One Night in New York

by Amy Ruttan

  “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. When I get tired I get a little punchy and, besides, you’re eating my sandwich.”

  Mindy chuckled. “It’s terrible.”

  Sam shrugged. “It’s nutrition, sort of. I lived off vending-machine sandwiches as a kid.”

  “Really? How random.”

  Sam shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  “You should go home, Sam. That’s an order.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Are we on a first-name basis now?”

  No, they weren’t. Not since they’d spent the night together, which had been last night. She’d made it clear that she didn’t trust him, that their one night of passion was to be forgotten. It had never happened.

  Yet, sitting here with him in an empty cafeteria after a stressful surgery, worrying about whether or not they would have to deliver two babies who probably wouldn’t make it, caused her to let her guard down.

  “What was that song you were singing?” she asked, changing the subject.

  Sam chuckled and then ran his fingers through his hair. “It was ‘Huis, Huis air an Each’. Just a simple song my father would sing to my twin brothers. It used to calm them, thought I would give it a shot. I’m actually surprised I remembered the words.”

  “It was beautiful. Wish I knew the words.”

  Sam smiled, those blue eyes twinkling in the dim light, and then the smile faded and he looked away. “Well, I’m glad it worked.”

  “Me too.” Mindy swallowed the last of the sandwich, which stuck in her throat as silence descended between them. “Well, I’d better go check on Ms. Bayberry.”

  Sam shook his head. “Go home. I’ll round on her tonight.”

  “Don’t you have a home to go to?”

  “It’s just a flat in a brownstone overrun by other surgeons. Most will be here tonight anyhow, and I don’t fancy riding the subway back to Brooklyn tonight.”

  Mindy nodded. “Well, make sure you get some sleep tonight. I’ll be starting my rounds at six in the morning.”

  Sam nodded. “I’ll be there. Goodnight, Dr. Walker.”

  “Goodnight, Dr. Napier.”

  Mindy got up and hurried out of the cafeteria, not looking back even though she could feel his gaze on her, watching her walk away.

  This was going to be difficult. Everything about him drew her in—the compassion he had for his patients, his talent, the air of mystery about him.

  He’s off-limits.

  And she had to keep telling herself that. She had to keep reminding herself that Sam was off-limits. She was his teacher.

  Not that there was a specific rule about attendings, residents and interns, but it would be detrimental to Sam’s career if people thought he was sleeping his way to the top. She should know, rumors had spread about her. After word had got out about Dean and Owen, the two people she’d trusted and worked in partnership with, it had destroyed her reputation in one fell swoop.

  How could a patient put faith in someone who had put their faith in the hands of people who had duped her for so long?

  Words and knowledge had power. If used by the wrong people, it could destroy everything Sam had worked for and she didn’t want that for him. If today was any indication Mindy had no doubt that Sam was going to be a brilliant pediatric surgeon and she wasn’t going to let a rumor about the two of them destroy that.

  So she had to be careful about how she addressed him.

  She couldn’t let herself slip into familiarity.

  She had to keep her distance from him and not get sucked in by the spell he seemed to be able to cast over her. She was made of stronger stuff than that; at least she thought she was. Although Dean and Owen had lied to her for so long, so what did she know?

  Mindy stopped and glanced back over her shoulder down the hall toward the cafeteria, but Sam had disappeared. Probably he was on his way to check on Ms. Bayberry.

  Go home before you do or say something you’ll regret.

  Mindy sighed and headed toward the attendings’ lounge to change into her street clothes. It had been her first major rotation since starting at West Manhattan Saints. She was exhausted, but she also didn’t want to go home. Her apartment was empty, lonely and memories of Sam were everywhere.

  Don’t chicken out. Go home.

  Mindy groaned and tried not to think about what had taken place at her apartment last night, in her bed, because those thoughts, though pleasant, were very unwelcome and for a moment she was terrified she wasn’t going to be able to succeed in keeping her distance from him.

  She was pretty darned sure that she was going to fail miserably, but what a way to fail.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SAM HAD BEEN off Mindy’s rotation for two weeks and he found he missed it, but she had to give a fair shake to other residents applying for the fellowship. His first week back on the peds round he happened upon Dr. Snow, who was currently on rotation with Mindy, and all she was doing was whining about how nasty and how hard it was.

  How the patients whined and complained constantly.

  As if kids didn’t whine?

  Sam laughed to himself as he thought of that. When he’d worked his full week with Mindy he’d learned so much. She’d kept her distance since she’d accidentally called him Sam after Ms. Bayberry’s surgery, but that was fine by him.

  He didn’t want rumors starting.

  It was bad enough having a famous mother, one who had slept with the current chief of surgery, albeit twenty years ago. He’d told Enzo about it when they’d got to know each other, but he was the only other person who knew, besides Dr. Chang, who knew his mother as well from medical school. And Sam didn’t have to worry about anyone accusing him of favoritism when it came to his mother and Dr. Amelia Chang.

  It was no secret that his mother and Dr. Chang did not see eye to eye. Sam had actually been concerned when he’d first been accepted into the surgical residency program. He’d known that he’d always wanted to be a pediatric surgeon. He loved working with kids, but when he’d heard the head of Pediatrics was his mother’s “nemesis” of sorts, he had been worried that he wouldn’t have a shot in heck of getting into the program, but he’d applied anyway.

  And had been accepted.

  Dr. Chang had known exactly who he was. She had told him as much on the first day he’d become a resident and had started clocking hours on the peds floor.

  He’d been charting when she’d come up beside him.

  “You have your mother’s eyes.”

  “Pardon me?”

  She stared at him, those thoughtful obsidian eyes boring right through him. “You have your father’s soul. Let’s hope you have your mother’s talent. If you do, you’ll be brilliant.”

  That was all she’d said. She would request him at odd intervals and always with the most delicate situations or the toughest cases.

  Dr. Chang would observe him.

  It’s why he and Enzo had become more than just competition in their first year of residency. They’d moved beyond the macho chest-thrusting and territory-marking in the game of surgery and had become friends, because Sam had been there when Enzo’s niece Maya had been born.

  Dr. Chang had put Maya, a fragile preemie with a low expectation to survive, in his charge. And Maya had thrived because Sam had known that a way to help regulate a heartbeat was to place the baby against a bare chest. It was called kangaroo care. Maya hadn’t been able to feed and Enzo’s sister had been unable at that point to provide skin to skin contact, so during a long shift at night Sam had sat down in a rocking chair in the NICU and had done just that for little Maya. Wrapping her up against his chest, upright and prone, cradled on the inside of his scrubs, a blanket over them while he’d charted, very poorly.

  Enzo had caught him, pausing slightly in the doorway of the NICU. He hadn’t teased him, hadn’t said anything. A look had been all that was needed to understand what was happening.

  It was because of that he’d had a permanent spot at Enzo’s family home fo
r dinner and when he hadn’t shown up, plates of food had been sent to him.

  Sam chuckled and leaned over his chart. He missed Enzo. Missed seeing him in the halls of West Manhattan Saints. He missed the food. Darn him for falling in love with Kimberlyn and them moving away.

  It had gotten him through some lonely patches when he’d first moved to New York. His mother didn’t have much to do with him and the rest of his close family was in Scotland. His dad, his brothers and stepmother, as well as various aunts, uncles, cousins and one venerable grandmother.

  Even though he’d been born in New York and had spent some time on this side of the pond, he was alone. When he’d been with his mother, he’d been alone. She had always been working and he’d spent a lot of his childhood, when he’d been with her, in the hallways of the hospital or in the observation room while she’d been in surgery.

  He glanced up from his charting and saw Mindy in the NICU, bending over a tiny micro-preemie in an incubator. Mindy was in her scrubs and updating the neonatologist so it appeared that the baby had just been born.

  She’s alone.

  Mindy had said she’d grown up on the west coast, a native to California. Though she hadn’t moved an ocean away from her family, she’d moved clear across the country to start a new life. It must’ve been something drastic that had chased her away. To isolate herself.

  He didn’t know about isolating oneself on purpose, but he did get loneliness. Even living in a house full of other surgeons. Tessa had moved out and was starting a family, Kimberlyn and Enzo were together and gone, even Holly had moved on with Dr. Alexander and she had family around. Sure, there was the new roommate, Rebecca, but he didn’t really know her yet and wasn’t sure he wanted to. She was too chatty.

  He had no one. Just like Mindy didn’t have anyone and he felt sorry for her. She deserved better and though he shouldn’t approach her, he should just keep his distance from her, he closed his chart and headed toward the NICU.

  Mindy was standing next to the incubator, staring down at the small preemie inside, but he could tell by her expression that she really wasn’t watching the preemie. She had a far-off expression on her face.

  “Boy or girl?” Sam asked, as he came up beside her and peered down at the bundle, hooked up to wires but alive.

  “Boy,” Mindy said offhandedly. She set down the chart she was holding. “I delivered him about an hour ago after I repaired his CPAM.”

  “Congenital pulmonary airway malformation?”

  “Yes. I usually try to keep the fetus inside after I do the repair, but Mom had the beginning stages of pre-eclampsia. With the extra stressors of surgery, I delivered the baby.”

  “Wish I could have seen that procedure in action.”

  Mindy cocked any eyebrow. “I thought that maternal-fetal medicine wasn’t your intended specialty, that your main focus was pediatrics?”

  “It is, but it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate complex surgeries. Especially when those complex surgeries involve children. Perhaps I judged maternal-fetal medicine too harshly.”

  “Really now?” she asked, obviously humored.

  Sam leaned over and gazed at the lad through the glass. “Poor mite.”

  “Yes, it was unfortunate, but now that it’s repaired he has a shot of growing up normally. Of surviving. Twenty or thirty years ago he wouldn’t have survived his birth.”

  “Is this where you’re going to start spouting off at me about how my chosen specialty is for dinosaurs?” Sam teased. “That there will be no need for pediatric surgeons or neonatologists?”

  Mindy laughed. “I’m sorry, Dr. Napier. As I said, I was quite annoyed to see you as a resident.”

  “I know. I know. Trust me, I felt the same.”

  “You were annoyed I was an attending?”

  Sam nodded. “Of course. A woman I’d had an amazing night with was now off-limits.”

  Mindy snorted. “Like you had every intention of calling me again.” She walked out of the NICU and Sam trailed after her.

  “You don’t know that,” Sam protested. Though she was right. At the time he hadn’t had any intention of calling her again, but spending a week with her on her service had made him think differently about her. He’d seen her in a new light. If it wasn’t a bad idea, if he had more time to commit to a relationship instead of being tied to the hospital, he would pursue a woman like Mindy Walker.

  “We didn’t exchange numbers,” Mindy said.

  “Ah, but I know where you live. I could’ve found out if I chose too.”

  Mindy chuckled. “That sounds mighty stalkerish, Dr. Napier. Mighty stalkerish indeed.”

  Sam groaned. “Oh, come on. It’s not stalkerish at all.” He leaned over the charge desk as she pulled a chart from behind the counter. “How is the new resident on your service going?”

  “That’s not any of your business,” Mindy said, not looking at him.

  “I’m just curious, that’s all.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re competitive, you shark.” It wasn’t said in an accusatory tone, there was a twinkle to her eyes.

  “I swear, it’s not competitive in nature. Just curious. I heard some… complaints.”

  Mindy’s mouth dropped open. “Complaints? What do you mean, complaints? From who?”

  Sam grinned. “I can’t say, unless I want to get attacked by a pod of sharks. Do sharks come in pods, I wonder?”

  Mindy frowned and then playfully pushed. “Jerk!”

  “What was that for?”

  “What complaints?” Mindy demanded. “As your superior, I demand you tell me.”

  Sam cocked an eyebrow. “As my superior, you demand I tell you? I don’t think so.” He turned to leave but she grabbed his arm.

  “Come on, tell me. This is my first job in a teaching hospital and I want to make sure that I’m imparting my wisdom on the residents well.”

  “You’re doing a fine job. Really, the complaints were that you were a bit demanding and a workhorse.”

  Mindy smiled then, but then cleared her throat. “Is that all?”

  “It pleases you to know you’re being tough.”

  “It does. I want them to be afraid of me and my service.”

  “You want to be like the Godzilla of the OB/GYN floor?” Sam asked.

  “If you can survive my toughness then you can make it in my field.”

  “Ah, but there’s a problem. The residents currently rotating on your service aren’t OB/GYN residents. You have a whole smackerel of them who are chomping at the bit to work with you. You’re working with residents who are eyeing a pediatric fellowship with Dr. Chang. So it might be lost on them.”

  Mindy smiled smugly. “That may be, Dr. Napier, but I deal with kids when they’re still developing. I have to be hard on all residents who have any kind of inkling of wanting to work with children. They’re a precious commodity. If you can’t stand the heat…”

  “Get out of the oven?”

  Mindy laughed. “Kitchen, Dr. Napier.”

  “So, I have to ask, did Dr. Snow do well in the procedure?”

  “I wouldn’t know. She never did make it to surgery.”

  Sam was confused. “I can’t see her missing something like that. She’d as soon as skin me than let me have a shot at any specialized procedure. Of all the sharks, she’s the nastiest.”

  “You think highly of her,” Mindy teased, and then she sighed. “Actually, I didn’t let her into my OR and she’s effectively off my service.”

  Now he was intrigued. “And you’re not going to elaborate any further.”

  “It’s not prudent. You are her competition.”

  Sam didn’t say anything further as Mindy finished her charting and set the binder back in its place. The only thing that would have kept Dr. Snow out of surgery was if she’d done something really bad to anger her attending. In their first days, Dr. Snow had been a bit pompous, but she was a talented surgeon and Sam couldn’t help but wonder what Dr. Snow had done. Well, whatev
er it was, it wasn’t his business to know.

  Mindy was right. Dr. Snow was his competition and he didn’t want to have any unfair advantages.

  “That’s foolish, Samuel! Take whatever advantages you can get. Given the chance, another surgeon will stab you in the back to take your spot.”

  His mother’s cutthroat attitude had never sat well with him.

  It was his father’s gentle soul which always seemed to win out. His mother’s downfall was that sometimes she acted before she thought and Sam was a bit more methodical. He didn’t gossip; he didn’t jump into the fray unless it was during a medical emergency.

  “I’m going to go grab a coffee. I still have a few more hours left on my shift. I’ll see you around.” Mindy moved around to the other side of the charge desk and headed down the hall.

  “Dr. Walker… Mindy, wait.”

  Mindy spun around, stunned, but she didn’t chastise him for using her first name.

  “Would you like to get a cup of coffee with me? I’m on call, but I thought you might like some company.”

  What are you doing?

  He didn’t know. He never acted this spontaneously, but he couldn’t help himself. All he knew was he was probably setting himself up for something he wasn’t sure he was ready for.

  Mindy stood there for a few moments, absolutely dumbfounded. It felt like she was standing there for hours, but of course that was foolish.

  She was surprised that Sam had asked her to have coffee with him.

  Say no. You can’t trust him. He’s just using you.

  “Sure.” She couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of her mouth.

  What’re you doing? She didn’t know at that moment. She was actually surprised at herself, but she was lonely. She knew hardly anyone in New York. There was no harm in getting a cup of coffee.

  Sam smiled the grin that melted her heart. Darn him.

  “Good. I have to get my post-op notes off to Dr. Chang. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria in thirty minutes?”

  “No, not the cafeteria.” If she was going to go through with this then she was going to do it outside the hospital.

  “Where, then? I’m on call and I can’t go far.”