Back To You (A Remington Medical Contemporary Romance) Page 2

  “I go by Charleston, actually.” She’d ditched her nickname when she’d arrived in Tennessee, not looking back. “Charleston Becker. It’s nice to meet you.”

  Dr. Sheridan nodded, tucking the electronic chart under one impeccably sculpted arm. “Charleston, then. I’m looking forward to working with you. Once you’re settled in, maybe we could grab a cup of—”

  “Stop riiiiight there, Charm School. This”—Tess put a protective arm around Charleston—“is my bestie. She’s an incredible surgeon and a highly fantastic human being, who has graciously agreed to cover my entire maternity leave. Which means you need to not do that”—she paused again, waving her hand at Dr. Sheridan’s fading smile—“flirty little thing you do to every straight, single woman you find in your path, because if you run her off, I will harm you slowly and without remorse.”

  “Okay, jeez. No coffee. I was just trying to be nice. And for the record, I don’t do it to every straight, single woman,” he argued. But before Tess could argue back—and damn, she definitely looked as if she was primed and ready to do exactly that—Dr. Sheridan lifted his hands in surrender, giving up a charming smile. “But far be it for me to mess with a pregnant lady. Or her best friend. Welcome to Remington Mem, Dr. Becker.”

  “Thanks,” Charleston said. She waited until he’d sauntered out of earshot before turning to arch a brow at Tess. “I appreciate you having my back, but I could’ve said no thanks on my own, Mama Bear.”

  “Ugh, sorry.” Tess bit her lip. “I don’t mean to give Jonah such a bad rap. He really is a great surgeon, and he’s also not a terrible guy. He’s just the poster boy for One And Done.”

  Charleston nodded. She knew the sort. Great doctor, great big ego. Not that she was commitment’s biggest fangirl. Once bitten, twice no freaking thank you. She’d rather focus on work, anyway. At least her job would never abandon her.

  She inhaled, nice and deep. “Well, you don’t have anything to worry about. As good-looking as he is, Dr. Sheridan’s not my type.”

  “He’s blond?” Tess asked. Of course she’d remember Charleston’s Kryptonite-style weakness for dark-haired men.

  “He’s an M.D.,” Charleston countered. “You know I don’t mix work and pleasure.”

  Okay, fine. So she did enough of the former to ensure that she never got any of the latter, unless a few stray sessions with her vibrator counted. She still had a strict hell-no policy on getting naked with co-workers.

  Tess’s nod was a direct translation of that makes sense. “I’m all for pleasure, but in this case, that’s definitely smart. Unless you’re looking for a one-night stand, in which case…”

  “I’m not,” Charleston assured her.

  “Hey, you’re single and hot. I don’t judge.” Tess lifted her hands, and Charleston let go of the unapologetic smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

  “I don’t, either. If he wasn’t a doctor, I might think about it.” Never mind the fact that she’d actually have to take a night off to have a one-night stand. But come on. Saving lives was way more important than having I-saw-Jesus sex.

  Which was a fucking relief, since Charleston couldn’t remember the last time she’d experienced a man-made orgasm.

  She and Tess reached the end of the hallway, which opened up into a waiting room half-full of people in various states of injury, illness, or concern. A set of automatic doors marked Ambulance Bay, Do Not Block stood off to the left, with a lead-in to a separate entrance to the trauma and exam rooms. A pretty, blond woman in dark green scrubs and a doctor’s coat talked to a set of harried-looking parents nearby, the father holding a toddler and the mother nodding intently, and Tess tipped her chin in their direction.

  “Natalie Kendrick is your peds attending, and she’s smart as hell. Also, probably the nicest woman you’ll ever slap eyes on.”

  The parents let out gasps of relief at something Dr. Kendrick had said, and she returned their grateful hugs with a smile that would make a college cheerleader proud. “She looks it,” Charleston said.

  Tess kept her voice low, but oh, Charleston knew that gleam in her best friend’s eyes all too well not to lean in. “She and Sheridan are best friends, if you can believe that. They came over from Northside Hospital a couple of years ago, right after his wedding debacle. Rumor has it Kendrick is the only unattached woman in the city he hasn’t brought to orgasm. But even though she and I have hit The Crooked Angel a handful of times after a crazy shift, and she wasn’t exactly sober for a few of them, she hasn’t given up so much as a peep about it, other than to say they’ve been best friends since they finished their residencies and they’ve never so much as held hands.”

  “Wow.” Charleston’s mind spun. “Looks like this place hasn’t suffered a lack of dirt since we were interns.”

  “Please. It’s a hospital. Of course we haven’t. Oh!” Tess snapped her fingers, her smile brightening. “I almost forgot! You’re not the only person starting today.”

  There was no controlling Charleston’s surprised laugh. “Okay. Who am I sharing newbie duty with?”

  “Newbies, of course. It’s September, which means that you, my friend, get a fresh batch of interns to boss around. They should be on their way down any minute, actually. Langston likes to spoil them with a day of orientation before we wreck them with reality.”

  Charleston bit back the urge to groan. “You’re making me break in your interns?” Okay, so she was seventy-percent giving Tess shit, since A) she didn’t mind interns that much, as long as they didn’t kill anyone, and B) what are friends for? Of course, Tess didn’t so much have thick skin as she had a full set of armor, so she simply smiled.

  “Yep! Look at the bright side. You won’t have to do any scut. In fact, I bet having interns here to lighten the load is going to make the next ten weeks a piece of cake for you.”

  Charleston opened her mouth, a brassy retort ready to fly. But her words fell short as the doors to the ambulance bay flew open, her world tilting sharply on its axis as her ex-husband rushed through them holding a body.

  2

  Of all the ways Parker Drake had envisioned his first day as an intern, witnessing a sedan-versus-bike messenger that resulted in an open tib-fib before he’d even walked through the hospital doors hadn’t been in the top one thousand.

  Being face to drop-jawed stare with the one woman he’d been certain he’d never lay eyes on again, and who probably hated him as passionately as he’d once loved her?

  Had to be a one in a million.

  The man in his arms groaned in pain, snapping time back into motion and Parker back to reality in less than a heartbeat.

  “I need a little help over here,” Parker called out, and fucking great, Tess was here, too?

  “What happened?” Charlie asked as Tess hollered for a gurney and a C-collar, both of which arrived astonishingly fast.

  Parker blinked, his brain momentarily too swamped with adrenaline to form a reply. Focus. On something other than how the hell Charlie is here in front of you instead of far, far away in Nashville. Now would be good, since you’re holding a guy whose tibia is sticking out of his skin.

  Well, that did the trick to redirect his thoughts from her, at least temporarily. Then again, work always did. “Mike Yoshida, got clipped by a Camry while riding his bike,” Parker said, placing the man on the gurney and diving right in to the bullet. “Obvious right lower leg deformity, GCS 12. No apparent head or neck trauma, no LOC.” The guy’s helmet was still firmly in place. Not that it had done his leg a lick of good, but at least that would be a hell of a lot easier to repair.

  “Hi, Mr. Yoshida, I’m Dr. Michaelson, and this is Dr. Becker,” Tess said, but only after she’d shot a micro-frown in Parker’s direction that promised nothing good once their patient was stable. “We’re going to take care of you, okay?”

  “O-okay.” He tried to nod, but Tess placed her hands firmly over the sides of his helmet to keep him still as Charlie grabbed the C-collar.

  “Dr. Becker and I are going to put this around your neck. I know it’s not super comfortable, but we have to err on the side of caution until we can get a closer look at your spine.”

  Charlie, who was in street clothes, and Tess, who wasn’t, had both gloved up to examine the man while a nurse guided the gurney past the automatic doors and into a curtain area.

  “You didn’t think to call a paramedic instead of dragging him in here on your own?” Charlie asked, her red-gold brows pulled low in disapproval, as Tess continued her rapid trauma assessment on the patient.

  Parker took a deep breath and reminded himself that he deserved every degree of chilliness Charlie wanted to offer. “I am a paramedic. Or, I was for five years. Anyway”—he grabbed a pair of nitrile gloves from the dispenser box on the wall and slid them into place—“the accident happened less than a block away. Calling an ambo would’ve been stupid.”

  Dropping her voice enough to keep it from the patient while Tess asked him a few more questions and examined his leg, Charlie said, “He was in an MVA, and you moved him without a C-collar. That is stupid.”

  Shock popped Parker right in the solar plexus. “Seeing as how we were in the middle of a busy city street and the guy had already been hit by a car once, I thought getting him out of traffic might be prudent.”

  “Parker—” she started, but he shook his head. As much as he wanted to, arguing with her was a bad idea for several reasons, none of them small. Anyway, he couldn’t change what he’d already done.

  “Yes, I moved him,” Parker said quietly. “But I did an RTA in the field. He was alert and reactive, with no signs of a head or neck injury. He was in a lot of pain and had an open fracture, and I wanted to get him treated as fast as possible. So, I made a judgment call.”

>   If her expression was anything to go by, Charlie remained highly unimpressed. “So he didn’t present with any outward signs of a spinal injury,” she argued. “That doesn’t mean he’s fine. There could be any number of things going on that you can’t see.”

  “I know that.” Parker had completed four years of medical school, nearly seven months of his first internship, and over four of his five years at Station Seventeen as a lead paramedic. He was hardly a dumbass.

  “This tib-fib is pretty straightforward,” Tess said loudly enough to grab both of their attention. She’d—damn—already cut away the patient’s jeans to reveal a nasty break, and splinted the injured leg to keep it stable. “Let’s get head and neck films to see what we’re dealing with otherwise.” She swung her stare to the dark-haired nurse who had appeared with the gurney and stuck around for the ride. “And page Dr. Sheridan, along with whoever’s on call for ortho, stat, please.”

  “I’ve got the films, Dr. Michaelson,” Charlie said, her eyes on Tess’s very pregnant belly, and Parker’s throat went tight. But then Tess had stepped out of the curtain area and the nurse had produced two protective aprons, and Charlie was shooting the X-rays as easily as she’d order a fucking latte.

  “Head and neck are clear,” she called to Tess a few seconds later, who returned to the curtain area and looked at the images on the portable monitor, nodding her agreement.

  “It’s just my…leg that hurts.” The man’s labored grunt punctuated the claim, and Charlie—Christ, how was it possible that she’d gotten even prettier over the last six years—softened her gaze, leaning in toward him.

  “Do you have any drug allergies, Mr. Yoshida?”

  Another groan. “No.”

  Charlie looked at the nurse. “Start an IV so we can get some pain meds on board while we wait for those consults. We’re also going to need to do a full set of films on that leg for ortho.”

  “I can start the IV,” Parker offered, taking a step toward the supply cart beside the gurney. Anything would be better than just standing here, useless.

  Charlie’s arm shot out, and even through his shirt and hers, the contact sizzled through him as if they’d touched intimately, skin on skin. “No. You absolutely cannot.”

  “I’m qualified to do it,” he said. He’d started hundreds of lines. Maybe even thousands. For God’s sake, Charlie had been there when he’d learned how.

  “You’re a paramedic,” Tess said, clearly on Team Charlie, and also clearly unaware that he’d tendered his resignation at Station Seventeen to return to medical school and had been placed here at Remington Mem for take two of his internship. “We have very capable nurses. You brought Mr. Yoshida in, but we’ve got it from here, Parker. You can go.”

  His pulse slapped faster. “Actually, I—”

  The curtain moved, the metal loops shushing along the track built in to the ceiling and stopping the rest of Parker’s words in his windpipe.

  “Someone called for a—whoa, yeah. Surgical consult,” said Jonah Sheridan, who had appeared behind Tess. Parker recognized him, both from running patients in to the emergency department for the last five years and the semi-rare occasion that the staff at Remington Mem came to hang out at The Crooked Angel, where the first responders from Station Seventeen and the cops from the Thirty-Third precinct tended to gather.

  Sheridan completed a quick but thorough perusal of the patient’s injury. Parker listened carefully as Tess gave the guy a brief rundown and the nurse started the IV, then again as Sheridan looked at the patient.

  “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Mike,” the guy groaned, leaning back against the gurney. “Mike Yoshida.”

  “Well, Mr. Yoshida, I hope you like Jell-O, because you’re going to be here for a day or two. You definitely need surgery to repair that injury to your leg.” He turned toward the dark-haired nurse, who Parker belatedly recognized from his first internship six years ago, and damn. How could he have changed so much while this place had stood stock-still?

  “Kelly, let’s get some antibiotics in that IV along with the pain meds Dr. Becker ordered, and call surgery to book an OR.” Dr. Sheridan rattled off a few more directives—specific medications and dosages, plus a rush on the X-rays Charlie had already ordered—then shifted to look at Parker, blond brows lifted in question.

  “You’re the paramedic, right?”

  Shit. “Intern. Parker Drake.” Tugging off his still-spotless gloves, he extended his hand, trying as hard as he possibly could to un-hear the twin gasps of shock from Tess and Charlie.

  “Huh,” Jonah said. “A new attending and a paramedic intern. The hits just keep on comin’. Okay, Mr. Yoshida.” He turned back toward the patient while Parker battled some shock of his own. Charlie was working here now? As an attending? Surely, he’d misunderstood. “Let’s get you ready for surgery, shall we?”

  “OR three is open, Dr. Sheridan,” Kelly said, hanging up the wall-mounted phone. “They’re expecting you.”

  “Perfect. We can do the films upstairs while I scrub in and get Dr. Mallory up to speed. Let’s go.”

  Sheridan and Kelly wheeled the gurney from the curtain area. Now would normally be the time for everyone to scatter, with the patient stable and the handoff to a surgeon made. But since everything about the current situation was far from normal, Tess killed the four hundred-pound silence with a long, low exhale.

  “I’m sorry. Did you just say you’re…”

  “An intern. Starting today.” He looked at Charlie, whose expression was impossible to decipher. “Did Dr. Sheridan say you’re…”

  “An attending. Temporarily, at least. I’m covering Tess’s maternity leave for ten weeks.”

  Parker’s gut dropped toward the linoleum. He’d known returning to Remington Mem would be difficult. Downright fucking painful, even, and an uphill battle on top of it. Langston had made it clear when Parker had been accepted after the deadline that he’d agreed to take Parker on reluctantly. What was it the man had said?

  Ah, right. Once a quitter.

  Not this time. Parker had wanted to be a doctor his whole life, and he’d let his ghosts stand in his way for six long years. The recent injury he’d suffered, the one that could’ve wiped out any hope of ever having that dream for good, had made him realize he’d put off returning to medical school for far too long. He wanted to be a surgeon, and he’d sworn that this time, he’d do whatever it took—anything it took—to reach that goal.

  He just hadn’t known that would include having the ex-wife he’d walked away from as his co-worker. His teacher.

  His boss.

  Before Parker had a chance to process any of the holy shit winging through his skull—and there was a lot of the stuff—Tess asked, “How is it that you’re an intern, exactly? You quit the program six years ago.”

  The reminder stung despite being all truth. “I know. I re-enrolled in the spring and spent the summer doing rotations at Northside.” He glanced down at his right hand, taking in the nasty scar from the injury that had precipitated his decision to put the past in the past, once and for all. “Obviously, my process isn’t conventional, but today is my first day as an intern. Again. And this time, I don’t intend to screw it up. Speaking of which, I should probably go check in for orientation. Dr. Langston said not to be late.”

  Another thing the guy had made wildly clear in their interview was that he had a zero-tolerance policy for rule-bending of any kind, so Parker would have to figure out how to deal with the emotions trying to commandeer his chest later. Preferably when he could soak them in tequila or take them out on the heavy bag at the gym.

  He turned to move out of the curtain area and head upstairs, but Charlie chose that moment to break her stony silence.

  “Not so fast. If you think for a second that you and I are going to spend the next ten weeks in each other’s dance space like nothing ever happened between us, you’re out of your mind.”

  3

  Charleston took three tries at a deep breath before she realized oxygen was just going to remain at a premium and she should take what little she could get. But of the thousands of people in the city who could conceivably become interns, she just had to be saddled with the one who had unceremoniously walked out on her six years ago?