Sweet Surrender (3 page)

“You’ve got a new scrub nurse with you this morning.”

“What happened to Eleanor?” Marc asked without stopping. He had a specific procedure and if he got distracted in the middle, he was obsessive enough to start over from the beginning.

“She’s a grandmother as of last night. Her daughter had a six pound, seven ounce little girl named Hannah Joelle. We won’t see her for a few weeks. She’s been saving all of her PTO days since she found out her daughter was expecting.”

“Good for her.” He was genuinely happy for Eleanor. He’d been working with her almost every day for five years and by now, they worked in perfect sync. He would miss her, but she’d been talking about the much-anticipated first grandchild incessantly for weeks so he knew she was ecstatic. “So who did you stick me with, a wet-behind-the-ears new grad?”

“No. I learned after the last disaster to hire only experienced surgical nurses. This one has two years of experience; nevertheless, it’s her first solo procedure since coming to St. Joe’s, so be easy with my baby bird, ‘kay?”

“Never fear, Josie, I’ll be gentle.” He then winked, grabbed a sterile towel, and backed into his operating room.

A soft voice greeted him: sweet, soothing, and a bit on the husky side. His eyes scanned the five-man surgical team and locked onto a shapeless form standing in full surgical garb by the table. He tried to listen in, but as a tech slid on his sterile gown and another moved behind him to tie the strings, he could only make out bits and pieces. As one tech helped with his gloves, another tied the bottom strings of his mask. He’d get one of them to tie the top strings when he was ready to begin.

Moving in behind the woman speaking to his patient, he watched as she bent slightly forward, although not touching him. Her position was intended to put him at ease and it was working. The older man was beaming up at her.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Archer. Dr. Trent has an excellent reputation and before you know it you’ll be kicking his ass all over the links at Forest Hills.”

Ah, she’s done her homework
. As his patient laughed at her little joke, he stepped closer, also not touching in order to maintain the sterile field around him.

“Have you been dissing my handicap, Arthur? I’m crushed. In front of my new scrub nurse too.” As he spoke, he saw her stiffen, noting she didn’t jump or step back into him, thereby contaminating them both. Smart girl, she was well trained.

The older man’s eyes shifted over her head and met his.

“This beautiful girl says I’ll be kicking your ass again, Marc. I trust her, so you had better be saving your pennies for tournament time.”

He chuckled. Arthur Archer should have turned pro. Although Marc’s game wasn’t perfect, he was no slouch, yet the older man had been mopping up the course with him for years. If he stuck to his rehab plan, he’d be doing so again, in short order. Still, he accepted his challenge. “You’re on, my friend, shall we get started?”

He stepped around to the right side of the table as Sherry, the nurse anesthetist, scooted forward on her stool and slipped the mask over Arthur’s face, asking him to breathe normally and count backward from one hundred. He scanned the setup; all of his required instruments were in place. Well pleased, his eyes lifted to compliment his new scrub nurse.

On the other side of the table, a pair of sky blue eyes blinked up at him. Bright and luminous, they were framed by a fringe of dark curly lashes and set beneath smooth, finely arched strawberry blond brows. Those eyes and a small amount of pale skin above her mask were all he could see; still, he knew instinctively that this was the knockout from the diner. The image of her in the tight t-shirt and short skirt warmed him instantly.

As she continued gazing up at him, waiting patiently for a cue to begin, he noticed the top of her head barely reached his shoulder. The table, which was set for his personal specifications, was higher than could possibly be comfortable for a ninety-minute procedure. He arched a brow in question. Amusement glinted in her beautiful eyes as she briefly looked down, then suddenly grew twelve inches.

He grinned behind his mask. She needed a riser.

A throat cleared, breaking their silent interaction and drawing their attention to the head of the table. It was Sherry. “He’s ready, Dr. Trent.”

As he required, it was all professional after that. He moved through the familiar procedure with ease. Everything went as planned; before too long, Mr. Archer was the owner of a brand spanking new titanium hip.

Blue eyes, as he was thinking of her now because even though her mother had told him, he couldn’t for the life of him remember her name, was a quiet and efficient assistant. She didn’t say anything that wasn’t necessary to complete the procedure until he was stapling the long incision closed.

When she did go off script, it came low and husky behind the mask. “You do beautiful work, doctor.”

“Why, thank you, blue eyes,” he murmured, although he didn’t look up from his task until he was finished. When he did, he saw the reddish-blond brows gathered in an obvious frown.

“My name is Jessie, sir. I’d prefer you call me that.”

The clatter of the stapler onto the tray indicated he was ready for the dressing. As he picked up the sterile gauze, he addressed her request. “I’d happily call you by name; however, you didn’t share it with me at any point in the past ninety minutes. If I’d said ‘nurse,’ at least four others would have answered, so I figured I’d improvise.”

Their eyes met, his amused, hers narrowed.

“I’m sorry. I was concentrating. This was my first unsupervised procedure since I started and I was anxious to do everything perfectly.”

As she proved her efficiency further by holding the dressing in place while he taped it, he smiled. Throughout the entire procedure, she’d anticipated his needs seamlessly. It was as if Eleanor hadn’t left.

“You did wonderfully, as if you’ve been doing this for years. How much experience do you have?” Finished, he pulled off his gloves and stepped back.

She stepped off the riser and moved around the table into his place. As she busied herself securing the patient for transport to recovery, he noticed he was wrong about her height. No more than five-foot-four, the top of her head didn’t reach his shoulder. He imagined how she’d fit against him, head well beneath his chin, her full breasts against his upper belly. An image of her naked in his arms flashed intrusively into his thoughts. As he lifted her to eye level, her legs would wrap around his waist, spreading her pussy lips wide enough for her clit to protrude. With his hands full of her delicious ass, he would pull her in, so close that the moist heat of her cunt and the sweet warmth of her juices would slicken his belly. He shook himself mentally, trying to listen to what she was saying and ignore the twitch of his awakening cock.

“I’ve been a nurse for four years, just under two in surgery. I took the peri-operative training course and I’m certified.”

He had to get this under control. Jared’s assertion was proven correct, damn him. The surgical gown was as attractive as a shroud and he was still thinking about fucking her. He concentrated on tamping down his desire, but as he caught a whiff of her sweet strawberry scent, his dick roared to life.

His mouth suddenly dry, he swallowed, thinking only of getting out of there. He focused on keeping it professional. It was her first time and required a bit of praise and reassurance. ‘First time’ almost did him in, however, and he spoke more brusquely than he intended.

“You did a great job and I think you’ll make a great addition to our surgical team.”

Without another word or a glance at her stunning blue eyes, he all but bolted out of the OR suite as if his scrubs were on fire.

* * *

A heavy sigh of frustration passed her lips as she read over the surgery schedule for the day. She was assigned to OR-3 for back-to-back procedures. There were ten operating rooms, twice as many scrub nurses, and a whole lot more than one surgeon she could assist. Why couldn’t Josie honor a simple request? She had requested to work with anyone else, preferably Dr. Baker who was friendly and professional (that he was nice to look at didn’t hurt), but the most important factor behind her request was that he was patient and enjoyable to work with. He wasn’t moody like his partner, who went from hot to cold in the blink of an eye, and he didn’t treat her as if she was incompetent.

Jared Baker also wasn’t the featured attraction on the hospital grapevine. He didn’t make a habit of dating hospital staff or going through women faster than a gynecologist on Pap screening day at the free clinic. That made Dr. Baker a man of superior class and intelligence in her opinion. He should really clue in his partner on how to behave.

Having worked for several years at another hospital before coming to St. Joe’s, she’d seen doctors like Marc Trent before. Like the others, he was the resident heartbreaker and had worked his way through half the nursing staff and several of the physicians. Okay, maybe not half, but enough that he had earned his ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em’ reputation. Like Dr. Baker, he was extremely attractive, tall, fit, and muscular. He also had dark hair and eyes, which was exactly her type. Being a consummate flirt, a player, and a seducer of anything in white, on the other hand, was a definite turn-off.

His reputation read like a soap opera script. Marc was with Helen, who’d stolen him from Becky, which was before she’d broken up with him when she’d found him in Tiffany’s bed, and if he wasn’t careful, her husband Greg would find out.
Dun dun duuun… Sheesh!
Okay, so she’d made all that up; then again, the real rumors that flew rampant around the hospital about him were equally as titillating. Everyone with breasts and a pulse seemed fair game to him and he seemed to consider the nursing department his own personal harem.

Everyone, that is with the exception of Jessie.

When they first met, he had been friendly, complimentary even. They’d worked that first case together really well and she thought a working relationship between them would be easy. The next time she’d seen him, it was as if he’d flipped a switch on the deep freeze. He was professional, that was it. No joking, laughing, or small talk beyond asking for instruments and suction. The way he went so quickly from one extreme to the other puzzled her. It was also irritating, not because she was interested in dating him. She didn’t need that; her plate was full with school and a full-time job. No matter how good-looking he was, or how well he filled out his scrubs through his upper body, particularly his shoulders, or the way the golden flecks twinkled in his brown eyes, a fling had no place in her life right now. It was more that he treated her differently than the other staff and people were beginning to notice. That was bothersome to her, and for the life of her, she didn’t know why.

Facing six hours of surgery with the gregarious surgeon who was surly only with her wasn’t her idea of a good day. She’d talk to Josie once more when she could. She’d beg if she had to. Borrowing and stealing were also on the table, as well as bribes, offering up her first-born child, something… anything. Heaving another sigh, she tried to prepare herself mentally for the day ahead.

“Tired, Swanson?”

She stiffened. That low, mellow baritone, she’d know it anywhere. Even when giving her crap, his presence stirred her senses.

“We’ve got six hours of surgery ahead of us; I hope you’re alert and on your game.”

Closing her eyes briefly, she prayed for patience before turning around. There, lounging against the lockers was her nemesis, Dr. Marc Trent, orthopedic surgeon extraordinaire and hospital Romeo. He was also the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. Immediately, she noticed his haircut. It had been wavy, starting to curl at the collar. Now his jet-black hair was short around the sides, longer on top where a swath of glossy locks fell softly across his brow. It made him look twenty-five, instead of his thirty-some years. Sexy golden brown eyes gazed at her from behind silky black lashes, the length and curve of which she’d kill to have. Straight nose, high cheekbones, and a strong jawline with a scruff of black whiskers all made for a face that melted nurses’ panties far and wide.
Not this nurse,
she determined, although in the back of her mind, a concern began to grow over why she had so closely noted the change in his hair. Most of the time, she didn’t even see it because he wore a scrub cap. No! She wasn’t going to become enamored with him and become another conquest or fodder for the gossip mill, not that he’d shown any interest.

“Good morning, doctor. I’m bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. In fact, I slept like a baby last night. We’ll be ready to start on time. I was just heading in to get set up.” She made to pass by him on her way to the OR suite, but he stopped her.

“Very good, if you’re not tired, perhaps you’re distracted. You left your locker open, you know.”

She turned to look and sure enough, it was standing wide open, her purse, keys, debit card, and what little cash she had until payday all there for all and sundry to see and help themselves to.

“What was that heavy sigh all about? Is something wrong with your schedule?”

Yes,
she wanted to shout,
I don’t want to work with your conceited ass.
She didn’t, of course she didn’t—she needed her job. She peeped up at him briefly, which from such close proximity required her to tip her head way back. He was really quite tall, at least six foot four by her guess, maybe more. From her vantage point, in flat-soled nursing shoes, he towered over her slightly below average frame in an intimidating manner.

“My schedule is fine,” she said, ignoring his pointed gaze, and spun back to her locker. “Nothing that a reassignment won’t fix,” she muttered as she closed the door and spun the lock.

“What was that?”

“It’s not important. Shall we go scrub?”

He eyed her skeptically for a moment before his expression turned serious. “While I have you, I wanted to talk to you about the other day. It was quite inconvenient that you didn’t have all of the implements I required ready for Mr. Schwartz’s hip replacement. The delay left him under for an additional, and quite unnecessary, twenty minutes.”