Steel: (#5 The Beat and the Pulse) (6 page)

“
H
e’s not responding
.”

I let my head fall into my hands and sighed, tension tight across my shoulders.
Fuck it all to hell.

Sammy, the kid with the impossible tumor, had been undergoing an aggressive regime of treatment over the past week, and by now, something should have been happening. I wasn’t expecting a miracle, just a little shrinkage around the spinal cord so we could slice that fucker out without causing permanent damage to the little boy’s body.

“We might have to bite the bullet and operate,” Archer said from the seat next to mine. “It’s not ideal. I’d have liked to have shrunk the tumor a little more before attempting it.”

“It was never going to be ideal,” I retorted, staring back up at the new lot of scans that had just been rendered. “A millimeter or two at best. Any advantage…”

I hated cases like these. Ones that seemed to have no good outcome no matter what cutting-edge technology or treatment was available. You just couldn’t fix everyone, and when it was a kid with their whole life ahead of them…it just broke my heart. Shattered it.

“I’m scheduling the surgery for tomorrow,” Archer said. “I’d like you to assist.”

“Tomorrow?” I asked, my mouth dropping open. “So soon?”

“His parents want it, and there’s no point putting it off. It’s now or never, Hol.”

He knew the score better than anyone else. How he could work in neuro, I’d never know. Bones were clean-cut. They broke and I set them back in place or reconstructed them. The human brain was another beast entirely. There was so much we didn’t understand about the organ that drove our whole bodies, the same organ that made us who we were. Without the mind, the body couldn’t live.

I nodded. “I’ve come this far. Let’s give this kid the best shot we can.”

Archer smiled despite the dire straits we were in. “That’s what I like to hear.”

I shrugged. “Fight till the end or not at all.”

“Is that some kind of New York Yankee motto?” he asked with a lopsided grin.

“It’s a Dr. Walsh motto,” I retorted, rising to my feet. “Let me know when you schedule the surgery, and I’ll make sure my patients are looked after.”

“No worries.”

Leaving Archer to pine over his scans, I ventured back upstairs to continue my rounds. I was in a daze, flipping through patient charts when the report from Josh’s physical appeared.
Shit
. That was this morning, and I’d forgotten, what with all the chaos around Sammy.

Scanning the report, everything looked fine. Better than fine. Josh Caplin was the image of health…apart from the broken arm, busted jaw and ribs, and the cuts and bruises still healing on his face and torso. Heart rate was fine, blood pressure was A-OK, physical strength was excellent. He was walking well and could run without pain in his back. He was ready to go home.

An unexpected flash of disappointment ran through my body. Once he left the hospital, he would be gone, but there was no real reason to keep him here anymore. Tomorrow morning, he’d go home and wouldn’t be back until he needed his cast off. I probably wouldn’t see him then considering it was an outpatient thing. X-ray and a saw. Any intern or ER resident could do that.

Sighing, I signed his discharge forms on the tablet screen and flicked them off to administration.

I was still in a daze when I heard my name being called.

“Oh, Holly!” Nurse Judy exclaimed as I passed the nurses’ station.

“What’s up?” I asked, doubling back, wondering if it had something to do with Josh.

“We’re getting ready to discharge Mr. Simons tomorrow,” she replied. “We just need your signature.”

“Oh, his home visit went well?” I asked, a little disappointed it wasn’t about the hot-tempered man across the hall.

“Very. His daughter and her husband have done the place up for him, and they’ve got a nurse to come and give him a hand.”

“Good. I’m glad. I’ll go pay him a visit now and get those forms signed for you.” Mr. Simons would be pleased about going home to his farm. Taking him away from it would do him more harm than good considering he still had enough strength to get around himself. He just needed a little help slowing down, was all. He’d need assessment as he went, but it was to be expected.

I let Judy go and wandered down to his room to see how he was faring with the news. Truthfully, I had a soft spot for the old guy. But then again, so did most of the nursing staff he’d sweet-talked since he’d gotten here.

When I walked into Mr. Simons’s room, he straightened up, his eyes sparkling.

“How is your handsome patient, lass?” he asked when he saw it was me.

“I’m more interested in how you’re doing,” I replied, standing beside the bed. “Judy tells me your home visit went well.”

“Or so they tell me,” he said. “They put up all those bars for them old codgers.”

“Whatever will help you stay at home.” I gave him a wink. “I better sign that paperwork then, huh?”

“I’m not leaving until you give me an update,” he declared with a pout. “It’s better than
Days of Our Lives
in this place.”

Laughing, I pulled up a chair beside his bed and got comfortable. I had some time to spend with him before I had to go and plan for Sammy’s surgery.

“I haven’t been to see him since the other day,” I said. Since he snapped my head off for prying. I couldn’t blame him, but it still hurt the edges of my heart.
Stupid crush
.

“If he gets you going, then you should ask him on a date. I hear the young ones do that these days.”

I shook my head, smiling at the notion. I wondered if things would’ve been easier in those days without phones or social media. People actually had to talk to one another, which seemed to be an art the human race was forgetting as technology advanced. Chatting to a screen was definitely not the same thing in my book.

“I don’t think he’s the dating type, Mr. Simons.”

“More fool him,” he declared stubbornly. “You find a good woman, you keep her. You’re a big-time doctor, lass.
You’re a keeper
.”

I flushed and said, “Thanks.”

“Talking is the best thing,” he went on. “When I first met my Elizabeth, I was exactly the same, but she fell for me all the same. I was a stubborn old bastard, but I got a ring on her finger quick smart,” he said. “I didn’t want to talk to her, but that’s what makes a great marriage—talking. It took me a long time to figure it out.”

I sighed, thinking about the mess I’d left behind in New York. “Seems simple in hindsight, doesn’t it?”

Mr. Simons smiled sadly at me. “A day doesn’t go by that I don’t miss my Elizabeth,” he said. “But I wouldn’t change any of it for the world. It happened the way it was supposed to.
Warts and all
.”

“How did you two meet if you don’t mind me asking.”

“It was nineteen fifty-five,” he said, a wistful look in his old eyes. “I was a tough guy back then. Eighteen and thought I was all that and then some. I rode a motorcycle, worked on it with my own two hands out back on the farm where my father couldn’t find it.”

An image of a younger version of the old man came to mind—slicked back hair, leather jacket, and an old Triumph motorcycle—with a pretty girl on his arm. “Mr. Simons, were you a greaser?”

He laughed and winked. Totally was.

“Tough guys didn’t talk about their feelings,” he continued. “Elizabeth had lost her father in the war, and her family had fallen on hard times. Our farm was doing well, so I suppose that’s why she thought going steady with me was a good idea. Lucky for me, I knew a good thing when I saw it even though I was too young and stupid to know how to keep her happy.”

“But she stuck around, regardless?” I asked, hooked on every word.

“My future was in my family’s dairy farm, not on the back of a motorcycle, and she knew it. Her mother wanted stability and for her to marry a man who could provide for her. On first glance, she forbade her to see me. Elizabeth and I were already madly in love, so it only made us want each other more.”

“You think my life is juicy?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “I feel like I’m in a Nicholas Sparks movie.”

“That
Notebook
film?” Mr. Simons asked. “That rubbish? We were the real deal, lass. I gave up the motorcycle when my father caught me riding home one night. Clipped me around the ears real good. Then I settled down and married Elizabeth. We were married fifty-three years. Would’ve been a lot more if I’d sat down and told her about my feelings. I was too keen on being a tough guy.”

“They don’t make them like they used to,” I mused, glossing over the fact that in a roundabout way he was trying to tell me to take a chance on Josh.

“My word, they don’t.”

“So, your farm?”

“Has been in my family for three generations,” he said. “Looks like I’ll be the last. What with all the big companies and their machines, it just ain’t the same. Hard to compete with that when you’re an old man and your kids want to learn computers. Good for them, I suppose. We do what we need to take care of our families at the end of the day.”

“You’ve got an amazing outlook on life, Mr. Simons. I’m envious.”

“No need to be envious, lass. Go out and grab the bull by the balls and give them a yank.”

I burst out laughing, my mood lightening significantly. “I’m going to miss your insights,” I declared. “But don’t take that as an invitation to come back.”

“As much as I like you, lass, I don’t want to come back here, either. In that, we agree.”

I thought over what Mr. Simons had said—that tough guys didn’t talk about their feelings. Was that why Josh clammed up any time I asked him something personal?

“What a conundrum,” he declared, pulling my attention back to him. “You have to open your heart to allow yourself to love, but the bad always wants to muscle in. It wouldn’t be worth it if it weren’t risky. It doesn’t just happen, lass.
You have to make it
.”

“You make it sound so cut and dried.”

“Just take the advice from an old man,” he said with a chuckle. “It’ll make me happy.”

“Okay,” I said, rising to my feet. “I’ll think about it.”

Bidding him good luck and farewell, I left Mr. Simons’s room, ready to get stuck back into my work on Sammy’s surgical plan. If Archer and I were going to operate tomorrow, then we were in for a mammoth day.

Wandering down the hall toward the nurses’ station, my mind went to the hurt I’d left behind in New York. I knew I was using it as an excuse not to push things with Josh, more so than my need to be professional as his doctor. What was the harm in talking to him? It might be just an innocent flirtation, or it might be the thing I was trying to find with every other guy who’d crossed my path in a romantic way.

Ever since I walked in on my boyfriend, or fiancé or whatever we’d been, screwing a nurse in the on-call room, I hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone.
At all
. But now? The only person I wanted to talk to was Josh. Something inside of me wanted to edge closer, to let the wall I’d slammed around my heart crumble just the tiniest amount so I could see outside…

I wanted to talk to him, not because he didn’t have a choice in the matter, but because he seemed to genuinely want to know. Everyone in my life up to this point had been too embroiled in their own drama to listen to mine. I mean, who wanted to talk about that patient who died, right? That’s stuff only other doctors would get, and most of the time, they were stuck in their own little bubbles dealing with their own inflated sense of fear to listen to someone else’s.

Hesitating in the middle of the hallway, people wove around my prone form as I weighed up my options. There was only one when it got down to the nitty-gritty.

I should’ve gone to the on-call room and snatched a few hours’ sleep before tackling Sammy’s surgical plan again, but I shuffled down the hall, through the ward…right into Josh Caplin’s room.

I must’ve had a death wish.

I
felt
Josh’s gaze on me long before I found the courage to look up.

It seemed silly that he made me nervous with a single look, yet I could wrench a broken bone back into place in the middle of a chaotic ER.

Raising my gaze as I stood at the edge of the curtain, I met his emerald eyes with as much confidence as I could muster. There it was again. The zinging that let me know my body was totally hot for him.

“Sparks,” he said, smiling at me like he hadn’t been an asshole the last time we’d seen each other. He’d shaved too but left a dusting of stubble behind. The scruff suited him down to the ground, and I couldn’t imagine him clean-cut at all.

“You’re certainly happy tonight,” I drawled, edging further into the room.

“Much better now that you’re here.”

“Still a flirt, I see.”

He winked. “You like it.”

I did, but I didn’t tell him that. He could work it out on his own well enough.

“Something need checking?” he asked when I hesitated.

“You don’t get any visitors,” I declared. “So I’m visiting.”

His lips curled into a grin, and he shook his head. “You’re a cheeky little thing.”

“I can go someplace else if you want me to.” I edged backward, and he straightened up.

“Pull up a seat,” he said a little too quickly. “I ain’t going anywhere.”

Sliding into the chair, I placed my tablet that held all my patient details in my lap and flicked the screen off. “So,” I began, not knowing where to start. “Are you going to tell me anything about yourself? Or is that still off limits?”

“There isn’t much to know, believe me,” he said wryly. “Not much that bears repeating.”

“I don’t believe that,” I replied, sinking back into the chair. “Everyone has a story.”

“What about you, Sparks? What’s
your
story?”

I dropped my gaze, the intensity of his making me uncomfortable.

“Well, aren’t we a right pair,” he drawled. “All physical.”

My cheeks turned red yet again. I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me. I turned to mush around the guy, and for what? Because he was handsome? I’d had a lot of handsome patients over the years, but I was never too shy to look them in the eye.
They’d never been quite so flirty, either
.

“Are you always this shy?” Josh asked, breaking the awkward silence.

“Not generally,” I replied honestly.

He sighed like he didn’t know what to do with me. I didn’t know either, so at least we weren’t alone in that.

“That other doctor said you were the one who found me,” he said after a moment. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Did I need to?” I asked. “It’s my job to treat people who need treating, not to take credit for it.”

“Why shouldn’t you? I would’ve left my sorry ass out there.”

Taken aback by his negative tone, I asked, “Why would you say that about yourself? Surely there are plenty of people who care about you.”

Sadness flickered through his eyes, but it was so quick I almost missed it. “I don’t know a single person who’d rescue me like you did.”

I scoffed. “It wasn’t a daring rescue.”

“No, but you didn’t just step over me,” he shot back. “You dragged my sorry ass inside.”

“It’s my—”

“It’s your job,” he said thinly. “I get it.”

This wasn’t going so well. It was my job, at least that’s how I saw it, but Josh had taken it as meaning something more. Was he that alone in the world that he saw any kindness, no matter how small, as the biggest deal in his entire life? It would explain a great deal, but I hoped it wasn’t true. Everyone should have someone even if it wasn’t romantic.

“I’ll cut you a deal,” he declared, his tone changing.

“A deal?” I asked slowly.

“Don’t sound so suspicious,” he teased. “It’s simple. You tell me something about yourself, and I’ll tell you something about me. Equal measures.”

“Equal measures?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. “What’s that mean?”

“You tell me something and I’ll tell you something back in equal weight.”

“Is that some kind of sports metaphor?”

He laughed, his eyes lighting up. He was so damn sexy it hurt to look at him. My gaze fell to his lips, and I wondered what it would be like to kiss them…to feel him lick—

“So,” he prodded, breaking me out of my naughty thought pattern, “what are you going to tell me? Better be
juicy
.”

The word juicy ran off his tongue and I flushed. When he laughed in triumph, I knew he was totally onto me. The man had to be psychic. Yeah, he was psychic.

I thought for a moment and tried to formulate something that might get him to reveal something about his situation to me. I was dying to know how he’d come to be here at all.

“In fifth grade, I got into a fight with another girl because she kept putting shaving cream in my locker,” I said, hoping he’d reciprocate. “I got tired of it, so I launched myself at her and gave her a bloody nose and a black eye. I was suspended
and
grounded for a week. I’m not really a fighter. That was my only foray into punching on.
How about you?
”

“I’ve been known to fight,” he said, the suspicion in his voice giving away that he was onto me.

“If you fight, then it’s my medical opinion that you don’t anymore. At least whatever kind of fighting it was that put you here.”

He narrowed his eyes, and I knew I was right on the money. A fight
had
put him here. A fight he’d consented to.

“
Sparks
,” he said thinly.

“I’d like to know you some,” I said. “But I’m not going to tiptoe around something that will put your health and continued use of your legs at risk just to save your pride. If you get pissed at me, then you get pissed at me.” I shrugged. “That’s the life I’m in.”

His chest rose as he took a deep breath. He let it out in a long sigh that seemed to stretch on forever.

“I thought you’d be a woman who dished out tough love,” he murmured, staring across the room.

“I’m only guessing at what happened to you, but it’s that easy, Josh. One hit the wrong way and you’re out. Gone. Done and dusted.”

“I know,” he hissed.

Meeting his gaze, I said, “Then know I can’t condone it as a doctor.”

He stared at me for a full minute before nodding. “Advice noted.”

I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know he had no intention of listening to me, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I could give him all the professional advice I wanted, but he had to be open to hearing it. The more I sat here staring at him like a lovesick teenager, the more I realized he was just a typical macho male.

“So tell me something else,” he said. “Something a little less fucking depressing.”

“I really don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “This place is my whole life. The hours are long, the work is demanding, and it’s hard not to throw yourself into it completely. It’s not a standard nine to five job.”

“I bet it ain’t.” He shifted on the bed. “I bet it takes a lot of school, too.”

“A lot of sacrifice,” I agreed.

“I hear you moved from New York.”

My gaze snapped up to meet his, and I narrowed my eyes. It seemed Gunner had been weaving her magic on poor Josh. When I asked her to cover my rounds, I didn’t mean for her to stick her nose in where it wasn’t needed. She meant well but shit. Sometimes, I wish she would just chill over the boyfriend shit. Some women—aka, me—were happy enough without a man.

Then what are you doing here with Josh, Holly?

“Yes, I did,” I replied slowly.

“Seems like a step down,” he murmured. “Why? Not that I’m complaining.”

I felt my throat constrict as the image of the man I’d thought I loved entered my mind. Scrubs bunched around his ankles,
and hers
, as he ploughed his cock into her from behind. Their startled looks as they saw me standing in the doorway. The pain that tore through my heart. The moment I ran down the hall and vomited into the nearest toilet bowl.

I’d been such a blind fool. The stupidest bitch there ever was. Everyone knew.
Everyone but me
.

“Sparks?”

My phone beeped loudly from where it was clipped to the waistband of my scrubs. Hospital issue for alerts—the modern-day pager. It kept ringing as I made a grab for it, my heart beating double-time in my chest.

“Shit,” I cursed, glancing at the message. It was from Archer.

“Emergency?” Josh asked, his brow creased.

“Yeah, I’ve gotta go.” I fumbled with the phone, hooking it back onto the waistband of my scrubs.

“Will I see you before I go tomorrow?” he asked as I scooped up my tablet.

“I don’t know,” I said hastily, my mind firmly on the fucked-up tumor I was about to help Archer carve out of a kid’s spine. My gaze met Josh’s, and I regretted the fact that this was probably it. There wasn’t enough time to get to know anything about him and this silly attraction. Maybe that’s all it was. A silly crush on a mystery man.

“Good luck,” he murmured, his gaze falling away. He was disappointed? Was I reading it right?

“I’m sorry,” I said, my shoulders sagging. “I’ve really gotta go.”

He nodded once, and I spun on my heel, running from the room and down the hall where I thumped my fist on the elevator call button.

When I reached OR Three, Archer was already suiting up, and Sammy was being wheeled into the theater.

“What happened?” I asked as the door swung closed behind me.

Archer glanced up and grimaced. “He took a sharp turn an hour ago,” he explained. “There was too much risk trying to bring his symptoms under control with meds, not with the surgery looming. It was now or never.”

I sighed and looked at the little boy as the anesthesiologist readied him to go under. He couldn’t hold on another twelve hours until we were scheduled to operate. The poor kid. I thought about his parents, who were probably huddled in the waiting room upstairs, and tears prickled behind my eyes.

“Scrub in, Hol,” Archer said, turning on the nearest tap. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”