Chapter 1
Doctor Callista Scott, graduate of the University of Oregon’s medical school, had vomit dripping down her shirt. This was not exactly what she had imagined as a teenager dreaming of becoming a doctor. No, she had dreamed of making a difference and saving lives, not dealing with vomiting drunks.
Ten hours into her twelve-hour shift in the emergency room at Oakville Memorial Hospital, the state’s second largest hospital, and she was attempting to treat a man who had drunk himself into oblivion at a local bar. There was so much alcohol coursing through his veins, that he tripped over his own feet when he tried to stand up. As he fell, he managed to hit his head on a table loaded with beer glasses resulting in a nasty head wound.
Callie sent him for a CT scan which thankfully confirmed no internal head injury, but as she attempted to clean the wound and see if it needed suturing, the man vomited all over her shirt.
Not what I signed up for,she grimaced to herself as she carried on cleaning out dirt and glass from her patient’s hair. He was mumbling under his breath but kept his hands to himself, thanks to the sedation Callie had given him.
Satisfied that the cut would heal with some glue holding the edges together, Callie gestured for a nurse to finish up. She stripped off her gloves and face mask and headed to the doctors lounge to change her scrubs.
Normally Callie loved being a doctor and thrived on the chaotic pace of the emergency room. She knew she was good at her job and respected by her colleagues, but today her heart wasn’t in it. Her shift had been filled with one devastating case after another and her usual ability to be compassionate, yet detached, was wearing thin. First it was the phone call to the mother of a young man who had died in the trauma bay after being hit by a car. Then came the conversation with an elderly man whose wife had just suffered a catastrophic stroke. As a result of those two cases she was emotionally and physically drained, and desperately wanted a shower. Instead, she was covered in vomit, and still had two more hours of work to go. A quick gulp of cold tea was all she had time for.
As Callie bent to tie her shoe, the door of the doctors lounge opened. Sandy, the nurse assigned to Callie for this shift, stuck her head in and grinned at Callie with a cheeky twinkle in her eyes.
“Hey, Callie, wait ‘til you see the hunky piece of man meat that just came in needing sutures. I triaged him onto your caseload to make up for… that,” Sandy said as she gestured at Callie’s vomit covered shirt that was sitting rolled up on the floor.
Callie sighed, “I’ll be right there, Sandy. Can you get the suture kit ready and make sure he’s up to date with his tetanus? And let’s make sure to gown up. This is my last set of clean clothes.”
“Oh, don’t worry, he’s not drunk, but you might be drunk on lust after you see him. Holy guacamole is he ever hot,” the bubbly, young nurse replied.
“Sandy, suture kit, please.”
Callie didn’t have the energy to be excited about a handsome patient. Not only would it be extremely unprofessional, but she just wanted to get it over with so she could focus on her charting and hopefully get off work on time.
“On it, Cal,” Sandy called out as she turned and headed out the door.
Callie stood up, stretched, and followed the her towards the ER.Time to get back to work,she thought tiredly.
* * *
Jacob Evans, Jake to friends, family, hell everyone except lawyers and accountants, winced as he shifted his arm to pull off his shirt.
“Fuck that hurts,” he swore under his breath, filled with frustration that he had managed to cut his bicep open badly enough to apparently need stitches.
He sat down on the stretcher in the curtained off area of the ER where he had been instructed to wait. No way was he going to put on the ridiculous striped gown the nurse had given him. He’d seen the doctor walking around barking orders in his white coat, and he certainly didn’t care if that crotchety old man had to look at his bare chest.
Jake just hoped that the doc would come and fix him up soon so that he could get back to work. After all, the pub he had purchased wasn’t going to renovate itself. He had left his best friend and business partner Ryan at work refinishing the wooden bar top, and hopefully finishing the exposed ducting that Jake had been working on when the sheet metal had slipped and cut open his arm from his shoulder halfway to his elbow.
I don’t have time for this,he thought with an impatient sigh. There was so much more that still needed to be done before the two friends could open the Lucky Strike Pub.
He glanced up as the nurse returned to his side. She set up a suture kit, then looked at him with a big smile, “Doctor Scott will be with you in just a minute Mr. Evans.”
“Doctor Scott is here.”
A melodic woman’s voice filled his ears as the curtains were pushed open, and a stunning blonde wearing tight fitting blue scrubs walked in staring down at the chart in her hands. She looked up, and tripped slightly, openly staring at Jake. He felt his balls tighten in response as he drank in the sight of her. Damn, this was no old man, this was one beautiful, vibrant, sexy woman.
She stood there staring longer than was socially acceptable, until the nurse nudged her. “Doctor Scott? It’s his left arm that needs suturing.”
The teasing tone in her voice told Jake that Doctor Scott’s open appreciation of his body hadn’t gone unnoticed.
He grinned wolfishly at the flustered woman in front of him, who was busy pulling on gloves and not meeting his gaze. He took the opportunity to examine her more closely, noticing her hair was more than just blonde. It shimmered under the harsh lights with shades of gold. Her eyes were an intoxicatingly bright blue, even as they darted everywhere but towards him. She was fresh faced, a welcome sight. Jake had never been attracted to women who piled on makeup so heavily that they didn’t look real. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he was hit by a strong desire to pull it free and dig his hands into the silky strands.
He shifted on the bed, trying to disguise the stiffening member in his pants that was having a visceral response to the woman in front of him. He watched as Doctor Scott straightened up, took a deep breath, and finally turned to him with a composed and professional expression to her face.
“Alright Mr. Evans, can you tell me what happened?”
“Yeah, I was replacing some old heat ducting and the sheet metal slipped and cut my arm.”
