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My question wasn’t whether Icouldfill the task force role; it was whether I should. Whether I wanted to.
“I’m sure she’s... fine,” Nielsen managed. It took every effort not to gape at him. “But we’re looking for someone with more experience.”
“Thank you for your input.” Davis took over again, smoother than silk sheets—but steel underneath. “We’ll determine the best composition of our team.”
Nielsen eyed Davis before turning a sneer on me. “We expect nothing less than the best.”
“And that’s why we’ve asked Dr. Croft,” Dr. Donaldson said, his irritation bleeding through his voice.
“Well.” Nielsen collected his colleagues, and Dr. Ambrose rose to show them out. By the look in her eye, she might actuallyshovethem out.
I was out of the conference room before anyone could try to ask me about the task force. I pushed through another pair of doors headed toward the elevator lobby, Dr. Donaldson right behind me. As appallingly sexist as the Health Department dude was, I wasn’t enough of a masochist that I wanted to work with Davis to prove him wrong. How on earth could I get out of working with him without offending my coworkers who were just trying to help me?
“I can understand your reluctance,” Dr. Donaldson said once we were on the elevator—not that death trap over by ID. “But we just about manufactured this position for you.”
I tried not to glare at him. There, that was proof for Davis Platinum Member Hardcastle. Dr. Donaldson was so platonic toward me, he’d happily throw me at Davis.
I didn’t want to be thrown; shocker. The elevator doors slid open. “I appreciate that,” I managed. “Really. I don’t want to seem ungrateful.”
“I’m not saying you are,” Dr. Donaldson said.
“Thank you. It’s just that—who is Davis Hardcastle?” And why did everyone bend over backwards to give him whatever he wanted? To get where I was, for the last six years—fourteen, if you wanted to go all the way back to college and med school—I’d worked my butt off. Every. Single. Day. I wasn’t even sure how I was capable of sitting anymore. (And anatomy had been one of my best subjects.)
(Okay, tied with four other areas, but still.)
I worked so hard to do everything right—to do everything perfect—and it was starting to pay off in this NIH job. Meanwhile, for all I knew, Davis Hardcastle had showed up here, batted his eyelashes, and asked for something to do.
No man should be allowed to have such pretty, dark eyelashes. Getting mine to look like that would probably cost a hundred dollars a month.
He couldn’t have eyelash extensions, could he?
“Take some time to think it over,” Dr. Donaldson said. I nearly thanked him for pulling me out of a meditation on Davis Freaking Hardcastle’s eyelashes.
I shook off the thought and returned to my computer. This analysis from one of my ICU cases was not making sense—unless my patient’s superbug had mutated yet again.
A superbug that was an HAI.
Ugh. They were right. This task force was tailormade for me.
And here was Davis Hardcastle again, ready to ruin the second day in a row.
That was a hard nope. I pulled up my browser and opened a new tab, ready to Google him.
Just as quickly, I closed the tab. I couldn’t give him the satisfaction. And besides that, I’d Googled him last night and mostly found news about his brother and a few old family photos. He was a pretty adorable, gap-toothed kid.
That did not make him an adequate leader of a healthcare-associated infection task force, I reminded myself.
Instead of hitting up page ten of the Google results, I spent the rest of the afternoon up to my neck in the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System’s human isolate reports looking for a similar profile in antimicrobial resistance patterns.
And trying to ignore exactly how perfect this job would be, and how, under other circumstances, I would have jumped on it faster than Wile E. Coyote would have pounced on the Road Runner.
Throwing myself into a project with Davis Hardcastle was as sure to backfire as one of Wile E. Coyote’s Acme Corporation devices.
Unsuccessful, I finally had to pack it in when it was nearly dinner time. I’d teased Davis about eating in the cafeteria, but I didn’t love it myself. Between tying up my patient reports, rush hour, and the usual SEPTA delays, however, it would be more than an hour before I could reach my apartment and cook dinner. More often than not, I ended up eating here. But what was another disappointing dinner to end a disappointing day?
I was gathering up my computer and things when the door swung open. The smell of something fried and delicious tugged at my Carolina-born-and-bred heart—and my stomach, which growled. “Dr. Donaldson?” I called. Sometimes when we worked late, he was thoughtful enough to grab food from the cafeteria. Or better yet, order delivery.
A brown paper sack landed on the desk in front of me. “Sorry to disappoint” came the all-too-familiar voice of Davis Freaking Hardcastle.
