Uncovering Her Secrets

It wasn’t really stalking. It was more like anti-stalking. In a stalker sort of way.

And now she stood behind him, no more than a yard away.

Another hour passed.

“How’s it going over there?” She asked for updates regularly but hadn’t made any more attempts to manipulate him by riling him. Something else he should put off thinking about until later when he was deciding whether to come back to St. Vincent’s.

“Closing,” Preston answered. “Transfused two pints of blood.” No doubt this wasn’t exactly what the board had in mind for supervised practice.

“Good. I need you.” To help with the surgery. She needed his assistance with the surgery. The words she’d chosen were bad, but they had no hidden meaning.

“How is she doing on blood?” he asked.

A surgical nurse helped him out of his gown and gloves and into a fresh set.

“Up to three, probably adding another...” She never looked away from her patient.

His first view inside the woman’s chest nearly robbed him of breath. “We could do with a cardiac surgeon.” Could they ever. But in the small cavity his hands joined hers, and they worked in tandem to repair damage that appeared irreversible.

“That’s who I’ve been asking for updates on,” she muttered, but she still worked. She wouldn’t give up. It was one thing he could give her credit for. Well, that and her skill. On a professional level Dasha was good. It was as a human being that she had failed.

His left eye twitched. He squinted. Sometimes taking charge of those muscles helped. Sometimes it didn’t. Working with Dasha might be a deal-breaker. He’d have to think about it.

Later.

When he relaxed the muscles around his eye, his sight sharpened and he saw it. There was a small cut on Mrs. Andrews’s heart, but it had not gone through. “Damn.”

“What is it?” Dasha stopped what she was doing long enough to look where his hands were.

“She needs to go on the pump,” Preston said. “Now.” That the heart wall had held this long was a miracle.

“Get the line in her. Go femoral, we don’t need any more holes north of the belt,” Dasha said, then went back to what she was doing. Already the techs were getting the heart-lung machine in place. They’d started moving the second he said the word pump. Preston could get used to that.

A cannula landed in his hand and he prodded around on the woman’s thigh to find the artery, swabbed with alcohol and threaded it in. By the time he was ready for the return line, the nurse was waiting for him.

He’d no more gotten it settled than a man pushed into the OR.

Nettle. Preston recognized him then. The name hadn’t rung any bells but he’d met this cardiac surgeon before. A golfing buddy of his father’s. Which was all Preston needed to know about him. He could jump to some conclusions on his own. Probably decent at his job, but arrogant, and proud of that arrogance.

“Dr. Hardin, step back, please,” Nettle said, allowing a nurse to help with the gloves.

“She’s got a laceration that isn’t through the muscle.” Preston gestured to the area where the rod had scuffed up Mrs. Andrews’s heart.

“I see it,” Nettle said.

Preston stayed put but lifted his hands free and out of the way, ready to go back in if needed. Yes, he wanted the cardiac surgeon to get there, but now he just felt uneasy and over the years he’d learned to trust that feeling. No way was he leaving without a fight, he just had to try and handle it...tactfully.

Dasha talked the surgeon through what had been done, her team continuing with the pump to get the blood cooling so they could stop her heart and repair it. She hit all the pertinent details, which should’ve made him feel better about the hand-off. But a report wasn’t the same as having seen where the rod had been.

“Thank you both. I’ve got it from here,” Nettle said.

“Don’t you need another set of—?” Preston almost got through his question.

“I have another set of hands. I brought them.” Just then the door swung open and a younger version of the man made his way to the table.

“I’d still like to stay and help.” Preston tried to keep his request in a moderate, reasonable tone. Surely the man couldn’t object to that. “I’ll stay out of the way unless you need me.”

“If she needs her appendix removed, you’ll be the first person we call,” Nettle said. His tone light, no aggression there, but it reeked of condescension.

Nettle had obviously not gotten Dasha’s memo on being nice to everyone.

Preston caught Dasha shaking her head almost imperceptibly at him. Not the time to fight. He knew that. Of course it wasn’t the time, but there was no other time to make a stand and stay with the patient. He couldn’t just leave now and ask later over drinks.

“She’s in good hands,” Dasha said diplomatically, and began trying to steer him toward the door.

“You can’t be all right with this,” he hissed in her ear.

“No,” she whispered back, “but it isn’t going to help Mrs. Andrews if we distract him.” She surreptitiously nodded to a camera above the table.

Preston pulled off his gloves and gown and headed for the door. As soon as she was through it, he grabbed her by the elbow. “Where is the monitor?”

“Next door.” Dasha fished her keys out of her pocket again, and before a minute passed they were crowded around a monitor, following the surgery.

“Is this recording?” Preston asked, looking the room over. “Can we zoom in or something?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know.” Dasha didn’t look away from the screen, but she did get the phone and managed to dial while they watched. “It should be fine. He’s got excellent stats and qualifications. He’s a good surgeon. A little territorial...and it was weird of him to kick us out. Do you two know one another? It seemed like he knew you and didn’t like you.”

“I noticed.” He kept his eyes on the screen. It’d be easier to see if he was there—and easier to pay attention if Dasha was anywhere else—but Mrs. Andrews was her patient too and he wasn’t going to be Nettle-like and kick her out just because her proximity bothered him. He was tough. He could handle it. He’d had five years to get her out of his system. This was just like taking a recovering alcoholic to a bar...the temptation was there, no matter how much he knew it was a bad idea to even think about it. Ignore her scent. Don’t think about the way she tasted. Don’t think about her at all.

If he paid attention to the small screen, to everything the surgeons were doing, he could see if they were in trouble, and—he prayed—have time to get there. Not that it was likely they’d not be able to handle whatever situation they got into, but he just didn’t want to let go. The idea that Mr. Andrews would have to recover from surgery and from losing his wife was too much to stomach on his first day. Especially with all this Dasha business he had to stomach.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Dasha spoke, interfering with his plan to ignore her.

“We’ve met. Nothing happened. But he golfs with my father. I imagine Nettle hears a lot of ranting from Davis P.,” Preston muttered, forcing it to the back of his mind now that he had to try and see clearly from the angle of the camera and the small screen he was viewing on.

“Mr. Andrews is awake.” She passed the phone to him, letting him get an update on his other patient.

“Tell him she’s still in surgery.” He paused and then added, “And with really good surgeons.”

God, he hated lying. The man might be a good surgeon—that was still up for debate—but he was an ass. And all this talking interrupted his monitoring. He hung up and refocused. Someone had to make sure it was done right.

* * *

Dasha kept one eye on the screen and the other on Preston. Alone in a small room together...at least they reeked of surgical soap, nothing sexy about that.

Despite a near hiccup with Nettle, Preston was a professional in surgery. Somewhere in the back of her mind Dasha had known he would be, even if she’d irritated him just moments before. He took his work seriously. He took his patients and his duty to them seriously. Which was what made the situation at Davidson West, his last hospital, so confusing.

Something had to have happened. Something she needed details about. The missing details worried her.