Back To You (A Remington Medical Contemporary Romance) Read online

  Not for long.

  “Tess, a word in private,” she said through her teeth, gesturing to the lounge across the large, open space housing the curtain areas.

  Nodding, Tess shot a stare at Parker. “Don’t go anywhere. In fact, don’t even move one inch.”

  He looked like he wanted to argue, his dark stare widening and that still-wicked mouth of his forming a frown. The reality of his situation must’ve kicked in, though, because he crossed his arms over his chest and nodded in silent agreement. Charleston spun toward the lounge, using the order of walking across the floor—step, step, step, step, step—turning the doorknob—click, release—and shutting the door—thunk—to get her fractured composure back into place.

  “Please tell me you didn’t know about this.”

  “Jesus, Charlie. Of course I didn’t know.”

  The hurt flickering over Tess’s face sent a stab of guilt beneath Charleston’s blouse. Tess had been there—not just when Charleston had miscarried and her marriage had self-destructed, but more importantly, after. She’d witnessed every ugly, vulnerable moment of the aftermath. No way could she have known Parker would be here and not said anything.

  “I’m sorry,” Charleston said, exhaling slowly. “I’m just a little thrown, here.”

  “Believe me, I am, too. The last time I saw Parker, he was a paramedic at Station Seventeen, the same as he has been for the last five years.”

  Charleston’s chin sprang up, clearing the path for her shock. “You’ve seen Parker since he left the program?”

  “Well, yeah,” Tess said carefully. “I mean, he’s a paramedic. Or, I guess, he was. You know how it goes. They filter in and out of the ED pretty regularly. But I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to hurt you, and I haven’t seen him for, God, probably six months. I figured he’d transferred to a fire house closer to Northside, or some other hospital on the other side of the city, which meant you wouldn’t run into him at all while you were here. I had no idea he went back to medical school. I definitely didn’t know he was placed here for his internship.”

  His internship. Jesus. “He’s not staying.” Charleston shook her head, adamant. The idea that she could work anywhere near Parker, let alone teach him, was utterly fucking laughable. “I mean it, Tess. Either Parker goes or I go, and since I’m already covering your leave, he’s going to have to do his internship somewhere else.”

  Preferably on another continent, but at this point, she wouldn’t be terribly choosy. Another hospital would do the trick. But she would not—could not—work with him.

  And she had to work.

  Tess’s expression grew serious. “I get it. I really do, and I don’t disagree. But I don’t get to make that call.” She paused. “Langston’s in charge of choosing the interns for the program. And he’s really particular about it. If he let Parker in, he must’ve had a damn good reason.”

  Charleston processed the look on Tess’s face, along with her words. Cursed. Let everything sink in some more.

  Langston was in charge of choosing the interns for the program. Langston, who hadn’t been at Remington Memorial when Parker had done his first go-round as an intern, yet had still accepted him despite his history of having washed out once before. Langston, who didn’t know Charleston outside of her résumé and owed her no loyalty as such. Langston, who’d done Tess a favor by letting Charleston cover her leave rather than hiring a doctor of his own choosing, and who probably wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over changing his mind if Charleston made bossy demands and questioned his judgment on day one.

  Langston, who had such a hard-on for the rules that if Charleston wanted Parker out of the program, she’d have to have a very good reason to back up her request, and that meant she’d have to air her dirty laundry to the guy.

  Dirty laundry she’d had no intention of ever discussing again, and God damn it, there was no win here. She hated that she felt so vulnerable without warning, despite all she did to keep herself protected and in control.

  No. Check that.

  She hated Parker for making her feel vulnerable. And now she was going to have to deal with him, right here in this hospital, for ten weeks?

  “I don’t”—Charleston’s voice hitched, and she took a long inhale in an effort to lock her composure into place. “I don’t know if I can do this, Tess.”

  Tess nodded. “Look, if you want to go to Langston right now and make waves over this, I’ll stand right at your side while you do, and if you need to leave Remington and not take this job, I won’t be mad. I can’t imagine what you must be feeling right now.”

  Her gaze, which had been uncharacteristically soft, flashed with the sort of fierceness Charleston was far more accustomed to. “But no matter what you choose, don’t you think for a second that there’s anything you can’t do. You went through hell when you were an intern, and as hard as life tried to break you, you didn’t quit. You’re not a mere mortal, Charlie. You’re fucking Godzilla, and you are far better than that man, who walked away from you when the going got tough. Now, do you want to drag him in front of Langston, or should I? I’m okay with either, really, but—”

  “No.” Charleston blinked slowly as the pure truth of Tess’s words sank past her shock, her dread. Her vulnerability. All of it.

  She was Godzilla. She didn’t quit.

  Ever.

  “No, what?” Tess asked, obviously confused.

  Charleston, however? One hundred-percent certain of what she was about to say. “Neither of us is going to drag Parker in front of Langston, because neither one of us is going to have to.”

  Tess’s confusion didn’t budge. Not that Charleston had expected it to. “Okay, help me out, here. How are you not going to work with him if we don’t go to Langston with either a complaint or your resignation?”

  “Because you’re right. I don’t quit. But Parker does.”

  “You think he’s going to leave the program on his own?” Tess asked, brows up, and Charleston shook her head.

  “I don’t think it. I know it.” God, did she. She was living, breathing proof. “Parker may talk a good game, but his follow-through is for shit. Our marriage, his first internship. When things get hard, he runs. This time won’t be any different.”

  Tess looked through the window in the lounge, her gaze zeroed in on the spot where Parker still stood by the curtain area. “Okay, so you’re not wrong about Parker being a runner,” she finally said. “But still. You’ll have to work with him until he quits.”

  Charleston’s heart beat faster, but still, she stood her ground. “It’s not ideal. But he’s six years removed from med school. Paramedic training or no, you and I both know this is an entirely different ballgame. He’s going to be tested, hard, every time he turns around. I give him three weeks. Four, tops.”

  More than half of their class of interns had washed out at some point or another, either during that first year or during residency. Between the expectations, the knowledge needed to succeed, and the sheer workload, the pressure had been nearly indescribable, and nothing about the training had changed. And now that he was older, with six years’ worth of cobwebs on everything he’d learned as a med student, it would only be worse.

  Still, Tess asked, “Are you sure? He seems awfully determined.”

  Charleston put her hands on her hips and looked at Parker through the glass. His strong, lean shoulders were set beneath his white button-down shirt, dark brows pulled low over a serious stare. He looked intense, those black-coffee eyes that she’d once been able to lose herself in for hours flashing in the bright glare of the hospital fluorescents, even as he looked at nothing in particular.

  But as much as the fire in his expression stirred long-buried emotions in Charleston’s chest, it also didn’t fool her. Everyone was hungry in the beginning, and Parker had been all-in on his last first day, too. He’d quickly shown his true colors when things had grown difficult, and just like him, she hadn’t changed.

  This hadn’t broken her before. She wasn’t about to let it now.

  “I’m sure. But before we get this party started, we’re going to need to lay down a few ground rules.”

  Parker stood outside the curtain area, half frustrated, half full of dread. Despite what Charlie had said, he’d made the right decision with that bike messenger. Calling an ambulance would’ve meant a ten-minute wait time for a two-second ride. It had been obvious the guy’s head and neck were fine, and the films had—hello—confirmed it. The longer his bones had been left exposed, the more prone he’d have been to infection, and carrying him to the emergency department had gotten him treated that much faster. Not to mention the injury had to have hurt like a motherfucker, so really, Parker hadn’t been stupid at all.

  Except he’d already pissed off not one, but two attendings, and he hadn’t even checked in for orientation yet.

  Shoving his hands in the pockets of his khakis, he blew out a breath. He’d known from the outset that he’d have his work cut out for him with a chainsaw. Sure, he had five years of experience as a paramedic under his belt, but that wasn’t so much apples to oranges as it was apples to frigging bacon. Being an intern would require Parker to be faster. Smarter. Better. Plus, he’d decided to re-enroll after the deadline for internship placements. His test scores and field experience had made it possible for him to apply for special consideration, which he’d done at every single hospital in the city, only to be shot down in interviews, one after the other. Remington University’s program was highly competitive, and despite the fact that he had one hell of a letter of recommendation from his former Captain, Tanner Bridges, he also had a reputation as a rule-breaker, with a personnel file to match.

  Parker snorted, even though there was no one nearby to hear his exasperation.
Every last one of those write-ups had been crap. So he’d technically bow-tied the rules a few times in order to make a save. He had argued (as politely as possible, because yeah, interview) that his record for turning close calls into success stories spoke for itself.

  That had been the point at which three of the five chiefs of staff had shown him the door. The fourth had pointed out that Parker was pretty long in the tooth compared to all the other interns who were fresh out of med school and just as damned hungry to be doctors as he was, and oh yeah, hadn’t he already washed out once? That had left his last choice as his only hope, and he had a feeling that more than half the reason Langston had agreed to even interview him was because the guy played poker with Captain Bridges and Sergeant Sam Sinclair from the Thirty-Third, both of whom had backed Parker up despite his checkered history with the program and his less-than-sparkling reputation. Langston had made no bones about the fact that his placement was dependent on stellar performance, and that he expected Parker to follow every last rule, right down to the fine print. And not only did Parker have to rise to the challenge of getting through his internship with his nose Spic and Span, but now he had to deal with Charlie as his attending, right out of the gate?

  How was he supposed to put the past in the past when he had to work with the one woman he’d never be able to forget?

  “Parker.”

  His pulse quickened at the sight of Tess, who had appeared in the now-open doorway of the lounge into which she and Charlie had disappeared a full ten minutes ago. God damn it, he was going to be late, and damn it again, was that blood all over his sleeve?

  “Yeah?”

  “Dr. Becker and I would like to have a word with you.”

  Talk about the Queen Mother of all rocks and hard places. Measuring his situation, Parker decided to go with rank. If he left now and ran his ass off, he might still be able to slip into the back of the orientation group unnoticed.

  “Actually, I’m supposed to be upstairs. Dr. Langston has probably already started.”

  “Oh, this will only take a minute. Trust me,” Tess said, nodding him toward the doorframe.

  Well, shit. She clearly wasn’t going to let him off the hook, and he was already at a massive disadvantage in the pissing-her-off department, so he crossed the curtain area and followed her into the lounge.

  “Look,” he said, turning toward Charlie as soon as Tess shut the door behind him. “Charlie, I know this is—”

  “Ah!” Tess lifted a hand to cut him off as Charlie folded her arms over her chest. No loss of sisterhood between these two. Not that Parker had expected there to be. In fact, at one point in his life, he’d counted on it. “You’re an intern. That means your attending is going to talk, and you are going to listen.”

  Parker bit his tongue as hard as he could without drawing blood. The faster they did this, the better.

  “We’re in an unusual and unfortunate situation, here,” Charlie said. “I’m at this hospital to cover Dr. Michaelson for the next ten weeks, which means not just working with her colleagues to save lives, but training the interns in the current class. Even if one of them happens to be you. Obviously, you and I have a history together.” Her tone held all the enthusiasm one might use to describe things like tax audits or raging hemorrhoids. “It’s not one I’m interested in making public.”

  Translation: I want to forget all about you.

  Parker straightened, his heart going full-on Muhammad Ali in his chest. “To anyone?”

  “To anyone,” she agreed. “I’m not interested in being whispered about in the attendings’ lounge, and I’m certainly not going to lose credibility with your fellow interns just because you and I were once involved.”

  He opened his mouth to argue that they’d been a hell of a lot more than involved, but then he paused. Although the idea of reducing their marriage to been-there, done-that smarted on the surface, it also worked to his advantage. Charlie might want to blot out the fact that she’d ever met him, but if Langston found out they’d once been married, Parker’s placement might be in jeopardy as a conflict of interest. At the very least, Langston would slide him even farther under the microscope than ever if he knew, and Parker really did want to put the past in the past, so yeah, this seemed like a win-win. Albeit one that bitch-slapped his pride.

  “Okay. But what about Langston? He knows I was here six years ago.” Parker had had no choice but to put that little nugget on his application.

  Charlie didn’t budge. “He might know you were here, but he doesn’t know that I was, too. I completed my residency in Nashville. As far as Langston knows, that’s where I did all of it.”

  As meticulous as the guy was, he’d been interviewing Charlie for a temporary position. If her track record as a resident was spotless—and Parker would bet the bank that it was—he’d have had no reason to do more than check it once with a cursory glance. He’d put far more focus on her current experience.

  Which covered one base, at least. “And how about the people who worked here six years ago?” he asked. Kelly, the nurse, couldn’t be the only one.

  “We were interns, therefore invisible, and while the gossip around here is plentiful, it also has the lifespan of a fruit fly,” Tess said with authority. “Anyway, turnover in a hospital this size isn’t small. I’m pretty sure it’s just Kelly, Suzanne on the night shift, and Don. I’ll make sure none of them say anything.”

  A noise of shock flew out of Parker’s mouth, unchecked. “Don is still here?”

  He’d have sworn the crotchety old SOB who’d worked the front desk in the emergency department six years ago (and for the six hundred before that) would’ve been either fired or murdered by a patient, nurse, resident, doctor…well, okay. Potentially anyone he might come into contact with.

  Tess’s brows lifted. “Where else would Don go?”

  “Good point. Look, I’m just here to do my internship. As far as I’m concerned, the past is in the past. But, Charlie—”

  “Dr. Becker,” she interrupted, and he inhaled on a metered four-count before nodding in concession. He should’ve known she’d go back to her maiden name. She’d barely had time to change her driver’s license from Becker to Drake before he’d served her with divorce papers.

  “Dr. Becker,” he said. “I want you to know I didn’t choose this.”

  Her brows winged up, and shit. The one chance she was going to give him to try and say something that would make her hate him less, and he was botching it.

  Parker shifted toward her. “I mean here. I didn’t choose to be here, for my internship. In fact, Remington Memorial was my last choice. And I had no idea you’d be here.”

  “Good to know your memories of this place are as fond as mine.”

  Yep. Botched it. “I just want to do my job. That’s all.”

  “Well, good,” Charlie said, “because that brings me to the next thing. You’re an intern, and I’m an attending, which means we’re doing things my way. No exceptions.”

  “You mean the bike messenger?” Parker realized out loud. She had to be kidding. She wouldn’t be giving a Good Samaritan such a ration of shit over the move, and Parker was better trained, therefore better equipped, to bring the guy in. He’d taken extra care to make sure the patient’s leg was as stable as possible the whole way.

  Charlie nodded. “I mean the bike messenger. You know better. You should’ve called for help rather than trying to look like a hero.”

  “I wasn’t trying to look like anything,” he argued. “I was trying to help him.”

  “If you’d wanted to help, you’d have stabilized his head and neck properly, per protocol,” Charlie said, and Tess—not shockingly—added her agreement.

  “Just because he turned out not to have a spinal injury doesn’t mean you were right. It just means you were lucky. The guy got hit by a car.”

  Frustration sparked hotter in Parker’s veins, but he kept it from slipping into his tone, albeit only just. “I know, because I witnessed it. I saw that car clip the back tire of his bike, and I saw him not hit his head on his way to the pavement. Another thing that I saw was the hospital entrance, right from the spot where the whole thing went down, and I didn’t exactly have a C-collar in my back pocket. He didn’t present with a head or spinal injury, and I’m trained well enough to know one when I see it. For Chrissake, the guy is fine.” Or he would be, as soon as Dr. Sheridan cobbled his tibia and fibula back together, à la Humpty Dumpty.