by Tina Beckett
“No. Nothing. Just keep an eye on those hours, okay?”
“I will. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.”
Walking over to the door, he held it open and waited as she walked through it. “Oh, and, Dr. Santini.”
“Call me Addy.”
He nodded. “Addy, then. Thank you for the donations. The hospital appreciates them.”
How was that for impersonal? Maybe he’d sounded canned and overly formal, but he didn’t like the way he was suddenly noticing little things about her.
“I’m glad someone will be able to use them.”
Because she wouldn’t. He shut the door and went back around his desk. Giving his damaged hand one last glance, he sat in his chair and tried to lose himself in his work. But Addy’s face—and that damned gold earring—kept circling through his thoughts. He hoped she came through her crisis unscathed. And that it wouldn’t cost her something a lot more valuable than a set of pearls.
* * *
Two days later a piece of mail caught her attention. It was from the hospital. Her breath stalled in her chest. She’d done her best to cut back on her hours, but knew she’d still stayed on the floor longer than she should have.
Sliding her finger under the tab, she was surprised when a single sheet of paper fell out—a handwritten note containing only seven words:
Two thousand dollars appraised—are you sure?
The signature was Garret Stapleton’s. A shiver went over her as she sat and stared at his handwriting for a few seconds. Bold strokes crossed those Ts. She touched a finger to one of them, then gritted her teeth.
She knew exactly what he was referring to. The necklace. She wasn’t shocked by the price tag. What she was surprised at was that he’d written to her personally. And at the funny twist to her stomach when she’d opened the envelope and realized who it was from.
But at least he hadn’t called her back into his office to break the news to her. Their last meeting had made her squirm. Maybe because she’d called attention to his hand, when she hadn’t meant to. She’d gone all defensive, trying to deflect his attention to something other than her.
He’d been right to chew her out. But he hadn’t needed to. She did know her limits. And she loved her job too much to risk driving while exhausted. Which was why she’d been known to leave her car in the parking lot and take a taxi.
Did he call every single doctor who worked overtime into his office? She didn’t think so. Which meant he had seen some kind of warning sign.
She’d heard that the fiery crash that damaged his hand had almost cost his life as well. That thought made her heart ache. He’d been one of the best neurosurgeons in the country. And it had all been snatched away in a split second. He’d then gone from New York City to the shores of South Beach.
Why so far away?
Maybe, like her, he’d felt he needed a change of scenery. A new start. Maybe she needed to do the same—like go from South Beach to New York.
Except she was a Florida girl. Born to a family of Italian immigrants, but a true surfer girl at heart. With her dark hair, she didn’t exactly look the part, but she didn’t care. Those waves had coaxed her back to the water time and time again.
In fact, she’d met Leo Santini during a surfing contest five years earlier, when she’d been undergoing another crisis—with her mom, this time—and had fallen in love. Looking back, she realized their quick romance had been a desperate attempt on her part to claw her way out of a dark hole, but the effort had backfired. As her mom’s condition had continued to deteriorate, their marriage had begun to change gears too. Their surfing trips had dwindled to nothing over the space of a year. She still caught an occasional wave, but Leo had turned in his board for the party scene, something she had no interest in at all. She should have seen the breakup coming. Talk about warning signs. She’d missed them all.
But no more.
Maybe she needed to take her board and head to the beach on Wednesday, her next day off. Then her boss wouldn’t be able to say a word about her working too many hours. And maybe it would clear her head and help her find her equilibrium again. Just the thought made her pulse pick up its pace. How long had it been since she’d paddled through the surf, looking for that one great wave?
Too long. That was what she’d do.
Taking a pen, she sat down and crafted her reply to Garret. And she could do it in fewer words than he had: “Very sure.” Rather than mail it, she would drop it on his desk. In person. Probably not a good idea, but it was the best way she knew to make the break from Leo definitive, not that it wasn’t already.
Shoving the note back into its envelope, she hurried to get ready for the day. Then tonight she would drag her surfboard out of the spare bedroom and check the weather in hopes that conditions—in more ways than one—were perfect.
CHAPTER TWO
THE EMERGENCY ROOM wasn’t as busy as it normally was. Sometimes the room was full, medical personnel running back and forth. But it was still early, and the hospital was exceptionally good at triage. His hospital in New York had also had a great quick-response team that could handle multiple trauma cases at the drop of a hat. That attention to skill and speed had probably saved his life after his accident, even though he could only remember bits and pieces of what happened.
Winding his way through the space as he often did on Monday mornings, he mentally kept track of what he saw. He’d made it a habit to visit a different department at the beginning of every workday. Not so much to check up on everyone as to make sure people felt comfortable approaching him. That they felt as if they were being heard.
The last thing he wanted was to be one of those aloof bosses that sat in his office issuing edicts and making sure everyone followed them to the letter. He wanted people to stay at the hospital because they wanted to, because it had an atmosphere that was conducive to sticking around.
Which was why when he’d sensed Addy might want to move on, he’d reacted so strongly. Right?
The emergency-room doctor had caught his attention, and not just because of her hours. Her colleagues talked as if she were some kind of superhero.
Was he sure that wasn’t why he was here now? To make sure the hospital’s star player wasn’t going to burn herself out?
Or was it more personal than that?
Nope. It was Monday. He was simply sticking to routine.
And the envelope he’d found on his desk this morning? She’d arrived even before he had. Had she not heard a single word he’d said?
Nodding to a staff member who made eye contact, he suddenly wondered if he should have skipped coming down here. He didn’t want Addy to think he was seeking her out.
Because he wasn’t.
Pivoting on his heel, he almost ran over the very person he was now hoping to avoid.
“Dr. Stapleton.” Her wide eyes and breathless tone made him smile. Okay. So maybe it wasn’t just him feeling awkward.
“Garret, remember? Everyone else calls me by my given name.”
“Oh. Of course.” She glanced at the electronic file-storage device still in her hands. “Did you get my note?”
“You mean the one that was lying on my desk when I arrived?”
“I always get here at six.” Her quick response was defensive, and her eyes came up to meet his. “I’m off on Wednesday, though. I’m actually planning on surfing.”
“Surfing as in the internet?”
Her head cocked sideways. “No. Surfing as in at the beach.” Her hand twirled through the air. “In the ocean. Catching waves.”
“You—surf?” A quick image of Addy flashed through his skull. A wetsuit? Or, worse, a bikini? He suddenly wished he hadn’t asked her to clarify her response.
Up went her brows. “This is South Beach. Doesn’t everyone?”
“I haven’t taken a survey recently.”
She
laughed. “Sorry. I just thought that most Floridians... Oh, wait. You’re from New York. Sorry. Coming here must have been a big change for you.”
His imaginings died a painful death.
“Not as big as other changes.” His hand curled next to his side. Why had he just said that? “Both places have a lot of people. And a need for good medical care.”
“Of course.” She hesitated. “Do you still do consulting at all?”
“Sorry?”
“On cases. I had a head trauma come in the other day and the neurologist on duty was tied up in surgery. It took a little longer to get the patient evaluated than I would have liked.”
“Did it change the outcome?”
“The patient didn’t make it. But no, the outcome probably would have been the same. But it would be nice to know there’s someone else I can call if the need arises.”
His jaw tightened. No one at Miami’s Grace had asked him that question before. Which was another reason he’d relocated. If people didn’t think of him as a neurosurgeon, they wouldn’t treat him like one. Did he really want to open that door? Then again, did he want to risk a patient’s life by refusing?
“I don’t do surgery anymore.” Said as if he still could. So why hadn’t he said “can’t”? Maybe because he hadn’t quite faced the fact that he would never again use a scalpel to excise a brain tumor.
Addy frowned. “I realize that. So you’re not willing to consult? I just want to be clear so that I don’t keep that as an option.”
“I’m available if you need me.” And just like that, it was out there. Not exactly the way he’d envisioned this conversation going. He’d been all set to chastise her for flouting his request that she moderate her hours, and she’d ended up subtly chastising him for putting himself above their patients.
And she was right. His embarrassment over his hand did drive some of his decisions. Including being the motivating factor behind calling her into his office a few days ago. It had nothing to do with her patients—or even her well-being—and everything to do with him.
That had to change. Starting now.
“Thank you, Dr.—I mean Garret. You won’t regret it.”
He already did, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. Instead, he nodded at the tablet in her hand. “Nothing neurological this morning?”
“Not so far. Just a gator hunter who shot a hole in his boat. But not before the bullet went through his buddy’s foot.”
His brows shot up. “Well, I can’t remember seeing anything like that at my last hospital.”
“You didn’t have hunters in New York?”
He thought of the gangland shootings and senseless loss of life. “We did. But they tended to hunt a different kind of prey, and when they shot someone, it wasn’t an accident.”
“We have that here too.” She sighed. “I wish people were different. Kinder.”
“There are still some good ones out there.” Addy was one of those good ones. He could see it in her work ethic, in the fact that she cared enough about her patients to risk a firm refusal when she’d asked him to consult on cases.
Sometimes, with hospital politics in play, it was easier to just go with the flow and try not to make waves. But that wasn’t always what was best for the patient. Here was someone who was not only willing to make waves, but more than willing to swim against the current. Well, surfers had to do that each time they took their boards into the water, didn’t they? She was just doing what came naturally.
“Yes, there are. Some of those good ones even come from New York City.” She gave a smile that lit up her dark green eyes. Eyes that met and held his for long seconds.
He swallowed. She didn’t know him very well. Because if she did, she’d know he wasn’t good. Not by a long shot.
But even as he thought it, a warmth seeped into his chest that had nothing to do with a defect in the hospital’s climate control system. It had been a while since someone had handed him a compliment that didn’t originate with his position at the hospital. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.
Better just to ignore it. And the way that her smile messed with something inside him.
“So what happened to the man in the boat? The one who was shot?” he asked.
“What didn’t happen to him? He fell overboard right after the bullet hit him, dousing his foot with swamp water. Then once back in the boat, he had to bail more water, while his friend drove them back to shore, giving his foot another good dunking.” Her smile widened, and it kicked straight to areas best left alone. “So we soaked it with the good stuff, shot him full of antibiotics and updated his tetanus booster.”
“Poor guy. And it wasn’t even his fault.”
“No, it wasn’t. I don’t think he and his friend are on speaking terms at the moment.”
Eyes that had seemed tired and defeated during the meeting in his office now sparkled with life and laughter. He liked the transformation. He tried imagining her with a surfboard under one arm, water streaming down her back, her dark hair wet and tangled from riding in to shore. That was another transformation he’d like to see. And one he wasn’t likely to.
“I imagine they’re not.” He tried to turn the conversation around before he ended up showing the cards in his hand. Cards he had no business holding at all. “Anyway, about the appraisal. I’ll let the person in charge of the auction know about the necklace.”
“Good. I was hoping to drop it off without making a big production out of it.”
That wouldn’t have happened. “We would have put a notice in the staff newsletter asking for information, just in case the donor had no idea as to its value.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m glad that’s not how things went, then.”
“I can understand that. Now. Its presence at the auction isn’t going to complicate things for you, is it?”
“I doubt my ex will even attend, so no. It was a wedding gift from him to me, so it’s mine to give away. Just like our marriage was his to give away.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
He waited for a nurse to go past, lowering his voice. “He cheated?”
A single nod. “How else do you throw a marriage away?”
He could think of lots of ways. One of which he’d done. Or maybe it had been inevitable, once they’d lost their daughter to a disease that was as relentless as it was deadly.
“Did you try counseling?” He often wondered if he could have saved his marriage if he’d suggested that earlier, before it had been too late. Instead, he’d become unreachable, staying away from home as much as possible.
“Counseling. Right. Would that have been before or after he slept with a mutual friend? Or moved in with her once I discovered what they were doing—had been doing for almost a year.”
“Ouch. Sorry.” The one thing he’d never done during the whole grieving process was turn to someone else. He’d been so destroyed, so emotionally empty that he’d had nothing to give to anyone else, not even his wife.
None of that had changed with time, and he wasn’t sure he wanted it to. The divorce had been his fault—he could acknowledge that now. Some people just didn’t deserve second chances.
“It’s okay. I knew on some level something was wrong. He was unexpectedly called into work a lot of nights—which now I see probably wasn’t the case. Even when he came home, he wasn’t really ‘there,’ if that makes sense. I was dealing with some issues of my own, but if I’d suspected he was that unhappy, I would have done something. Before it got to the point it did.”
Garret, on the other hand, had been able to see the slow slide of his marriage and had chosen to do nothing...except put in grueling hours at work. His wife had left him after the accident, while he’d still been in the hospital, saying she wasn’t going to watch him throw his life away. She was right. He had been. He’d gotten counseli
ng afterward, had tried to convince her to go with him, but she’d refused. And that had been that. Papers had been waiting for him at the house where they’d raised their daughter. Within weeks he’d sold the place, resigned from his practice, and, after a year of surgery on his hand and physical therapy, the offer from Miami’s Grace Hospital had come up and he’d decided to make the move to Florida. But at least his divorce hadn’t been as a result of either of them cheating.
“I’m sorry he put you through that.”
“It’s over. I’m kind of relieved, actually. I’m my own person again.”
“A person who surfs in her spare time.”
She glanced at him. “You’ve really never tried it?”
“Nope. Not ever. Is it like snow skiing?”
“Um, no.” A quick laugh. Although the falling part might be similar. “Why don’t you come with me on Wednesday and see?”
“Excuse me?”
She blinked as if not quite sure what had just happened. “My bad. You’re probably not even interested in surfing. Forget I said anything.”
Addy was asking him to go to the beach with her? The previous image he’d had began tickling at the edges of his consciousness again. Wetsuit? Or bathing suit? He was a jerk for even letting those kinds of thoughts bounce around his head. “I’m interested in a lot of things.”
And that was better?
“So you want to go?”
Better that than admit it wasn’t surfing that was on his mind.
“Possibly. What time, so I can see if I can juggle my schedule?”
She pursed her lips and studied him, maybe sensing he wasn’t being entirely honest with her, then tucked the tablet under her arm and pulled out her phone. She scrolled for a second.
He wasn’t sure what she was doing. “Do you want to text me the time?”
“I’m looking right now. Okay, we want low tide, just as it’s coming in. Looks like the wind direction will be good as well.”
She could have been speaking a different language. “And can you find an actual time somewhere in there?”
