****
I pulled into the hospital parking lot at exactly five minutes before eleven the next morning. I’d called the hospital and had no trouble finding out that Sarah was in fact working that day, and she wouldn’t be on her lunch break until eleven-o-clock. I had contemplated waiting until after her shift was over to approach her, but I figured if I could stir up a few sparks and leave her smoldering for the rest of her shift…well, hopefully she’d be ready to burst into flames not long after.
I nodded to all the folks who recognized me as I made my way across the lot and through the emergency room entrance, and greeted the ancient figure at the triage desk who must have been there since the Declaration of Independence. The old woman motioned me through when I asked about Sarah, and I found her there quickly, though not in the way I’d expected.
I’d anticipated seeing her bent over a patient’s sprained ankle or inspecting a set of tonsils with a tongue depressor. But the woman I found was calling out orders, examining x-rays and wielding a nasty looking needle that she jabbed into the chest of the man lying lifeless in front of her without a moment’s hesitation. Her back was straight, her eyes were bright, and it was only seconds later when the man coughed, spluttered, and took a wheezing breath, that I saw her shoulders relax—the only proof she’d been under pressure at all.
The woman was confident, competent…and absolutely mesmerizing. I’d never seen Sarah so much in her element, and right then, I understood without a doubt why she’d gone into medicine. She was made for it.
I hung back as she examined the patient further, in part to maintain the patient’s privacy, but also to give myself a moment to collect my thoughts. It was a side of Sarah I’d never seen, and I wasn’t used to surprises. I didn’t like them, in fact. In my line of work, they weren’t welcome, so I’d gotten very good at knowing everything I could in any particular scenario.
I really hadn’t expected Sarah to ever be able to throw me for a loop like that. But thrown I was, though I wasn’t going to let it distract me from my plan.
So, I shrugged away from the wall and she caught sight of me right away. And I think because she was still so very much in her element, my presence there didn’t faze her as much as I would have expected. Her eyes bulged slightly, but she caught herself quickly and nodded in my direction. Still chatting with a co-worker, she remained there for a moment, but she kept glancing over at me. And the moment the woman headed toward one of the curtained-off beds, Sarah walked toward me, almost apprehensive in her step but determined, nonetheless.
“What are you doing here?”
No niceties. Straight to the point. That was fine with me.
“Lunch,” I replied, equally as candid.
“You’ve come to have lunch…with me…in the hospital cafeteria? That’s rather brave of you given the rumors about the food, isn’t it?”
“I figure I’ll be okay. If it makes me sick, there’ll be plenty of doctors around to pump my stomach before the wretched stuff kills me.”
“Seriously, Declan, why are you here?” Her voice grew quieter, and she started edging us toward a staff room beyond the emergency area.
“I told you, I’m here to have lunch with you.” I didn’t bother keeping my voice down. And that meant she could either have the whole room hear our conversation—at least my end of it—or she could agree to have lunch. And I could see she knew it, too, even if that knowledge made her scowl at me in irritation.
She breathed a resigned sigh, waved to a woman on the other side of the room to let her know she was leaving, and then motioned down the hall toward the cafeteria.
“Look, I’m sorry about last night,” she apologized as she slipped into a chair in the near-empty cafeteria. “It was a mistake,” she told me bluntly. “So…why are you here?”
“I’m here because I plan on picking up where we left off last night.”
It was my turn to throw her for a loop because she certainly hadn’t been expecting that. She stared at me for a moment, as if she were trying to figure out some other meaning to what I’d just said, but finding none, she began to push the food on her plate back and forth with her fork, her concentration on the task seemingly complete, if I didn’t know her better.
“There’s nothing wrong with two consenting adults indulging in a mutual attraction, Sarah, and we both know there’s plenty of attraction going on here.”
“Declan, your interest is flattering, really, and I have no problem with casual flings and the like. But this—you and me—is a bad idea.”
I didn’t get the sense she was lying when she said she didn’t have a problem with casual flings, which meant she was either doing one hell of a job deceiving me—unlikely—or I’d misjudged her qualms with the previous night. I’d say that wasn’t possible either, but after seeing Sarah in action today, I couldn’t deny that I’d been quick to sum her up based on what I’d known about her from years ago.
“Once upon a time, I had a really big crush on you, and I got caught up in that last night. But I won’t ever be a notch on your bedpost, Declan. Let’s face it; we’re different people. It was good to see you again. I’m happy to see you’ve done well for yourself, and I wish you the best.”
She stood then, her cafeteria tray in hand, and nodded to me. In her mind, that was the end of the conversation; there was nothing more to be said.
I nodded back, willing to concede for the time being, but it didn’t escape my notice that her hands were trembling, making the utensils on her tray clank quietly against her plate. And her step wasn’t nearly as steady as it had been before as she walked away and dumped her entire meal in the trash.
Well, that mission was a total failure. But maybe it was for the best. I’d lived by rules in my work to stay alive, and I’d carved out a careful set of rules when it came to women to stay free. One run-in with Sarah and I had been willing to toss the rulebook in the trash? What would be next? Hand over the other rulebook and play Russian roulette on the job?
No, I told myself as I strode out of the building. This was definitely for the best. I drove out of the lot three minutes later on the bike I’d managed to wrangle from the local mechanic, thank god. But as I pulled up to the motel, my mind was still right where it had been since I’d spotted Sarah in the coffee shop yesterday morning. What the hell was it about this woman?
She was perfectly fine with casual sex, just not with me. For a guy who didn’t get turned down very often, the knowledge wasn’t terribly welcomed. But maybe that explained my persistent interest in her: she was a challenge, and an unexpected one.
The Sarah I’d known would have fallen helplessly into my bed, but this woman, though obviously experiencing the same attraction I was, wanted to run in the opposite direction. Had that somehow made her more appealing? And if so, would it really be breaking any rules if what I was after wasn’t the off-limits woman, but the challenge itself?
Okay, so getting Sarah into bed wasn’t going to be a five-minute job, but damn it, victory was going to be sweet when I won.