Alaska

by Cate Ashwood

  “I was not stalking him. And I’m not a med seeker,” I explained.

  “Of course not.” She smiled, and I wasn’t entirely sure I’d convinced her. “It’s nice to meet you. Welcome to SFRH.”

  “Our superstar surgeon has arrived.” I turned to see Logan walking in through the ER doors.

  “Is everyone hanging out at the hospital today?” I asked. “Making sure I know what I’m doing?”

  “I’m not gonna follow you around for the whole time,” he assured me. “I wanted to come in and say welcome and good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Gage can give you the tour and do all the introductions. I already have all your paperwork, so you should be good to go.”

  “You heading home?” Gage asked.

  “Yeah. I thought about crashing in the on-call room, but my bed is calling. I’m gonna go pass out for a few hours, but I’ll be back.”

  He smiled at me, his expression filled with warmth and confidence, and I was reminded once again how different this was than Westbridge. Working at the hospital in Sawyer’s Ferry had been the right decision. I knew it.

  Logan wished me luck once more, shook my hand, and then he was gone.

  The small portion of the hospital I’d seen the last time I’d been there turned out to be pretty much all of the hospital. The outpatient clinic at Westbridge was bigger, but after meeting everyone on shift, I decided I liked SFRH better. It was small, but the staff was close-knit. There was probably more than a little drama, that many people working so closely together day in and day out, but from first impressions, everyone seemed incredibly kind and supportive.

  Even Diana stopped by, bringing muffins for the staff and wanting to wish me good luck on my first day. I hadn’t seen her since she’d been lying open on the operating table, her spleen in my hands. I much preferred her up and walking around. She was incredibly sweet, and I almost felt shitty for taking her job, but she seemed genuinely pleased I was there, and so I couldn’t harbor too much guilt over it.

  With an hour left in my shift and having yet had to set eyes on an actual patient, I’d almost made it through the day completely unscathed. There were routine surgeries booked for the following morning, but Logan had started me off light. An appendectomy followed by a chole was a nice introduction back into the conventional hospital setting.

  For now, Gage was explaining how the cafeteria worked, the visitors’ meals offered by two ladies who volunteered their free time. He was in the middle of giving me the list of the best dishes on the menu when my pager went off. I pulled it from my waist and checked the screen.

  9-1-1

  “Shit.”

  Gage’s eyes, simmering with intensity, locked with mine. “Let’s go.”

  The patient was already in the trauma bay. Dawn and Nadia were hooking him up to the monitors as paramedics gave the rundown while two police officers stood outside the door. It was immediately apparent that this was not a minor injury, but there was no time to be nervous, no time to second-guess whether or not I was qualified to do the job. I was smack-dab in an ER and expected to perform surgeries I’d only done a handful of times.

  I should have crumpled under the pressure—my father would have expected me to—but instead, I blossomed.

  “Tell me what we got.” I grabbed a trauma gown and gloved up.

  The paramedic didn’t look down at his chart. His eyes were trained on me as he spoke. “Twenty-four-year-old male vs hunting knife, penetrating injury to the chest. BP is eighty-three over forty-two, SpO2 at 93 percent and a GCS of nine.”

  “All right.” I snapped immediately into trauma surgeon mode. “Let’s get bilateral IVs started, 16-gauge if you can manage, and I’ll need an intubation kit.”

  Nadia started the IVs as Dawn grabbed the kit for me. I removed his mask and inserted the tube, guiding it exactly where I needed it to go. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the monitor as his blood pressure dropped and dropped and dropped with each second that passed.

  “Call the blood bank. We’re gonna need multiple units.” The IVs were in and we were pumping him with as much fluid as we could until the blood arrived, but it wasn’t doing a goddamn thing for him. It was like trying to fill an Olympic-sized pool with a garden hose.

  “If we don’t get his pressure evened out, he’s gonna arrest,” I announced as the alarms on the monitor sounded. The solid tone pierced through me as he flatlined.

  “Shit. I need a thoracotomy tray.” I looked up at Gage, who was standing in the corner, arms crossed over his chest, his lips pressed into a tight line. He was completely focused on me, and I could feel the tension coming off him all the way from across the room.

  I didn’t have time to contemplate what he was thinking. The nurses buzzed around me, grabbing supplies and arranging them on a table within easy reach. Seconds later, I had everything I needed at my fingertips, and with one fortifying breath and about a gallon of antiseptic, I placed my blade at the fifth intercostal space and cut.

  The rest of the procedure happened in a daze, my hands seeming to move of their own volition, going through the motions necessary to save the man’s life. A rib-spreading retractor exposed the intrathoracic cavity. I inserted a Foley catheter into the cardiac wound and inflated it to plug the hole. Every step was performed as though I’d done a thousand of them, though in reality, I’d only done this once before.

  Seconds passed like hours, my heart pounding in my ears. The man was dead—dead on the table in front of me, and no one could do a fucking thing about it, except for me. The room was soaked in tension, the atmosphere unsettlingly quiet. Everyone held their breaths and stood back as they watched me shove my hands into the unconscious man’s chest.

  It took cardiac massage, internal paddles, and a fuckload of luck, but we got pulses back.

  The relief had been audible—gasps and sighs and even a cheer from one of the paramedics. My heart resumed beating, my blood started pumping again, and I let my shoulders drop. In the moment, the only thing I saw was the patient, but now everything else slipped back into focus.

  Once we managed to stabilize him, we would arrange for him to be medevaced out to Anchorage for close observation and what would likely be a long stay in their ICU. But none of that fell to me. My job was done. He was alive for now.

  It was then I realized Gage was still in the room. He was staring at me, his eyes stormy, his posture tense, and I had a flash of uncertainty.

  Had I severely fucked up? I knew the effectiveness of thoracotomies was debated in some circles, but the patient had suffered a penetrating chest trauma, not blunt force, and a slim chance at saving him was a hell of a lot better than the flatline heart rhythm he’d had before I sliced him open.

  Once I’d degloved, degowned, and washed up, Gage tilted his head toward the door, motioning for me to follow him. He didn’t say a word as he led me down the hall and opened a door near the end. I followed him through, and before I could blink, the door was shut, locked, and Gage was on me.

  He attacked my mouth, thrusting his tongue against mine. I couldn’t stop the whimper that surged from my throat as I clung to him.

  “I need you to be really fucking quiet,” he growled, pushing me backward, not giving me a chance to answer. The mattress on the cot had seen better days. It squeaked in protest as my weight pressed down on the springs, but Gage didn’t seem to care. He leaned over me, fumbling with the drawstring of my pants, his fingers clumsy and frantic. Finally, he managed to get the knot undone and yank them down.

  “Turn around,” he demanded, giving me a heated stare.

  I felt those two little words as powerfully as if I’d been punched. The adrenaline that had subsided back in the trauma room surged through me once again in response to the low scrape of his command. My heart almost beat out of my chest, and my breathing was already becoming strained. The things Gage did to my body, the ability he had to instantly turn me on… it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.


  I pushed my scrub pants farther down until they pooled around my knees, and wrapped my hand around my dick. I couldn’t stop myself from stroking, the way I needed Gage almost painful. My cock pulsed in my fist as I heard the swish of fabric behind me, and I turned my head to see him closing in on me. His pants were hanging open, his cock jutting out above the waistband, slick and veined and so goddamn hard.

  I shifted back on the mattress, moving to the edge to let him get closer. He put his hands on me, his fist replacing mine as he stroked the length of my erection. I don’t know where he got the condoms or the lube. Wallet? Supply closet? I didn’t give a shit. All I cared about was that he was going to fuck me until I couldn’t remember my name.

  “Gage,” I gasped, letting my head fall back against his shoulder, a heavy sigh of relief escaping me as I felt him line his cock up against my ass and push forward, all the way to the root.

  The burn overtook me, and I let out a ragged sob, the sensation of being stretched and taken almost too much. His body seared into mine, heat and pressure and this beautiful ache that started deep inside me and radiated out from there. I fell into the intensity of the feeling, letting it spread over me, suffusing into every nerve, every cell. His mouth was against the curve of my neck, his hand on my cock. I dug my fingers into his flank, canting my hips backward, angling him deeper inside me.

  “Jesus, Holden… Need this... Need you.” He ground the words out against my skin, like it pained him to say them, pained him to hold them back.

  “Yours,” I managed before he started to move. His thrusts were hard, deliberate, measured, and he stroked me with the same level of conscious determination. I turned in his arms, craning my neck to search for his mouth. He covered my lips with his and I moaned, letting him swallow the sound. My whole body was lit up with sensation, and Gage changed his rhythm, speeding up and pushing me higher, closer to orgasm.

  I was so fucking lost in him, I barely knew which end was up, and then the whole world ceased to exist as he pushed me over the edge. I came hard, my release spilling over his hand and all over the sheets. His free hand covered my mouth as I cried out, my voice broken. His rhythm faltered, and he followed me over, my name falling from his mouth as he came inside me.

  We both collapsed down onto the bed, a mess of harsh breathing and sweaty, mostly clothed bodies. It took forever for my heart to slow to a regular pace and my eyes to refocus. After several long minutes, Gage said, “So this is the on-call room.” He waved his arm demonstratively, like he was Vanna Fucking White.

  I burst out laughing. “I can see that.”

  “Don’t know why I bothered to show you. You can’t work here anyway.”

  I propped myself up to look at him. “What? Why?”

  “Because I can’t work like this. I can’t walk around wanting to rip your clothes off every time I see you hold a scalpel.”

  I stared at him, trying to keep the serious expression on my face from faltering. “Was it the flailing chest wall that turned you on more? Or the lacerated lung?”

  He leaned forward and bit my shoulder.

  “Ow!”

  “You deserved it.” He kissed the same place and soothed away the sting. “I couldn’t see anyone in that trauma room but you. You were so fucking incredible.”

  If the lights hadn’t been off, he would have seen me blush.

  I suddenly wondered if going to work at Westbridge had been a mistake in the first place. I’d always wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps, but I’d sacrificed exploring other avenues to do it. Laser focus had been essential to be prepared to step into running an entire department at Westbridge, and for that reason, I’d never bothered to entertain the idea that I could lead a different path.

  Getting fired by my father had put a wrench in my plans, but maybe I was meant to be doing something else. All I knew was that I’d never flown so high as I was at that moment.

  It was something I needed to take a closer look at.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  How the hell had I gotten here? How had I gone from perfectly content, completely in control of every aspect of my life, to fucking Sawyer Ferry Regional Hospital’s newest hire in the on-call room less than twelve hours after he’d started working there?

  I didn’t do this shit.

  In the midst of blood and organs and life and death, all I’d been thinking about was getting Holden alone. The way he’d handled the situation, without an ounce of hesitation, taking charge and stepping in and doing what needed to be done… there was something undeniably sexy about how capable he was. The image of him taking control of his environment, leading his team, made me hard.

  And how fucked-up was that?

  I’d known he was a surgeon. I’d known he had to have some decent skills to have gotten through his residency, and Logan had told me how badass he’d been with the splenic laceration. But seeing him in action, gloved up and holding the scalpel… it had snapped Holden into the center of everything, and now he was all I could see.

  I’d barely made it through his first day, and now just the sight of him in his scrubs was enough to turn me on. At least we’d hardly ever actually work together. The level of distraction Holden offered was enough to seriously impact patient outcomes.

  “Dr. Emerson,” Nadia said as I walked back into the ER. “We’re taking Dr. Prescott out to J’s to commemorate his first day. You in?”

  It took me a second to process what she’d asked. I’d been staring at Holden’s ass.

  He turned, answering for me. “Considering he’s my ride home, he’s definitely in.”

  Truthfully, I didn’t feel like going out. More than anything I wanted to take Holden home and strip him out of those scrubs, but he seemed so thrilled that the staff wanted to hang out with him. Bonding with them was important. They were great people, and I wanted him to feel like he fit in.

  “Yep, I’m in,” I confirmed.

  Holden beamed at me, and I knew I’d made the right decision.

  J’s was quiet when we arrived. Jane was wiping down the counter, but when she saw us walking toward her, she traded it for a couple of glasses, turning them upright and setting them down on the counter.

  “I hear congratulations are in order,” Jane said, pouring.

  “Word sure travels fast,” Holden said.

  “Diana and Conrad stopped in for lunch, and she couldn’t stop gushing about how handsome her replacement was.” She slid the drinks across the bar. “And besides that, not much happens around here that I don’t hear about it five minutes after it happens.”

  The others arrived then, the front door whipping open and Logan coming in ahead of Nadia and Dawn. Leslie and Shaun brought up the rear, and within a few minutes, J’s was filled with every employee of SFHR who wasn’t currently on shift.

  I couldn’t help but smile at how quickly and seamlessly Holden had seemed to endear himself to everyone in town. It hadn’t been as easy for me. Even with Logan acting as ambassador, it had taken a while for people to warm up to me.

  “First round’s on me,” Jane announced, earning herself some excited hollering from her patrons.

  Once the drinks were poured, the group raised their glasses and toasted to Holden’s first day and first life saved. Technically, it was his second life, but his first while on the SFRH payroll, and either way, he looked fucking elated to be the center of everyone’s attention.

  Craig arrived as Logan was leaving, and Holden stood practically preening himself with pride as Dawn and Nadia recounted the tale of the emergency thoracotomy.

  “You shoulda seen it,” Nadia gushed. “The guy’s chest was wide open, right in the trauma room. Dr. Prescott’s hands were in there halfway up his forearms.”

  “That is so badass,” Craig said.

  “It was,” Dawn agreed.

  “Where’d you learn to do that?” Craig asked.

  Holden laughed. “Uh… med school?”

  He seemed to be trying to downplay the event, but the
nurses were having none of it. They reported the whole thing over again for Leslie, who’d been on the phone the first time. I hung back and let them fawn over him. He’d been there a single day and Holden had already clicked into place like he’d lived here for years. There was something about the way he fit in so seamlessly that made me strangely proud.

  As the night wore on, the crowd thinned. Most of the staff had early starts in the morning, as did I.

  “We should probably get going,” I said, gently tearing Holden away during a break in his conversation with Shaun. He turned to look at me, his eyes glassy, and as they met mine, his smile broadened so wide it made my heart squeeze.

  “Okay. Take me home,” he said, his voice a little dreamier than usual.

  “I was about to cut him off anyway,” Jane said with a wink.

  Holden tossed his arm over my shoulder, the difference in our height making the position a little awkward. I slid my arm around his waist and held him to me. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

  He nodded and I half carried him out the door to the truck. He collapsed into the passenger seat and managed to click his seat-belt buckle on the third try as I climbed into the driver’s side. I started the engine and waited for the heat, the blowers almost drowning out the sound of Holden’s teeth chattering.

  “Think I’ll ever get used to this cold fucking weather?” he asked.

  I chuckled. “Probably not.” I pulled out onto the road and headed for home. The streetlights faded into the distance behind us as I turned onto the old highway. Holden was quiet, and I thought he’d fallen asleep next to me when I heard him mumbling.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I said thank you for making this happen,” he repeated, a little more clearly this time.

  “For getting you drunk?”

  With that much alcohol in his system, I’d expected a laugh at my half-assed shot at a joke, but Holden remained serious. “No, for the job, the place to stay, all of it.” The words came out quietly, and I could feel the weight of them.