The Nightshift Before Christmas

by Annie O'Neil

  Gone was the preppy New England look. And in its stead... He didn’t even know where to begin. Was this Idaho chic? Since when did his Katie wear knee-high biker boots, formfitting tartan skirts in dark purple and black with dark-as-the-night turtlenecks? Yeah, they would be practical in this wintry weather, but it was a far cry from the pastels and conservative clothes she’d favored back in Boston. The new look was sexy.

  A hit of jealousy socked him in the solar plexus. She hadn’t... He suddenly felt like a class-A idiot for not even considering the possibility. She hadn’t moved on. Not his Katie. Had she...?

  His eyes shot up the length of her legs to the plaid skirt and then up to her trim waistline, irritatingly hidden by the lab coat. His eyes jagged along her hands, seeking out her ring finger. Still bare. He would never forget the moment she’d ripped off her rings and slapped them onto the kitchen counter. Throwing had been far too melodramatic for his self-controlled wife. The word “Enough!” had rung in his ears for weeks afterward. Months.

  He exhaled. Okay. The bare finger wasn’t proof positive she wasn’t seeing someone else, but it was something. He scraped a hand through his mess of a hairdo, wishing he’d taken a moment to pop into a barber’s. But he hadn’t worried a jot about what he’d looked like over the past two years, let alone worried about impressing another woman. From the moment he’d laid eyes on Katie to the moment she’d hightailed it out of his life—their life—he’d known there was only one woman in the world for him. And here she was—doing her pea-pickin’ best to ignore him.

  His eyes traveled up to her face as she scanned the chart, listening to the nurse. He knew that expression like the back of his hand. Intent, focused. Her brain would be spinning away behind those dark brown eyes of hers to come to the best solution—for both the patient and the hospital, but mostly the patient. One of the many traits he loved about her. Patients first. Politics later. Because there were always politics in a hospital. He knew that more than most. It was why staying at Boston General hadn’t worked out so well. Why a new job in Paris just might be the ticket he needed to wade out of that sorry old pit of misery he’d been wallowing in.

  But he wasn’t going anywhere until he knew Katie was well and truly over him. He checked his watch. Seven days to find out if she was cold-or warm-blooded. It ended at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. He’d either hand her a plane ticket or the divorce papers. He sucked in a fortifying breath of Katie’s perfume. Mmm... Still sweeter than a barn full of new summer hay.

  Well, then. He gave his chin a scrub and grinned. Best get started.

  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.

  Seeing Josh again was dredging up everything she had only just managed to squeeze a lid on. Just. In fact, that lid had probably still been a little bit open because, judging by the hot tears she discovered pouring down her face when she finally came up for air, she was going to have to face the fact there was never going to be a day when the loss of their baby didn’t threaten to rip her in half.

  What was he thinking? That he could saunter into her ER as if it were just any old hospital on any old day? With that slow, sweet smile of his melting hearts in its wake? She’d not missed the nurses trying to catch his eye. Jorja’s giggles had trilled down the hallway after she’d stomped off. Josh did that to people. Brought out the laughter, the smiles, the flirtation. The Josh Effect, she’d always laughingly called it. Back when she’d laughed freely. Heaven knew, she’d fallen under his spell. Hook, line and sunk. If only she’d known how far into the depths of sorrow she’d fall when she lost her heart to him, she would have steered clear.

  She swatted away her tears and sank to the floor of the supplies cupboard, using her thumbs to try and massage away the emotion. Her patient was going to be wondering where she was, so she was going to have to pull herself together. Shock didn’t even begin to cover what she’d felt when Josh had walked into her ER. Love, pain, desire, hurt...those could kick things off pretty nicely.

  “Of all the ERs in all the world, he had to walk into this one.”

  Talking to herself. That was a new one to add to her list of growing eccentricities. Maybe she should have fostered some of those friendships she’d left behind in Boston.

  “Sounds like the start of a pretty good movie.” Josh’s legs moved into her peripheral vision as his voice filled her ears.

  “More like the end of one.”

  “No, that’s the start of a beautiful friendship.”

  “Well—well...” She trailed off. Playing movie quotation combat with Josh was always a bad idea.

  She huffed out a frustrated sigh. Couldn’t she just get a minute alone? She should have gone to the roof. No one went there in the winter, and she relished the moments of quiet, the twinkle of Copper Canyon’s Main Street. She swiped her hands across her cheeks again, wishing the motion could remove the crimson heat she felt burning in them. Against her better judgment she whirled on him and tried another retort.

  “Should I have said ‘of all the stalkers in all the world’?”

  “Oh, so going to the supplies cupboard to track down some mandated holiday scrubs has turned me into a stalker, has it?” he asked good-naturedly.

  The five-year-old in her wanted to say yes and throw a good old-fashioned tantrum. The jumping-up-and-down kind. The pounding-of-the-fists kind. The Why me? Why you? kind. The Katie who’d shored up enough strength to finally call their marriage to a halt knew better. Knew it would only give Josh the fuel he wanted to add to a fire she could never put out.

  She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much she still cared. That had been his problem all along. Too trusting that everything would be all right when time and time again the world had shown him the opposite was true. Who else had become an adrenaline junkie after their daughter had been stillborn? Hadn’t he known how dangerous everything he’d been doing was? And she’d always been the one who’d had to pick up the pieces, apply the bandages, ice the black eyes, realign the broken nose... Trying her best to laugh it off like he did when all she’d wanted to do was curl up in a corner and weep.

  Couldn’t he see she had to play it safe? That losing their daughter had scared her to her very marrow? If she were ever to feel brave enough to move forward—let alone try and conceive again—he needed to call off his game of tug-of-war with mortality.

  She scratched her nails along the undersides of her legs before standing up, using the pain to distract herself from doing what she really wanted.

  “Large or extra-large?” she bit out.

  “Guess that depends on if you need me to play Santa later.” He grabbed a pillow from a shelf and stuck it up his shirt.

  Without bothering to examine the results, Katie yanked a pair of extra-large scrubs from a nearby shelf. Not because she needed a Santa but because she didn’t need to see how well he filled out the scrubs. The first time they’d met—woof! And she was no dog owner.

  The first time they’d met... He said it had been in the library, but she was convinced to this day that he’d made it up. The day she’d first seen him—easily standing out in a crowd of junior residents, all kitted out in a set of formfitting scrubs—his eyes had alighted on her as if he’d just gained one-on-one access to the Mona Lisa herself... Mmm... That moment would be imprinted on her mind forever... She’d never let anyone get under her skin—but she’d been powerless to resist when it had come to Josh.

  “Green! Good to see you remember red always makes my complexion look a bit blotchy.”

  Katie blew a raspberry at him. She wasn’t playing.

  “Or is it that you remember green always brings out the blue in my eyes?” He winked and took hold of the scrubs, trapping her hand beneath his.

  Just feeling his touch reawakened things in Katie she had hoped she’d long-ago laid to rest. Her eyes lifted to meet his. Stormy sea-gray right now. Later... He was right. Later they’d be blue, and later still the color of flint. She had loved looking into his eyes, never knowing what to expect, trying to figure out how to describe the kaleidoscope of blues and grays, ever-shifting...ever true.

  As the energy between them grew taut, the butterflies that had long lain dormant in her belly took flight, leaving heated tendrils in their wake. She tugged her hand free of his and gave him a curt smile. Physical contact with Josh was going to have to be verboten if she was going to keep it together for the next eight days. It was bad enough he’d seen her red-rimmed eyes.

  She glanced at her watch.

  T-minus...oh, about one hundred and ninety-two hours an
d counting!

  “Twenty-four hours.”

  “Beg pardon?” Josh shook his head.

  Hadn’t he been riding the same train of thought she had? If she’d gone off on a magical journey down memory lane, the chances were relatively high he’d done the same thing. Different tracks—different destinations.

  She cleared her throat. There was about half an ounce of resolve left within her and she needed to use it. “I’m giving you twenty-four hours.”

  He raised his eyebrows and gave her his What gives? face.

  “Oh, don’t play the fool, Josh. You’ve ambushed me. Pure and simple. And on—” She stopped, only just missing having her voice break. “It’s the minimum notice I have to give the agency if I want a replacement.”

  “What are you on about, Kitty-Kat?” He pulled himself up to his full height. Josh always played fair and he could see straight through her. This was a below-the-belt move.

  She jigged a nothing-to-do-with-me shrug out of her shoulders, her eyes anywhere but on his. “If it’s quiet enough we might be able to let you go earlier without telling the agency.”

  She might not want him here, but she didn’t want to tarnish his record. He was a good doctor. Just a lousy husband. She squirmed under his intent gaze, pretty sure he was reading her mind. A sort of, kind of lousy husband.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Christmas is always busy! You’re going to need me. What kind of man would I be, leaving you to deal with a busy ER all on your own?”

  “That’s terribly chivalrous of you, Josh. I’m going to need a doctor—yes. But I don’t need you.” She looked at her watch again, not wanting to see how deep her words had hit. Laceration by language was way out of her comfort zone—but tough. Josh had pushed her there—and she had an ER to run.

  “Sorry, I’ve got to get to this patient.”

  “Yup! I’m certainly looking forward to mine!” He mimed snapping on a pair of gloves with a guess-it’s-time-to-suck-it-up smile.