CHAPTER 7
Tessa
“Yes, she’s seven-years-old and has suspicious markings on her wrist,” I said over the phone. “And she seemed a little bit uncomfortable with her mother. She was just here a couple hours ago. She was suffering from a viral infection and fever.”
“Thank you so much for filing the report, Ms. Kennery. We will be investigating the case shortly.”
“Okay. Thank you.” With a heavy sigh, I ended the call just as Molly entered our break room, carrying her lunch with her and looking like she wanted nothing more than for the day to end.
“How’s it going, Molly?” I asked.
“I was about to say it’s going too busy, you look even more worn out than me. What’s wrong now, doll?”
I crossed the room and sat beside her at the table. “I just had to report a case of possible child abuse. I was just on the phone with Child Protective Services.”
“Oh no. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. This sweet little seven-year-old girl has scarring on her wrists. I just saw her this morning. I was assigned to help Dr. Sholly again, and he was examining her. She was brought in for her fever.”
“It’s always hard when you see kids getting hurt. Any idea who’s abusing her?”
“Not really, although she did seem a little uncomfortable with her mom. Her mom wasn’t even in the room with most of the time though.”
“Where was she?”
“I’m not sure. I didn’t get a chance to ask. She eventually returned and Dr. Sholly sent me out.”
“Well, rest assured you did the right thing.”
“I know. The important thing is making sure she’s going to be okay.”
“Exactly.”
“Guess I may as well take my lunch too. Be right back, Molly.” I stood up and headed to the refrigerator to get my lunch.
“So—you were assigned to Evan again today, eh?” Molly called out to me in a teasing voice.
I tried unsuccessfully to suppress a smirk as I made my way back over to the table with my lunch. “So.”
Molly laughed. “So did the two of you behave today?”
“We had no choice. The little girl was there.”
“Oh sure. Blame it on her.”
“You saw how he treated me yesterday. What else do you think contributed to his sudden ability to be cordial?”
“The fact that he regretted how he treated you yesterday.”
“How on earth do you know that?”
“I ran into him in the parking lot before I left yesterday.”
My ears perked and I paused midway before taking a bite of my turkey sandwich. “And…?”
“And he asked about you.”
“Really? What did he say?”
Molly laughed, and I had to resist the urge to slap myself for sounding like an overly excited schoolgirl. I tried to remind myself that Dr. Sholly was not my type, so I had no reason to be so concerned with what he said about me. I had already dated a handsome jerk before, so I wasn’t about to fall for another one, even if he was a successful doctor.
Upon entering the hospital that morning, I paused in the hallway and for the first time, took a good look at the various plaques of excellence for doctors among the hospital staff. Evan Sholly’s name had plenty of appearances on the wall. It was surprising I’d never noticed before, but I supposed I just hadn’t paid attention. Seeing all the good work he’d done over the years, I had actually started to regret my own behavior a bit as well, particularly since I had more or less implied he didn’t know what he was doing. But in my defense, he had started it by insulting me first. So I didn’t have to feel entirely too guilty about it…
“He just asked me how long you’d been working here. I told him you’d been here as long as me, and that you were one of the most dedicated nurses in this building.”
“Hmm,” I said, attempting to feign disinterest, but once again failing, judging from the smirk on Molly’s face.
“Speak of the handsome devil…”
“What?”
But my question was answered by the door opening and none other than Dr. Sholly appearing. My heart skipped a beat and I almost choked on my sandwich.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said.
“Good afternoon, sugar,” Molly said. She eyed me for a second, like a mother scolding her child to be polite. But my vocal chords didn’t seem to be working. Pressing his pretty lips together upon seeing that I couldn’t be bothered to speak, he gave me a curt nod before rolling up his sleeves and approaching the vending machine. My eyes trailed over his muscular arms, intrigued by the tattoos covering them…
Until he turned around with his bottle of Gatorade in hand and caught me staring, causing me to choke for real this time.
Molly gave me a rather hard thump on the back as I reached for my bottle of water. Thank goodness I hadn’t unscrewed the top yet, or I would have drenched myself.
“Tessa.”
I raised my eyebrows at the sound of him saying my name. My skin was on fire. He made me feel things, things I didn’t want to feel.
“Dr. Sholly?” I said.
“Can I speak with you for a moment?”
“Uhm…Sure,” I said. “Now?”
“If it’s all right,” he said. “It won’t take long.”
“Okay…”
He headed to the door and I realized he wanted me to follow him out of the break room.
Panic-stricken, I glanced toward Molly. Her eyes were wide with amusement. “Go ahead. I’ll keep your sandwich company, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Dr. Sholly chuckled.
As I stood, I ‘accidentally’ kicked Molly in the foot, which only made her goofy expression grow more prominent.
“I’ll let you get back to your lunch soon, I swear,” Dr. Sholly said, still standing in the doorway, holding the door open as he waited for me.
“No, it’s fine I was done anyway,” I lied.
I took a deep breath as I stepped out into the hall with Dr. Sholly. To my surprise, he set off down the hall. Upon realizing I wasn’t following him, he paused and looked back at me over his shoulder.
I recomposed myself and caught up to him, wondering where on earth he was taking me as we reached the end of the hall and rounded the corner.
“Woah!”
Dr. Sholly came to an abrupt halt, startled by a couple of technicians hurriedly rounding the corner as well, wheeling an empty hospital bed and nearly crashing into us. Instinctually, Dr. Sholly held his hand out, catching me right at the waist and preventing me from slamming into the hospital bed right at the last second.
“Sorry, doc,” one of the technicians said.
“Slow down. The air isn’t in a hurry,” Dr. Sholly said. Realizing his hand was still on my waist, he removed it, although I felt the ghost of his touch long afterwards. A shiver went down my spine.
“You all right?” he said, running his hand through his luscious dark hair, looking somewhat awkward.
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, displeased to hear that my voice sounded too high. “Uhm…where are we going?”
“Right here,” he said. We came to a stop at the on-call room, which was empty at the moment. He held the door open for me and I entered, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the way I walked because I felt like my hips were swaying with minds of their own no matter how much I tried to stop them.
My heart stuttered again, this time right along with the click of the door as Dr. Sholly closed it. He shook his head. “Sorry—this day shift. I just can’t seem to think straight. I guess you could have brought your lunch here if you wanted.”
“It’s fine. I was done.” With the worse timing ever, my stomach gave an embarrassingly loud growl. I crossed my arms over my torso, as if that would help muffle the sound. It felt like someone had lit a match over my face.
Dr. Sholly cleared his throat, laughing a little at my rumbling stomach. When I could get the nerve to look up at him, I could see a smirk lingering beneath his expression and knew he was trying hard not to laugh at me further. It almost made me want to turn right on the spot and leave the room.
Why did this man make me feel so unsure of myself?
“I called Child Protective Services,” I said, feeling desperate to fill the empty room with sensible discussion. I couldn’t take too much more of the silence in his presence. Besides, I needed an excuse for staring at him, his smoldering dark eyes seemed to be holding my gaze captive.
He nodded his head, briefly looking down to the floor. The amusement I’d thought I’d seen on his face had vanished entirely, replaced with barely concealed sadness. “Yeah. Thanks for that.” He looked up at me. “That’s what I really wanted to say to you. Thank you for helping out with Sarah. I’m not so good with kids. I’m glad they sent up someone who is.”
I nodded. “You’re welcome.”
“Do you have kids? I mean…you don’t look like you do…” His eyes not-so-subtly roamed over my body before he caught himself and glanced away. “But uhm…you were just so good with Sarah earlier, I wondered…”
I stood there, stunned to see that for the first time, Dr. Sholly actually looked flustered. It was my turn to chuckle. “No, I don’t have any kids, Dr. Sholly.”
“You can call me Evan.”
I nodded. Evan. His name even sounded sexy. Shit, this was going to be a problem. A long stretch of silence passed between us. Feeling unnerved by it again, I cleared my throat. “So…is that all?”
Evan ran his hand through his hair again, and I stood there, wishing I could run my own fingers through it. Wondering if it felt just as silky as it looked…
“Tessa, the real reason I brought you here is because I want to apologize for yesterday.”
I blinked. I certainly hadn’t seen that coming. I opened and closed my mouth a few times, not sure what to say. When I finally could manage to speak, all I said was, “Oh.”
Evan lowered his head and shook it, as if in shame. “I had no right to speak to you that way. I’m not sure what came over me. I’m not usually like that, I swear.”
“Well, Molly told me that. She said that you weren’t yourself yesterday.”
“And what else did Molly tell you?”
“That you were ex-military.”
“NAVY doc actually.” He smiled. I noticed for the first time he had dimples. Then again, it was probably the first time I had seen such a genuine smile from him to begin with. I couldn’t help the way my own lips curled into a smile at the sight of it.
I gave a start at his sudden nearness. Disoriented, I couldn’t figure out if I had involuntarily moved closer to him, or if he had moved closer to me. The fresh scent of his skin drifted to my nose.
God, did he smell good…
“You’re a very impressive nurse, Tessa,” he said. “You’re impressive in a lot of ways, actually.”
“I can say the same to you…I mean, as far as doctors go.”
He smirked. There was another stretch of silence. Suddenly, Evan sighed. “Look—the reason I treated you that way, is because I know you’re the kind of person I could, you’re the type of person that could very easily hold my interest. And I can’t risk that sort of thing at the moment. I’m not delusional enough to think I actually have a chance, but still, I can’t get close to anyone. Besides the no fraternizing with superiors policy is pretty clear.”
Evan laughed at shook his head again. “Sorry I’m being so lousy with my words right now. I guess, I’m just trying to say that I hope you accept my apology. And I hope we can get off to a fresh start since it looks like we’ll be together quite a bit. Professionally, I mean.”
Crap. He meant we couldn’t take advantage of the on call room being empty, or the fact that I had noticed his cock twitch under his scrubs. He was right of course, the policy was absolute.
And I loved my job.
But it literally hurt not to touch him.