It turned out, medicine was all about people and I couldn’t do people. My ER rotation was the worst. Drunk people, violent people, relatives who needed comforting, husbands and wives and kids who I had to deliver bad news to. I had to figure out which patients were drug-seeking liars and which women were silent abuse victims. I needed to be assertive and intuitive and I was neither. And when traumas came in, making frantic, split-second decisions went completely against all my instincts. I went home every night and cried. My dad was right. People like us belonged in a lab. I was on the verge of quitting and going into research.
And then I started my final rotation: surgery.
It was a revelation. Suddenly, everything just felt right. My knack for anatomy made me the perfect fit: I knew every branch of every artery, could feel a patient and visualize what was happening beneath the skin. The steady hands and intense focus I’d inherited from my dad finally came to the fore. The surgeons teaching me said I was a natural and I loved the quiet calm of the OR. I can do this! I specialized in surgery, graduated with honors and came to Mount Mercy. I’d found my place.
I’d been here two years, safe and warm in my little burrow.
Safe and warm. And quietly, stoically, unimaginably lonely.
The cafeteria doors banged open and Corrigan strolled in. Spaces suddenly appeared at three different tables as women scooched aside to make room.
I tried not to stare at those thick forearms as he filled his tray. I started thinking about how mad Bartell had looked that morning. Krista was running a book on how many days it would be before Corrigan got fired and it didn’t seem fair. However cocky and arrogant he was, he’d been right about the knife.
Corrigan turned and swaggered towards—
Where is he...wait—
By the time I realized, the blue of his scrubs filled my vision. “This seat taken?” he asked.
His voice was different, now. Away from the breathless urgency of the ER, it was slower, almost lazy. And that Irish accent... a low rumble that spilled silver dust down the length of my spine and ended in a hot throb between my thighs.
I shook my head.
Climbing into the cafeteria’s bench seats never looks cool but he somehow pulled it off, casually hooking one leg over and then swinging himself in. For a second, his crotch was right at my eye level and wherever I looked, my eyes kept winding up there.
He dropped into the seat and gave me a cocky, knowing grin. I could feel the confidence rolling off him and slapping up against me in big, intimidating waves.
Say something cool and funny. “People are betting on when you’re going to get fired,” I blurted. Yeah. Not that.
But he just laughed. “They always do.”
I shook my head at him. “How can that be a joke? Don’t you care?”
He glanced across the cafeteria at Bartell. “About getting fired by that prick? Not particularly.”
Anyone sensible would have just nodded and smiled. But this is me. I just sort of say things, especially when I’m nervous. “Isn’t this your last chance? What if nowhere will take you? What if you can’t practice?”
For a second, his grin fractured. I’d hit a nerve. So he felt the same way I did: he couldn’t imagine doing anything other than medicine. So why was he so relaxed about it?
He shrugged. “There’s always somewhere that needs doctors. Britain. France. Back to the Congo, if I have to.”
I stared at him, trying to imagine being rootless like that. I’m a nester.
He stretched his shoulders, spreading his arms out wide like he owned the whole table, the whole room. His scrub sleeves rose up his arms, revealing more tanned bicep, more dark ink. Then he laid those sculpted forearms on the table and leaned in to me. I started to lean in to meet him... then caught myself. He couldn’t be interested in me so he must just be teasing me. I wasn’t going to fall for it. I sat bolt upright.
He smirked.
Dammit! Why was he doing this? Why flirt with me? I glanced to the side and saw four different women glaring at me. I didn’t ask him to come over here!
“Why do you wear that all the time?” he asked, nodding upwards.
“What?” And then, before I could stop him, he’d plucked the surgical cap from my head. “Oh! I just kind of... forget I have it on.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I bet you do. You never stop being a surgeon, do you?”
What? What did that mean? I was flustered and blushing and every time I looked in his eyes, I got lost again.
He spun my cap around his finger. “You need to get out of the OR and have some fun, Amy. Can I call you Amy?”