Plus she hadn’t slept with him on his living room floor. And she didn’t have the slightest urge to make out with him in the small room.
“What do you see. Dr. Adkins?” Dr. Bennett rocked back and waited for her to make the diagnosis.
With confidence she ran her pen along the film that showed the elderly woman’s ankle joint. “A spiral fracture to the tibia, a fractured fibula, and a broken talus across the neck here.”
She glanced to see his reaction. He was nodding in agreement. She smiled. It wasn’t relief she felt. She had known she was right. It was satisfaction that someone else was witnessing her being professional as opposed to clumsy.
“Whose patient is she?” Josie asked.
“Dr. Hayes. What’s his schedule like? He might want to do this in the next couple of days.”
All she knew about his schedule was that it didn’t involve her.In the hospital or out, because she had every intention of avoiding him as thoroughly as possible. “I have no idea. We’ll just transfer her to the third floor and work it out when Dr. Hayes comes in.”
Her pager went off in her pocket. “Excuse me, Dr. Bennett.”
“See you later, Dr. Adkins.” With a friendly wave Dr. Bennett pulled the film down and left the room whistling.
She followed him out of the room and started down the hall for the staff phone. She had a headache—a nagging, throbbing, behind-the-ears one that had been plaguing her since she’d woken up that morning, after a fitful and unproductive night of sleep filled with sensual dreams of Houston.
Which she should be grateful for in a way, she thought. Since in her dreams was the only time she was going to be getting any action ever again.
“This is Dr. Adkins.”
“ER needs assistance, Dr. Adkins.”
Josie felt her heart leap in anticipation. When she was on call for the ER they didn’t always need her, and she wished they would. Every time she saw a case, she grew in confidence and experience. This could be another chance to prove herself capable to Houston and avoid the little career guidance counseling he wanted to subject her to the next day. She’d rather poke her eyes out with dull butter knives than sit in front of his desk while he told her all of the ways she had screwed up.
“What is the injury?” she said crisply.
“Surfer attacked by a shark. Heavy bleeding, possible shock, possible muscular and vascular damage. Victim is on his way in now.”
“Eww.” She voiced her unprofessional opinion on being bitten by a shark. “Sounds nasty. I’m on my way.”
As she shifted through her mind all of the complications that could arise from having a dozen knife-like teeth sink into human flesh, she found herself thinking about Houston. He was a surfer. He’d hadthe day off.
The thought had her jogging down the hall, which suddenly felt three miles long.
It couldn’t possibly be Houston, of course. It would be an amazing coincidence if it was him, since she didn’t even know if he was surfing. He could be out on a date for all she knew, or stocking up on veggies at the grocery store. Or he was out there on the water riding a killer wave, looking cool, calm, and utterly untouchable. No shark would dare attack Dr. Hayes. He would stop it in its tracks with one of those deadly stares.
Yet she found herself suddenly running down the hall in her urgency to get there.
Josie saw his name on the board as soon as she walked in. Hayes. Top of the casualty list.
It was him. Of all the people in the water that day, it was Houston who had been attacked. Her feet slowed as she swallowed hard. Shark bites could be really horrific, with massive amounts of tissue loss. Even whole limbs.
Just yesterday he had been kissing her, stroking between her thighs and today...
The ER nurse came up behind her. “Dr. Adkins. Room three. They just brought Dr. Hayes in.”
“How is he?” she asked as she started to jog down the hall, grabbing a clean gown to pull on over the scrubs she was still wearing.
The nurse called after her, “I don’t know. He lost a lot of blood, that’s all I heard. The paramedics are with him now. Dr. Matthews is in room one dealing with a cardiac arrest, so you’re the only doctor available.”
Oh, fun. Being in a small beach town, Acadia Inlet Hospital kept a bare-bones emergency staff for normal Sundays. One physician and two or three nurses, with ortho on call.
Not only was she about the least qualified staff member to be dealing with a serious injury, she was personally involved with thepatient. Or had been the night before. Houston had made it clear that was as far as any involvement was going to go.
Taking a fortifying breath that only made her stomach churn, she flung the curtain aside and brushed past the middle-aged nurse, Shirley, at the end of the gurney. Two paramedics were bent over Houston.