by Caro Carson
“Oh, it was a joke,” she said, and he felt every bit of her mortification. Her gaze dropped to the floor, and the cool and commanding physician looked for all the world like an embarrassed young girl, standing in front of gym lockers like an awkward teenager.
“My mistake,” she murmured.
He could leave it like that, with her feeling embarrassed, and their relationship unchanged.
But she deserved better, this smart and sexy woman who hadn’t seemed to like him much until today. The truth was, he’d said the line in a different manner than he usually did. Not so tongue-in-cheek. Not laughing as he spoke.
“It wasn’t a joke, Brooke. Can I buy you a drink?”
Chapter Three
She was such a fool.
Can I buy you a drink?
He’d said it in that delicious deep voice, but without that good-time cowboy tone. For once, he’d sounded serious.
Still, he’d meant it as a joke. It was always a joke, it had been a joke from the very first, and Brooke was an idiot for having forgotten that for even the briefest of moments.
The stethoscope dangled from her hand. Buying herself a moment, she tucked it into her purse.
Why had she imagined a guy like Zach would have been serious for even a moment? He’d called her by her first name for the first time she could remember, and it made her want to blush like he’d whispered some intimacy in her ear. Maybe that had made her hear something more than he’d meant.
He was only eye candy. A ladies’ man. A fun-loving cowboy, for goodness’ sake.
And she was an emergency medicine professional. She could operate under duress. She’d been trained to keep moving forward, even after a blunder.
She moved forward now, literally, to toss her purse on the counter and take the empty coffee cup from his hand. “Sure, I’ll take a drink. Thanks for pouring.”
His smile seemed to come as easily as ever, but the look in his eyes pinned her in place. “Am I supposed to politely assume that’s a no and drop the subject?”
“It’s a yes. I’d like a drink.” She wiggled the white cardboard cup impatiently.
He covered her hand with his before he began to pour the steaming hot liquid, holding her cup steady with the same hand that had kept poor Harold steady. His palm was warm. His hand was large enough to wrap around both her hand and the cup easily.
Unlike Harold, she didn’t find the touch of his hand calming. She’d been this close to Zach before, but only in passing, for a whisper of silliness—I’m having a hard time finding my way out of this building because I keep getting lost in your eyes—and then he’d be gone and she’d be left alone with a pleasant little shiver of awareness.
He didn’t leave this time. He was still here, still touching her, and she had nowhere to look except at him. His eyes were blue-green and as focused on her as she was on him.
“I expected more from you.” He let go of her hand and put the coffeepot back on the burner.
“More what?” she asked.
“I expected a straightforward yes or no from a woman like you. Can I take you out for a drink after work?”
His casual stance and the trace of his ever-present grin sent all the usual messages: nothing to worry about, no reason to be alarmed. But the look in those blue-green eyes was different.
This wasn’t a game. She was so terribly aware of the height and breadth of him, so much masculinity in a firefighter’s shirt. Oh, it had been a long, long time since pheromones and hormones had threatened her ability to think clearly.
“Why the hesitation? You make a thousand decisions every shift, Brooklyn.”
“It’s just Brooke.” No one here called her Brooklyn. “How did you know my real name?”
“It’s on your license.”
Paper copies of all the physicians’ licenses were displayed on the wall. She was willing to bet no one else had read them in ages. “It’s a frivolous name. I prefer Brooke.”
“It’s a sexy name. Brooklyn Brown. It fits you.”
That deep voice of his was always appealing, but the way he used it now, saying her name as if it were something he could taste...
Oh, no.
She set the coffee cup on the counter.
No, no, no. She was not going to turn into a mush-for-brains puddle of female hormones at the feet of a fireman who said she was sexy.
“I could pick you up in an hour. Are we on?”
Brooke needed to say no. She knew it. Instead, she kept looking at the single most handsome man to ever ask her on a date, and...kept looking. Silent, not moving forward, not functioning at all. Mush for brains.
The door opened again. “There you are. Done for the day?”
That particular voice belonged to Dr. Tom Bamber, a radiologist at the hospital. He was a welcome distraction at the moment, forcing Brooke to stop staring at Zach as she turned to greet Tom. She only had a second to wonder why the radiologist had come to the emergency department before he said, “I was looking for you.”
“You were?” Her surprise was genuine. He must have an unusual report for her. Radiologists typically gave their reports over the phone from their dark cave in the hospital basement, not in person. Harold Allman and his fractured tibia had been taken to the cardiac cath lab instead of X-ray, anyway. Dr. Bamber hadn’t been on duty earlier, and—
“I’ve got tickets to the ballet tonight. Orchestra, row E.” He flourished them before her like a two-feathered fan. “Score.”
Score, indeed. Brooke loved the ballet, beauty created from precision. It was sweet of Tom to remember, but—
Tom kept talking. “I have my doubts that a young troupe can truly do justice to Balanchine, but we might as well go and judge their attempt. Shall we say seven? We can dine with the Philistines at the food trucks outside the theater.” Tom stepped just a little too close to her. “Then I’ll buy you a drink after the show.”
Good grief, the man was asking her out on a date. Brooke rarely went out with friends and even more rarely on dates, but now she had two men wanting to buy her drinks. On the same night. At the same moment. Asking in front of one another.
She stole a glance at Zach, to whose presence Tom seemed to be oblivious. Zach raised her coffee cup to his lips, watching her conversation like a man watching a sporting event. He blew across the top of the hot liquid, which made his mouth look like he was about to give someone a soft, sweet kiss.
No, no, no. Don’t go there.
Brooke smiled politely at Tom. His lips looked unremarkable. His mouth wasn’t about to do anything except question her.
Normal lips were a good thing. Tom was exactly the sort of man she should date. They spoke the same language as doctors. They’d discussed their mutual appreciation of the ballet once, over lunch in the hospital cafeteria. They were evenly matched, even in their height. She could look him squarely in the eye.
Brooke had to glance up at the fireman who’d also just asked her out for a drink. She wondered what kind of place a man like Zach would take a woman like her. What was a playboy paramedic’s idea of a night out in Austin? Where would it begin—and where would they end up?
No, no, no.
Zach was all wrong for her, yet she couldn’t accept Tom’s ballet invitation in front of Zach. She felt a little relieved, actually, that she had an excuse not to go out on a perfectly nice date with a perfectly nice man like Tom.
Likewise, even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t tell Zach yes in front of Tom.
Even if she’d wanted to?
She had wanted to. She’d almost said yes to a fireman just because he dripped sex appeal. Tom had unknowingly stopped her from making a big mistake.
“I’m sorry, but—”
The kitchen door burst open once again.
“Th
ere you are.”
Brooke felt relieved; this man was almost as handsome as Zach, but also quite happily married. The head of the emergency department, Dr. Jamie MacDowell, wasn’t going to offer to buy her a drink.
“Can you work late?” Jamie asked her instead. “We just got a call that there’s been a multi-car accident on I-35.”
“Sure, I can stay.” Brooke recognized the cowardly relief she felt. Now she didn’t have to turn down two men.
Jamie nodded at Zach as if they were old friends. “Surprised your engine hasn’t been called yet.”
An obnoxiously loud series of three tones sounded from the radio at Zach’s hip.
“Now it has.” Zach silenced his radio as he started for the door.
“Jinxed you,” Jamie said. As Zach passed him, the two men didn’t shake hands as much as do some kind of forearm-to-forearm punch. Brooke had seen that move before. It seemed that all three of the Dr. MacDowell brothers and half the emergency responders in the Texas Rescue and Relief organization had played on the same high school football team.
She should have guessed that Zach’s cocky grin and his confidence with women had started in his teen years. Of course, Zach Bishop had been a high school football star.
As he turned back to her, he added a wink to the grin that had probably slayed a dozen cheerleaders. “Looks like neither one of our shifts is over. Tonight is not our night, but the offer still stands.”
Then he left. Tom Bamber frowned at her. Jamie MacDowell lifted one brow in speculation.
Brooke turned her back on both men and grabbed her white coat off its hanger. It was time to go to work. Zach was gone, and she was once more left alone with a little thrill of awareness, same as always.
The offer still stands.
Or maybe, things weren’t the same as always.
* * *
An hour later, Brooke was making decisions in that quick yet methodical state of mind, going down the logical checklists ingrained in her brain regarding the injuries and complications of accident victims. She had no time to wonder where Zach was.
She wondered, anyway, during those moments when she transitioned from one patient to another. She’d worked a hundred shifts not caring who pushed the gurney as patients arrived. She’d worked a hundred more without replaying the last words a man had said to her. Yet tonight, she kept remembering the way Zach had said Brooklyn Brown. The way he’d told her the offer still stood.
Each time she walked into a treatment room, she noticed that Zach wasn’t there. Each time the sliding glass doors opened and paramedics wheeled in a patient, she noticed that Zach wasn’t there. When Loretta stopped to let her know that Harold Allman was doing well after his heart procedure, Brooke made a mental note to be sure to pass on the good news to Zach—later, because he wasn’t there.
Still, Harold’s recovery was a useful thing to have ready to discuss, because she wasn’t sure what else she would say the next time she saw Zach. Whenever that would be.
It wasn’t that day. When she took her purse out of the gym locker for the second time, it was after midnight, and she was so tired, the cot in the physician’s lounge was starting to look inviting. She wondered if Zach felt the same, wherever he was.
No fire engines had arrived from the crash scene. Fire engines didn’t transport patients; ambulances did. But if a fire engine was first on the scene and its paramedic was the first to begin a victim’s medical treatment, then that paramedic would stay with the patient, continuing medical care in the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The fire engine followed the ambulance, staying with its paramedic, ready for him to rejoin the engine’s crew once the handoff to the hospital had taken place.
Any time an ambulance pulled up to the hospital doors and Zach Bishop emerged with a patient, that big red Engine Thirty-Seven pulled in right behind him, like Zach was some kind of superhero with a red fire truck instead of a red cape sailing behind him.
Not tonight. Brooke assumed that meant Zach was working as less of a paramedic and more of a firefighter. Was he still on the scene, putting out a fire or cutting open a crumpled car? Or was he, like she, dragging himself home, staying awake through sheer willpower long enough to take a shower and then falling into bed with hair still wet, sleeping like the dead until it was time to wake for the next shift?
As Brooke’s own wet head hit her pillow, her last thought of the day was a vision of Zach, his hair dark and damp from a shower, smiling at her from the empty white pillow next to hers.
Shall I call you for breakfast, or just nudge you?
Brooke didn’t swoon for superheroes. She didn’t date eye candy.
But if she wanted to, she could, because the offer still stood.
In the last unguarded moment of a long day, Brooke fell asleep with a smile on her lips.
Chapter Four
She heard him before she saw him. Tom Bamber’s voice was as distinctive as Zach Bishop’s, but not in a sexy way. He sounded more like—well, he sounded like a radiologist giving a report, which he was.
He wasn’t giving the report to Brooke. He was speaking to Jamie. It was odd that Tom had emerged from his basement office and walked to the emergency room instead of just picking up the phone.
She had a hunch that he’d done so in order to see her. Brooke considered sneaking past the nurses’ station to the kitchen in order to avoid Tom. If he was planning on asking her out again, discretion would be the better part of valor.
Okay, she was feeling cowardly. She didn’t want to face the awkwardness of an offer she didn’t want but shouldn’t refuse. She started down the hall with careful steps, trying to minimize the sound of her heels on the tile.
Tom was exactly the kind of guy she ought to date. Her mother would approve. Nothing could be safer and more secure than a radiologist. Mom was big into security. Predictability.
Imagine taking firefighter Zach home to meet Mother.
First, the man would have to be crazy about her to want to set foot in the mausoleum that was her mother’s house. Second, although women loved Zach, her mother would be the exception. Even Zach couldn’t charm her from her permanent frown.
But what if he could? That would really be something.
“Overactive imagination in room two.”
Brooke stopped in midstep and turned to face the nurse. Loretta might as well have been diagnosing her as the next patient.
“Sorry, Dr. Brown. Did I startle you?”
“No, not at all.”
Was she blushing? She couldn’t be. Dr. Brooke Brown did not blush. She also did not daydream about firemen who were so madly in love with her that they wanted to even meet her mother. Where was her logic, her order, her checklists? First, long before the man was crazy in love with her, she’d have to actually see the man again, maybe even call him by his first name.
First, the man would have to make an effort to see me.
It had been three days since he’d said the offer still stood and then left for the accident scene. Zach didn’t have her phone number. He didn’t know where she lived. He was leaving it up to chance for their paths to cross, as always. They would both have to just happen to be ending shifts at the same time for that after-work drink to become reality.
In other words, he was an easy-go-lucky, flirtatious guy, and she was an idiot for mistaking his casual invitation for anything more. Had she really thought their relationship was going to move to another level? She was a fool for daydreaming that a handsome playboy was anything but a handsome playboy.
Loretta handed her the clipboard for room two. “Four-year-old female, two hovering parents who brought their own thermometer.”
Well, there was nothing like work to wake Brooke up from her daydreams. “Fever?”
“Barely one hundred degrees, the third time
they asked me to verify their thermometer’s readings with our thermometer. Runny nose. They printed out a list from their internet search. Could be the first signs of a cancerous tumor, you know.”
“First things first. We’ll have to consider the common cold.”
“Good luck. Those parents are already in a temper because the urgent cases were seen first. They got here at six-thirty this morning, because their regular pediatrician’s office didn’t open until eight. It’s nine now, so...you get the picture.”
Twenty minutes later, Brooke was in a temper herself. She understood anxious parents—she’d been raised by one—so Brooke had been very thorough in her exam of the child. There was no indication whatsoever of anything more serious than the common cold in the little girl. Nothing in her medical history, nothing in her family history, nothing to warrant even a basic antibiotic prescription.
Brooke had explained her reasoning. She’d answered every question the parents had. But when the parents had questioned her qualifications as a physician, when the accusations had started flying that Brooke must be unduly influenced by insurance companies, drug companies or hospital profits, her own patience had run out.
They’d asked to see another doctor.
Jamie MacDowell was in there now. Brooke stood at the nurses’ station, empty-handed, denied even the patient chart that she could have slapped onto the counter in a satisfying smack.
She knew Jamie’s conclusion was going to be identical to hers. Jamie would back her up in every way. It was all such a waste of effort. The parents would leave, and the next time they feared that their daughter was seriously ill, they’d go to a different hospital’s emergency room. All of Brooke’s careful explanations, all of Jamie’s professional courtesy, would result in nothing. West Central Texas Hospital was wasting resources that could have been better spent on a dozen other people.
Worse, those parents would never relax and appreciate that they had a healthy child. Brooke couldn’t help but think of her mother and how grateful she would have been to have a four-year-old girl with a common cold. Instead, when Brooke’s sister had been four, her mother had spent a week sitting at the bedside of a child in a coma, until Brooke’s sister had passed away.
