Surgeons, Rivals...Lovers

Time to get his head back in the game. Observe the new surgeon. See how much of what Sam had said was actually correct. See if she really was a threat to his goal or if his mind was playing tricks on him. However unlikely the possibility might be, he needed to judge for himself. If her backbone wasn’t full-on displayed, it didn’t matter how much she knew. She wouldn’t threaten his position as favorite horse in the race for Ootaka’s final fellowship.

But it might do the pit in his gut some good to see her getting the unavoidable dressing-down coming her way.

God, he sounded like a petulant child wanting Daddy’s approval. His stomach churned.

No one could survive Ootaka’s surgery without learning his particular rules. He should feel sorry for her.

If her arrival hadn’t felt like another shadow he’d have to fight his way out of, he might actually muster some sympathy.

The only way to find whatever was bleeding inside Mr. Elliot’s chest was to crack it.

Kimberlyn had been in a few thoracic surgeries since the accident, during the last months of her first year back… but seeing a chest open still made her scar burn.

This was someone else’s sternum, someone else’s pain.

The words danced through her mind on repeat every time she started to feel her chest tighten or her heart speed up.

Mr. Elliot deserved undivided attention, and the likelihood he’d one day have his own scar to fixate on hinged on the talent and skill of his surgical team. Mainly Ootaka, but she mattered.

Luckily, Ootaka was the best. One day she’d be that good—another mini-Ootaka to save those poor wretches who had to be cut out of ugly car crashes. Just as she had.

Ootaka’s fellowship was the reason she’d come north. He announced last year that it was the last fellowship he was going to do, which was why she had ended up transferring to West Manhattan Saints when she’d been set up perfectly and had enjoyed her former hospital.

Waiting two years to apply for his next fellowship? No longer an option.

The intention toward trauma hadn’t really existed before her accident. She’d thought about it but had floated between cardiac, cardiothoracic and plain old general surgery, too.

Her life had become a series of dominoes that day…

As much as she hated what had happened to Mr. Elliot, his pain was her good fortune. It had gotten her noticed immediately. Now she just needed to perform well in this surgery. Keep Ootaka’s attention. Build his appreciation and belief in her. Do everything in her power to make this year count. Keep her promise: save the good people like Janie from the bad people like her.

Or, better, save the victims so the idiots who’d caused the wreck could learn and avoid turning into her. Normal lives for all involved. Two birds, one stone. That was a worthy goal. That would make her worthy.

Which meant outshining Ootaka’s star pupil, Dr. I’m-Running-Ahead…

“Suction.”

So Ootaka started her with the basics. Minding the blood was important enough. Suctioning it off where he needed to see what he was doing, keeping an eye on the pressure to alert him when they needed to give fluids…

Which was now.

“He’s lost a… bit of blood,” she began. Assisting a surgeon for the first time always meant getting used to the way they liked to do things. Very few things were standard when it came to OR etiquette. Hence her needing to ask, “At what point do you like to hang blood?”

“Are you saying that you believe we should be doing so now, Dr. Davis?” Ootaka never took his eyes off the patient, but movement in the corner of her eye pulled her gaze up. Someone in the gallery.

Enzo. Could he hear them up there?

Okay, she was being paranoid. Why would that matter? If he could hear, maybe he’d just pick up on how to be professional and not sneaky with a colleague.

Focus on the OR, not on who lurked above it.

“Yes, Dr. Ootaka. I would like to give him some packed red now.”

“Better. In my operating room, do not couch your concern for the patient in question. You’re a surgeon. Asking questions you know the answer to makes you sound uneducated. Save your questions for when you really don’t know the answer.”

Right. She could do that. Most of the surgeons she’d worked with preferred deference, but maybe that was their way of keeping a hierarchy in place. Ootaka’s air and reputation did that well enough—maybe he had no need to force protocol through some etiquette dance.

“Yes, Doctor. I’ll remember that.” While she usually handled change well, not knowing how she was to behave wasn’t one of those changes she could just float with. If she wasn’t supposed to ask questions, did that mean she should just do what she thought was best? Mr. Elliot was Ootaka’s patient now, not hers.

He did glance up long enough to look her in the eye. “Yes?”

“Does that mean for me to go ahead with what I think is the right decision, or—”

“No. Announce first with clear intentions and reasons. Always reasons.” He’d started to sound a little annoyed, so she was happy when he immediately switched back to the subject. “Why packed red cells?”

As far as reprimands went, it wasn’t much of one, but all corrections made her cheeks burn. Luckily, the surgical mask kept anyone from noticing, even if the inside of her mask was getting a bit stuffy.

Before moving to carry out the task of replenishing the man’s blood, she answered Ootaka. Minimize chance of rejection or reaction. Saline could do the job of plasma for now. Oxygen depletion to traumatized tissue was best avoided, so red cells were her choice. Reasons anyone in medical school would know, let alone a fifth-year surgical resident.

But at least there was some comfort in the sameness—questions and answers accompanied all lessons, no matter what hospital or surgeon you were with. She looked up at the galley again, and this time Enzo was looking at her. Not just watching the table. When she looked up, his gaze was locked on hers. Her belly trembled.

How was she supposed to keep her eyes on the patient with him staring? Correction: staring and smirking? Or was that a grimace?

Ignore him.

With the Q&A finished, she ordered the packed cells and another bag of saline.

So he could hear them. Whatever. Not that she expected any less from her competition. Caren had warned her he could be a jerk. He’d wanted to assist. She’d seen it in his eyes when Ootaka had invited her into his OR. And what was that about him being right about the need for surgery? She had to wonder what else he’d told Ootaka after running to get there first. She should’ve run with him. Only that would’ve meant leaving Mr. Elliot—and even for a couple of minutes she couldn’t have made herself do so, knowing that neither of them would be with him.

What she needed to do was not think about him as an attractive man. Focus on the jerk, not the jaw. The arrogance. And all that jaw did was frame a smirking mouth.

Jerky, not to mention manipulative. Keep our patient alive indeed. Those words had assured she’d stay put.

But, worse, they’d made her feel important enough that she’d hardly questioned why he wasn’t riding with them in the ambulance.

They’d made her underestimate him…

Later she’d send Caren a crankygram—an email she’d no doubt check in a couple of weeks. Maybe she could find Tessa after the surgery ended to get information. See if her new friend knew Enzo’s tactics. Plot some ways to outmaneuver him, or at least figure out his usual manner of manipulation. It would certainly behoove her to know what his weaknesses were. Aside from arrogance.

Or maybe just vent. His attempt to maneuver the situation hadn’t worked out so well for him this time. Maybe she didn’t need to try to learn to do that. Maybe it was just a case of where the cream rose, and she just needed to focus on herself and… stuff. That’s what she’d like. Avoid confrontation. Be pleasant and easy to work with. Be the person that everyone liked, or at least felt no overt hostility toward.

Be exactly who she’d been before the accident. That’d be awesome.

And impossible.

Think later. Pretend Caren had been overreacting when she’d focused on how hard Kimberlyn would have to fight for the fellowship.

CHAPTER THREE

SIX HOURS OF surgery later, Kimberlyn edged onto a stool that one of the post-op nurses had been kind enough to place beside Mr. Elliot’s gurney.

This wasn’t her usual routine. She usually avoided Post-op due to the confined quarters, activity and motility required for the staff to attend all the patients. Although her feet and back ached from the long day, and although she could swear the screws she would always carry in her femur buzzed and itched from standing in one position for hours, the manner of their meeting made it impossible for her to leave his side yet.

Distance was already an issue with this patient. Something she should work on.

Within the past year there hadn’t been many patients who’d delivered gut punches like this, but she could still recite the names of each one, along with the big facts. How they’d presented. How they’d been injured. Procedures required to save them. Major complications. Length of hospital stay…

And she could recite even tiny details from the chart of the patient who hadn’t made it.

“So, you were at Vanderbilt before transferring here?”

There was so much activity in the ward she hadn’t even noticed him entering. The surgery had become like that at around the two-hour mark, when Ootaka had given her bigger tasks. They’d taken up more space in her brain, letting her stop worrying whether she was going to make some etiquette mistake or what Enzo thought about her performance.

Part of her wanted to know why Enzo had come to Post-op now, the other part just wanted to sit and rest. And stop thinking. Stop comparing. Stop bracing for impact…

Sometimes people pulled through open-heart surgery only to die in Recovery or the surgical ICU—the reason she sat there. The first few days were the most tenuous. But here he was distracting her—her new and annoyingly attractive nemesis. Or possible nemesis. Working that out right now required too much brainpower.

“Yes.” There. She’d answered. Maybe he’d go away if she wasn’t chatty.

Obviously he could find out information about her from other places, much as she’d done before arriving. He’d known who she was on first meeting, after all. And now he was spouting questions about procedure at her alma mater. He knew she had her sights set on Ootaka’s fellowship. The grapevine didn’t just extend from Caren and Tessa to her. It went the other way, too. Enzo had a grape on the vine.

And he could just go squeeze that grape for juice.

He rounded the gurney to stand on the other side of Mr. Elliot, giving the monitors a look, though he continued speaking quietly to her. “And you’re Caren’s friend.”

“Cousin,” she corrected. Correcting him was surprisingly satisfying. No doubt a holdover from the irritation she’d been nursing about his run ahead and smirky looming stuff.

He turned his eyes to her. “Did she give up her spot in the program specifically to free up space for you?”

“Of course she didn’t.” The hotly whispered denial sprang from Kimberlyn’s lips so fast she hadn’t even really considered whether he was correct before speaking.

Had Caren done that? It was like her cousin to do something altruistic and then lie about it to salve people’s pride, but… “She said she wanted the opportunity to go into the field with that professor and his mission to Cameroon.”

A nurse approached to get vitals—as she must every fifteen minutes—and Kimberlyn became all too aware of how crowded Mr. Elliot’s bedside had become. Her being there had been fine, but two surgeons bickering definitely wasn’t fine.

With energy granted by indignation, she stood, pushed the stool back out of the way and headed out of the ward. If he was going to grill her, he could do it somewhere else. The patient needed rest, and the nurses didn’t need the distractions in the already tight quarters.

He followed her out.

Once the door swung shut and they were alone in the hallway, she turned to face him.

“Why did you ask me that? It’s a… really… rude thing to say. Insinuating that I’m taking advantage of her good nature and maybe wrecking her career or something.” Confrontation. Yay. Was it too much to ask that they maintain a civilized competitive atmosphere based entirely on merits and… positive junk?

“I just want to figure you out.”

He didn’t look bothered to be called on his machinations. He looked relaxed, no longer smirking, and also as if his question wasn’t rude or anything to get worked up over. He didn’t even stand at attention now, leaning with one of those broad shoulders propped against the wall, arms crossed and weight shifted to one foot. A lazy angle made from his… admittedly nice… athletic lines and other angles.

Not what she was supposed to be focusing on. Kimberlyn forced her gaze back to his.

“And I want to believe that you are a decent guy despite having been told otherwise, but the only reason I can think of for you to ask me that is because you want to put me on the defensive. Make me uncomfortable in my new program.”

Mission accomplished. That, along with the sudden realization that she was doing exactly what strange men did to her: ogling his body. But that was her making herself uncomfortable.

When her eyes locked with his again, his brows lifted a little. Busted. But at least he didn’t comment on it.

“I’m curious about you. Most people don’t change programs in the final year. It’s too hard to rebuild your support system and reputation in a new hospital. Makes this seem like some kind of impulse decision. A short-term goal. Not a career choice.”

“Choosing trauma as my specialty, or choosing this fellowship as the one I wanted?”

He nodded. “Both. You just decided a couple months ago, right?”

“No. I decided before I began my fourth year in residency.” When she was in the hospital for other reasons besides work. The very thing she’d spent the whole day trying not to think about, and which she had no intention of revealing to him. Her stomach crunched and growled in a way that was part hunger, part nausea. Perfect. “But I really don’t owe you any explanations about my or Caren’s motivations. I’m here. I’m not leaving. You can’t intimidate me or scare me into changing course.”

“I’m not trying to do either, Davis.”

“You’re just trying to figure me out,” she repeated, disbelief making her fling her hand through the air. “Fine. Here’s all you need to know about me—I’m good at what I do. In fact, I’m so good at what I do I’m not going to play games with you. I’m not going to scheme or run ahead to try to get to Ootaka first to get what I want. That’s not who I am, and it’s not who I want to be. You want to help me figure you out? Because right now, after having had a day to think about it, I’m having a hard time being charitable in my assessment of your character. You were great on the scene. Actually, I was extremely thankful that you were there. But then you spent the day smirking at me from the gallery. And now this?”

Once she’d started, it got easier to say what she thought about his behavior, too easy. She’d feel guilty, but her words looked to bother him about as much as a sunny spring day bothered daisies. She knew that people were blunter up north, but dang…

Before she lost her gumption, she whispered hotly, “And just for the record, I know what DellaToro means. From the bull, or of the bull… and obviously it’s missing a final word.” The half-whispered words could’ve passed for a two-year-old with her first introduction to whispering.

He smiled at the end of her tirade, uncrossing his arms as he chuckled, which was at least better than all the smirking. “Feel better?”

“No!” A bit mean and snotty, actually. And immature, and ridiculous that she’d taken the long way around saying the S-word… Lame.

“Did you see that condition a lot at Vandy?” He asked again.

Back to digging for information…

“No.” Again she denied first and then had to pause and consider. He’d managed to rile her up, but that didn’t mean she had to stay riled. She could chill out. If she let that little fire he’d built in her gut go out, he might not see how emotionally battered the whole day had left her. Depriving him of information had started to seem like a valid survival tactic.

To give her mouth a chance to chill, she took her time leaning against the wall facing him, across the several foot divide framing the doorway bay into the SICU. “I saw it once at Vandy. But I have the symptoms etched on my brain. It was in the back of my mind before I even reached him. I expected it the second I saw him coming down chest first. You shouldn’t feel bad about not knowing at the time. It’s really easy to miss.”

There. That was more like her. Nice. Helpful. That’s the kind of person she wanted to be.

Enzo watched Davis’s expression go from angry to gentle in the space of a few statements. Too smooth and practiced to be real. “So I’m rude, and I’m guessing jerk also wouldn’t be far off your definition, but you’re still trying to make me feel better about my mistakes?”

She smiled at him, a real smile with just a hint of something bratty twinkling in her eyes. And it was adorable. “Just because you’re a jerk doesn’t mean I have to be one, too. Besides, you didn’t make a mistake. You just didn’t know the answer. There’s a difference.”

No difference. If she hadn’t been there, he would’ve made a mistake. That single thought had weighed on him throughout the long day. He had to do better than that. He had to be better than that. The only thing worse than standing in Lyons’s shadow was the idea of never exceeding it.

On a personal level, Enzo already knew he was a better man than his father—he took care of his family and had started trying to do that at four years old and hadn’t actually learned how to do it until his mother had remarried—but he had to be better than Lyons professionally, too. That was what the world judged a man by: his prestige. That’s why Lyons was known the world over, but the world had barely blinked a year ago when his stepfather had died.

It wasn’t so much he wanted Davis to make mistakes, but before today he’d always been the one with the answers. If he hadn’t known something, none of the other surgical residents had known it, either. And maybe none of the thoracic residents, or cardiac residents.

A successful trauma surgeon had to know a great deal about a number of specialties to handle whatever might come up in surgery. Like today. Cardiac tamponade… He wasn’t sure that a cardiac resident in his final year would’ve even gotten that—but she had and it had impressed Ootaka. And him.

“You’re sweet. You shouldn’t give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Sweet doesn’t survive long here. New York chews up sweet people and spits them out.” The words—the very idea—left a sour taste in his mouth. Right now, he was the main predator circling her because he had to have that fellowship.

He didn’t want to be the one to chew her up and spit her out.

It was in that second that he realized he was attracted to her. When she’d been pale beneath her tan at the scene, he’d still noticed she was pretty but not in a way he’d had time to think about.

During the hours watching her in the surgery, he’d had few physical details to form opinions on—most of her had been covered in the protective gown, mask and cap. He’d been able to see she had a fluidity of movement that spoke of control and precision… grace. And she had the mental endurance required to focus on a task for hours.

Seeing her now, when she was tired enough that her defenses were down and she was no longer concealed by OR green, he could appreciate the delicate quality of her features and the hints at the shape hidden by baggy scrubs.

“Is that a warning of your stance on this fellowship?”

No.

“Yes,” he said.

Ootaka’s fellowship was the best anywhere. He wasn’t just a trauma specialist; he’d completed separate fellowships in several subspecialties. Spending a couple years as his single student was like a crash course in Everything That Can Go Wrong in the Human Body and How to Fix it.

“So you sought me out to warn me about yourself? Or was that part of your study methodology to learn more about the condition and Beck’s Triad?” Okay. Now she wasn’t buying that she should see him as a threat, even though he’d admitted it. Either she was as confident in her abilities as he was, or she was playing with him. “I’m still kinda surprised you haven’t seen the condition in the past year.”

Earlier, at the accident and throughout the surgery, her accent had been suppressed. Now, tired after a long day, the more she talked the more he expected her to hand him a lemonade and invite him to the front porch swing.

Which was also adorable. He had to stop thinking those kinds of things… She was the enemy. In theory.

“It has happened in the ER here in the past year, but never when I was on duty. I’m sure no part of the city is cardiac tamponade deficient, but I haven’t actually treated that condition before today,” he assured her, and then backed up, something she’d said earlier refusing to stop echoing in his mind. “Symptoms etched in your brain from a condition you’ve only seen once? Makes it seem like you have some personal connection to the condition. Is that why you were expecting it?”

Her smile disappeared and she leaned off the wall, eyes leaving him to track to the door again. She didn’t want to answer that question. It had roused the wariness his warning had failed to do. Good.

“I read and study a lot to keep sharp.”

Lying. They were both lying, but he was just better at it.

“So all symptoms of emergency scenarios are etched on your brain?”

She plucked up the badge that had been left for her during surgery and got ready to buzz herself back into Post-op. “That’s my goal.”

Not lying.

“And I’m sure that they’ll be etched on your brain from here on out,” she added.

Still uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough to flee.

“How long are you staying?” He nodded to the ward door, allowing the subject change.

She hesitated, fishing a watch from her pocket and putting it on. “I don’t know. I might not go home… There’s an on-call room, right?”

He nodded then extracted his card from the thigh pocket of his scrubs. “My cell’s on the back. If Elliot takes a turn while you’re here, would you text me?”

The way her brows lifted said that he’d surprised her. She hadn’t expected him to care that much about the patient. Maybe his warning had done a small amount of good. With her hand outstretched, she stepped forward to take the card. “You’re worried about him?”

Her words confirmed it.

“I do that on occasion.”

Before he put the card in her hand Enzo took the little outstretched palm in his own. Small. Delicate like her features. Nice skin, soft, but she was obviously tired. “Your hands are cold.”

Resisting the urge to rub some warmth back into them, Enzo placed the card on the upturned palm and curled her fingers over it. “If you’re going to go home, get someone to walk with you. Our part of Brooklyn isn’t bad, but it’s safer in pairs or groups. At least until you get some city smarts, Country Mouse.”

She couldn’t slaughter Sam for that nickname.

A ghost of her earlier smile returned.

He let go of her hand and let her buzz herself back into the ward before heading the other way.

“Hey, before you go…” she said, from behind him.

He turned to look back at her.

“Really, thank you. For charging into the fray to help me and Mr. Elliot. Not everyone is willing to do that, put themselves out there when it’s dangerous—physically dangerous—and also because of the litigation-happy society we live in. If it had been just me on the scene, Mr. Elliot would’ve died under that SUV. Doesn’t matter who got to assist Ootaka. You saved a life today, Enzo.”