Following the Doctor's Orders

Go. You’re stalling. It could be another hour before she’s done with Harold. She’s hated you from day one, anyway.

Maybe she had, but he hadn’t felt the same. Hate was not how he’d describe that first impression. He and his crew had brought in a patient during shift change. She’d been leaving, he realized now, which was why she hadn’t been wearing her white doctor’s coat.

The patient hadn’t been critical. They’d been wheeling him in at a sedate walk, but even if they’d been coming in at a run, Zach would have noticed Dr. Brown. Her dark hair had been pulled back tightly, and she’d been wearing a crisp white button-down shirt and a pinstriped pencil skirt. She’d only lacked the black-framed eyeglasses to complete the look of a guy’s fantasy librarian or schoolteacher. Smart. Controlled. Sexy.

She hadn’t noticed him at all. As he and the crew had wheeled the patient in, she’d merely stepped aside, unimpressed and perhaps slightly bored, as if firemen surrounding a gurney were an everyday sight for her. He’d wondered who the sexy librarian was. Zach was used to crowds gathering to watch him work, not to being ignored.

Go. Quit hanging around for another glimpse. She didn’t notice you then; she ignores you now.

But he’d never really convinced himself that she hadn’t noticed him that first day. As he’d passed her, their eyes had met for the briefest second. Met and held just a moment longer than strangers do. When Zach had turned back for a second look, she’d been turning away to head out the door. There was something about that quick turn that made him suspect she’d been staring at him after all.

True, she ignored him now. It was a very aware kind of ignoring, however. She had to know exactly where he was in order to stand with her back to him. She had to intentionally remain silent when the nurses chatted with him as she wrote in her charts. And he would have sworn on more than one occasion that she’d deliberately stood in his path, making it easier for him to deliver one of his teasing pickup lines before he left the ER.

Those lines had become a private game between them. Harmless. Fun. And challenging, especially now that he’d made her lips quirk in an unwilling smile more than once.

It’s fun to try to make Brooke Brown smile, but it’s fun to make every beautiful woman smile. No difference.

The grapevine had said she was seeing someone at this hospital when he’d first laid eyes on her last September. He’d been dating a nurse at a different hospital. Their game had started off innocently enough, just verbal sparring. It had never gone further. Heck, they never dropped the professional courtesy of addressing each other as Dr. Brown and Mr. Bishop.

Through the fall and winter and spring, nothing had changed, although the grapevine now said Dr. Brown was no longer seeing anyone in particular. Of course, Zach and the nurse at the other hospital had parted ways long ago. He always ended a relationship while things were still friendly, before any drama could develop.

This long-standing flirtation with the sexy librarian-teacher-doctor at West Central wasn’t any kind of relationship, so it was completely drama-free. In other words, it was safe. Zach didn’t want an emotional relationship, and Brooke Brown, MD, was no threat in that sense. They didn’t care for one another beyond their running joke.

Go, then. This isn’t the way you play the game. You crack a joke if she happens to be on duty, and then you leave. Why are you sticking around now?

He wasn’t. He was leaving. As soon as the coffee was ready, he’d pour himself a cup and get the hell out of Dodge, before he did something stupid and tried to take this non-relationship to the next level.

He thought about her too much. With their first call of the day, Engine Thirty-Seven had been directed to another hospital, and Zach had been disappointed to lose the chance to see Dr. Brown. To tease her. To try to make her smile.

That was a red flag in his book. Zach loved women, and women loved him. But to start thinking exclusively about one woman, to be obsessed with one woman?

Been there, done that, never doing it again.

The steady drip of the brewing coffee built momentum, filling the carafe. He just needed a few more minutes.

When dispatch had directed Engine Thirty-Seven to take Harold Allman to West Central, Zach had felt a little extra adrenaline rush: Dr. Brown could be on duty.

Red flag.

Yeah, yeah. The coffee’s still brewing. I’ll be out of here in a few minutes.

When it came to Dr. Brown, he always seemed to linger a few more minutes. As she’d handled Harold’s code, Zach should have left the room. He should have gotten out of the way immediately. Instead, he’d stood at that door and watched her for a minute longer. Then for five minutes longer.

Watching Dr. Brown’s cool concentration had stirred something in him, something more than physical attraction. He was impressed with her. He’d almost felt proud of her.

And yes, her abilities as an emergency physician made her even sexier, damn it. He’d thought she was sexy the first time they’d locked gazes last September. Now it was April, and the problem wasn’t just that he found her sexy. The problem was, every other woman no longer seemed as sexy to him.

Hell, if enough red flags aren’t waving for you, then you might as well stick around and make a fool of yourself over a woman for a second time in your life. Fall in love, get down on bended knee. I’m sure rejection won’t hurt as badly the second time. Stay and enjoy that pain again.

To hell with the coffee. He was leaving.

Zach grabbed the doorknob and pulled.

Dr. Brown was on the other side, holding that side’s knob. The force with which Zach pulled the door toward himself pulled her into the room as well.

“Oh,” she said, looking up at him in surprise. She only looked up a few inches. Although he was tall, she was, too, and she always wore heels with those pinstripe skirts under her white coat.

They stood there, each holding their side’s doorknob for a long, mute second. Zach let go and stepped back.

She came in and shut the door. “I was looking for you.”

His surprise was genuine. For eight months, he’d been bringing patients into West Central. For eight months, she’d been ignoring him.

“I wanted to tell you that your decision to under-dose the morphine increased the odds in Harold Allman’s favor. Thank you. And thank you for sticking around after the handoff. I think the way you kept him calm also kept him out of severe shock.”

Dr. Brown had never spoken two complete sentences to him. Zach wasn’t sure what to make of it. She wasn’t flirting, not like other women did. She was just talking to him. He crossed his arms over his chest.

Her gaze held his as she spoke. She didn’t come close to batting her eyelashes, not one flutter, but he noticed how thick they were, anyway.

“Not a lot of people would have held a patient’s hand like that,” she said. “Especially a... Well, I was going to say especially a man wouldn’t hold hands, but that would be gender stereotyping, wouldn’t it?”

Gender stereotyping. Did she have to speak like a sexy librarian as well as look like one?

“Forget I said that,” she said. “It was a job well done, whether you’re male or female.”

Apparently done for the day, she began unbuttoning her white lab coat, starting with the button at her chest.

Damn, damn, damn. He was definitely male.

Through the kitchen was an even tinier room, one that held a cot and a few metal lockers. It was the physician’s lounge, in theory. In reality, it was just where the doctors stashed their belongings. Dr. Brown stepped toward the lounge door, unbuttoning as she walked.

There was no way Zach was going to leave while an attractive woman was removing clothing. He leaned back against the counter.

Since he couldn’t just stare at her, he kept the conversation going. “I denied the patient adequate pain relief, so it seemed like the least I could do was let him squeeze the hell out of my hand. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt. The old guy could grip as hard as a female patient I had last year. She was in labor, and she nearly broke my hand with every contraction.” He paused and grinned at her. “But if that sounds like gender stereotyping, forget I said that.”

And then it happened. What the corniest pickup lines or the cleverest zingers couldn’t accomplish, a simple conversation could: Brooke Brown smiled. She laughed, actually. Laughed as she shrugged off her white coat and let it drop down her arms.

Go. Leave now, before you fall too hard.

He couldn’t just turn tail and run. That wasn’t how they played their game. It would look odd. He needed to spar with her. Keep things normal.

But he stayed silent, mesmerized by a Brooke Brown who was neither focusing on medical care nor glaring at him while the rest of her staff flirted with him. She reached behind the door for a hanger, a woman doing a common task that shouldn’t have been so fascinating. He didn’t look away as she hung up her white coat.

“I’m glad I’m done for the day,” she said, as she stepped into the tiny room and opened one of the metal gym lockers. “Are you done, too?”

She was making small talk, completely unaffected by this change in their routine. Still, he didn’t take his eyes off her, not even to glance at the wall clock. By the time they drove the engine back to the firehouse, it would be seven o’clock and the end of his twenty-four hour shift.

“Yeah, I’m done, too.”

He needed to stick to his plan. Coffee to go. Head for the engine after delivering the line she expected, if he could remember the over-the-top line he’d planned.

He could not. As he picked up the full coffeepot, he thought of the oldest line in the book, instead. He raised the pot in one hand and the cup in the other. “Can I buy you a drink?”

She froze in place. Her back was to him, and since he was watching her every move, he saw her hesitation. He watched her fingertips as she raised her hand to the back of her neck and fumbled for her stethoscope. She pulled a square purse out of her metal locker, keeping her back to him, her head a little bowed. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. We’re not coworkers per se, but we do work together at least a couple of times a week, and...”

Her voice trailed off as she turned around and saw him holding up the coffeepot and the cup in the gesture that had accompanied Can I buy you a drink?

“Oh, it was a joke,” she said, and he felt every bit of her mortification. Her gaze dropped to the floor, and the cool and commanding physician looked for all the world like an embarrassed young girl, standing in front of gym lockers like an awkward teenager.

“My mistake,” she murmured.

He could leave it like that, with her feeling embarrassed, and their relationship unchanged.

But she deserved better, this smart and sexy woman who hadn’t seemed to like him much until today. The truth was, he’d said the line in a different manner than he usually did. Not so tongue-in-cheek. Not laughing as he spoke.

“It wasn’t a joke, Brooke. Can I buy you a drink?”

Chapter Three

She was such a fool.

Can I buy you a drink?

He’d said it in that delicious deep voice, but without that good-time cowboy tone. For once, he’d sounded serious.

Still, he’d meant it as a joke. It was always a joke, it had been a joke from the very first, and Brooke was an idiot for having forgotten that for even the briefest of moments.

The stethoscope dangled from her hand. Buying herself a moment, she tucked it into her purse.

Why had she imagined a guy like Zach would have been serious for even a moment? He’d called her by her first name for the first time she could remember, and it made her want to blush like he’d whispered some intimacy in her ear. Maybe that had made her hear something more than he’d meant.

He was only eye candy. A ladies’ man. A fun-loving cowboy, for goodness’ sake.

And she was an emergency medicine professional. She could operate under duress. She’d been trained to keep moving forward, even after a blunder.

She moved forward now, literally, to toss her purse on the counter and take the empty coffee cup from his hand. “Sure, I’ll take a drink. Thanks for pouring.”

His smile seemed to come as easily as ever, but the look in his eyes pinned her in place. “Am I supposed to politely assume that’s a no and drop the subject?”

“It’s a yes. I’d like a drink.” She wiggled the white cardboard cup impatiently.

He covered her hand with his before he began to pour the steaming hot liquid, holding her cup steady with the same hand that had kept poor Harold steady. His palm was warm. His hand was large enough to wrap around both her hand and the cup easily.

Unlike Harold, she didn’t find the touch of his hand calming. She’d been this close to Zach before, but only in passing, for a whisper of silliness—I’m having a hard time finding my way out of this building because I keep getting lost in your eyes—and then he’d be gone and she’d be left alone with a pleasant little shiver of awareness.

He didn’t leave this time. He was still here, still touching her, and she had nowhere to look except at him. His eyes were blue-green and as focused on her as she was on him.

“I expected more from you.” He let go of her hand and put the coffeepot back on the burner.

“More what?” she asked.

“I expected a straightforward yes or no from a woman like you. Can I take you out for a drink after work?”

His casual stance and the trace of his ever-present grin sent all the usual messages: nothing to worry about, no reason to be alarmed. But the look in those blue-green eyes was different.

This wasn’t a game. She was so terribly aware of the height and breadth of him, so much masculinity in a firefighter’s shirt. Oh, it had been a long, long time since pheromones and hormones had threatened her ability to think clearly.

“Why the hesitation? You make a thousand decisions every shift, Brooklyn.”

“It’s just Brooke.” No one here called her Brooklyn. “How did you know my real name?”

“It’s on your license.”

Paper copies of all the physicians’ licenses were displayed on the wall. She was willing to bet no one else had read them in ages. “It’s a frivolous name. I prefer Brooke.”

“It’s a sexy name. Brooklyn Brown. It fits you.”

That deep voice of his was always appealing, but the way he used it now, saying her name as if it were something he could taste...

Oh, no.

She set the coffee cup on the counter.

No, no, no. She was not going to turn into a mush-for-brains puddle of female hormones at the feet of a fireman who said she was sexy.

“I could pick you up in an hour. Are we on?”

Brooke needed to say no. She knew it. Instead, she kept looking at the single most handsome man to ever ask her on a date, and...kept looking. Silent, not moving forward, not functioning at all. Mush for brains.

The door opened again. “There you are. Done for the day?”

That particular voice belonged to Dr. Tom Bamber, a radiologist at the hospital. He was a welcome distraction at the moment, forcing Brooke to stop staring at Zach as she turned to greet Tom. She only had a second to wonder why the radiologist had come to the emergency department before he said, “I was looking for you.”

“You were?” Her surprise was genuine. He must have an unusual report for her. Radiologists typically gave their reports over the phone from their dark cave in the hospital basement, not in person. Harold Allman and his fractured tibia had been taken to the cardiac cath lab instead of X-ray, anyway. Dr. Bamber hadn’t been on duty earlier, and—

“I’ve got tickets to the ballet tonight. Orchestra, row E.” He flourished them before her like a two-feathered fan. “Score.”

Score, indeed. Brooke loved the ballet, beauty created from precision. It was sweet of Tom to remember, but—

Tom kept talking. “I have my doubts that a young troupe can truly do justice to Balanchine, but we might as well go and judge their attempt. Shall we say seven? We can dine with the Philistines at the food trucks outside the theater.” Tom stepped just a little too close to her. “Then I’ll buy you a drink after the show.”

Good grief, the man was asking her out on a date. Brooke rarely went out with friends and even more rarely on dates, but now she had two men wanting to buy her drinks. On the same night. At the same moment. Asking in front of one another.

She stole a glance at Zach, to whose presence Tom seemed to be oblivious. Zach raised her coffee cup to his lips, watching her conversation like a man watching a sporting event. He blew across the top of the hot liquid, which made his mouth look like he was about to give someone a soft, sweet kiss.

No, no, no. Don’t go there.

Brooke smiled politely at Tom. His lips looked unremarkable. His mouth wasn’t about to do anything except question her.

Normal lips were a good thing. Tom was exactly the sort of man she should date. They spoke the same language as doctors. They’d discussed their mutual appreciation of the ballet once, over lunch in the hospital cafeteria. They were evenly matched, even in their height. She could look him squarely in the eye.

Brooke had to glance up at the fireman who’d also just asked her out for a drink. She wondered what kind of place a man like Zach would take a woman like her. What was a playboy paramedic’s idea of a night out in Austin? Where would it begin—and where would they end up?

No, no, no.

Zach was all wrong for her, yet she couldn’t accept Tom’s ballet invitation in front of Zach. She felt a little relieved, actually, that she had an excuse not to go out on a perfectly nice date with a perfectly nice man like Tom.

Likewise, even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t tell Zach yes in front of Tom.

Even if she’d wanted to?

She had wanted to. She’d almost said yes to a fireman just because he dripped sex appeal. Tom had unknowingly stopped her from making a big mistake.

“I’m sorry, but—”

The kitchen door burst open once again.

“There you are.”

Brooke felt relieved; this man was almost as handsome as Zach, but also quite happily married. The head of the emergency department, Dr. Jamie MacDowell, wasn’t going to offer to buy her a drink.

“Can you work late?” Jamie asked her instead. “We just got a call that there’s been a multi-car accident on I-35.”

“Sure, I can stay.” Brooke recognized the cowardly relief she felt. Now she didn’t have to turn down two men.

Jamie nodded at Zach as if they were old friends. “Surprised your engine hasn’t been called yet.”

An obnoxiously loud series of three tones sounded from the radio at Zach’s hip.

“Now it has.” Zach silenced his radio as he started for the door.

“Jinxed you,” Jamie said. As Zach passed him, the two men didn’t shake hands as much as do some kind of forearm-to-forearm punch. Brooke had seen that move before. It seemed that all three of the Dr. MacDowell brothers and half the emergency responders in the Texas Rescue and Relief organization had played on the same high school football team.

She should have guessed that Zach’s cocky grin and his confidence with women had started in his teen years. Of course, Zach Bishop had been a high school football star.

As he turned back to her, he added a wink to the grin that had probably slayed a dozen cheerleaders. “Looks like neither one of our shifts is over. Tonight is not our night, but the offer still stands.”

Then he left. Tom Bamber frowned at her. Jamie MacDowell lifted one brow in speculation.

Brooke turned her back on both men and grabbed her white coat off its hanger. It was time to go to work. Zach was gone, and she was once more left alone with a little thrill of awareness, same as always.

The offer still stands.

Or maybe, things weren’t the same as always.

* * *

An hour later, Brooke was making decisions in that quick yet methodical state of mind, going down the logical checklists ingrained in her brain regarding the injuries and complications of accident victims. She had no time to wonder where Zach was.

She wondered, anyway, during those moments when she transitioned from one patient to another. She’d worked a hundred shifts not caring who pushed the gurney as patients arrived. She’d worked a hundred more without replaying the last words a man had said to her. Yet tonight, she kept remembering the way Zach had said Brooklyn Brown. The way he’d told her the offer still stood.

Each time she walked into a treatment room, she noticed that Zach wasn’t there. Each time the sliding glass doors opened and paramedics wheeled in a patient, she noticed that Zach wasn’t there. When Loretta stopped to let her know that Harold Allman was doing well after his heart procedure, Brooke made a mental note to be sure to pass on the good news to Zach—later, because he wasn’t there.

Still, Harold’s recovery was a useful thing to have ready to discuss, because she wasn’t sure what else she would say the next time she saw Zach. Whenever that would be.

It wasn’t that day. When she took her purse out of the gym locker for the second time, it was after midnight, and she was so tired, the cot in the physician’s lounge was starting to look inviting. She wondered if Zach felt the same, wherever he was.

No fire engines had arrived from the crash scene. Fire engines didn’t transport patients; ambulances did. But if a fire engine was first on the scene and its paramedic was the first to begin a victim’s medical treatment, then that paramedic would stay with the patient, continuing medical care in the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The fire engine followed the ambulance, staying with its paramedic, ready for him to rejoin the engine’s crew once the handoff to the hospital had taken place.

Any time an ambulance pulled up to the hospital doors and Zach Bishop emerged with a patient, that big red Engine Thirty-Seven pulled in right behind him, like Zach was some kind of superhero with a red fire truck instead of a red cape sailing behind him.

Not tonight. Brooke assumed that meant Zach was working as less of a paramedic and more of a firefighter. Was he still on the scene, putting out a fire or cutting open a crumpled car? Or was he, like she, dragging himself home, staying awake through sheer willpower long enough to take a shower and then falling into bed with hair still wet, sleeping like the dead until it was time to wake for the next shift?

As Brooke’s own wet head hit her pillow, her last thought of the day was a vision of Zach, his hair dark and damp from a shower, smiling at her from the empty white pillow next to hers.

Shall I call you for breakfast, or just nudge you?

Brooke didn’t swoon for superheroes. She didn’t date eye candy.

But if she wanted to, she could, because the offer still stood.

In the last unguarded moment of a long day, Brooke fell asleep with a smile on her lips.

Chapter Four

She heard him before she saw him. Tom Bamber’s voice was as distinctive as Zach Bishop’s, but not in a sexy way. He sounded more like—well, he sounded like a radiologist giving a report, which he was.

He wasn’t giving the report to Brooke. He was speaking to Jamie. It was odd that Tom had emerged from his basement office and walked to the emergency room instead of just picking up the phone.

She had a hunch that he’d done so in order to see her. Brooke considered sneaking past the nurses’ station to the kitchen in order to avoid Tom. If he was planning on asking her out again, discretion would be the better part of valor.