with her, he’d left the room. Left her to deal with the patient on her own and found his own case.
An emergency appendectomy.
He pulled off his soiled gown, tossed it in the laundry bin and threw the gloves in the waste receptacle before heading to the sink.
“Thank you for that.”
Nick glanced over his shoulder and stepped on the bar under the sink, turning on the water so he could scrub.
“For what?” he asked, feigning innocence, though he was anything but. He knew exactly what she was talking about.
“You know very well.”
Nick shook the excess water into the sink and grabbed a towel. “I thought you deserved an interesting case on your first day.”
Jennifer raised an eyebrow. “Swallowing part of a birthday card isn’t very interesting.”
“How can you say that? He serenaded you with every hiccup.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It was an annoying song.”
“How many of those have you seen?”
“None.”
Nick shrugged. “Then I don’t really see the argument. You got an interesting case.”
“Which I promptly passed on to a resident to retrieve through an endoscope.”
“You gave it up?” Nick gasped.
Jennifer just rolled her eyes and walked away from him.
Just let her go.
Only he couldn’t. He followed her. “I can’t believe you gave it to your resident.”
“It was easy for my resident to do.”
“I gave you an interesting surgery. You could’ve had my appendectomy instead.” He fell into step beside her. “I could’ve kept it.”
Jennifer snorted. “I wish you had. As it is, Dr. Fallon is an excellent surgical resident and I’m sure I left the patient in capable hands.”
“I’m sure you did.”
Jennifer stopped and turned to face him. “You did well in there. I mean, I didn’t have a good view way up in the gallery, but you have a good touch with your interns and residents in the OR.”
Her admiration, her praise pleased him. A lot of people had avoided him since his mishap when he’d first arrived. It’s why he was known as a lone wolf, though he wasn’t. Not really.
Nick nodded. “Thank you for your professional appraisal. Is that why you came to the gallery?”
She hesitated and tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. “Of course. Why else would I come?”
Nick didn’t believe her for one second. He didn’t know her well, but he knew when someone was lying. It was a sort of superpower of his, and she was lying.
“I thought you wanted to call me out on the carpet for a swallowed birthday card.”
Her brow furrowed and a flicker of a smile played across her pink, kissable lips.
Get a hold on yourself. Stop thinking about them as kissable.
“It did keep playing the music over and over. I hope his birthday wasn’t totally ruined. However, my appearance in the gallery was because I’m evaluating all my trauma surgeons.”
“Should I be worried?”
She smiled slyly. “Is there a reason why you should be worried?”
Nick chuckled. Run. Turn and run.
Tension hovered between them and he longed to kiss her again. All he had to do was reach out and touch her. Put his arm around her and bring her close to him, pull her against his body and—
His pager went off before he even had a chance to do anything. Saved by the bell.
“Let’s go, Dr. Rousseau.” Jennifer held up her pager. “Large trauma coming in.”
She pushed past him and ran down the hall.
Avoiding her was harder than he thought.
He was doomed.
Jennifer watched him work across the ER. A large pileup on the interstate had flooded the hospital with crash victims. Thankfully, there were no interesting cases. Just regular trauma—not that it was good, but at least she could scrub in instead of having residents fish music makers out of kids’ stomachs.
She’d gone to the gallery to call him out, but then she’d watched him do the appendectomy. Had seen how he’d taught his residents and interns. He’d been so calm and the fluid motion of his hands as he’d inverted the stump had been pure poetry.
Her ex-fiancé wouldn’t have lowered himself to do an appendectomy. Even though he was a cardiothoracic surgeon, an appendectomy was beneath him. Best left to the general surgeons and residents.
Appendectomies were easy. What he’d wanted had been the high-profile cases. The cases that would get him the press coverage, would give him the glory.
When she’d first met David, she’d admired his drive and she’d swooned when he’d paid her attention. He’d made her feel like a princess, but all she had been was a trophy, and when he’d found something brighter, something shinier, she’d been dropped.
David had got what he’d wanted from her. The publicity, the research and her heart.
Nick seemed to revel in simplicity. Or at least that’s what she got from watching his surgery, his easygoing attitude, but he was guarded.
There was a wall there, one he used flirting to hide, but he was keeping people out. In her brief time talking to other staff members, they’d said he was a bit of a loner. Kept to himself, ate his lunch alone and not many people knew much about him.
The only conversations he engaged in were medical. Case files, papers. The only other thing the staff knew about him was that he had served in the military and been decorated. Something about bravery, but no one knew for sure.
There was also an incident about him getting angry with another surgeon and smashing a window in the doctors’ lounge. Anger issues, which had been swept under the rug. It had happened so soon after his return from overseas that people had given him the benefit of the doubt, but for the most part the staff stayed away from him.
Jennifer would’ve never pegged him to have anger issues.
Everything about him was a mystery.
And she couldn’t help but wonder why.
Don’t wonder. Just keep away.
It was for the best. She was here to work. To be a surgeon. She didn’t need or want love.
When the hubbub of the ER died down and she was scrubbing out of surgery, she saw Nick again. He was rushing down the hall, his surgical gown billowing out behind him as he pushed a gurney to Recovery.
He was a mystery man and she had a thing for mystery men.
Damn.
She glanced at the clock. She still had six hours left on her shift and it was now after midnight. She really needed to get some sleep.
Jennifer headed to the nearest on-call room and collapsed on a cot. As she lay down, she glanced at the nightstand and saw a medical journal.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” She picked up the magazine and stared at the grinning face of the man who’d left her standing in a white puffy dress while the press had snapped thousands of pictures of the disgraced, heartbroken and jilted senator’s daughter.
The