Then everything changed. And it all happened so fast.
One minute Cindy was running a long-handled dusting tool over the linoleum floor, the next Nathan was there with a tiny baby. He was calmly issuing orders like a general in the thick of battle.
The common sense move was to get out of the way even if directions to do just that in the event of a medical crisis hadn’t been drilled into her. Cindy had been employed at Mercy Medical Center for nearly two years and had seen her share of medical situations but never one involving Nathan Steele. She knew what he did, had seen his medical practice partner in action, but she had never actually witnessed him saving a little life. And she had a bad feeling that her life was about to change. She couldn’t help thinking that darn raffle ticket had somehow altered fate to put her in his orbit.
From her protected position against the wall she could hear the team talking and knew the baby boy was a twenty-five-weeker born just minutes ago by C-section. That made him about four months premature. He was already intubated, and they were using a bag to force air into his lungs. The person bagging the baby was her friend, Harlow Marcelli, who worked in the Respiratory Therapy department.
Cindy couldn’t really see what the staff was doing to the baby, but Nathan was taller than everyone and the strain and intensity on his face were clearly visible. When bodies parted, she noticed that he was using two fingers on the tiny chest, compressions for cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
After listening with the stethoscope, he said, “Let’s get him on a ventilator. IV line stat and electrodes for EKG. I need to surf him.”
She made a mental note to ask what that meant.
Meanwhile, the troops moved to follow his orders, and moments later there were tubes and machines in place. Tracings on the monitors were blue, green and pink—each to distinguish a different function to be watched.
“I need blood gases,” Nathan said.
Instantly Harlow moved, like a runner off the block at the sound of the starting pistol. In a few minutes, Nathan looked at the readings and nodded.
“He’s a fighter. I think the little gladiator is stable for the moment. Watch him. I want to know if anything changes. I’ll be right outside.” He looked at the staff who’d fought with him. “Great job, everyone. I’m going to talk to the dad. Mom’s still in recovery.”
Cindy moved slightly to her right, to see through the double glass doors and out into the hall. The father was probably in his late twenties or early thirties, blonde and blue eyed, with terror all over his face. She couldn’t hear what was said, but as Nathan talked some of the fear drained from the man’s expression, leaving your garden-variety worry in its wake. When the man glanced over, she could also see love for the tiny little life fighting to survive. The gladiator, Nathan had called him.
Just last night he’d told her that if he couldn’t see or touch something, he didn’t believe it existed. How could he not see the love in that father’s eyes?
“He’s pretty awesome, isn’t he?”
Cindy jumped at the sound of her friend’s voice, then turned. “You startled me. I didn’t know you were there.”
“Yeah. I can see you’re distracted.” Harlow Marcelli was a pretty, green-eyed brunette and the fairy godmother who’d loaned her the patched-up pumps for the fundraiser.
“Not preoccupied. Just doing my job,” she defended.
“Yeah.” Her friend glanced to where the two men were still talking. “If your job is to watch Dr. Hot Stuff.”
“Not my day to keep an eye on him.” Cindy deliberately turned her back to the doors. “No matter how many times I see you do your thing, it never fails to amaze me. You were pretty awesome just now.”
“Thanks.” Harlow slid a glance over her shoulder at the isolette surrounded by state-of-the-art equipment. “He’s not out of the woods yet. I hope he’s a fighter like the doc said.”
“Me, too. The gladiator.” She smiled.
“The staff usually gives the preemies nicknames,” Harlow explained, echoing what Nathan had already told her. “Something inspirational to live up to.”
“Live being the operative word. It surprised me coming from Nathan—” She stopped when the other woman gave her a funny look.
“Since when do you call him by his first name?”
“Oh, that—”
“Yeah, that.”
Cindy glanced over her shoulder where he still stood in the hall. “We sat at the same table at the fundraiser last night.”
“And?”
“The glue on your shoe didn’t hold up.”
“Later with the shoes news.” Harlow’s green eyes snapped with impatience. “When did you start calling Dr. Charming Nathan?”
“Last night. When he asked me to.”
“Why?” Her friend added, “Did he ask you to, I mean?”
“Probably because he didn’t know who I was.”
“I need more information than that.”
Cindy gripped the long handle of her dusting device. “He sat next to me, bought me a drink and said I looked familiar, but he couldn’t place me.”
“He didn’t recognize you?” Surprise jumped into Harlow’s eyes.
“Not even when I made him guess.”
“You didn’t,” her friend scoffed.
“I did.” Cindy had her reasons and it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
“Hot damn,” Harlow said. “I can’t wait to tell Whitney and Mary Frances that we literally transformed you into a mystery woman. That’s so cool.”
“Not really. When I saw him this morning, he figured it out.”
When he smelled her perfume. That memory made her stomach do a funny little shimmy and she told herself it was only because something that sensitive was out of character for Nathan Steele.
“Was he mad?”
It would have been easier if he had been. Then giving him a hard time would have been justified and not just turned her into a roaring witch.
“No. He took it well. Even apologized to me for overreacting and yelling at me in here yesterday. Then he asked for my phone number again,” Cindy explained.
The other woman’s jaw dropped. “Again?”
“I refused to give it to him when he asked me last night. After he caught up with me. And he only did because your shoe broke.”
“He chased you?” Harlow folded her arms over her chest. “This gets better and better.”
“It was time for me to go.”
“Apparently he didn’t agree.”
“That’s just because my identity was still in question and that intrigued him,” Cindy said. “Sort of like when a superhero assumes an alter ego. It’s the whole don’t-I-know-her-from-somewhere? thing.”
“Then what was his excuse for asking again today?”
“He’s one of those guys who can’t take no for an answer.”
“And why should he? Women in this hospital are taking numbers in the line to snap him up.” Warning slid into her friend’s eyes. “Let him call. You don’t have to commit to anything. And I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“Preaching to the choir, H,” Cindy said. “I don’t have time for the games.”
Just then Nathan walked back into the unit to check on the