Private Partners (Doctors in Training 2)

Anne’s parents and grandfather had just walked into the restaurant.

Chapter Ten

An hour after leaving the Chinese restaurant, Anne still felt a little shaky whenever she thought about how very close to disaster

she and Liam had come. She could hardly believe they’d managed to blend into a crowd of college-age students leaving the restaurant just as her family had entered. She and Liam had both ducked their heads, and Liam had instinctively sheltered her by keeping himself between her and her parents. Somehow they had gotten out without a painful and public confrontation.

“That was entirely too close,” Liam had said as they stood beside her car.

“You’re telling me.” She’d swallowed the hard lump that had formed in her throat when she’d seen her father. “I knew Dad liked eating lunch here occasionally, but I had no idea they were coming here for dinner this evening.”

“Let’s get out of here before they spot us,” he’d suggested, opening her door for her. “I’ll see you back at your apartment later. Have a good study session.”

He hadn’t even kissed her as he’d all but shoved her into her car. The near miss had seemed to scare Liam even more than it had her.

As a result of that close call, she was a bit on edge when she met with her friends that evening. And she wasn’t the only one. Even though the next test was a week and a half away and they’d all had a few days’ break from each other, the tension remained within her group when they gathered at Ron’s downtown loft apartment. And this time she placed the blame directly where it belonged—on Ron and Haley.

“All right, guys, stop it,” she insisted after Haley snapped at Ron for the second or third time that evening and Ron sniped back. “This is really getting out of hand between you two.”

“Seriously,” Connor agreed, looking relieved that someone had brought up the subject. “I haven’t seen this sort of juvenile squabbling since I quit teaching high school. What’s going on with the two of you?”

Haley scowled. “I just get tired of him turning everything into a silly joke. This is serious. Maybe it doesn’t matter to you if we all pass the next test, Ron, but it matters very much to us. We have to focus.”

“I’m just trying to lighten everyone up a little,” Ron argued. “All we do is study and drill. It doesn’t hurt to laugh every once in a while.”

“And I just happen to be the most convenient butt of most of your jokes?” she retorted. “Gee, thanks. That really makes our study sessions more entertaining for me.”

“Maybe if you wouldn’t be quite so sensitive…”

“I’m not being sensitive! I’m just tired of you always picking at me. Making fun of my quirks, belittling anyone I happen to date, teasing me when I miss a question…”

“Oh, yeah, like that ever happens. When’s the last time you were less than perfect on anything, Ms. Genius?”

James cleared his throat, the quiet noise sounding oddly loud in the sudden silence. “That’s hardly fair, Ron.”

Ron turned on James, then, his usually smiling eyes dark and grim. “I can see why you’d think so. You’re at the damned top of the whole class. It all comes so easily to you. I don’t know why you even bother to study with us.”

“As it happens, I enjoy the companionship,” James replied evenly, his tone a bit too patient, as if he were keeping his own temper under control with an effort. “And, yes, I need to study as much as the rest of you.”

Ron snorted.

Growing more uncomfortable by the moment with the direction their conversation had taken, Anne noticed that Connor was eyeing Ron intently.

“Ron,” Connor asked quietly, “are you under the impression that you are any less valuable to this study group than the rest of us?”

Ron flushed. “Let’s face it, guys, you’ve all been carrying me for almost two years. All of you are so smart and so damned prepared for this career. I don’t even know how I got into medical school, and it’s all I’ve been able to do just to keep up so far. I’m not at the top of the class—I have to struggle just to stay somewhere in the middle. It’s going to take a freaking miracle for me to pass Step 1 and move on to third year. I don’t even know what I want to do when—or if—I get this degree.”

He held up his hands when everyone started to speak at once, his expression both embarrassed and chagrined, as if he’d been provoked into revealing much more than he had intended. “Don’t start throwing reassuring platitudes at me. I don’t need to be patted on the head. I’m just saying that if I act like none of this really matters to me, it’s because I just want to be prepared in case I screw up and have to find some other career. If you all agree with Haley that I’m more of a liability than an asset to the group, then I’ll start studying on my own. I’ll understand.”

Haley appeared to be near tears. “I never said you were a liability.”

Ron glanced at her with patent skepticism. “You made it clear enough.”

Anne drew a deep breath and stood. The others still sat around Ron’s round table, and they all looked at her in surprise when she rested her hands on the table and leaned forward, looking from one to the other of the faces turned her way.

“Every single one of us contributes to this group,” she said firmly, focusing now on Ron. “We need you to make us laugh, Ron. We need Haley to keep us motivated, and Connor to use his teaching skills to make some of the material easier to understand, and James to keep us calm and centered. We’re all exhausted. God knows none of us has had a full eight hours sleep in longer than we can remember. We’re all worried about next Friday’s test, not to mention the shelf exams and the Step 1. I suspect even James worries about that, though he doesn’t let us see it.”

James nodded shortly. “I’d be a fool not to worry about passing that exam. None of us is guaranteed to sail through it without a hitch.”