It Happened in Vegas

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It was an annoying song.”

“How many of those have you seen?”

“None.”

Nick shrugged. “Then I don’t really see the argument. You got an interesting case.”

“Which I promptly passed on to a resident to retrieve through an endoscope.”

“You gave it up?” Nick gasped.

Jennifer just rolled her eyes and walked away from him.

Just let her go.

Only he couldn’t. He followed her. “I can’t believe you gave it to your resident.”

“It was easy for my resident to do.”

“I gave you an interesting surgery. You could’ve had my appendectomy instead.” He fell into step beside her. “I could’ve kept it.”

Jennifer snorted. “I wish you had. As it is, Dr. Fallon is an excellent surgical resident and I’m sure I left the patient in capable hands.”

“I’m sure you did.”

Jennifer stopped and turned to face him. “You did well in there. I mean, I didn’t have a good view way up in the gallery, but you have a good touch with your interns and residents in the OR.”

Her admiration, her praise pleased him. A lot of people had avoided him since his mishap when he’d first arrived. It’s why he was known as a lone wolf, though he wasn’t. Not really.

Nick nodded. “Thank you for your professional appraisal. Is that why you came to the gallery?”

She hesitated and tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. “Of course. Why else would I come?”

Nick didn’t believe her for one second. He didn’t know her well, but he knew when someone was lying. It was a sort of superpower of his, and she was lying.

“I thought you wanted to call me out on the carpet for a swallowed birthday card.”

Her brow furrowed and a flicker of a smile played across her pink, kissable lips.

Get a hold on yourself. Stop thinking about them as kissable.

“It did keep playing the music over and over. I hope his birthday wasn’t totally ruined. However, my appearance in the gallery was because I’m evaluating all my trauma surgeons.”

“Should I be worried?”

She smiled slyly. “Is there a reason why you should be worried?”

Nick chuckled. Run. Turn and run.

Tension hovered between them and he longed to kiss her again. All he had to do was reach out and touch her. Put his arm around her and bring her close to him, pull her against his body and—

His pager went off before he even had a chance to do anything. Saved by the bell.

“Let’s go, Dr. Rousseau.” Jennifer held up her pager. “Large trauma coming in.”

She pushed past him and ran down the hall.

Avoiding her was harder than he thought.

He was doomed.

Jennifer watched him work across the ER. A large pileup on the interstate had flooded the hospital with crash victims. Thankfully, there were no interesting cases. Just regular trauma—not that it was good, but at least she could scrub in instead of having residents fish music makers out of kids’ stomachs.

She’d gone to the gallery to call him out, but then she’d watched him do the appendectomy. Had seen how he’d taught his residents and interns. He’d been so calm and the fluid motion of his hands as he’d inverted the stump had been pure poetry.

Her ex-fiancé wouldn’t have lowered himself to do an appendectomy. Even though he was a cardiothoracic surgeon, an appendectomy was beneath him. Best left to the general surgeons and residents.

Appendectomies were easy. What he’d wanted had been the high-profile cases. The cases that would get him the press coverage, would give him the glory.

When she’d first met David, she’d admired his drive and she’d swooned when he’d paid her attention. He’d made her feel like a princess, but all she had been was a trophy, and when he’d found something brighter, something shinier, she’d been dropped.

David had got what he’d wanted from her. The publicity, the research and her heart.

Nick seemed to revel in simplicity. Or at least that’s what she got from watching his surgery, his easygoing attitude, but he was guarded.

There was a wall there, one he used flirting to hide, but he was keeping people out. In her brief time talking to other staff members, they’d said he was a bit of a loner. Kept to himself, ate his lunch alone and not many people knew much about him.

The only conversations he engaged in were medical. Case files, papers. The only other thing the staff knew about him was that he had served in the military and been decorated. Something about bravery, but no one knew for sure.

There was also an incident about him getting angry with another surgeon and smashing a window in the doctors’ lounge. Anger issues, which had been swept under the rug. It had happened so soon after his return from overseas that people had given him the benefit of the doubt, but for the most part the staff stayed away from him.

Jennifer would’ve never pegged him to have anger issues.

Everything about him was a mystery.

And she couldn’t help but wonder why.

Don’t wonder. Just keep away.

It was for the best. She was here to work. To be a surgeon. She didn’t need or want love.

When the hubbub of the ER died down and she was scrubbing out of surgery, she saw Nick again. He was rushing down the hall, his surgical gown billowing out behind him as he pushed a gurney to Recovery.

He was a mystery man and she had a thing for mystery men.

Damn.

She glanced at the clock. She still had six hours left on her shift and it was now after midnight. She really needed to get some sleep.

Jennifer headed to the nearest on-call room and collapsed on a cot. As she lay down, she glanced at the nightstand and saw a medical journal.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” She picked up the magazine and stared at the grinning face of the man who’d left her standing in a white puffy dress while the press had snapped thousands of pictures of the disgraced, heartbroken and jilted senator’s daughter.

The journal was touting Dr. David Morgan’s medical breakthrough and how he was up for an award for excellence.

With a tsk of disgust and rage, she tossed it at the door just as it was opening, thus beaning Nick in the head, right between the eyes.

She held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t get angry with her. Instead, he rubbed his forehead and bent to pick up the magazine.

“Uh, is this your way of telling me you want me to read more medical journals?” He glanced down at the cover. “Ah, I’ve been meaning to read this one. I’m eager to read all about the Morgan method for aortic dissections.”

Jennifer kept her snort to herself and rolled over in the cot. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to catch about thirty minutes of sleep before I’m paged again.”

The door shut and the room went dark, but she knew she wasn’t alone as she heard him move across the room and the mattress creak across the way.

The room was silent, and even though she was dog tired, she couldn’t sleep knowing that he was across the room. Lying there, all mysterious and handsome, and she knew he was a good kisser. She’d experienced it firsthand.

Damn.

“Are there any private on-call rooms in this hospital?” she asked.

“Nope.” Nick yawned. “Is my presence disturbing you?”

“No, I just don’t know if you’re a snorer or not. I’m a light sleeper.”

“I don’t snore. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve been up for twelve hours.” The mattress creaked again as he moved.

“Good.” She rolled back over and closed her eyes, trying to will herself to fall asleep, but it wasn’t working.

“You know, of all the ways I imagined us sleeping together, this wasn’t how I envisioned it.”

Jennifer’s cheeks heated. “Excuse me?”

There was a chuckle in the darkness.

“What’s so funny?” Jennifer asked.

“I get under your skin, don’t I?”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

Jennifer cursed under her breath and sat up. “I’m going to sleep on a gurney down in an abandoned hall.”

“No, no. I’ll let you sleep.” The bed shifted again and then the room filled with light. “Have a good sleep, Dr. Mills.”

The door shut and Jennifer lay back against the pillow. She didn’t think she was going to fall asleep after her run-in with Dr. Rousseau, but once she closed her eyes again, sleep came easily.

The pager vibrated in her hand and she woke with a start. She flicked on the bedside lamp and saw it was coming from the ER.

It was her first twenty-four-hour shift, and even then she wouldn’t go home after her shift was done. She had something to prove here and she would stay here as long as it took.

This was going to become her second home. Besides, her condo was sparse and empty. If she went home, there would be messages from her father. Invitations for her to go out campaigning with him, to show the voters she wasn’t a pathetic loser like they all believed she was.

She just wanted to escape the stigma of it all.

She wasn’t any of those things. She was a surgeon, for heaven’s sake.

Only the more you listened to the naysayers, those creeping doubt weasels, the more you started to believe it.

And she hated that loss of control.

She hated that her confidence was all shot to heck.

Jennifer clipped her pager back to the waist of her scrubs and headed down to the ER. When she got there, it was relatively quiet.

“Who paged me?” she asked the charge nurse.

“Dr. Rousseau. He’s in Room Three, needs a consult on a patient.”

Jennifer groaned inwardly. “Thank you.”

What patient had he dug up now?

Did this one have a tiger coming out of his chest? Tassels glued to the forehead? Cards embedded in the abdomen?

“Dr. Rousseau, you paged me?”

Nick glanced at her briefly. “Yes, the patient is adamant that they’re seen by the head of trauma.”

Jennifer approached the bed and then froze when she saw her father was on the gurney. “Dad, what happened?”

“Ah, there she is.” Her father grinned. “I had a fainting spell during a speech at the convention center and they brought me here. Or rather I asked them to bring me here. I said I would be in good hands with my daughter.”

Nick’s eyebrows rose.

Jennifer pinched the bridge of her nose. “Dad, that’s all well and good, but as I’ve told you before on numerous occasions, I can’t assess you.”

Her father looked shocked. “Why not?”

“Because you’re my father. I can’t treat family.” She sighed. “You’re in good hands with Dr. Rousseau.”

Her father looked confused. “Why can’t you do it?”

“I don’t have time for this, Dad.” She turned to Nick. “Please keep me informed, Dr. Rousseau.”

“Will do, Dr. Mills.”

Jennifer turned and left the trauma exam room, but Dr. Rousseau was close on her heels.

“Can I speak to you for a moment?”

Jennifer paused and crossed her arms. “Sure.”

“I’m sorry I paged you. He was making such a fuss. I thought discretion would be the best bet. There’s lots of reporters out there.”

Jennifer’s stomach clenched. The press. She hated the press. The damage they did, looking for sensationalist stories, but then again she was biased.

“It’s okay, Dr. Rousseau.”

Nick cocked his head to the side. “I don’t think it is.”

“No, it really is. Just … just don’t spread it around that my father’s here.”

“Okay. I’ll keep it to myself.”

“Thank you. He doesn’t need any more attention drawn to his campaign.” She turned to walk away and then stopped. “When is your shift over?”

Nick grinned, his hazel eyes twinkling. “Are you asking me out?”

She blushed. “No. I just wanted to implement some changes to the schedule.”

“Oh.” She noticed he looked a bit disappointed, but then he shrugged. “As soon as I take care of your father, I’ll be going home. I won’t be in for another shift until Wednesday.”

Jennifer nodded. “Thank you.”

Nick nodded curtly and headed back to the exam room.

CHAPTER THREE

“DRAG RACES? YOU dragged me to a drag race in the middle of the desert?” Jennifer shook her head as her best friend Ginny grinned and handed her a bottle of water. “We could’ve stayed at brunch in the air-conditioned bistro or gone shopping.”

She needed groceries desperately and her condo was full of boxes. She’d been working for a week and still hadn’t had time to sort through her stuff or make her condo a home.

“Chillax. This is fun!”

Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because this is how I wanted to spend my day off, sitting on a hard bench watching motorcycles race across the desert.”

“Yeah, but look how hot those guys are.”

Yeah, she remembered that. Clearly.

Jennifer chuckled and couldn’t disagree with her friend. Not that she could see any of the riders’ faces. They had nice bodies clad in leather, and she was always a sucker for motorcycles.

Nick rides a motorcycle.

Her heart beat a bit faster as she thought about that moment she’d thrown caution to the wind and climbed on the back of Nick’s bike. He had been a stranger, a man leaving on a long tour of duty, but she hadn’t cared.

That had been when she’d still been carefree. Before the press had got hold of her and David had publicly humiliated her. Though she was more annoyed by the stolen research than the jilting.

The lack of accreditation of her in his paper had made her look like a fool in front of her colleagues. It had been like they’d all known David would screw her over.

David had broken her heart, but she could never regain her research. All the countless hours she and David had spent together, working on repairing an aortic dissection by trying a surgical grafting procedure with artificial veins, and he hadn’t credited her.

Now the surgical procedure was being deemed innovative and the grant money he’d got for a medical trial he’d received, well, he had it made in the shade.

Whereas right now she would kill for some shade. It was too damn hot in the desert. She’d spent too long up north in Boston.

Even though she was wearing a big straw hat, it wasn’t protecting her from the hot sun.

Ginny was whistling as her boyfriend, Jacob, climbed on his bike. Ginny waved at him, blowing kisses.

“So, once his race is over, we can head for a nice air-conditioned bistro or something on the strip?” Jennifer asked, grinning.

Ginny laughed. “If he wins, he keeps going until he’s eliminated.”

“Or wins it all?” Jennifer offered.

Ginny tapped her nose. “You’ve got it. Seriously, though, Jenn, thanks for coming with me.”

“Of course. I’m sorry for griping. Not used to the heat. The North made me too soft.”

“I still don’t know how you survived all those bitter cold winters.”

“Layers. Lots of layers.” Jennifer winked.

Ginny chuckled. “Oh, they’re starting!”

Jennifer turned to the race track. Two motorcycles sat there, revving their engines as the lights flashed from red to green.

In a split second it went from revving engines to a cloud of dust as the bikes raced across the desert plain in less than a minute.

Jennifer couldn’t keep up with the fast pace and the screams deafened her. When the dust finally settled, there were two bikes at the end of the track.

“He won!” Ginny leaped up. “Come on, let’s go down there. I promised him a kiss if he won.”

“And if he didn’t?”

Ginny grinned. “You don’t want to know.”

Jennifer laughed and followed Ginny down off the bleachers toward the track. Jacob and his opponent were riding their bikes back slowly up the side to where all the other competitors were waiting.

As they approached Jacob, he was shaking hands with the biker he’d just trounced and Jennifer had a nagging suspicion that she knew him.

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