Back To You (A Remington Medical Contemporary Romance) Page 7

  Charleston clamped her teeth over her bottom lip to suppress a laugh at the idea of Parker, who had an unnatural addiction to both kickboxing and Monday Night Football, reading a romance novel.

  But her snicker quickly turned to shock when Parker took the book from Connor’s outstretched hand. “I’ll have to sneak it in between my medical texts, but why not? I’m game.”

  “You won’t be sorry, dude. Anyway, I’ve got to get upstairs. The ICU calls.”

  Connor gave up a goodbye to Parker, who was wearing a half-smile that paired all too well with his stubble, and to Charleston, who was trying like mad to reclaim her wits. It only took a beat to get the job done, and by the time Parker had turned toward her, she was as composed as the Queen of England at afternoon tea.

  “Dr. Becker,” he said, his smile slipping. But she was—what had Tess called her? Ah, right. Fucking Godzilla. This was work. This, she knew how to do.

  “Dr. Drake.”

  “Looks like I’m on your service today.” Parker’s tone matched hers in professionalism, which made it even easier for her to get down to brass tacks.

  “I hope you’re ready to work, because the waiting room is bound to get full.” God, at least she hoped so.

  Reaching out, Parker slid a cardboard to-go cup across the counter, bringing it to rest in the middle of the full arms’ length of space between them. “I, ah. Brought you a cup of coffee,” Parker said, quickly adding, “I did the same thing for the other attendings. And I didn’t want to treat you differently, so…”

  “You’re equal opportunity about sucking up?” Charleston finished, not taking the cup, but not turning it down, either.

  Damn that infernal little half-smile. “Pretty much, yeah. You know how it goes.”

  “I do.” She’d worked with dozens of residents in various stages of their training over the last two years at Nashville Gen. This wasn’t the first, or hell, probably even the hundredth cup of coffee she’d ever been graced with.

  Which was the reason that she graciously took it, as she had all the others. “Thank you. But I don’t intend to treat you differently than your fellow interns, either. If you really want to get in my good graces, you’ll have to earn it with hard work.”

  “Understood. What would you like me to start with today?”

  Charleston’s shoulder muscles released their grip on her spine, if only by a degree, as she began to walk toward the intake desk and Parker fell into step beside her.

  “If the rest of this week is anything to go by, we’re going to be busy. Unlike the other doctors whose service you’ve been on this week, I don’t have any surgical cases”—she mentally punctuated the sentence with an optimistic yet before continuing—“so we don’t need to do rounds, but we do need to see what’s on the board so we can review the charts and get everyone transferred, treated, or turfed.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Parker said. “Treating patients is what I’m here for.”

  Huh. She hadn’t expected to bust his bubble quite so early in the shift. Not that the timing would keep her from doing it.

  “Not so fast, Dr. Drake. You’re an intern, not a second-year, and it’s your first week. For today, you’ll be observing and reviewing charts. We’ll do Q and A in any down time we’ve got. You’ll also be transporting patients for films and scans, as needed, and running labs.

  Parker’s running shoes squeaked to a halt on the linoleum. “You’re giving me scut?”

  Charleston slowed, but didn’t stop, giving him no choice but to start moving again or be left behind. “You’re an intern. You need to start at the beginning. I’m giving you the exact same tasks I gave Vasquez, Young, and Boldin this week.”

  She might want him to quit, but she wasn’t going to push him harder than any of the others to get him to do it. He’d get there all on his own, anyway, and until then, he’d do the work for the job he’d chosen.

  Only Parker didn’t budge, giving her no choice but to backtrack. Damn it, they were wasting time. There was work that needed to be done. Patients waiting to be seen. People who needed care.

  “Is there a problem, Doctor?” Charleston asked, packing a chill into both the words and her gaze.

  At least he had the good grace not to say yes outright. “I’m sorry, it’s just…” He dropped his voice to keep their conversation from being overheard even though the corridor and the trauma room beside it were both empty. “You know I have more experience than they do. The other attendings had me doing sutures and taking patient histories. I even prepped two of Dr. Higgins’s patients for surgery.”

  Whether it was his expectation or his impulsiveness, Charleston couldn’t be sure. But in that instant, her patience snapped. Apparently, her better judgment had hit the skids along with it, because the next thing she knew, she’d stepped close enough to Parker to breathe in the scent of his shower-damp hair and see the flare of his pupils against his irises, black on black.

  “That may be, but you’re not on the other attendings’ service today. You’re on mine. I’m here to do my job, part of which is to teach you how to do yours, the best way I see fit. You’re either on board with that, or you’re not. So, what’s it going to be?”

  7

  Parker wanted several things simultaneously, each one screaming PICK ME with equal measure. His ego begged him to tell Charlie in no unclear terms that having him observe was a colossal waste of his time and ability. Even his fellow interns, who were far greener than he was, had the wherewithal to at least take vitals and patient histories, maybe even perform an exam here or there to help determine a diagnosis. Observing was for med students. He’d outgrown it ages ago.

  On the other side of the coin, Parker’s cock dared him to take up the challenge Charlie had issued when she’d stepped into his personal space by stepping forward, too. A deep, dark part of him—one that had obviously been dormant for far too long, if the intensity with which it had just roared to life was any indication—urged him to cut the already scant inches between his body and Charlie’s by half, just to see if she’d react to his nearness as he’d reacted to hers.

  Heart pulsing. Belly kicking. Breath turning shallow and swift.

  But his brain, logical bastard that it was, quickly intervened to measure the variables. It reminded him that she was his boss, an experienced surgeon with knowledge he wanted, and that he’d heard Vasquez bitching just last night that Charlie hadn’t let her treat any patients, either. So, before his ego—or worse, his dick—could take over negotiations, Parker stepped back and lifted his hands in apology.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to make up for lost time in the program, and I guess that makes me a little…intense.”

  “A little?” Charlie asked, brows arched.

  Well, hell. She kind of had him, there. “Are you really going to fault me for wanting to go all-in?” he asked back.

  “Only if it kills a patient.”

  She delivered the words not with accusation, but in earnest, and her honesty grabbed his attention long enough to make him think before he reacted.

  Yeah, still no. “I might be eager to treat patients, but it’s because I want to help them. I would never put anyone at risk just to prove my abilities,” Parker said.

  “But just because you wouldn’t knowingly do something doesn’t mean it won’t happen,” Charlie countered. “Look, I know you’d never intentionally put a patient at risk. If that were the case, you wouldn’t have made it back into this program. The fact remains that you’re an intern. You’re here to learn. Observation isn’t a punishment, Dr. Drake. It’s a skill, and I want you to practice that before you practice anything else. You can’t build a strong house unless your foundation is solid.”

  Parker exhaled, low and slow. Time hadn’t made her any less smart. Or more eager to trust what she couldn’t see. “Fair enough. But I’m still not going to kill anybody.”

  “Oh, I know,” Charlie said, the tiniest smile flitting over her mouth before she added, “I’m not going to let you.”

  Some deeply ingrained reflex that he’d have sworn was long-dead flared back to life, prompting him to smile, too. Christ, but they’d always been flawless at this part, the back and forth as easy as breathing.

  “I’ll observe without complaining if that’s what you think is best,” he said. “But just so you know, I really do have some decent skills.”

  Charlie’s nod was her only concession. “And just so you know, you’ll have plenty of time to prove it. I don’t plan to have you observing forever. You have too much to learn for that.”

  “Should we get started, then?” Parker asked, gesturing down the corridor, toward the intake desk.

  But Charlie’s feet were already in motion as she replied, “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “I took the initiative of checking the board when I got here,” he said, switching gears and hustling to keep up with her, stride for stride. “It looks like mostly non-emergent cases, although there’s one patient experiencing chest pain in curtain three. One of the senior residents was with her when I came in.”

  “Then she’s in good hands. And non-emergent patients still need care,” Charlie pointed out.

  “Oh, believe me, I know,” Parker said, because he so did. “Most of the calls I went on as a paramedic were non-emergent. People who drank too much, folks banged up in fender benders or fights. Overdoses, lift-assists. That kind of thing.” God, he’d probably responded to thousands. Of each.

  Charlie’s brow furrowed. “Lift-assists?”

  “Ah. Sorry.” He and his former partner, Quinn, had invented or borrowed all sorts of first responder shorthand in the five years they’d worked together. Of course, not all of it would translate. “Calls for people who have fallen and can’t get up
on their own, or they’re afraid they’ve hurt themselves in the fall and are too scared to try. Usually, they ended up okay, with just bumps and bruises, but a lot of them were elderly. We triaged our fair share of slip and falls to the ED.”

  “Hmm.” They reached the intake desk, which actually wasn’t a desk at all, but had likely started out as one when the hospital had been built a few decades earlier and had just never shaken the moniker. Now, it was a long stretch of work space with three sliding Plexiglas windows separating it from the waiting room on the other side. Charlie turned, curiosity lighting her eyes as if she was about to ask another question, but before she could, a rude grunt sounded off from behind them.

  “You two,” came a scornful voice that Parker recognized immediately and hated just as fast, and shit, this was so not how he wanted to start his day.

  If Charlie’s audible inhale was anything to go by, he wasn’t alone in that boat. “Good morning, Don.”

  She pivoted toward the guy, who held a cup of soda big enough to do the backstroke in in one hand and a cheese Danish the size of a football in the other. Although she was giving up a far more well-mannered smile than the old windbag deserved, she followed it up with a pointed stare that must’ve reminded the guy of whatever threat Tess had laid out over keeping the past under wraps, because he didn’t elaborate on the former connection between Parker and Charlie.

  Nope. Instead, he focused all of his disdain on Parker, solo. “Back for more, I see.”

  Parker stiffened. But even though he didn’t want to advertise the fact that he’d been in the program once before, that part of things wasn’t a secret. Plus, like any gossip worth his salt, Don could sniff out unease with less than half a whiff. If Parker dodged or pushed back, the guy would pounce like a Rottweiler on a rib eye. Better to just roll with his penchant for shit-stirring. No matter how much it rankled.

  “Yep. I sure am.”

  “Huh.” Don took a huge bite of the over-glazed Danish, chewing but not swallowing entirely before he said, “Always knew you weren’t that bright. But if you want to be a glutton for punishment…”

  “Actually.” Parker’s smile was all teeth. “I’d like to be a doctor.”

  Don parked himself in his desk chair and let go of a crude grunt. “Uh-huh. Heard that one from you before. It worked out great.”

  Parker’s molars came together hard enough for his jaw to twitch, and it took every ounce of his admittedly questionable willpower to get a smile past all the fuck you flying at warp speed through his brain. “I’ve missed you, Don. Glad we had this chance to catch up.”

  “Dr. Drake and I are covering the ED together for this shift,” Charlie said, clearly wanting to get to work. “How are things looking today?”

  For all his faults (and oh, the list was as long as all of Parker’s appendages combined), Don ran the emergency department’s intake desk like a high-end European sports car. Things might go fast, but the ride was smooth, and they damn near never crashed.

  He jerked his chin at the wide-screen monitor mounted to the wall beside the work space. “See for yourself.”

  Charlie and Parker scanned the board simultaneously. Not much had changed in the fifteen minutes since he’d checked the thing last, although the chest pain lady had gone up to radiology and cardio had likely been paged for a hand-off. The cases they were left with all looked fairly garden variety, much to Parker’s dismay.

  “Okay,” Charlie said a few seconds later, which was a few seconds before Parker had reached the bottom of the list on the board. Damn, she was fast. “Night shift left the board nicely up to date, so let’s start at the top and get this thing cleared.”

  Following her lead, he grabbed a tablet from the charging rack at the intake desk, tapping the screen to life. He had to admit, the upgrade had been just shy of brilliant. Charts could be updated instantly, right down to the microgram of meds ordered and the microsecond they’d been administered, and all of it could be accessed from any tablet within the system.

  As Parker proved after a handful of keystrokes with his index finger. “First up is curtain one. Brian Welsh, forty-two. Complaining of abdominal pain.”

  He added the patient’s vitals and a few other pertinent details that the triage nurse had recorded. Charlie processed them as quickly as she had the patients on the board, but didn’t say anything. Parker flipped through a couple of possibilities in his head—food poisoning, stomach virus, ulcer, or—oh, maybe even a kidney stone, depending on where the pain was. Still, Charlie stayed quiet, until finally, Parker couldn’t.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me what you think might be causing his pain?”

  “No.” Charlie must’ve sensed his frustration, because she amended with, “Not yet. Observing is a skill, remember? Speculating what might be wrong with a patient is a waste of time until you can take a history and do an exam, especially with abdominal pain. It could indicate one of literally dozens of conditions. Not to mention it’s probably the second-most common complaint from patients who come to the ED.”

  Parker thought for a second, and ugh… “Is a foreign object in the body still the blue ribbon winner?” He knew he’d heard about too many of those this week for it to be an anomaly.

  “Welcome back to emergency medicine,” Charlie said with a smile. “At any rate, playing a guessing game—even an educated one—with something like abdominal pain before you have more information is a pointless waste of mental energy you’re going to need. Our patient here could have eaten a questionable hot dog from one of those street carts on the corner, or he could have a leaking aortic aneurysm. We’re not going to know which until we put eyes—and probably labs—on him.”

  Frowning, Parker wanted to argue, but quickly found himself unable to form anything strong enough to launch. Sure, going in with at least an idea of what you might be dealing with seemed smart, but the physical exam and the patient history were the springboard for everything that followed.

  Figured Charlie wouldn’t trust anything other than the black-and-white facts. She’d always loved the order of a solid plan.

  Put the past in the past, asshole.

  Tucking the electronic chart under her arm, Charlie pulled back the curtain that had been partially drawn around the bed behind it, depositing Parker back to ground zero in less than a breath. “Hi, Mr. Welsh,” she said to the man, who looked as pale and uncomfortable as the gown he’d changed into. “My name is Dr. Becker, and this is Dr. Drake. What brings you to the emergency department today?”

  Parker listened and watched as she examined the patient. God, she exuded capability, her work both thorough and swift. She asked pointed questions, each one creating a path to a diagnosis like a treasure map. There were still several Xs that could mark the spot, though, so she ordered half a dozen labs, along with some IV fluid and medication to try and ease the poor guy’s discomfort while he waited for the results.

  “No CT?” Parker asked as soon as they’d left the curtain area and were out of the patient’s earshot, and Charlie shook her head.

  “No. Tell me why I didn’t order one.”

  His brain spun, but only for a second before he came up with not one, but two reasons why she’d conceivably hold off on a CT. After some back and forth where she asked him detailed questions about the tests that she did order and what they might yield, Parker’s brain spun even faster.

  They repeated the process with patient after patient, and even though it took some serious mental Judo to balance multiple cases, sometimes swinging between as many as three or four at once, he fell back into the rhythm of triage/test/treat/turf well enough. Not getting his hands on the patients was still frustrating—how was he supposed to learn how to palpate for abdominal tenderness as efficiently as she did if he couldn’t actually touch the abdomen in question? But Charlie’s technique was better than many (fine, most. Okay, fine. Nearly all) of the other doctors he’d worked with in the past. Watching her treat patients, even with simple procedures he’d think were far beneath an attending’s level of skill, wasn’t a complete waste of time.