her mind busy and prevented her thoughts from taking her down the rough road of her past and the never-ending trail of what-ifs and if-onlys.

“There’ll be plenty to keep you occupied here. This isn’t a big hospital, but it sure is a busy one. As you know, we’re right off the interstate, so we have trauma on a daily basis.” Liz led the way to the nurses’ station and Emily followed, eager to get on with her orientation. “If trauma’s not your bag now, by the end of your assignment it certainly will be.

CHAPTER TWO

CHASE RETURNED TO the ER, kept his pace slow, his thoughts on his work and tried to remain calm, despite the churning in his gut. But the second he saw Emily take a seat at the nurses’ station, his nerves shot into overdrive. What the hell was she doing here? In his ER? Not that it was really his ER, but it was his by default, since she’d left it to pursue a travel-nursing stint.

She’d packed up her apartment, stuffed everything in a storage unit and driven away, not caring that he’d suffered in a way she couldn’t imagine. Had she blamed him? He didn’t know because she’d never said, but he damned sure blamed himself for not protecting her and for not being what she’d needed. Whatever that was. Seeing her now brought up so many feelings he’d buried, having been unable to work through them at the time. He didn’t need this now. He didn’t need it ever.

She was the last thing he’d expected to see after coming in on the trauma chopper today. When she spoke, the tone of her voice, the soft, dewy vibrations cut him to the core, as if only yesterday she’d meant something to him. He hadn’t been expecting her and hadn’t prepared himself to see her there. Surely someone could have told him she was coming. He could have prepared, could have hardened his heart and his emotions against the first meeting, put up boundaries, not been broadsided, unprepared. He’d never imagined she’d come back here where it had all begun for them.

That was probably the biggest shock. She’d come back to where he was when there were other hospitals in the area. So why here? And why now? That was a puzzle he intended to solve and then get on with his life. There was an answer for everything, and he was going to find this one.

When she’d left for her travel assignment he hadn’t expected to ever see her again. Their breakup had been bitter, doubly so due to the assault and rape he hadn’t been able to protect her from. That was the sorest spot, which had never healed.

He blamed himself.

She’d been unprotected because of him and had nearly died as a result, sustaining permanent scars inside and out. He hadn’t known how to help her afterward, had been unable to help her, and when he’d been unable to face his own failure he’d backed away from her. He’d meant to give her some time and space, but not for all eternity. Her brother was a good friend, but Danny hadn’t mentioned she was coming back. Maybe Danny hadn’t wanted to upset him or had thought perhaps he’d moved on, and she no longer mattered to him.

He had moved on when she’d burned him back then. He’d been hurt and angry and hadn’t been able to cope with his failure and the loss of her. Guilt had nearly eaten him alive. He’d dated women left and right. Sometimes for fun, sometimes for sex and sometimes for spite. Some had been gorgeous, some had been entertaining and some for no reason at all, other than convenience.

Unfortunately, none of them had been Emily. No woman had ever measured up to what he and Emily had had before the event that had fractured their lives. Neither of them would be the same again. Obviously. The incident hadn’t just happened to her, it had nearly destroyed him, as well. It had taken him years to crawl back to where he felt human again and now, in an instant, everything had imploded.

The moment he’d heard her voice in the trauma room his soul had reacted with utter joy and then utter sorrow. Her voice and those big, expressive eyes of hers hadn’t changed and his body had reacted to her with vigor. Embarrassing in a room full of people in an emergency, but he’d never been able to control himself around her before, so why should it be different now?

He closed the door to the charting room with disgust and sat down at the computer terminal to write up his notes from the morning’s trauma. The coffee sat untouched beside him, and the words blurred together on the screen. Nothing made sense at the moment, and he pressed his fingertips to his eyes, wanting to rip out the image of her standing there with all that spiky hair, looking so different yet much the same and so very beautiful.

Why had Emily come back?

Seeing Chase right off the bat this morning had shaken her, torn up the defenses she’d worked so hard to build. She’d hidden it well, or so she thought, from the others, but now the shakes had set in. She hadn’t expected to see him first thing, first trauma of the day, but that was life.

What had she thought when she’d returned to this hospital? Had she just come here to test herself for some stupid reason? She had just thought she was going to waltz in there and never see him, never have him recognize her despite the changes to her hair, her body, her life? She snorted in self-disgust. Apparently, that was what she’d hoped, whether it had been conscious or unconscious in its creation. Reclaiming her life wasn’t going to be as easy as it sounded.

If she were being honest with herself, she wanted to see him, wanted to see if there was any spark left between them. She’d healed so many parts of her life, but this one had been the biggest wound to her heart and her soul and it had been left cracked, bleeding and raw. So she’d come home to make amends with Chase and get over him for good. One way or another, it had to be decided or she couldn’t get on with her life. She was stuck. Stuck on Chase.

Denial was a wonderful thing, which helped people cope with tragic situations. It also helped them be stupid a little too long sometimes. Like her. She’d needed it in the beginning, when things had been very bad. Over the years she’d thought she’d kicked her dependence on it, had been able to stand up on her own. She’d changed her life and had thought she’d changed who she was on the inside, too.

Chase had seen right through her little masquerade to the heart of her the second he’d leveled those surprised laser blue eyes of his on her. That had rattled her as nothing had in three years. Over that time she’d thought she’d forget about them, about him, and move on, the way she knew he’d done. She’d thought she’d been prepared to see him, to be coworkers again. But her plan had backfired the moment she’d seen him. Kapow!

The guilt and somehow the bitter relief of their breakup had hurt and rocked her world, but she’d been able to crawl out of the hole finally.

Nothing had rocked her world the way it had when his eyes had met hers this morning.

Nothing.

And now she had to reconsider this assignment, this idea of hers to return to her home and make a new life, to make a place for herself again. Her family was here. Her friends were here. And her memories were here. Maybe Liz was right. Maybe she needed to be assigned to a different unit so she didn’t have to work with Chase every day. Was the answer just to avoid him and enjoy the rest of her assignment? She could still catch up with friends, with family, visit old haunts like the James River, the Chesapeake Bay and enjoy socializing again. That sounded like a fine plan.

For someone else.

Although she’d left the area after her assault, she didn’t consider herself a coward to run away from things or run away from people. This return to her home was the last part of her healing, of coming full circle to where things had begun, and to come face-to-face with her fears, her anxiety, and spit in the eyes of the demons that had haunted her for three years.

It was time. She was ready. It was the last step to recovery. Today, she’d stepped into the pond, and she’d see if she could swim again.

A month ago, when she’d been talking to her nurse recruiter, the idea had sounded like the right idea at the time. Go home to the Tidewater area of eastern Virginia, reconnect with her roots, be near her family for the fall and spend the holidays together. Her parents had been thrilled, and it had all seemed a good idea. Her brother, Danny, a firefighter, seemed to think it was a good idea, too. Time to come home and reclaim her life. Full circle.

That was the trouble with brilliant ideas. They always seem good at the time you cooked them up, but then, when the bacon hit the pan, you needed to expect some sizzle and smoke.

There was definitely sizzle when it came to Chase Montgomery. Lots of sizzle. That hadn’t changed, but now she wasn’t certain she was prepared to face it, to face him knowing she had been responsible for their breakup.

“You ready?” Liz asked, interrupting her train of thought.

“Sure. What are we doing now?”

“Computer training. That’s probably new since you were here. Half the staff still don’t know how to use it. Training has been a real pain.”

“I’ve used a couple of different kinds of software, so maybe this one will be something I already know.”

“Wouldn’t that be great? Save us both some headaches.”

Emily reacquainted herself with the computer system, and how the charting requirements had changed since she’d previously worked there. Then the moment she’d dreaded happened.

She came face-to-face with Chase in the hallway by the staff lounge. Alone.

“Oh. Hi there.” Flustered, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Or she tried to. It was an old habit she hadn’t dropped when she’d cut her hair short. The last time she’d seen Chase her hair had been halfway down her back. Now it didn’t even cover her ears.

“Hi.” Chase looked as if he was surprised to see her as well. He cleared his throat, and his gaze skittered away from hers. “Uh … you cut your hair.”

“Yes. Yes, I did.” How awkward was this? Very!

“It looked better long.” He looked at her as if remembering or trying to remember how it had looked on her before.

“Yes, well. Suits my lifestyle now.” She tried to walk around him at the same time he tried to walk around her, and they ended up bouncing off each other.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry.” She stomped a foot. “This is so annoying.”

“What is? Running into your old lover or being told you look better with long hair?” Chase took a step back and paused, interested in hearing the answer. He crossed his arms and waited for her, knowing he wasn’t going to like any reason she had. Why should he? She was the one interrupting the status quo of his life. That didn’t come without risk or consequences. Did she think he was just going to accept her unexpected presence with open arms and forget how she’d destroyed his life? She was the one who’d walked away, not him. If he admitted his part, that he’d let her go, that he hadn’t chased her down and made her stay, he’d have to look too closely at things best left in the past. At least, that was what he felt right now.

“Well, both, but mostly running into you when I hadn’t expected it.” Okay. There it was, out in the air between them. The honesty he could appreciate.

“Imagine my surprise when I saw you in the trauma room.” He raised his brows and looked down at her. In the past he’d considered her height cute. She was short, but she’d hit him at just the right place when they’d been wrapped up in each other. He blew out a breath at the unexpected memory.

“There was no way to avoid it.”

“Seriously? I had no advanced warning. You could have called me.” Dammit. Someone should have called him and let him know she was coming.

“And what? Warned you I was going to be working in the ER and might run into you? For all I knew, you weren’t even here, or were married with six kids.” Big. Fat. Lie. She still had friends in the hospital, and they’d let her know he was still there. Still single. Still hot. Very hot.

“I see.” He stiffened, and his eyes went icy. “Danny could have told me.”

“Why? We’re old news, right? Now we’re just two professionals working together, and the rest doesn’t matter, does it?” What mattered was that her heart was palpitating, her breath was tight in her throat, and her legs didn’t want to move. Old news. Right. Denial was her BFF.

“Yes. Well. I can be professional, and I’m certain you will be, too.” The ice hadn’t left his veins, but at least he was being civil. That was more than she should expect from him. And there was nothing he could do about her presence. She was a good nurse, so he’d have to keep his personal reasons to himself. They had no bearing here.

“Of course. I expected nothing less. I’m sorry. I should have gotten word to you.”

“Yes, you should have. It would have been simple courtesy.”

At least she’d apologized and some of his irritation dissolved. Maybe he could overlook it, maybe not, but it was a situation he was going to have to deal with.

“Again. Sorry.” She glanced away. “I was going to grab some coffee then head back out there.”

“Pot’s on the right. Creamer and sugar in cupboard above.” Dammit. Why had he said that? He didn’t care how she took her coffee any longer. Why had he told her that when he hadn’t meant to?

“You remember how I take my coffee?” Surprise showed in her eyes. Blinking those big blue eyes of hers, she held his gaze for the first time since he’d seen her again. What was she looking for? Hell, what was he looking for? The past revealed in each other’s eyes? Hardly.

“I never forgot.” He paused for another second and took a long slow look over her. “Anything.” With that declaration he pushed away before he said something truly stupid and headed into the main part of the ER. How in the world was he going to get through three months with her underfoot, under his skin? Had he just lied to her and himself by telling her he could be a professional? The way he felt now was nothing close to it. What he felt was … ripped open. Raw in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in the years since she’d broken him and left town.

He was a physician, an ER doctor and an emergency surgeon, and proud of what he’d accomplished in his career. He was a professional, and he saved the lives of trauma victims every day. That was why he was here in this hospital. But if he were being honest with himself, so was Emily. She was a damned good trauma nurse with excellent skills. The hospital had had a turnover of staff in the last few months, and they needed quality staff, hence the number of travel nurses presently in the hospital. Experience didn’t come easily or without cost. He knew that, and he was forced to admit she’d worked damned hard for hers.

She also had the unfortunate, firsthand experience of being on the receiving end of a terrible trauma, which made her uniquely qualified to be doing the kind of work she did.

Not wanting to travel down that bumpy road again right now, he moved forward, moved toward the next patient, the next chart, the next issue in front of him, despite his memories wanting to drag him back into the past.

The day progressed more slowly in the afternoon. Staff came to him with more mundane issues that kept him busy, but he still felt as if he were walking through water up to his chest. Slowly, trudging along. The oppression of the past weighed heavily on his mind and his spirit.

“Dr. Montgomery? Chase?” The words eventually penetrated his brain that someone was calling to him.

“Yes?” He frowned as Liz and Emily stood beside him.

“I was going to introduce you to our new travel nurse, but I think you’ve met before, right?”

“Correct.” That was the simplest, most unemotional way to present it. Dry.

“Okay. One less thing on the checklist to do.” She gave an awkward smile. “I see. Sorry to bug you.”

“No problem.” Keeping all expression and emotion from his face was getting harder to do, and he felt himself gritting his teeth. Thankfully he had a good dental plan, because he would probably be doing that for the next three months.

“Actually, I had a question for Dr. Montgomery about a new patient.” Emily spoke to Liz, but looked at Chase. Professional. Cool. Fine.

“Sure. What’s up?” He could do it, too. Really. He leaned back in the desk chair and raised his hands over his head, waiting for her to speak.

“I’ll catch you later,” Liz said, and moved away.

Emily filled him in on the background of the patient in question. “This is a twenty-five-year-old male who is accustomed to being in the outdoors, hunting, fishing and camping. He’s complaining of joint pain, fatigue, and general malaise. I’m going to put in a lab request for the usual workup, but I was wondering if we should test for Lyme disease as well.”

Chase frowned as he thought about the details of the case and processed the facts. Concise, important symptoms, and a little detective work to boot. Smart, beautiful and still sexy as hell. Dammit. “Is he running a fever?”

“On and off for a few weeks, since his last camping trip in western Maryland.” She didn’t face him but stood beside him, facing the computer. “He also noticed a classic bull’s-eye rash on his leg and got worried when it didn’t resolve right away.”

“That’s ground zero for Lyme exposure.” He nodded. “Go ahead and add the panel, but explain to him it’s a two-part test and it will be a week before we get results.”

“I will. Thank you, Doctor.” She nodded, keeping her eyes downcast as she walked away.

So it was going to be the cool doctor-nurse relationship between them. He could do that, too. He watched as she walked away. Her body had changed since back then. There was something different about the way she walked, more confident, more sure of herself, and her posture was definitely more upright. She actually appeared to be a little taller than her five-foot-five, petite frame, which had fit him perfectly. Now he’d have to reconsider that. Not that there was going to be an opportunity for her to fit to his body anymore. Ever.

An hour later she approached again. He was still in the same position at the computer console, having gotten no further in his documentation. “Can you see this patient now? The possible Lyme guy?”

“Sure. Are labs back?”

“Yes. Chest X-ray, too.”

“Let me have a look at them first.” He clicked a few times, certain he was following the right pathway to the test results, but there was no X-ray. “It’s not here. Are you sure you ordered the right tests on this patient?” Irritation crept into his voice, despite his desire to not react to her at all. “Being timely is important around here, Emily. We don’t sit around—”

“Yes. I’m sure. I printed them up if you’d like to look at them the old-fashioned way.” She gave a tight smile. “Might be easier for you.”

“No.” Focusing on the screen, he gave an irritated sigh, then clicked and clicked again, with no better results. “Dammit.”

With a sigh, Emily leaned over his shoulder and took the mouse from his right hand. “Let me see. Oh, you’ve got the wrong patient up, that’s all.” She masterfully clicked here and there and in seconds had the proper patient with the labs and X-ray reports side by side on the screen. “There you go. Easy.”

He cast a baleful eye at her and really wanted to feel irritated, but the fact was he hated this computer system and had refused to spend the time to learn it properly. As soon as he did that, it would be changed to something else, so why bother?

“Show-off.” The second he turned to glare at her he knew it was a mistake, making him grit his teeth again. The fragrance he’d never been able to get out of his mind filled his senses and images of her in his arms hit him like a ton of bricks. The memories came over him hard and fast. The body wash she loved to use in the shower, her long hair slicked back from her pretty face, the water sluicing down her body, over the curves of her breasts and hips. Jeez, his thoughts were inappropriate. So much for being a professional.

His gaze dropped to her mouth, as lush and full as he remembered it. The smile on her face froze as she met his gaze full on. Her pupils dilated, and he knew she was thinking the same thing. Would there be anything, any spark between them again? Could there be? Then she straightened and took a step back.

“Yes. Well. There they are, Doctor. I’ve used this system a few times at other hospitals. Pretty simple once you get to know it.” She dropped her gaze and blew out a quick breath.

“I see.” Clearly, she was not unaffected by his presence and not as cool as she pretended to be. But that was not his problem.

Nothing Emily Hoover did was his problem. Ever again.