by Amy Ruttan
“I guess if you don’t know many people it can be boring here.”
“Yep, that’s so true.”
Stellan rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, if you’re not busy later tonight I would love to take you out to dinner.”
“That’s very sweet, but I’m not here to date. I’m only here for three months to work with the surgical residents on this work exchange.”
Stellan’s cheeks flushed red and his jaw clenched. “I see. Well, I’m sorry.”
“I would love to stay your friend. You’re an amazing guy.”
A small smile broke across his face. “I would like that too.”
Then he stepped forward and pulled her into an embrace, before kissing her. It caught her off guard. She pushed him away.
“Stellan, I can’t.”
“It was worth a shot,” he said with a shrug before leaving.
What was with the men in Reykjavik?
And as she tried to regain her composure she looked over at the stairs that led to the walkway that connected two parts of the hospital. Axel was standing on the walkway, leaning over the side watching her.
Crud.
She started walking toward him and he met her halfway down the stairs. His jaw was clenched and his expression unreadable. And Betty felt bad. She wasn’t the kind of girl to kiss multiple men in a span of twenty-four hours.
“What did Stellan want?” Axel asked, crossing his arms.
“He asked me out.”
Axel didn’t say much.
“I said no,” she said and she pushed past him and headed up to the walkway. She heard Axel following her.
“It didn’t seem like you said no when he was kissing you.”
“He initiated that kiss, not me and, honestly, what is it to you? We’re not dating.” She regretted the words as soon as she’d said them.
His eyes narrowed. “No, we’re not exclusive. And no, we’re not dating. I just kissed you in a moment of...”
“Weakness.”
His expression softened. “What’re you doing here today?”
“I’m going stir crazy in my cottage. So, I’m here to do paperwork and if I’m needed on a surgery then so be it.”
Axel laughed. “You hope that you are.”
“I am a surgeon. I’d rather be in the operating room.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to let you know if you’re needed down in the emergency room.”
“Thank you.” She stopped in front of her office and opened the door. “Feel free to dump a couple of residents on my roster today. I can always get them to do labs on my post operatives. In fact, I think I’ll do a round, so definitely send up a couple of residents.”
Axel nodded. “I will. Though my father will be angry. He wants all the residents in the emergency room. The problem is they’re tripping over each other down there.”
“Do you want me to ask your father for residents?”
“No, I will send them.” Axel lingered in her door as she took off her coat and set down her bag.
“Is there something else you wanted to talk about?” she asked.
Axel slipped into her office and shut the door. “It’s not really something to ask. I want to try something out.”
“Oh?”
And before she could answer, she was back in Axel’s arms again and he was kissing her. And this kiss was night and day to the surprise kiss she’d received from Stellan. Stellan’s kiss had been unwanted and she’d been detached.
Axel’s kiss had caught her off guard, but it fired her blood. Her knees went weak and his mouth was hungry, hot over hers. He pulled her tight against him. His hands roamed down her back to her bottom and she couldn’t help but let out a little moan.
He broke off the kiss and she had a hard time catching her breath. She looked up at him and his eyes were twinkling.
“What do you want to try out?” she asked breathlessly.
“That.”
“Oh?”
“I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just the Northern Lights or the beer affecting you.”
Betty couldn’t help but laugh and he laughed with her, his arms still around her.
“What’s the verdict?” she asked.
“It wasn’t just the Northern Lights,” he said huskily and he kissed her again, a light kiss, but it still made her forget about everything.
“I’d better go,” he said reluctantly as he stepped away from her. “Do you still want me to send those residents up?”
“Yeah,” she said, trying to calm the erratic beat of her heart. “That would be great.”
Axel chuckled and left her office, shutting the door behind him.
Betty leaned against the wall after he left and slid down to the floor.
More confused than ever, but also secretly pleased that it hadn’t just been the beer or the romantic backdrop of the aurora borealis. Axel and she had chemistry, but if she didn’t put a stop to this soon, she’d regret this.
She wasn’t going to hurt Axel.
And she wasn’t going to risk her heart. She’d done enough of that already.
* * *
Axel hadn’t been able to get Betty out of his head all night. The way she tasted, the soft silkiness of her hair and how her body had fit perfectly against his. Just thinking about her body pressed against him made his blood heat.
He’d come to the hospital early because he couldn’t sleep. All he’d done was think about Betty being in bed with him. Then he’d thought of her in the shower. She was everywhere, all at once.
And then he’d seen Stellan kissing her and the green-eyed monster of jealousy had reared its ugly head.
Mine.
That had been the single thought in his head when he’d seen Stellan kissing her. He was angry and even though he shouldn’t care, because they hadn’t promised each other anything, he couldn’t help himself. He wanted Betty.
Even though he knew there was a time limit on their romance, he wanted to spend as much time as he could with her. He wanted to have this one, fleeting moment of pure joy in his life. Once she left to go back to New York, then he could return to normal.
Can you?
He shook that thought from his head.
Once he got to the emergency room he assigned two eager surgical residents to help with Betty’s post-operative rounds and run labs.
And then he headed to check on Mr. Bjorn.
“Good morning,” Axel said brightly as he entered the room. “How are you feeling this morning, Mr. Bjorn?”
“Sore,” Mr. Bjorn said.
“Incision pain?” Axel asked.
“No, it’s like before, but in my arm and it hurts when I breathe.”
Axel snapped on gloves. “When did this pain start? Overnight?”
“No, just about half an hour ago.”
Axel took the patient’s blood pressure and it had dropped. It was hard to get a pulse in the arm that he was complaining hurt. He used his stethoscope to listen to the patient’s labored breathing and one thought popped into his head. Mr. Bjorn had an embolus. It could be in his lungs or near the repair. It was hard to tell, but Axel knew that he had to find the clot soon.
“I’m going to do a CT angiogram. I think you might have a pulmonary embolism. So I need to find it and take care of it as soon as I can. I don’t want anything to compromise your aortic repair.”
“Okay. Will you be doing it, Dr. Sturlusson? I trust you.”
Axel nodded. “Of course. I’m going to have some surgical residents prep you, while I prep the angiogram, okay?”
Mr. Bjorn nodded.
Axel left his room and called over Dr. Einnarsson, who had been in the original surgery. Dr. Einnarsson looked none too pleased to be beckoned by the black sheep of the hospital, but Axel didn’t care.
“I need you to prep Mr. Bjorn for a CT angiogram. Then you can assist me as we look for a pulmonary embolus.”
“Of course, Dr. Sturlusson.”
Axel nodded and headed toward the angio suites, which were located at the other end of the hospital. On his way to the angiogram lab he ran into Betty, who had just sent her surgical residents off in the opposite direction.
She frowned when she saw him. “What’s wrong?”
“Mr. Bjorn, our aortic dissection patient, probably has a pulmonary embolism. His blood pressure is down and his breathing is labored.”
“Oh, no! That’s horrible.”
“I’m going to do a CT angiogram and, since I’m supposed to be on the trauma-room floor supervising the residents...”
“You don’t need to ask twice. I’ll man the trauma-room floor. You take care of your patient.”
“Thank you, Betty.”
They passed each other, heading in opposite directions, when Betty turned and called him back.
“What?” he asked across the causeway.
“What do I tell your father when he sees me working your shift?” It was asked in jest and it made him laugh. He needed a good laugh, because he was extremely concerned about his patient. He wasn’t going to let Mr. Bjorn die because of a pulmonary embolism. Not after the man miraculously survived such an extensive and complicated aortic dissection repair.
“Tell him the truth.”
Betty smiled and waved as she turned back the way she was headed and Axel made his way to the angiogram room.
* * *
Mr. Bjorn’s angiogram went well. Axel was able to correct the pulmonary embolism issue, but he was worried about putting Mr. Bjorn on blood thinners. Especially in light of the fact that Mr. Bjorn had had a repair of a major blood vessel. If he was on thinners and the repair leaked, it would be disastrous.
Axel was going to have to spend more time at the hospital to monitor the situation more closely, but he knew one thing was for sure: the clock had reset on Mr. Bjorn’s eventual return to Sweden.
Axel headed back to the emergency room and the moment he stepped onto the floor it was a flurry of excitement.
His father was standing in the fray shouting orders and Axel could see some of the residents that weren’t with patients in the triage area were packing up supplies.
“What’s going on?” Axel asked, confused.
“Where were you?” his father snapped, spinning around to face him.
“I was doing an angiogram on my patient.”
“We have cardiothoracic surgeons for that!”
“I am a cardiothoracic surgeon.”
“Not in this hospital. In this hospital you’re a trauma surgeon, or have you forgotten your place?”
Axel clenched his fist. “It was my patient. Besides, Dr. Jacinth was manning the emergency room for me.”
“I know. She’s supposed to be off, but I admire her spirit.”
At least he admired something.
“What happened?” Axel asked, biting back the snarky response he’d been thinking.
“There was an accident in Kulusuk, Greenland. They need our assistance, so I’m sending a team over in a plane.”
Axel’s blood ran cold. He closed his eyes as he heard the sounds of the helicopter’s engine giving out. The explosion, the heat of flames and the sting of ice-cold water as he was pushed by Calder out of the side into the unforgiving sea.
“Who’s going?” Axel asked quietly, his stomach churning.
Please don’t be Betty. Please don’t be Betty.
“Dr. Jacinth and a couple of residents are getting ready to head to Keflavik to catch their flight.”
“Tasiilaq is close to Kulusuk. Why don’t they send help?”
“They don’t have enough surgeons to send to Kulusuk. They are the ones who asked for help and so I’m sending a team. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Of course,” Axel responded dryly. Then he saw Betty pulling on a hospital anorak and filling her kit. The thought of anything happening to her was too unbearable.
“Axel, are you even listening to me?” his father asked in exasperation.
“I’ll man the emergency room now, Father. You accompany the team to the airport.”
His father nodded. “Okay.”
Axel turned away. He couldn’t watch Betty leave.
He couldn’t breathe thinking about her in the sky over the stormy waters of the north Atlantic. They were so unforgiving. So cruel. It had no mercy.
It showed him mercy, but not Calder.
He closed his eyes again, clenching his fingers into his palm until it stung and then he flexed them again, willing the screams of the wind, the waves, Calder’s lifeless body out of his mind, but instead of Calder he saw Betty in the water.
And that terrified him to the core.
* * *
Betty tried to find Axel before they left for the airport. She hoped he wasn’t worrying too much about the flight.
Why would he worry? He’s not the one flying.
The emergency in Kulusuk had been minor, thankfully, but there was an earthquake just off the coast of Kulusuk and there had been a tsunami. So those that weren’t injured in the quake had been injured in the surge of water and ice.
Everywhere in the small community that clung to an island just off the coast of Greenland was decimated.
The plane landed in the community of Tasiilaq and they boarded boats to cross the sound to the island of Kulusuk.
Other emergency teams had arrived and there was a small triage area set up at the highest point of the village. It was in that tent that Betty worked the hardest she ever had in her life, in conditions that she’d never worked in before.
She’d been so used to the cleanliness of state-of-the-art hospitals. She wasn’t used to this kind of raw, ragged work.
Her body was pushed to the limits as she treated everyone she could. And when the last of the patients were seen to, she boarded a boat back to Taliisaq with her team and then back onto a plane to Iceland.
She was exhausted. They’d been working for over twenty-four hours.
She’d only stopped to grab a quick bite to eat and to drink coffee to help keep her warm.
The two surgical residents that had come with her were curled up in the seat of the private plane that the hospital had chartered for them. They were sleeping, but Betty couldn’t sleep.
She’d done the most intense triaging she’d ever done in her life.
All without Thomas. It felt good to know what she was capable of all on her own.
To be free of him.
It felt good to be out there and helping people and to be on the front line like that. She understood why Axel had followed his older brother into the tactical navy and why he enjoyed being a surgeon in emergency situations.
And she couldn’t help but wonder if he missed it.
Thinking about Axel triggered something else too. It made her think about the kiss in her office. The kiss under the Northern Lights had made her swoon, but that kiss in her office. When he took her in his arms and hungrily kissed her. That was something she’d never experienced before. Not with such heat and intensity.
Just thinking about it made her body come alive, her blood heat and her skin thrum with sexual desire. The kind she’d only read about in books. She’d always scoffed at the idea of being that aroused by a kiss.
Thomas had always complained about her kisses or their lovemaking. He’d never thought it was good enough, which was his first excuse for cheating on her with the woman he married. Apparently he’d had heat with her, but not Betty.
The plane landed smoothly and a van was waiting to take them and their gear back to the hospital.
She was exhausted now. As soon as she dropped her gear and did her report on what was
done in Kulusuk, she was going to go home and have a shower and sleep. When she got to the hospital she was expecting to see Axel on duty, but he wasn’t.
That’s odd.
She did her quick report and then headed home. When she got home, she had a shower and instead of going to bed, she got dressed and decided to head to Axel’s place to check on him. Something was bothering him.
She wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something wrong and she wanted to make sure that he was okay.
Betty called a cab and was across the town and standing in front of Axel’s door in under thirty minutes. His SUV was in the laneway, so he was home, unless he was out walking somewhere.
Her pulse was thundering between her ears and she was suddenly very nervous as that rush of desire that she’d felt in the plane came flooding back.
She took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
Axel answered it. There were dark circles under his eyes, he hadn’t shaved and he looked weary. As if he’d been up as long as she had been.
“Hi, you...” Her words were silenced as his arms went around her and his mouth found hers, kissing her as if his life depended on it.
She wrapped her arms around him, her hands in his hair, and she pressed her body against his, but no matter how close she got to him, it wasn’t good enough. She wanted more.
He pulled her inside and they kissed for a few more minutes, her butt pressing into the corner of the small credenza he had in the foyer.
“Ow,” she finally mumbled against his lips.
Axel broke the kiss and looked down. “I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”
“No, it’s just the corner of this thing is digging into me.”
Axel chuckled and lessened his grip on her. “I’m sorry I was so urgent there, but I’ve been sick with worry.”
“You look tired,” she said as he stepped away from her and ran his hand through his hair. “Were you up all night?”
“When you got on that plane... I lost my mind.”
She touched his face. “I’m okay. Flying is safer than driving.”
Axel snorted; it was apparent he’d heard that before. “I just couldn’t think with you up in the sky and me down here... I don’t fly, Betty. Not since the accident and I just couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to you.”
