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

  Even if it did have his curiosity on fire.

  “So, how come you don’t let someone else do this stuff?” Parker asked her during a lull that doubled as his lunch break. “I mean, you’ve made it clear why you don’t want me to do it, and I’m still not arguing, but…”

  “Really?” Charlie’s brow lift outlined her doubt. “Because you sound like you’re arguing.”

  “I’m curious,” he countered, refusing to release the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Charlie didn’t respond, simply sitting back against the couch in the lounge and continuing to update the electronic chart in her hand. Just when Parker had kissed the conversation goodbye in his head, though, she surprised him with a reply.

  “I could let a resident take a lot of these cases,” she agreed. “If I were covering the emergency department in Nashville, I probably would. My case load is usually pretty packed with surgeries. But this is my job for the next ten weeks. I don’t intend to treat being back in the ED, even temporarily, with any less importance than I give to being a surgeon.”

  “Even when your regular gig involves surgeries like a Whipple?”

  Charlie’s chin snapped up fast enough to loosen a wisp of hair from the knot she’d pinned to the crown of her head, and yeah, no way was Parker able to cage his smirk.

  “What? You didn’t think people weren’t going to talk about that, did you?”

  “Well, no,” she said, tucking the defiant strand of hair neatly behind her ear. “I guess not. But I didn’t think you’d hear about it, too.”

  “Please. I’d have to be in a coma not to have heard about it.”

  Parker took a bite of the turkey sandwich he’d had the good fortune of remembering to bring with him. Damned cafeteria food was as over-fried and under-healthy as ever. “A surgery like a Whipple is a pretty far cry from splinting a broken wrist. Oh”—he pointed to the chart on the table in front of him—“by the way, the lady in curtain one…Mrs. Mortenson? Was discharged with a ’script for pain meds and a referral to an orthopedist.”

  “Oh, good.” Charlie tapped her way through a few screens on the tablet in her lap before saying, “And I haven’t spent all my time in Remington on small cases. I did treat that guy with the blown femoral artery the other day. Along with three other patients who had been in serious car accidents and one who coded during an MI during last shift.”

  “I heard.” Specifically, from Vasquez, who had been pissed purple that Charlie hadn’t let her put so much as a single suture in any of the car wreck patients. “I just don’t understand why a surgeon with such crazy skills is doing busywork in the ED.”

  An indignant noise rose from her throat. “Treating patients isn’t busywork.”

  Parker knew the risk of pushing. He knew she could relegate him to rectal exams and running labs for as long as she damn well pleased if he took it, just as he knew he should swallow his curiosity along with the last bite of his sandwich and change the subject to something mundane, like the weather or, hey, how ’bout those Panthers in that game last Sunday?

  But he didn’t. “Respectfully, I’m not so sure that’s true,” Parker countered. “Look, I’m not saying the people with broken wrists shouldn’t get good care. Of course they should. But any first year can splint a simple fracture. So, why not put a resident to work on these non-emergent cases so you can use the time to do other stuff? I’m still not arguing,” he added, tilting his head to offer up a smile as evidence. “But come on. You don’t have any surgical cases. The ED is fairly quiet. Surely you could be researching a trial or observing the bowel resection Higgins is doing in OR two, or any number of things a doctor with your experience is better suited for.”

  Parker braced for her to tell him to fuck straight off. The truth was, he had pushed, and how she delegated tasks as an attending fell smack in the category of none of his business.

  So he was shocked all the way to his cross-trainers when she softened and said, “I am a surgeon with a lot of experience. But I promised Tess I would keep her ED running smoothly. Plus, research and observing surgeries are all well and good, but there’s no substitute for the real thing when it comes to patient care. Even when the real thing is small.”

  “Still trying to save the world, huh?”

  Charlie laughed quietly, but Christ, Parker felt it move right through him, beneath his scrubs and skin. “Maybe,” she said. “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’m glad you are,” he said, the slam of his heart pushing the words past his lips. They were brash, but he didn’t care. They were also true. “I always knew you’d turn out to be a great doctor.”

  Her cheeks flushed. Still, she didn’t look away. She whispered, “Parker—”

  Her words were cut short by the over-loud bing of his phone from the pocket of his white doctor’s coat, followed by two more in rapid succession. “Shit. I’m sorry,” he said, wishing whoever had just interrupted his conversation with Charlie would fall into a deep, dark hole. In Antarctica.

  At least, until he saw who it was. “Mr. Irving’s CT is back.” The guy had been their fourth case of abdominal pain in as many hours.

  “That was fast,” Charlie said. Then, “Wait, radiology texted you?”

  Parker nodded, a tiny bit sheepish. “I told them to rush it and text me as soon as the scans were done.”

  “And you did that why, exactly?” Her tone reminded him that she hadn’t requested the imaging be done stat even though that was exactly how he’d ordered it, but he stood his ground. Albeit carefully.

  “I know Mr. Irving only rated his pain at a five, but he didn’t even blink when Kelly started his IV. He said he probably wouldn’t have even come in if his wife hadn’t bugged him.”

  One brow rose toward the sweep of Charlie’s red-gold bangs. “You’re not helping your cause.”

  “I’m also not done.” Parker gave his hands a hear me out lift as her other brow lifted to meet its partner. “I got the feeling his pain threshold might be kind of up there, and that guarding he showed when you examined his right side made me think his appendix might be to blame for his pain. Plus, you ordered a CT. You didn’t do that for anyone else we saw this morning, and they were all non-surgical.” Two cases of severe reflux and one ovarian cyst, to be precise. “So, I thought you might be thinking it was his appendix, too. Or that you at least wanted to rule that out.”

  Setting the chart she’d been updating aside, she said, “That’s a little brash of you.”

  “I didn’t order anything other than what you told me to,” Parker reiterated. “I just asked radiology to rush the scans on a hunch.”

  “Well, let’s see what we’re dealing with now that they’re back.”

  Pushing up from her seat on the couch, Charlie moved over to the computer that sat on a small desk in the corner of the lounge. A handful of keystrokes had her logged in, and with a few more, Charlie had the images from Mr. Irving’s CT on the monitor. Parker wasn’t even shy about looking over her shoulder, his brain firing on all cylinders and his heartbeat escalating in his chest as he studied…analyzed…

  “Ha!” He jabbed a finger at the screen. “I knew it! His appendix is totally inflamed.” Score one for good instincts.

  Charlie examined the scans for another minute before nodding. “Okay. It looks like we need to go let Mr. Irving know he’ll be parting with his appendix today. Higgins has surgeries scheduled all afternoon, but there are two residents on shift who can cover the ED. I can take care of it.”

  Parker blinked. Of course she wouldn’t hand this surgery off to a resident, even if it was one of the easiest procedures in the book. Not that he minded. He hadn’t scrubbed in on a surgery in six years. He’d been dying to get back to gloves and gowns since the second he’d decided to return to the program. Now he was going exactly where he belonged.

  “Sounds good.” Parker turned toward the door, but Charlie had beat him to the punch.

  “Call upstairs to book an OR,” she said, the softness in her voice and her dark green stare gone without a hint of either having existed. “I’ll let the residents know you’re available to transport non-emergent patients and run labs while I’m in surgery.”

  He stopped. Processed her words. Processed them again, but no. She couldn’t possibly mean—

  “Are you seriously not going to let me scrub in?”

  “I am seriously not going to let you scrub in.”

  Parker stepped toward her, hands on his hips. “Why not? I’d still just be observing. Anyway, I made the diagnosis.”

  “First of all, it’s a textbook appy. They’re not exactly rocket science to figure out. Which brings me to second of all. I did the exam, and I ordered the tests. I made the diagnosis. I just needed the scans to be sure. All you did was put a rush order on the imaging,” she said, mirroring his stance. “It’s going to take more than a hunch to get you into the OR.”

  Christ, this was bullshit. “I’ve done everything you asked of me.”

  “For one day,” she shot back, snapping another thread on his already unsteady patience.

  “I didn’t tell anyone about us.”

  The words drew Charlie up to her full five foot seven. “How good of you to keep your word.”

  Ignoring the jab—because addressing it would only make him more irritated—Parker forged ahead. “So, if I’ve done everything you’ve asked even when I think it’s a waste of time and I haven’t told anyone you and I used to be married, then why are you shutting me out of the OR?”

  “Because if you really want to be a doctor, you have to do more than just tell me. You have to show me.”

  Her meaning slammed into him in one unrelenting stroke. “You don’t trust me, do you? You think I’m going to quit.”

  The beat of silence that follo
wed screamed louder than any reply. Still, when her words came, they stung. “You don’t have staying power, Parker. You burn bright, then you burn out.”

  “I’m a different man than I was six years ago,” he said, crafting his tone to be sure she’d know he meant every fucking inch of the claim. “I’m not going anywhere this time.”

  Her expression remained unchanged, chin high and guard higher. “As far as I can see, you’re no different. Brash, impulsive. Over-zealous.”

  “I’m confident,” he argued.

  “You’re dangerous,” she argued back.

  Another puzzle piece snapped into place, pressing his pulse faster against his eardrums. Of course. She craved order. Things she could predict. Expect.

  Rely on.

  Heeding the dark, reckless voice he’d let his better judgment stamp out earlier, Parker moved toward her until only a few inches kept them from touching. “I know you like control, Charlie. But I like it, too, and I mean it. I’m not quitting this time.”

  They stood there for a beat, then another. Her face showed no sign of emotion, her stare cool and her mouth set in a firm line. But her breath betrayed her, making her chest rise and fall rapidly beneath her scrubs even though he’d bet she was doing her damnedest to meter it.

  “You like control?” Charlie asked, her voice oddly soft.

  Parker nodded with a single lift of his chin. “I do.”

  “Well, too bad, because until you slow down and earn it, you don’t have any. Yes, you worked hard, and yes, you helped make a fast diagnosis. But that’s your job. It doesn’t make you special, and it damn sure doesn’t entitle you to a spot in my OR. And until you get that”—this time, it was Charlie who cut the space between them in half until Parker’s breathing matched hers—“and I mean really get it, you’re not going to get very far.”

  With that, she turned on her heels and left.

  8

  Six years and nine months ago, internship, day 89

  Giant crush. Infatuation. Insta-love. Charlie had heard all the terms before. Like most sane, rational people, she’d always thought they were impulsive. Illogical. Crazy.

  And then she’d fallen into bed with Parker Drake, and suddenly, the concept of love at first sight made a truckload of fucking sense.

  “You know, if I didn’t like you so much, I’d find that my-life-is-perfect smile on your face nauseating,” Tess said, dishing up a knowing smirk before taking a bite out of the sandwich in front of her.

  “Aw, stop. You’ll spoil me with all that sweet talk,” Charlie said, smirking right back. She and Tess might’ve only been friends for the handful of months they’d been interns, but allegiances were like lightning storms in residency programs. They struck fast and strong.

  Tess swiveled her gaze around the busy cafeteria, which they usually tried to avoid at all costs, but after eight—crap, was it ten now?—hours on shift, beggars couldn’t exactly be choosers. “Where is your other half, anyway?” she asked.

  “He scrubbed in on that colectomy with Fitzpatrick.”

  “His ability to brazen his way into that OR for trauma surgeries is borderline freakish.” Tess’s tone marked the words as a compliment, and Charlie nodded in agreement. Parker was all-in, all the time. He did everything with such intensity that it left her nearly breathless, to the point that her pulse rushed every time she thought about the dark flash of his eyes and the bold, confident way he carried himself, whether he was working on a complicated case, or cooking her dinner, or sliding off her panties to bury his tongue between her thighs.

  Charlie grinned, even as her cheeks caught fire. “Anyway, if you’re waiting for me to apologize for being happy about having great sex with a guy I’m totally crazy for, I hope you packed an overnight bag.”

  Okay, fine. So the crazy-for-him thing might be as much of an understatement as the great-sex thing, and maybe the trip her heels had taken over her head had been as swift as it was impulsive. Still, Charlie meant what she’d just told Tess.

  Parker made her heart pound, her belly flutter, and her lady bits sing in unfettered rapture. Sorry wasn’t even in the same stratosphere as how she felt about their relationship.

  Tess laughed, the sound melting in with the din of voices and plastic trays on countertops and cutlery clinking. “We’re barely three months into our internship, Becker. I don’t need an overnight bag, because I’ve learned how to sleep in my clothes.”

  “Do scrubs count as clothes?”

  Ever-practical, Tess said, “They keep you from being naked,” and, God, it was just too good to pass up.

  Charlie let one brow kick toward her hairline. “Not always.”

  “Since that implies that you’ve had at least one quickie somewhere on the premises, and my sex life has been as dormant as Mount Kilimanjaro ever since we started residency, I am going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night.” Not that Charlie was sleeping much at night with Parker in her bed. Or that she was going to rub it in by pointing that out to Tess right now.

  Her friend got the message easily enough. “I mean it,” Tess said. “You’re nauseating.”

  Charlie’s stomach rolled dangerously at the sight and—ugh, gross—smell of the egg salad sandwich Tess had just lifted for another huge bite. “Speaking of nauseating, how are you even eating that?”

  “You’re kidding, right? I mean, I know I’m kind of taking my life into my own hands by risking it with the cafeteria food, but we haven’t eaten in…God, I don’t even know how long. How are you not eating everything that’s not nailed down?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said honestly. She’d been swirling her spoon through the cup of soup in front of her since they’d parked themselves at their table fifteen minutes ago, but between the mushy vegetables and the meat of questionable color and origin, she couldn’t bring herself to actually take a bite. “My stomach has been kind of weird lately.”

  “Weird how?” Tess asked.

  Charlie lifted one white-coated shoulder in an approximation of a shrug. “It’s kind of hard to explain. I don’t feel sick, like I have a virus or food poisoning. I’m just not hungry for anything.”

  “Not at all?”

  “No. In fact, I’m the opposite of hungry.” Her belly squeezed in agreement. “I get queasy just thinking about food, even when I know I should be starving.”

  Tess, being Tess, went right into doctor mode. “Is anything else off lately?”

  “A couple of little things, I guess,” Charlie said, after abandoning her spoon for good and starting to pick at the Saltines that had come with the soup. She had been feeling slightly off her game over the last few weeks, but her physical unease was all so minor. Certainly not anything that indicated she had something contagious, let alone serious.

  “So, no vomiting, cramping, or diarrhea to go with your nausea?”

  Annnnd there went the tiny spark of appetite Charlie had just worked up. “No. I’d get checked out for that.” As big a hurdle as it would be to miss a day or two in the program and still keep up, she would never risk getting the patients sick.

  “Okay. Fatigue?” Tess asked, and Charlie rolled her eyes.

  “We’re interns, Tess. I barely have time to shower. Of course I’m fucking fatigued.”

  Tess’s head tilted in that no-nonsense way that defined her. “Guess we can also check yes for moodiness.”

  “Ugh, sorry. I just need a good night’s sleep, more fluids, and some food that comes from the earth rather than this cafeteria, and I’ll be fine.”

  If her expression was any kind of gauge, Tess remained unconvinced. “Maybe. Is your period normal?”

  Charlie lost the battle with her laugh. “Are we seriously having this conversation?”

  When Tess deadpanned a look at her that translated to a great, big uh, yeah, Charlie continued, “Oooookay. To answer your question, my period is never really normal. I can’t ever time my cycles. My last one was pretty light, but otherwise…”

  “Okay. When was that?” Tess asked.

  “I don’t know. We’ve been so insane, I haven’t really been able to keep track like I normally would.” She’d been more worried about learning surgical procedures and staying on top of cases, pre-op and post-op, than her whacked out menstrual cycle. Plus, she and Parker were careful with condoms, every time.