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Fuck.
Cursing, I stop, unsnap it from my scrub pants, and glance at it. There’s no message. I’m considering ignoring it when the intercom crackles to life over my head.
“Paging Dr. Schaffer. Dr. Schaffer’s presence is required on the fifth floor. Paging Dr. Schaffer. Your presence is required on the fifth floor.”
My pager vibrates again. This time it’s accompanied by a message from Aram. It’s not a medical emergency, but it has the potential to be one if he doesn’t get a second opinion about an abnormal result on a scan.
There’s no hunting after this shifter now. I’m a doctor, and a patient needs me.
After replying to Aram’s message, I re-clip my pager to the waistband of my scrubs and head back up the stairs.
There are some days I wish I hadn’t pushed myself so hard to graduate at the top of my class to prove I was more than trash.
Today, I wish I hadn’t tried so hard.
* * *
An hour later, it truly is the end of my shift.
I’m exhausted. I’m starving. And I estimate if I don’t get out of here in the next hour, there is every possibility another doctor will rope me into more paperwork if they discover I’m still at the building.
I bypass the staff locker room and ride the elevator to the ground floor, making my way to the front of the hospital. After spending a few minutes chatting with the nurses at the front desk, I head outside to the paramedics’ bay because the person I need is still on site.
I side-step a couple of emergencies, wave, and smile at a couple of familiar faces before I spot the man I’m looking for. An older, gray-haired man who looks like he’s coming to the end of his shift as well.
Perfect timing.
I head over to him with a wide smile. “Ian, hi! Dr. Harley Schaffer. You brought me a penetrating cardiac trauma patient a few hours ago. I was hoping I could talk to you for a couple of minutes about it. I have questions.”
Ian turns, yawning. “Hey. You mean the one who looked like an animal had carved his chest open?”
I smile. “That’s the one. If you have a minute, I’ll buy you a coffee. The best I can do is a vending machine—”
“Coffee is coffee, and I’d kill for one right about now. Did he make it? What do you need to know?”
Clapping him on the back, I guide him back inside, ignoring his first question but answering the second. “How about starting from where the call came from? I’m trying to work out what could have caused his injuries and if I need to worry about more patients coming in…”
CHAPTER 10
SAIGE
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I go from deep asleep to wide awake in under a second. My belly screams at me as I shove myself upright, and I just barely choke back a cry. “Aden? Is he—”
“He’s good. Sleeping now, I think,” Kade says, sounding distracted.
A little of my panic subsides. I rub the sleep from my eyes and glance at the sunlight streaming through Kade’s bedroom window. “What’s the banging, and what time is it?”
“Contractors. Early.”
I’m still in Kade’s room, though I’m not in the same place I fell asleep. It’s not a surprise. I didn’t think Kade would take me back to my room—or the room I started to think of as mine. My last memory is of Kade combing his fingers through my hair as he drew my head down onto his shoulder.
He’s still shirtless and in a pair of sweatpants as he sits hunched over at the desk in front of his laptop. He must have put me in his bed and gone right back to it.
“Contractors?” I yawn.
He moves his mouse around and leans to the right, so I have an unobstructed view of his screen. It’s a security camera, and in the backyard, five contractors in blue overalls are hammering wood over the kitchen’s broken windows. “They’re boarding up for now until the glass we need comes in.”
