Page 6 of Lethal Attraction

I stare down at the woman on the gurney, my eyes flickering across her soft features that are slack with sleep. That fire doesn’t seem to douse in her state, and I’m left reeling as I observe her.

I don’t know what it is about her, but I can’t look away as the staff position her to move her onto the ER bed. Jackson is having trouble grabbing the end of the sheet under her, and I push him out of the way before I can stop myself.

“I got it,” I say, trying to mask my annoyance with the nurse.

He steps aside, raising his hands in surrender. “Sorry, Doc.”

“On the count of three,” I instruct before we all successfully shift her over to the bed. “Call the OR and get my table ready.”

Chapter three

Reed

Iscrub down, sterilizing my skin a little rougher than I probably should. I keep passing my hands over my forearms, causing the soap to froth further until I’m covered in bubbles.

“I think you’re clean, Dr. Bellamy,” Tricia, a scrub tech, says from behind me.

I clear my throat before shoving my hands under the water and watching the soap drip off me. “Is anesthesia here yet?”

“He just got in,” Tricia calls before heading to her station.

I put my mask on before pulling up my gloves and waiting for Tricia to let me into the OR. Dr. Woods is already at the head of the operating table, taking Mystery Woman’s weight and height for anesthesia. There are two other nurses I’m acquainted with milling around as they help prep my workstation. One of them fixes the overhead light for me, illuminating Mystery Woman’s features. The oxygen mask is obscuring my view of her, but maybe it’s a good thing I can see her soft lips…

I keep having to pull myself back to my work. I don’t know why this woman is so different from me. It’s beginning to really piss me off at how easily someone I don’t even know can rattle me this way.

“Anesthesia administered. The first dose is marked at eight thirty-two.” Dr. Woods says as he types on the screen of his machine.

“What was her weight?” The question falls from my lips before I can stop it, and I mentally berate myself for trying to check my colleague's work.

He’s done this for ten fucking years. Get a goddamn grip, Reed.

Dr. Woods doesn’t seem to notice or care that I’m probing his knowledge. “She weighs one-seventy-two.”

Huh.

She’s definitely all muscle if her defined arms are anything to go by. There’s a surgical drape covering her chest, and the only thing I can see is the torn flesh of her shoulder. The wound’s size suggests that something used for close range might have shot her.

Maybe a pistol?

It still begs the question of what this woman was doing to be shot by someone. And why was she on the roof of a building?

“Alright,” I sigh. “Let’s get to work—”

“You look stupid.”

My head whips down to see Mystery Woman’s eyes open. Those pale blue irises burn into me, and I blink back at her.

“She shouldn’t be awake,” Tricia says from the corner of the room.

“I know that,” Dr. Woods curses as he types quickly on his machine.

I glance up at the other doctor, unsure of what to make of this situation, before Mystery Woman calls my attention back to her.

“I told you it was gonna take more than that to euthanize me.” She smirks beyond the oxygen mask.

I frown at her, my voice muffled by my mask. “I’m not euthanizing you. You were shot.”

Her dark brows lift. “You sound hot.”