The Doctor's Undoing (Doctors in Training 3)

“You never told me that,” Haley said almost accusingly over the head of the green bear.

He added a little swagger to his steps toward the exit. “Sugar, there’s a lot I haven’t told you.”

She punched his biceps.

Laughing, he slung an arm around her shoulders.

He didn’t want to think about the past right now. Too many painful memories there. Too many dumb mistakes he didn’t want to dwell on now.

The future was still so vague and daunting. He hadn’t liked Elissa’s questions about residency programs, and her implication that one of them—and no one had to question which one—might have to compromise if they wanted to stay together in the future. He would never allow himself to be responsible for holding Haley back in her chosen career. So he wouldn’t think about the future, either.

He would be content, for now, with enjoying every minute he could spend with Haley.

Chapter Seven

Haley and Ron were assigned to the newborn nursery for one week during their pediatrics block. Both found the experience interesting, though they agreed that neonatal medicine was not for them.

As part of the pediatrics team, Haley was called to scrub in on high-risk deliveries. Her initial case was a first-time mother in her mid-thirties whose escalating hypertension had made her doctor decide on a C-section at thirty-four weeks of pregnancy. Careful to remain in the sterile zone, Haley hovered close to the table while the resident, under close observation by the attending physician, wielded the scalpel.

The four-pound, six-ounce boy, still covered in goo, flailed weakly when he was placed into Haley’s gloved hands. Staring down at her tiny patient in awe, she carried him carefully, but quickly, to the warmer for cleaning and a stimulating, full-body massage. His Apgar scores would be determined at one and five minutes, possibly again at ten minutes if warranted.

She ran through a quick litany of the factors that contributed to the Apgar score: heart rate, breathing, reflex irritability, activity and appearance. Each factor received a score from zero to two, which were all added up for a total of ten points on the Apgar score, the healthiest of babies. This little guy earned a score of five at one minute, but after suctioning and supplemental oxygen, was up to a seven by five minutes, to everyone’s satisfaction. Considering his prematurity and low birth weight, he was reasonably healthy and had a good prognosis.

The boy’s mother was also doing well, Haley noted with a quick sideways glance, though the mother was not her concern as a pediatrics student.

Almost three hours after that delivery, Haley and Anne had a few minutes to meet downstairs for a cup of coffee. Haley had lunched with her resident, but Anne, who was on her internal medicine rotation, hadn’t yet had a chance to eat. She downed an energy bar while they

chatted about the birth Haley had witnessed and some of the cases Anne was monitoring on the adult wards.

Anne glanced at her watch, carefully keeping track of her short break time before she had to report back to her duties. “Long day.”

Haley shifted in her chair to stretch out a few kinks. “It has been. Remember back when we used to get eight full hours of uninterrupted sleep? When was the last time? College?”

“High school, more like,” Anne answered ruefully. “I was an overachiever in college, too, remember?”

Haley stifled a yawn. “You’d think after almost two and a half years I’d be used to it.”

Anne studied her short fingernails. “Ron keeping you out late?”

The question was very casually asked, but more loaded than it seemed on the surface. Haley had finally admitted to her best friend that she was seeing Ron, though as she’d planned, she’d quickly added her caveat about it not being a serious courtship. Anne hadn’t looked surprised by the news, but neither had she looked convinced about Haley’s definition of a mutually casual affair. At least she hadn’t asked any awkward questions; she was too good a friend for that.

Come to think of it, none of the study group members had asked any questions, Haley mused with a slight frown. Connor and James, too, had acted as if they’d been expecting this development. Had her attraction to Ron really been so obvious to them, even before she’d acknowledged it herself?

“We’ve done a few things. After work. When we aren’t studying for shelf exams. Ron thinks it’s important to play a little when we can to avoid third-year burnout.”

“Sounds like a good plan. Liam and I try to make time for a little fun when we both happen to be in the same town and free for a few hours. My dad thinks a medical student should live, breathe and dream studying, but Liam has convinced me that it’s best for both the student and the relationship to try to keep some balance between studying and having a life.”

Haley started to remind Anne that she and Ron didn’t have a relationship, exactly—certainly not the kind Anne had with her husband—but her pager’s beeping interrupted her. She sighed and set down her coffee cup. “Gotta go. I’ll see you…well, whenever I see you.”

Anne chuckled and waved her off, understanding completely.

The medical school turnout for the Halloween party wasn’t quite as good as it had been for the tailgate party in September. Though because grad students, law students, pharmacy and nursing students were also invited, the crowd was large. Haley and Ron attended together, but they were the only ones representing their study group there. Connor and Mia were hosting a Halloween party at their house for Alexis and her friends. Liam was out of the country on an assignment and Anne hadn’t been interested in attending without him. And James had simply declined, saying he wasn’t interested.

Haley knew James wasn’t seeing Elissa anymore, though she didn’t know why or whether the parting had been amicable. Maybe he just didn’t want to come stag and didn’t have anyone he was interested in asking tonight.

She probably wouldn’t have come, herself, if she wasn’t a class officer. She was really tired, having just completed her outpatient peds rotation. The past two weeks had seen her in a different specialty every day, and her head was still reeling from all the information that had been crammed into it. She just hoped she’d retained enough for her shelf exam.

Because their time had been so limited, she and Ron had rented costumes rather than try to come up with ideas on their own. He chose them as soon as he saw them in the store. To her, they looked like ordinary Western-style clothes. A brown duster coat with faux buckskin pants, suspenders and hip-slung holsters bearing toy revolvers for him, and a long, full-skirted red brocade gown with a snug, low-cut bodice and matching parasol for her. Ron assured her that the costumes were equally appropriate if they were dressed as characters from a cult-favorite, TV “Space Western” that had played for only one season nearly a decade earlier.