He guzzled more water and scratched his chest, surprised by his thumping heart. Antsy to finish his work and get the hell out of there, he veered his surprisingly sexed-up thoughts away from Pretty Polly and back to dictating his surgery reports for the day. Before he left he’d check on his kids, each and every one—like he did every day before he went home.
Maybe that was the reason he had been out of sorts yesterday at the bar. Maybe it hadn’t been because she’d gotten too nosey, or had threatened his resolve never to feel again, or because he’d wanted to go home and brood, which he had to admit was beginning to get boring, even for him. He’d blame it on not saying goodnight to his kids, because he hadn’t been ready to admit he was a man clinging so tightly to his past he’d forgotten how to socialize with the living.
Polly had rushed him away from work and he hadn’t had a chance to tell all of his patients goodnight, and things just didn’t seem right when he missed saying goodnight to his kids.
Yeah, he’d use that as the excuse for his behavior last night, otherwise he’d seem far too pitiful the next time he looked in the mirror.
CHAPTER THREE
THE NEXT MORNING Polly rode the hospital elevator up to her floor. A vibration in her pocket alerted her that a text message had come through her cell phone: B in NY in 2 wks. Have dinner with me? Greg
Rankled, since Greg had dumped her for another girl over a year ago, and she’d been heartbroken as well as angry at the time, she wrinkled her nose and shut off her phone with a harrumph.
“Bad news?” A familiar voice came from over her shoulder.
“Oh.” She turned round. “Dr. Griffin, I didn’t see you there.” There were several people she didn’t know in the overcrowded elevator but she hadn’t noticed him mostly because she had been lost in her thoughts and hadn’t been looking at anyone. Aching from her lumpy bed, already dragging from the daily rush to the subway, getting pushed and bumped the entire commute, and now hearing from an unwelcome voice from her past, she couldn’t begin to paste on a cheery face today.
John edged closer to her. “You don’t look happy.”
She lifted a corner of her mouth. “I’m not. Old boyfriend just texted me.” What did she care if he discovered that little miss Pollyanna from Pennsylvania was a sham, that her carefree moods were manufactured from hard work and years of practice.
“Sorry to hear that,” he said, sounding curiously sincere.
“About the boyfriend or not being happy?”
“Both.”
“Really?”
“Don’t act so shocked.” He gave her a John Griffin style smile, which meant it was hard to differentiate the smile between a grimace and/or gas.
“Do you actually notice things like people’s moods?”
“No. Not usually.”
What the heck did that mean? Had her self-deprecating plea last night in his office put her on his pity list? Maybe she’d overdone it.
“Well, thanks anyway,” she said, lifting her brows and glancing toward the neon numbers indicating the floors, having run out of superficial things to talk about. The elevator stopped and several people got off.
He moved closer and whispered near her ear. “You know, you don’t have to put on your forever-cheerful act for me.”
Had he seen through her already? “Gee, thanks.” She didn’t mean to sound disrespectful, but he’d just given her permission to show her true feelings, hadn’t he? She glanced to where he stood. There was that gassy grimace-style smile again and a playful glint in his eyes. Why did she find it cute?
Cute? John Griffin?
Maybe it was his mouth, the way the marginally off-center bottom lip curled out ever so slightly, making her want to take it between her teeth and nibble … just a little.
Come on, Polly, the guy is way too old for you. Probably pushing forty. And gruff as a bulldog. Who needs the aggravation? Besides, there was no way he’d ever be interested in her. Yet … that goofy attempt at a smile could only be described as cute. Charming, even.
The elevator came to a stop on the fifth floor and everyone else exited. Once the doors closed, John leaned his shoulder on the elevator wall and looked directly at Polly.
“Let’s make a deal,” he continued to whisper. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
She lifted her head from staring at her scuffed white clogs with the image of nibbling his lower lip fresh in her mind. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“Our moods.” So he had seen through her carefully crafted façade.
“Well, no offense, Dr. Griffin, but I think I’ve already memorized your moods. Moody. Grumpy.” She used her fingers to tick off the list. “Gruff. Did I say moody?”
What do you know, she’d coaxed out a real smile. “Yes. Smartass.” He squinted graciously under fire, his dark eyes showing signs of renewed life. “Don’t forget Bashful and Sleepy, if you’re thinking of naming all of the seven dwarfs.”
“And Doc. You definitely qualify for that one.” She sighed, realizing that whatever this silly game was she was playing with Johnny, many of her cares had already evaporated in the stuffy elevator. By giving her the okay to be who she really was, warts and all, he’d liberated her from being Pollyanna. It felt pretty darned good. Hmm, had he said bashful? Him?
“Bashful? Not you,” she said.
“Oh, yes, I am.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“You’d be surprised.”
The elevator door opened and they got out and headed their separate ways, she giving a genuinely bright smile, thanks to his lightening her mood, and he, well, still looking gassy but with an added spring to his step. That on-the-verge-of-flirting look he’d just sent her way was bound to stay in her mind and keep her smiling the rest of the day. The little fizzy feeling that look had given her hadn’t been half-bad either.
Dr. John Griffin. Bashful? As in let the woman make the advance? Just what else might she be surprised about with him?
As Polly walked to the nurses’ locker room, one more thought popped into her head. Johnny smelled good, too, like expensive aftershave and clean hair. Combine that with his rugged, all-man features and her new interest in the shape and angle of his mouth, thinking it looked all too kissable for a guy with salt-and-pepper hair, for a head of Pediatric Orthopedics, and she lost her step and tripped on the doorframe.
All things considered, Johnny Griffin had done a great job of lifting Polly’s spirits that morning.
“How’s my girl doing?” John asked Polly, entering the hospital room shortly after she’d taken Annabelle’s midday vital signs.
“Great! Thanks,” Polly said. “Annabelle’s doing really well, too.” She caught and enjoyed the quick confusion in his eyes before he got her joke.
“You’ve got a real smart aleck for a nurse, Annabelle.” He took his patient’s thin hand, and the gesture squeezed Polly’s heart.
Annabelle gave a wan smile, and John lingered over her bed like a fussing papa until she closed her eyes. Polly had given her pain medication through a shot into the hip a few short moments ago.
“The nurses told me she’d had a rough night, complaining about phantom pains, and when she started mentioning them again just now, well, I wanted to make sure she was extra-comfortable today.”
He folded his arms across his broad chest. “Good. We’ll give her some rest now, but by later this afternoon I want her out of bed and in a chair for at least an hour.”
“Got it.”
“Physical therapy will start tomorrow, and the wound-care specialist should pay a visit this evening when her parents are here to discuss dressing changes when she goes home.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can knock that stuff off, too.”
“You don’t want me to follow your orders, sir?” Why did teasing her superior feel so delicious?
He took a deep breath, as if trying to suck in patience from the room air. “Are you trying to bug me?”
“Am I doing a good job … sir?”
“Very.”
“Good,” she said, straightening out the bedspread and double-checking the IV rate. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder, but she sensed he was enjoying her feisty mood. Would any of his staff ever dare to give him a hard time?
“There’s no excess drainage from the surgical site, and I emptied thirty ccs from the drain at the beginning of my shift,” she said, all business.
He checked under the recently smoothed covers and found the Jackson-Pratt bulb was nearly empty. The quarter-sized marking on the post-op dressing hadn’t gotten much bigger either, as he soon noticed.
“Good.” He lingered at the bedside.
She’d decided, after her pitiful, stumbling apology, and especially their ride in the elevator, that he was a good guy, even if he didn’t know it. He’d had the patience of a saint while she’d fumbled her way through her monologue, and he’d rewarded her by telling her to call him Johnny. Who else on the staff got to call him Johnny? Not that she ever would, at least not in front of anyone else, especially as he’d asked her to keep it to herself.
“Hey, Johnny.” Another doctor entered the room.
So much for the short-lived “special person privilege” fantasy.
“Dave. Come to admire your work?”
“Sure did.”
Polly surreptitiously read the other doctor’s badge. David Winters. Vascular Surgery. Of course, with the amputation they’d have to make sure the stump had proper circulation, and who better to assist the orthopedic surgeon than a vascular surgeon?
“I was going to wait until later to change the dressing, but there’s no time like the present. Polly, can you bring some gauze, dressings, four by fours and paper tape?”
“Sure. Would you like me to bring the Doppler too?”
“Great idea,” Dave said.
She knew it was never too early to make sure there was proper circulation to the wound, and the Doppler would let them hear the blood flowing through Annabelle’s vessels. A lot rested on every step of the recovery. In order to have Annabelle fit for a prosthetic device she’d need to have a strong and healthy stump. The post op-team, including Polly, would do everything in their power to make sure of Annabelle’s success.
After dropping off the supplies, Polly took a quick look at Annabelle’s surgical wound as John had already removed the dressing, and was surprised how clean and healthy the skin flap already looked. Cancer of the bone was a curse, but at least Annabelle would be able to wear one of the state-of-the-art prostheses being created these days. One day, when she was back on her feet and used to everything, wearing slacks or jeans, secure in her gait, no one would ever know that part of her leg was missing.
Later that day Polly took Charley his pills. She noticed the three signatures John Griffin had left on the teenager’s casts, which made her grin. They were big, just like him, and colorful, hmm, and he had much nicer handwriting than she’d ever imagined any doctor could.
“What’s so funny?” Charley asked.
“Nothing. I was just admiring your autographs from Dr. Griffin.”
“He’s cool.”
“Really? He seems so stern all the time.”
“Nah, he’s funny. And he’s the only person who hasn’t given me a lecture about my skateboarding.”
“Well, I guess accidents do happen, but maybe you should be more careful so as not to tempt the fates.”
“Yeah, I get it. And I’ve heard that before, but yolo, you know?”
“Yolo?”
“You only live once.”
So said a sixteen-year-old. “True, but preferably longer than shorter. Right?”
Charley blew her off with a toss of his long-hair. She needed to change the subject back to something lighter, something more interesting for both of them.
“I never would have pegged Dr. Griffin as funny.”
“No? You should see him do his Aquaman drowning imitation. And he can sing like that weird guy who got kicked off that TV talent show last season, too.”
“Are we talking about the same doctor?”
“Definitely. He’s a laugh all right.”
“Never in a million years would I have thought Dr. Griffin was funny or talented. I mean, the man seems to take himself far too seriously, in my opinion.” A second too late, she saw Charley’s eyes go wide.
“Is that so?” Johnny Griffin’s familiar voice flowed over her shoulder.
“Oh! Hey. We were just talking about you.” Heat rushed to her cheeks.
“So I heard.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to do your Aquaman impersonation for me before I believe Charley here.”
Charley smiled and, amazingly, so did Johnny-boy. A look passed between them like a secret handshake.
“Stop by my office after work and I’ll be glad to give you the whole routine,” he said, sounding as though he might be flirting. Really? In front of a patient?
She pointed at him. “I’m tempted to call your bluff on that, Doctor.”
“I dare you,” he said, a playful, sparkly glint in his otherwise dead-serious eyes. Eyes that were becoming more and more intriguing each time she dared to look into them.
The rock-steady gaze caused a response that zipped down her spine with a surprise destination. What was going on here?
She wasn’t sure, but one thing she was positive about, she needed to leave the patient’s room before Dr. Griffin got an inkling of how much he’d just excited her.
Polly’s cell phone rang during lunch the next day and she was surprised to see who was calling. It was Greg. She hadn’t responded to his text from yesterday. Why the persistence all of a sudden?
“What’s up, Greg?” She tried to sound nonchalant.
“Did you get my text?”
“Oh, uh, I’ve been working a lot. I guess I missed it.” She wasn’t above lying to someone who’d lied to her. Repeatedly.
He went into his spiel about coming to New York in two weeks and how he hoped to take her out to dinner and maybe even to see a Broadway play. This couldn’t be the Greg she’d once known. Would he actually want to take her to an expensive play on Broadway? Not likely. Unless he’d finally come to his senses about what a prize she was. Again, not likely. Maybe he thought he could come to New York on business and cheat on his girlfriend with her while he was here? As in letting history repeat itself.
She wouldn’t put a sleazy plan like that past him.
One thing was sure—she wouldn’t have to find out if she didn’t accept his invitation.
“Can you give me a couple days to think this over, Greg?”
“Look, I understand I treated you pretty rotten last year, but I’d really like to see you again.”
“Give me a couple days, okay?”
She hung up before he could say another word, desperate to talk over this invitation with someone else. Her best friend back home worked the evening shift and Polly didn’t feel comfortable yet about opening up to anyone on staff about her personal issues.
She ate her lunch in silence, deep in thought, then as she took a bite of her tuna fish sandwich she practically fell out of her chair when one person popped into her head. Johnny. He was the one person on staff she’d made a complete fool out of herself in front of. Now she’d advanced to being able to tell him exactly what she thought and how she felt, even in front of patients and other staff members, much to everyone’s surprise. Hadn’t he invited her to show him hers if he could show her his in the moody moods department?
She’d tested the waters and had had a great time being completely herself around him the last couple of days, and he had invited her to come to his office after work for the Aquaman imitation. She understood he had only put that invitation out there because of Charley listening in, but still.
Besides, the man had to be a good twelve or so years older than her twenty-seven, and there was no way on earth he’d ever be interested in her. So that wouldn’t b
e an issue. Even if that look he’d given her yesterday had confused her and turned her on.
John seemed level-headed and world-weary. Why not run her dilemma by him? As a guy, he’d have good input for her. It might help her figure out Greg’s true intentions, though she had her own strong suspicions. She’d bought herself two days before she had to get back to Greg.
Maybe Johnny could help her see things how they really were. Now, if she could only work up the nerve to approach him.
On Friday evening, for the third time in a week, a light tapping on John’s office door interrupted his concentration on the computer. “Come in.”
The best thing he’d seen all afternoon, well, since the last time he’d seen her anyway, which had been two days ago, walked in.
Polly wore black, straight-leg jeans and high wedge heeled shoes with open toes. Red toenails seemed to smile up at him. Her bright blue top clung to her body in soft folds and outlined her breasts and curves in an inviting way. Since when had he noticed what a woman wore, or how much he liked it?
“Finally came to see my Aquaman imitation, did you?” He pretended not to be distracted by how fantastic she looked.
She smiled, a look that spread like warm butter across her face. “Not really.”
“What are you still doing here?” he asked.
“I was going to see a movie tonight, and needed to hang around until eight.”
She brushed her bangs across her forehead. The rest of her hair hung loose and free, something he hadn’t gotten to see while she was on duty or since the bar on Monday night. The waves and curls accentuated her features, big eyes, straight nose, those well-shaped lips, forcing him to realize she was pretty. Damn, she was pretty. “I was just going to pick up some pizza, wondered if you’d like me to bring you a piece, as you’re obviously still here at six-thirty.”
The thought of pizza did sound good, but if she expected him to join her in the employee lounge, she had another thought coming. “You deliver, too?”
“Sure, if that’s what you want.”
What he wanted. Well, the picture of youth and suppleness in front of him gave a whole new meaning to what he wanted. Polly had started a domino effect of interest, attraction, challenge, and all-out lust since her arrival this week. He’d spent more time in the last five days missing and thinking about the wonders of sex than he had in all the years since Lisa’s death. It wasn’t right, but he couldn’t stop himself.
NYC Angels: Making the Surgeon Smile Page 4
