LITMIR.BIZ

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minor.”

      “You know something. Don’t you?” she asked, scrutinizing him. “What do you know?”

      “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you. I want to see the look of surprise on your face when the ambulance comes in.”

      “That’s unprofessional.”

      Nick grinned. “Hey, it’s Vegas and what happens in Vegas …”

      “Stays in Vegas. I know. I’m from Nevada.” She crossed her arms and stared up at the sky. The buildings from the strip loomed from behind the back of a casino. You could see the top of the Eiffel Tower if you craned your head a certain way.

      “It’s priceless. Trust me. It’s a great initiation.”

      “I’m the head of trauma. We’re not supposed to be initiated or hazed.”

      Nick shrugged. “Come on. It’s fun. Think of it as a morale booster.”

      Jennifer was going to say a few more choice words when the ambulance came roaring up. The paramedic jumped out and opened the back door.

      “Jack Palmer, a twelve-year-old male who has a three-inch laceration to his forehead.”

      As the paramedics were bringing down the stretcher, Jennifer leaned over to Nick. “How is a three-inch lac supposed to be an initiation?”

      Nick just grinned. “You’ll see.”

      The little boy groaned as the stretcher was placed on the ground. His head was bandaged, there was blood coming through the gauze and the boy was hiccuping between groans. Jennifer stepped beside it and heard a tinny hum of “Happy Birthday.”

      “What’s that noise?”

      Jack hiccuped. “It’s my birthday card.”

      “Where is it? I can hold your birthday card for you.” Jennifer looked on the gurney, while a paramedic was stifling a chuckle and Nick was grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat.

      “No, you can’t.” Jack hiccuped again.

      “Why not?”

      Jack shook his head and his face flushed. Jennifer looked at the female paramedic. “What’s going on?”

      “The card is the reason he got the head injury. He swallowed the music player from the card.”

      Jennifer’s eyes widened and she looked down at the patient. “What?”

      Nick signed off on the patient and the paramedics mumbled “Good luck” before leaving. Jennifer and Nick wheeled the boy inside.

      When they got Jack in a triage room with the door shut, he hiccuped again, playing that annoying tune. Jennifer turned away residents because it was just a simple head lac and as Jack was obviously embarrassed about his situation, she wanted to give him some privacy. For the time being, anyway. The news would get around the hospital and she would need to take a couple of residents in when she surgically removed it.

       What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

      “Jack, please tell me the paramedics are joking.”

      “Would I be here if they were?” Jack winced again, hiccuped another verse of “Happy Birthday.” “Darn.”

      “How did this happen?” she asked.

      “It was a dare. I swallowed it, choked and hit my head on the table.”

      “Order a CT scan. Stat,” Jennifer said to Nick.

      “I’m on it,” Nick said, rushing out of the room.

      “They’re all going to laugh at me now. Aren’t they?” Jack asked.

      “No one is going to laugh at you, Jack. Not on my watch.” Though it was very hard not to laugh just a little, but she kept it together. She peeled off the gauze and began to inspect the head wound, getting it ready to clean and stitch.

      Nick had the feeling he was being watched. Intently. He had a sixth sense about when he was being watched. Actually, when he was being studied.

      “More suction, please,” Nick said to the intern who was working with him.

      “Yes, Dr. Rousseau.”

      It was in that brief moment when the intern was suctioning that Nick snuck a glance up at the gallery. There was only one person in the gallery, watching his routine appendectomy, and that was Jennifer.

       Not Jennifer. Don’t call her by her first name. She’s your boss.

      She was Dr. Mills.

      Only he couldn’t think of her as Dr. Mills. She was Jennifer, and he watched her sitting in the gallery, watching his surgery, her arms crossed in a very serious pose.

      So different from when they’d been on the beach at Lake Tahoe.

      What he wouldn’t give to be back there again. Right now.

      Then again, that was a dangerous thought.

      One he didn’t particularly want to think about because he couldn’t indulge it, and he so wanted to indulge it, which was bad.

      Nick tore his gaze away from her and focused back on the appendectomy. He tried to ignore the fact she was in the gallery. He’d known there was someone in there, watching him. Other surgeons and interns had watched him before. It didn’t faze him, but the moment he’d glanced up into that gallery and seen it was her, it was different.

      And it irked him.

      Why was she affecting him so much?

      Maybe he shouldn’t have flirted with her, but he couldn’t help himself when he was around her. It was like he lost all control.

      And control was important.

      Control meant that he wouldn’t act before he thought.

      That behavior in the past had been disastrous for him. He just had to look at Marc to remind himself of that daily.

       “Don’t go out there. Are you crazy?”

       “I have to, he’s my friend. I’ll be okay.” Nick ignored his brother’s arguments and ran out into the fray. Bullets whizzed past him, his brother screaming his name behind him.

      Nick forced himself to focus as he pulled on the purse strings and inverted the stump into the cecum. He couldn’t think about that right now.

      “Your recklessness cost you your brother.” Those had been the last words his father had said to him.

      When he thought of that moment, he became angry. He lost control.

      So he couldn’t let Jennifer into his head.

      When he did, he lost the control that he fought so hard to maintain. He was a respected surgeon. He did his job well.

      His anger wouldn’t get the better of him.

      No one’s life was in danger and the window-smashing had been a one-off. He rolled his shoulders, tension creeping up his spine. He had to get out of there.

      “Why don’t you close, Dr. Murphy?” Nick said to his resident as he stepped away from the patient.

      Dr. Murphy handed his clamp to a nurse and moved around to finish off the appendectomy as Nick walked toward the scrub room, with one last look up at the gallery.

      Jennifer wasn’t there anymore. She’d left.

      He was going to have to try to avoid her. It was for the best.

      Of course, he’d said that to himself before, and what had he done? He’d thrown her an interesting case, to watch her reaction. The patient had probably been one of the first of the interesting cases she’d see, working in the trauma department of All Saints Hospital.

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