Uncovering Her Secrets. Amalie Berlin
that she didn’t view this situation as doing him a favor. “I owe you.”
His gaze narrowed slightly.
Dasha waited for him to say something, but when that failed to happen she added, “And you’re an amazing surgeon, Dr. Monroe. You would be an asset to St. Vincent’s.”
He shifted, still quiet but mulling things over, if she had even the tiniest ability to read him anymore.
The fact that there was no immediate refusal didn’t really help her endure the silence. She looked down, away from his eyes—like that would give him some privacy to think—and got distracted by the shape of his body. Lean and broad. He filled out the blue scrubs like he was meant to sell them. Dasha had never found scrubs flattering, but there was something equalizing about everyone having to wear shapeless, wretched clothes that did nothing good for most figures.
Until it came to Preston.
He looked good. Narrow hips. Long legs. Broad shoulders. Lean. A swimmer’s build. But he was a runner. Like her—and yet another way they’d been rivals. In the class. At the track. During residency. Her libido had been shut down for years, and five minutes with this man and she was undressing him in her mind.
Before he had a chance to answer, the phone in her pocket buzzed and she fished it out to look.
“Big accident on I-40.” She looked him in the eye then. The man had worn scrubs to an interview, he’d come ready to work—or he had before he’d realized with whom he’d be working. As nice and easy as she’d wanted to play this, there was a chance he’d say no if she just asked him to come along. The only way Dasha knew how to make Preston do what she wanted? Make it a competition...dare him. “I’ve been summoned to Trauma One. I see that you came prepared to work, but I know that having to work with me might be too much for you to handle. I don’t want to make you do anything you just aren’t able to do, but do you think you could give us a hand? Maybe it will help you decide whether you want to stick around.”
The way his eyes narrowed made her worry that she’d played the wrong card.
“I know what you’re doing,” he said, his voice level enough to raise warning bells. “Do it again and I’m gone. I don’t really care what you think. If it didn’t sound like you needed help, I wouldn’t help. Maybe you can learn something from me.”
Before she could say anything, he was out the door and heading in the direction of Emergency. A quick lock of the door and Dasha ran to keep up with his easy jog.
Of course he knew where he was going. He probably memorized the layout of all the buildings before coming. And she was already lagging behind. But that was okay. No, it was better than okay. He would help. They’d need his help today.
And she knew one more thing now: he still looked on her as a rival, otherwise he wouldn’t have had to have the last word. And he really wouldn’t have thrown down the proverbial gauntlet.
Maybe he wasn’t so different after all. She could work with this Preston.
Probably.
* * *
A tractor trailer had turned over, crushing some cars and causing others to pile up, bringing to the ER the kind of injuries Preston expected. Until he saw two people pinned together by a length of steel rod. “What was the semi hauling?” He dragged on gloves and followed Dasha to the unlucky couple.
She called orders as a nurse helped her into a gown and gloves.
The grim looks he saw on the staff’s faces couldn’t be because he was there... Something was wrong. Something besides the carnage.
“You’re looking at it,” a nurse said, nodding to the skewer. “They were in the car together and had to be cut out.”
X-rays hung on the light board, side by side. The woman had a pierced lung, but she was conscious, with fluid currently draining. The man had abdominal trauma. Possibly pierced through his liver. Unconscious.
“Who’s on call for Cardiac?” Dasha asked.
“Stevens,” someone answered, then added, “But he was in the accident.”
The cardiac surgeon had been involved in the tractor trailer wreck?
“Is he injured?” Dasha never stopped moving but her dismay showed for a second before the wall came up. Preston checked the wound on the unconscious man and listened to his breathing then moved to repeat the check on the woman.
“He didn’t make it.” The same nurse who had answered him.
“Who’s on call?” Dasha moved past it, asking questions of different people, compiling the information she needed to see this through.
If the whole staff were as close as Dasha claimed, he could understand the grimness.
A faint burning started in his left eye. Not tears. Tears would be better. It was the other thing. A warning his eyes were acting up. The last thing he needed, an attack on his first day. Possible first day. If he stayed. It was starting to feel like some psychosomatic self-sabotage. But the job was the best part of him, even his subconscious had to realize that.
It was stress.
He should’ve been more prepared to see her. He’d known it would happen. He just hadn’t expected it to happen first thing.
He also hadn’t expected her to be so different. Long hair, blonde in that multicolored way he didn’t entirely get... Clean-faced. Put together. But the long hair looked good on her. Thick and straight. Sleek. Polished. Shockingly polished. She was trying so hard to be tactful. It was like speaking to a Dasha twin but wondering the whole time if he’d been Parent Trapped. Was this really the good twin, or was it the tomboy with scraped knees dressed up in her sister’s haircut and clothing?
That probably qualified as stressful. Left him a little off kilter.
On her way back to the female patient, Dasha stopped to press her upper arm against that of a nurse, just long enough to break her stride. A touch to comfort...albeit a strange one to keep her gloves clean, but a kind gesture anyway.
A second later she was with the female patient, said a few soft words to her, then straightened and resumed directing. “Dr. Monroe, you’re with me. Everyone, we need to wheel these two into the OR. We’ll separate them there.” The nurse she’d touched looked misty-eyed but jumped in to help. They all worked seamlessly as a team. Not just people working together.
Not once had he had that. Not since residency. He’d forgotten how she could do that...make people want to be their best. Strange contradiction in her character.
Think about it later. Time to work. Preston would never wish this kind of accident on anyone, but submersing himself in work was exactly what he needed.
A group surrounded the gurneys. Pounding feet and squeaky wheels announced transit of the unlucky couple through the hospital to the freight elevator—the only one big enough to take the gurneys in the position the steel rebar had locked the couple into—then to the large operating room.
“Dr. Monroe, you’ve got Mr. Andrews.” Dasha didn’t look at him as she spoke but kept an eye on her patient.
He’d like Mrs. Andrews. In truth, that was probably a two-surgeon job, but they only had so many hands. Maybe he could help Mr. Andrews and then give Dasha a hand, if Mrs. Andrews survived that long. Lots of blood vessels in the area that could be damaged.
They settled in the large operating suite. Neither patient was conscious now. Blood loss did that.
Dasha handed him the surgical saw. “Would you?”
Deferring to him? Okay, that was surprising. He always loved the saw—had almost gone orthopedics because of it. Did she remember that?
Later. Focus. Figuring out her motivations would drive him insane, and now was not the time. She was just another surgeon in a dicey situation with him.
The