1
SAMANTHA
* * *
My workday was finally done. At last. The dictation of my patients’ records was complete. I hung up the phone with the recovery room and was glad to hear the afternoon emergency appendectomy patient was awake and responding well. With an extra four hours tacked on to my shift, I took off my glasses, rubbed my eyes before settling them back in place again.
I stood from the desk, raised my arms over my head, stretched my back. Filling in for someone in the ER, I covered a shift for a guy who’d gone to Texas for the birth of his first grandchild, plus covered my usual duties in the OR.
I looked at my watch, did the math. Twenty-three hours and six minutes until I was due back for my next shift. Laundry needed to be done. Apartment cleaned. Finish the latest thriller on my e-reader. Sleep.
God, I was dull, the excitement of my day a good book and crawling into bed at a ridiculously early hour. Alone. Working seventy-plus hours a week made me crave sleep, not fun. I’d only been in Cutthroat a few months and everyone on staff was friendly, but I was an oddity. It wasn’t often someone graduated from medical school at twenty-two and finished a surgical residency by twenty-five.
Most nurses were older than me. Some candy stripers, even. My age and the fact that I was legally allowed to wield a scalpel made some patients panic when they found out I was the one operating on them.
An ER nurse named Helen stopped in front of me. “One more before you go?” I took in the apologetic look on her face for giving me another patient. For a small-town hospital, we’d been crazy busy all day. Full moon, perhaps.
Inwardly I groaned but only nodded as I grabbed my stethoscope from the desk and slung it over my neck. “Sure, no problem.” What was a little longer? It wasn’t as if my wild after-work plan of reading on my couch was going anywhere.
“Prostate check.” The corner of her mouth tipped up, but that was the only sign of amusement she gave. We were professionals, no matter the patient’s concern, although sliding my fingers into the rectum of a stranger wasn’t on top of my list of fun things. “Third time this year. You’re new and haven’t met Mr. Marx yet, but he’s Cutthroat’s resident hypochondriac.”
I knew of them, people who either read too much on the Internet and scared themselves right into the ER or were lonely and wanted some TLC. A prostate check meant the first, hopefully, and not the second. “Gotcha.”
“Room three.”
I headed that way, knocked on the door and entered. “Hello, sorry it took some time to get to you. This is the ER, and I had emergency surgery. I’m Dr. Sm—”
My usual greeting dropped off to nothing at the sight of the patient. He was nothing like the mid-sixties, overly worried man I expected. Tall, dark and handsome were the right adjectives to describe the guy before me, but he was so much more. He was tall; he easily had an extra foot on me. His hair was black, a few weeks past the time for a cut. He was clean-shaven—although it looked like he might need a razor again. His jaw could be used to measure perfect angles. He wore a black Henley and jeans, both snug and fit him to perfection—meaning every one of his muscles was on delicious display. Every one. He reminded me of a short-haired Jason Momoa. And his gaze… penetrating, dark, assessing and focused squarely on me.
I had no idea where the mental drivel was coming from, but I couldn’t miss the way a tattoo peeked out beneath the sleeve of his shirt at his wrist. Over the antiseptic smell of the ER, I picked up his woodsy, male scent. He screamed bad boy—not hypochondriac—without ever saying a word. And my body responded. Heated.
Craved.
I realized I was standing and ogling… and my mouth was open. My cheeks flamed hot at my behavior. I never ogled, but then again I’d never seen such a hot guy before. “Sorry, I’m Dr. Smyth,” I repeated, finally finishing.
His dark brow winged up as he looked me over. I felt naked, and my nipples decided to pebble, which had never happened before, at least because of a guy. And definitely not because of a patient.
“Really?”
I tipped up my chin and replied with my usual. “Yes. Think I’m too young to be a doctor? Don’t be concerned, I’ve done this before.”
“No, I just expected Sam Smyth to be a guy.”
I frowned, wondering how he knew my first name, but it was on my badge clipped to my scrub top. I went to the computer, pulled up the patient chart, scanned the details, knew what I needed to do. “Sam’s short for Samantha. Jeans and underwear down, please.”
His eyes widened. “That’s a new one,” he said.