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Following Doctor’s Orders
Caro Carson
Chapter One
She heard his voice before she saw him.
Through the constant hum of voices that formed the background noise of the emergency department at West Central Texas Hospital, his deep bass carried. Although he was a fireman by profession, his voice always made her think of cowboys. With its mild Texas drawl and the hint of a wink in the tone, his voice brought to mind a cowboy who’d come to town looking for beer and girls and a good time. He wasn’t a serious man.
She was a serious woman. Dr. Brooke Brown, emergency physician, could hardly be anything else. The buck stopped here—right here, at the pen in her hand. When she wrote a medical order, it was followed, and the results sat squarely on her shoulders. Whether the patient lived or died was her responsibility—medically, legally, morally.
It stood to reason, then, that she was the one female employee in the emergency department that didn’t get giggly-excited when the radio announced that the firefighters from Engine Thirty-Seven were bringing in another patient. Brooke had weightier things to think on than which team of Austin’s firefighters and paramedics had the most bachelors—or which had the bachelor with the sexiest voice.
But Engine Thirty-Seven did.
Brooke would never acknowledge such a thing out loud, but the two women standing at the nurses’ station weren’t so reserved.
“It’s gonna be a great shift,” one woman said. “The studs of Thirty-Seven are here to kick it off right.”
“It’s Eye Candy Wednesday.”
“Yesterday, you said it was Eye Candy Tuesday.”
“Every day that Thirty-Seven comes here is an eye candy day.”
Ignoring their light banter, Brooke continued to listen to the distinctive rumbling bass of one member of the Eye Candy Engine. Firefighter Zach Bishop was rattling off the patient’s basic information to the triage nurse, his voice coming from just behind Brooke and to her right—room three, she was sure—compound fracture of the tibia spoken in the same tone of voice as Mary Ellen, don’t break my heart and tell me that diamond means you’re engaged, darlin’.
Zach Bishop always conveyed the impression there was nothing to worry about. Nothing was unfixable or alarming. The patient could have confidence his injury was treatable. The nurse could flirt safely as she showed off her new engagement ring, knowing the firefighter with the movie-star looks didn’t truly expect her to betray her fiancé.
Dr. Brown, however, knew there was always something to worry about. Specifically, Brooke worried about the people of Austin who came to the emergency room of West Central with their complaints, big and small. She had confidence that she could handle the medical complaints—a professional confidence. Zach’s kind of confidence was personal—and masculine—and a distraction to the smooth operation of her department.
Was it any wonder that they’d spent nearly a year as something close to adversaries?
Adversaries wasn’t the right word. They worked together smoothly. He was a good paramedic, and his shameless appreciation of the female attention that was showered upon him always came second after the patient’s care. But as the handsome Mr. Bishop returned all the smiles that came his way, Brooke frowned in annoyance.
She couldn’t accuse him of trying to get attention. He’d just walk in, casually pushing a gurney, and the contrast between his sun-streaked short hair and his black uniform caught the eye. Whether he wore the black T-shirt of the fire department or the black button-down shirt of the ambulance corps he moonlighted with, the short sleeves of both uniforms revealed the defined muscles of his arms—biceps, triceps, carpi ulnaris.
After his first few visits, it had become obvious to Brooke that while the man didn’t seek feminine attention, he certainly didn’t discourage it. He wasn’t required to stop and chat with every woman who wanted to stop and chat with him, but he did.
Early in September, Brooke had leveled a look of disapproval his way as he was leaving the ER. He usually only raised a brow in an amused response to her glare, but that time, he’d leaned in just a bit too close to deliver the most ridiculous line she’d ever heard: If I had a nickel every time a woman as beautiful as you frowned at me, I’d have...five cents. Then he’d simply walked away, out through the sliding glass doors that led to the ambulances parked outside.
The next time he’d brought in a patient while Brooke was on duty, every woman in his vicinity had slowed her pace just enough to smile and be smiled at once more. Brooke must have frowned again, because he’d leaned in and quietly said, “Ten cents.”
She’d been ready that time. “I find it hard to believe you’ve only been frowned at twice in your life.”