by Lori Wilde
“That’s great news,” Vanessa said.
Because of patient confidentiality, Elle couldn’t discuss the case with her friends, although she longed to tell them what had happened and get their opinion on the odd turn of events. The daughter of a high-ranking local political official had collapsed at her private high school. The school had called an ambulance and they’d rushed her to the E.D., but by the time she rolled through the doors, she wasn’t breathing. A few seconds later, the girl had gone into full-blown cardiac arrest and they had to call a code.
One of the girl’s friends, who’d been escorted to the hospital by the police, had confessed that she’d taken a pill they’d bought the weekend before from some guy they’d met at a rave. The lab had drawn blood samples from the victim, but they’d been unable to detect any drugs in her system, so they’d sent the samples out for more rigorous testing at a specialized lab.
According to the victim’s friend, the pill was supposed to make you feel sexy and floaty and in love with everyone. It was a lot like Ecstasy, she’d said, only sexier.
“We ordered a pitcher of raspberry beer and chicken nachos for appetizers,” Vanessa said.
“Sounds great.” Elle slipped out of her cardigan. “Because of the code, I missed lunch. I’m starving.”
“So,” Vanessa asked her. “How’s your week been so far?”
Elle started to tell them about Dante, but what was there to tell? She was attracted to another man for the first time since her divorce. Big deal. It couldn’t go anywhere. “Nothing unusual.”
“That’s not what I heard.” Julie reached for the pitcher the waitress set on the table along with three frosted mugs and began pouring up the beer. She tilted the glass to keep too much foam from forming.
“What did you hear?” Vanessa leaned forward.
“I heard Elle went into the woods alone on Monday and she came out with a baby and a man.” Julie grinned impishly and slid a mug of beer in front of Elle.
“What?” Vanessa jerked her gaze from Julie to Elle, her dark Latina eyes flashing with interest.
“It was a baby deer.” Quickly, Elle explained how she’d come to find the fawn.
“What did you do with it?”
“Charlotte came and got it,” she said. “The vet she works for has an animal sanctuary. They say the fawn’s going to be fine.”
“Except that he’s an orphan,” Vanessa said gloomily. She’d had a difficult childhood and had the tendency to look on the dark side of life.
Elle studied her two friends who were so different, not only in looks but temperament, as well. Julie was the timid, tenderhearted romantic who saw the world through rose-colored glasses. Vanessa was the bold, sharp-witted cynic with a fiery temper.
And her?
Well, Elle was the center. Neither sweet nor tart. Neither too timid nor too daring. Tepid. Average. Nothing special. Elle supposed that was one reason they were all such good friends. They balanced each other out.
“So what about the guy?” Vanessa asked.
“What guy?” Elle evaded, even though she wasn’t really sure why she didn’t want to talk about Dante. Usually, she told Julie and Vanessa everything.
“The guy from the forest.” Vanessa took a sip of her beer and eyed Elle over the rim of her mug with an assessing stare.
“There was no ‘guy’ from the forest,” Elle said lightly. “It was just that new doctor, Dante Nash. He saw me go into the forest and thought maybe something was wrong and I needed help. He has a bit of a rescuer complex.”
“What do you mean by that?” Julie asked, and dove into the platter of chicken nachos the waitress deposited in the middle of the table along with three plates.
Elle told them what had happened in the E.D. on the day Dante arrived and busted up her disaster drill.
“Hmm.” Julie grinned. “I think something more might be afoot here.”
“What do you mean?”
“What if Dr. Nash is really into you?”
“I don’t care if he’s into me or not. I’m not into him.”
Keep lying like that and your nose is going to grow.
“I met him,” Vanessa said. “He’s very sexy, if a bit aloof. Why don’t you let him rescue you?” She winked boldly. “If you get my drift.”
“For one thing, I don’t need rescuing. Julie’s the one who’s into rescue fantasies,” she said.
Julie held up her palms. “Hey, after what happened with Roger, I’m through with love. At least for the foreseeable future. For now, all I want is hot sex.”
“I don’t want love or hot sex.” Elle nibbled at a nacho. “I just need a nice guy to be nice to me.”
“No, no.” Julie shook her head. “You can’t settle for less than you deserve. You deserve fireworks, great sex and a nice guy. Problem is, I fear such a man is a mythological creature.”
“Julie’s on the right track, Elle,” Vanessa said. “You need a wild fling to cleanse your palate after Mark before you jump headlong into a new relationship and motherhood. You definitely need a rebound guy.”
“Julie’s twenty-five—she doesn’t have a biological clock that keeps going off every two minutes. She can afford to have meaningless flings. I’m thirty-two and not getting any younger. I’m past the point of caring about chemistry. Mark and I had chemistry. At least in the beginning we did, and look how that ended up. Besides, another thing against Dante is that he’s Mark’s college roommate, and from the stories Mark tells, the guy was a real player.”
“Playboys are perfect for meaningless affairs,” Vanessa said. “That way nobody gets hurt.”
“Maybe he’s not a playboy anymore. People can change,” Julie pointed out. “I’m trying to change. I’m not as shy as I used to be and I did work up the courage to give Roger the boot.”
“You’re looking at this the wrong way,” Vanessa argued. “You need a rebound guy that wants to give you nothing but sex. Someone gorgeous and totally inappropriate for you. That way you can get past the hurt Mark caused.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Stick it to Mark the way he stuck it to you. Think how jealous he’ll be when he finds out you’re sleeping with his college roommate.” Vanessa tapped a perfectly manicured nail against the Formica tabletop.
“That’s petty,” Elle said, but she had to admit the thought held some appeal. She wasn’t proud of her less-than-noble instincts, but she was human. It would eat at Mark’s craw if she had fling with his old friend. The way he’d treated her, he deserved it.
And there was the delicious fact that she found Dante extremely attractive. It wasn’t too difficult picturing the two of them in bed. Their legs intertwined, sheets tousled, bodies slick with the sheen of lovemaking. Especially since it had been a long time since she’d enjoyed that kind of intimacy.
“Payback’s a bitch.” Vanessa grinned.
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“What if he’s not interested?”
“He went into the forest after you, didn’t he?”
Vanessa had a point. She was pretty sure Dante was attracted to her. “I wouldn’t know how to start.”
“Just seduce him.”
“You make it sound as if it’s as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich.”
“For her,” Julie said, “it probably is. Nessa, you gotta remember, Elle and I don’t have the same powers of seduction that you do.”
Vanessa snorted. “Of course you do. You seriously underestimate yourselves. Both of you. Men are so easy. Feed them, don’t talk to them during sporting events and go down on them every now and then and they’re happy.”
Elle thought of the dark look in Dante’s eyes. She hugged herself and shivered against the memory that sent a fresh tingle of sensation tripping up her spine. “I have the feeling Dr. Nash is a lot more complicated than most men.”
“He does seem rather enigmatic, but that makes the challenge all the more exciting, don’t you think?” Va
nessa rubbed her palms together gleefully.
In theory, a strictly sexual affair sounded good, but in reality, Elle knew it wasn’t that simple. Sex changed things and she’d never been one of those women who could take pleasure in a physical encounter that held no emotional component. That belief hadn’t protected her, however. She’d given her heart to Mark, tried her best to make their marriage work and she’d ended up hurting more than she’d ever known it was possible to hurt.
For the past fourteen months she’d been floundering, not knowing what her identity was now that she was no longer anyone’s wife. She and Mark had moved in together when she was right out of nursing school. She’d only had a couple of lovers before him and none since.
So maybe Vanessa was right. Maybe it was time for a change. Maybe it was time to try on a new identity.
A part of her was so scared. Terrified to take a risk. She had to do something to ease the emptiness she felt inside. But the very idea of a carefree fling made her palms sweat and brought a sick feeling to the pit of her stomach.
No, she simply couldn’t have a casual affair. Not yet. Not now.
And most certainly not with Dante Nash.
4
FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, every morning at eight o’clock Elle took her fifteen-minute coffee break in the E.D. employee lounge just so she could peer out the rear window and watch Dante’s magnificent Porsche Carrera GT pull into the doctors’ parking lot. The only thing that spoiled her new ritual was that Mark’s Ferrari pulled up at the same time.
Holding the blinds open with two fingers, she peered out, sipping her soy latte, purposefully ignoring Mark, while her gaze lingered on Dante’s well-shaped backside as he walked up the flagstone pathway to his office.
He was gorgeous. Tall and impressively muscular but not overdeveloped. His dark hair brushed back off his forehead. His chiseled shoulders showcased so splendidly in his expensive business suit. She wished for a pair of binoculars.
She heard the whoop of the ambulance pulling into the bay outside, but her mind barely registered the noise. They were expecting a feverish elderly woman from the upscale Alzheimer’s treatment facility down the road—not exactly an emergency. Her highly competent staff could handle the transfer while she indulged in a few seconds more of ogling Dr. Nash’s backside.
But this morning Dante suddenly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and slowly turned his head.
Elle gulped.
His eyes met hers. The look was so intense she gasped, dropped the blinds, took a step back and stumbled against the break room table so hard it shook.
Ouch. That was going to leave a bruise.
“Gracious, Elle, are you okay?”
Elle looked up to see Maxine Woodbury standing in the doorway, juggling a cup of cinnamon-scented tea and a bagel with cream cheese.
“Fine.” Elle forced a smile.
Maxine settled her breakfast on the table, and then went to peer out the blinds. The woman was a phenomenal secretary, and she was as nosy as a bloodhound. Her heightened curiosity was probably the reason she still worked at Confidential Rejuvenations at sixty-eight. Working here, Maxine was privy to as many secrets as if she worked at the National Enquirer. Good thing she also knew how to keep her mouth shut.
Maxine clucked her tongue and turned back to her breakfast. “You’ve got to stop pining over that man.”
“What?” For a moment, Elle feared the astute ward secretary had somehow learned about this silly infatuation she’d developed for Dante. She pretended to tighten the bell on the stethoscope dangling around her neck so Maxine couldn’t get a good look at her flushed cheeks.
“He did you dirty. You’ve got to let him go. Forget him. Find someone new,” she advised.
“Oh, you mean Mark.”
Maxine’s eyes perked up with interest. “Who else would you be staring at out that window that made you look so unsettled?”
“I’m not unsettled,” Elle denied, and absentmindedly rubbed the side of her hip where she’d whacked it on the table.
“No?” Maxine got up and headed for the window.
Elle snapped the blinds closed and turned to Maxine, hands behind her back. “My staring out the window has nothing to do with anything.”
“Uh-hmm.” Maxine said with a wink as if she didn’t believe it for a minute.
“It doesn’t.”
“Are his initials D.N.?” Maxine smiled knowingly.
Before Elle had a chance to respond, the public address system crackled. “Code Blue, E.D. room three. Code Blue, E.D. room three.”
Instinct catapulted Elle from the lounge. A burst of adrenaline shot her into exam room three. She figured the code was on the feverish Alzheimer’s patient who must have taken a turn for the worse.
But when she bolted through the door on the heels of a respiratory therapist, Elle was dismayed to see that the lifeless body on the stretcher belonged not to a fragile senior citizen but to a teenage boy.
Her nurses were in full code mode. Jenny Lucas was giving the teenager chest compressions. Heather Newcom was starting an IV with a large-bore needle. One of the paramedics who’d brought the victim in was pumping oxygen into him with an Ambu bag. The other paramedic was rapidly writing everything down on the young man’s medical chart.
“Name?” Elle barked at the scribbling paramedic.
“Travis Russell. He’s Pete Russell’s kid.”
Pete Russell was a well-known Austin musician who’d made it big fusing country and western lyrics with a hip-hop beat.
Elle assessed the boy’s condition. His skin was dusky, his body flaccid. The hairs on the nape of her neck lifted as a sensation of déjà vu passed over her. This victim’s condition mirrored that of the teenage girl who had suffered a cardiac arrest a couple of weeks earlier.
Quickly she detached the lead wire that monitored his vital signs from the paramedics’ portable monitor and attached them to the screen built into the wall above the stretcher. “What happened?”
“His mother went to wake him for school and found him unconscious and barely breathing.”
“Does she have any clue what happened?”
“She said he went to a party last night. She found a couple of pills on his beside table, but she had no idea what they were.”
“You bring them in?”
“Mom did. She’s in the waiting room. She’s inconsolable.”
“How long was he down?”
“Four, five minutes. Could have been longer. By the time we got to the scene, he’d gone into full cardiac arrest.”
Elle bit her bottom lip. Not an encouraging sign. The longer a patient went without oxygen the less likely he was to survive a cardiac arrest. She stuck a device on Travis’s finger that monitored the oxygen saturation level in his blood. She looked over at the screen. Ninety-two percent oxygen perfusion.
“I’m in,” Jenny sang out once she had gotten the IV needle in the teenager’s veins.
“Run the saline wide open,” Elle said.
“Administer Desocan,” said a commanding voice from the doorway.
Elle turned to see a grim-faced Dante striding purposefully into the room. Desocan was a new medication used to counteract the effect of designer drugs. Because of its many adverse side effects, the antidote drug was rarely used unless there was an absolute certainty the patient had ingested a chemically engineered designer drug. Was Dante that certain?
“We don’t routinely stock Desocan,” she said.
“We do now,” Dante replied with a proprietary air. “I had the pharmacy order it.”
Elle frowned. “The emergency room is my domain.” If he’d wanted a specialized drug he should have cleared it with her before authorizing the pharmacy to spend money on something they might never use.
“He’s my patient,” Dante said coldly, the expression on his face brooking no argument.
This wasn’t the time or place to dispute the man. Travis Russell was in serious straits and her patients always
came first. Elle clamped her mouth shut and moved to relieve Heather, who she could tell was getting fatigued from giving the chest compressions.
Jenny pushed the Desocan Dante had told her to administer into the patient’s IV. The paramedic turned the Ambu bag over to the respiratory therapist. The team worked in perfect unison, trying their best to save Travis Russell’s life.
Just when Elle thought it was a lost cause, his heart rate blipped onto the monitor screen in normal sinus rhythm and he began breathing on his own.
A cheer went up from the medical personnel gathered in the room.
It was only then that Elle realized how tense she’d been. The muscles along her shoulders were bunched tight. Her hands were aching from repeatedly pressing against the boy’s sternum. Her knees trembled. Her stomach burned. Codes, especially on children and young people, took a lot out of the entire staff.
One of the paramedics clapped Dante on the back. “Way to go, Doc. I thought the kid was a goner for sure. Good call with the Desocan.”
“Thanks,” Dante said and glanced at Elle. “Get him to ICU, stat. I’m going to go talk with his family, then I’ll head upstairs to write admission orders. Oh, and draw blood for a complete drug screen.”
Elle nodded at her nurses—they knew what to do for the patient—and then she followed Dante out into the work lane.
“What prompted you to give the boy Desocan?” she asked.
He shrugged. “His mother brought him in last week to have a ganglion cyst removed from his wrist. The kid was in good health, but Travis bragged about partying a lot and that concerned me. From his presenting symptoms and knowing about his personal history, I feared a drug overdose. Since his condition was so dire, I was willing to gamble on adverse reactions in hopes of saving his life. It was a lucky call. Now we just have to figure out what drugs he ingested.”
His explanation was perfectly rational, but it didn’t stop Elle’s imagination from running wild. It seemed as if he’d known for certain that Travis Russell had taken something that Desocan counteracted. But how could he know that?
