The Nightshift Before Christmas. Annie O'Neil

       CHAPTER TWO

      “WHAT YOU GOT THERE?” Josh stepped up to the desk, shrugging off his jacket as he approached. Out of the corner of her eye Katie could see Jorja’s lips reshape into an O. Josh—or rather his body—had that effect on women. It was why she’d never thought she’d stood a chance. People always mistook her shyness for being stuck-up. But Josh had seen straight through the veneer and gone directly to her heart.

      He turned his Southern drawl up a notch. He could do that, too. Pick and choose when to play the Southern gent or drop it if he saw it detracted from his incredibly sharp mind.

      “Dr. McGann, may I help keep you out of the fray while you sort out the big picture?”

      Katie eyed him warily for a second, then made a decision. By the hint of a smile that bloomed on his lips she could see it was the one he had been hoping for.

      He would stay.

      Never mind the fact that showing up on Christmas Eve when they were a doctor down wasn’t giving her much of a choice. She had it in her to kick him the hell outta Dodge, if that was where he needed booting. But right now there were patients to see, and pragmatism always trumped personal.

      “Twenty-five-year-old male presented with an arterial cut to the bone on his index finger.” She tapped the chart with her own.

      “Turkey?”

      “Ham. Too easy for the likes of you.”

      She pressed the chart to her chest, claiming it as her own. Katie let her eyes travel along all six feet three inches of her ex. Josh had always been a trauma hotshot. And he’d always looked good. She’d steered clear of the Boston General gossip train, so didn’t really know what path he’d chosen professionally after she’d left, but personally nothing had changed in the looks department. He still looked good. She looked away.

      Too good.

      “You’re the next one down.” She pulled the X-ray down from the lightboard and passed it to him with a smirk. “Make your Gramma Jam-Jam proud. You can put your stuff in my office for now—the staff lockers are further down the corridor and this patient’s been waiting too long as it is.”

      She tipped her head toward a glassed-in cubicle a few yards away. Josh took advantage of the broken eye contact to soak in some more of the “New Katie” look. Her super-short, über-chic new haircut suited her. It sure made her look different. Good different, though. No longer the shy twenty-one-year-old he’d first spied devouring a stack of anatomy books in the university library, a thick chestnut braid shifting from shoulder to shoulder as she studied.

      He cleared his throat. Whimsical trips down memory lane weren’t helping.

      “Green or red scrubs,” she added, pointing to a room just beyond her office.

      “You always liked me in blue.”

      The set of her jaw told him to button it.

      “Green or red,” she repeated firmly. “The patients like it. It’s Christmas.” She handed him the single-page chart with a leaden glare and turned to the nurse. “Jorja MacLeay, this is Dr. West, our locum tenens over the next few days. See that he’s made welcome. His security pass should expire on the first of January.”

      “At the end of the day?” Jorja asked hopefully.

      “The beginning. The very beginning,” Katie replied decisively, before turning and calling out her patient’s name.

      He flashed a smile in the nurse’s direction, lifted up his worn duffel bag to show her he was just going to unload it before getting to work. The smile he received in return showed him he had an ally. She shot a mischievous glance at his retreating wife and beckoned him toward the central desk.

      “Don’t mind her,” Jorja stage-whispered. “A kitten, really. Just a grumpy kitten at Christmas.” She shrugged off her boss’s mysterious moodiness with a grin. “As long as she knows you’ve got your eye on the ball, she’s cool.”

      Josh nodded and gave the counter an affirmative rap. “Got it. Cool. Calm. Collected. And Christmassy!” he finished with a cheesy grin.

      “Says here you’re double-shifting.”

      “You bet. Where else would a fellow want to see in Christmas morning?”

      Jorja laughed. “Cookies are in the staff room down the hall if you need a sugar push to get you through the night. Canteen’s shut and the vending company forgot to fill up the machines, so there might be a brawl over the final bag of chips come midnight!”

      “Count me in! I love a good arm-wrestling session. Especially if the chips are the crinkly kind. I love those.”

      “I can guarantee you’ll have a fun night...at least with most of us.” She shot a furtive look down the corridor to ensure Katie was out of earshot and scrunched her face and shoulders up into a silent “oops” shrug when Josh raised his eyebrows in surprise.

      “You two don’t know each other or anything, do you?”

      “We’ve met.” It was all Josh would allow.

      It was up to Katie if she wanted to flesh things out. He’d been the only crossover she’d allowed between personal and professional and he doubted she had changed in that department. She was one of the most private people he had ever met, and when news of what had happened to them had been all but Tannoyed across Boston General, it had been tough. Coal-pit-digging tough.

      Jorja giggled nervously and flushed. “Sorry! Dr. McGann is great. We all love her. The ER always runs the smoothest when she’s on shift.”

      Josh just smiled. His girl always strove to achieve the best and ended up ahead of the game at all turns. Except that night. She’d been blindsided. They both had.

      He shook off the thought and waved his thanks to Jorja. First impressions? Young to be a charge nurse. Twenty-something, maybe. She struck him as a nurse who would stay the course. Not everyone who worked in Emergency did. She was young, enthusiastic. A nice girl if first impressions were anything to go by.

      He’d gone with his gut when he’d met Katie. Made a silent vow she would be his wife one day. It had taken him a while, but he’d got there in the end. And today the vow still hit him as powerfully as the day they’d made good on a whim to elope. Five years, two months and fourteen days of wedded... He sighed. Even he couldn’t stretch to “bliss.” Not with the dice they’d been handed.

      He thought of the divorce papers stuffed inside his duffel bag. There was only one way Katie could ever convince him to sign them. Prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she felt absolutely nothing for him anymore. He gave a little victory air punch. So far he’d seen nothing to indicate she would be able to get him to scrawl his signature on those cursed papers tonight.

      Just the shift of her shoulders when she’d heard his voice had told him everything he needed to know. She could change her name, her hair and even her dress sense if she wanted to—but he knew in his soul that time hadn’t changed how his wife felt about him. No matter how bad things had become. She couldn’t hate without love. And when she’d finally turned round to face him there had been sparks in her eyes.

      * * *

      Katie stuffed her head into the stack of blankets and screamed. For all she was worth she screamed. And then she screamed some more. Silent, aching, wishing-you-could-hollow-yourself-out-it-hurt-so-bad screams. There was no point in painting a pretty picture in these precious moments alone.