The Nightshift Before Christmas

“Green! Good to see you remember red always makes my complexion look a bit blotchy.”

Katie blew a raspberry at him. She wasn’t playing.

“Or is it that you remember green always brings out the blue in my eyes?” He winked and took hold of the scrubs, trapping her hand beneath his.

Just feeling his touch reawakened things in Katie she had hoped she’d long-ago laid to rest. Her eyes lifted to meet his. Stormy sea-gray right now. Later... He was right. Later they’d be blue, and later still the color of flint. She had loved looking into his eyes, never knowing what to expect, trying to figure out how to describe the kaleidoscope of blues and grays, ever-shifting...ever true.

As the energy between them grew taut, the butterflies that had long lain dormant in her belly took flight, leaving heated tendrils in their wake. She tugged her hand free of his and gave him a curt smile. Physical contact with Josh was going to have to be verboten if she was going to keep it together for the next eight days. It was bad enough he’d seen her red-rimmed eyes.

She glanced at her watch.

T-minus...oh, about one hundred and ninety-two hours and counting!

“Twenty-four hours.”

“Beg pardon?” Josh shook his head.

Hadn’t he been riding the same train of thought she had? If she’d gone off on a magical journey down memory lane, the chances were relatively high he’d done the same thing. Different tracks—different destinations.

She cleared her throat. There was about half an ounce of resolve left within her and she needed to use it. “I’m giving you twenty-four hours.”

He raised his eyebrows and gave her his What gives? face.

“Oh, don’t play the fool, Josh. You’ve ambushed me. Pure and simple. And on—” She stopped, only just missing having her voice break. “It’s the minimum notice I have to give the agency if I want a replacement.”

“What are you on about, Kitty-Kat?” He pulled himself up to his full height. Josh always played fair and he could see straight through her. This was a below-the-belt move.

She jigged a nothing-to-do-with-me shrug out of her shoulders, her eyes anywhere but on his. “If it’s quiet enough we might be able to let you go earlier without telling the agency.”

She might not want him here, but she didn’t want to tarnish his record. He was a good doctor. Just a lousy husband. She squirmed under his intent gaze, pretty sure he was reading her mind. A sort of, kind of lousy husband.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Christmas is always busy! You’re going to need me. What kind of man would I be, leaving you to deal with a busy ER all on your own?”

“That’s terribly chivalrous of you, Josh. I’m going to need a doctor—yes. But I don’t need you.” She looked at her watch again, not wanting to see how deep her words had hit. Laceration by language was way out of her comfort zone—but tough. Josh had pushed her there—and she had an ER to run.

“Sorry, I’ve got to get to this patient.”

“Yup! I’m certainly looking forward to mine!” He mimed snapping on a pair of gloves with a guess-it’s-time-to-suck-it-up smile.

If she was feeling generous, she had to give it to him for keeping his cool. Assigning him a rectal examination as a “welcome gift” was not, she suspected, the reunion he had been hoping for. Then again, finding out her estranged husband would be her locum for the next week wasn’t much of a Christmas present for her, so tough again! Hadn’t two years’ worth of sending him divorce papers given him enough of a clue?

“Uh... Kate?”

“Yes?”

“Are you going to move so I can get my patient’s Christmas ornament back on the tree?”

“Yes!” she blurted, embarrassed to realize she’d been staring. “Yes, of course. I was just...” She stopped. She wasn’t “just” anything. She stepped back and let him pass.

“I’m happy to see you, too, Katiebird,” he said at the doorway, complete with one of those looks she knew could see straight through to her soul.

She rubbed her arms to force the accompanying goose bumps away.

“Me, too,” she whispered into the empty room. “Me, too.”

* * *

“Hello, there... Mr. Kingston? I understand you’ve got a bleeding—” Katie swiftly moved her eyes from the chart to the patient, instantly regretting that she’d wasted valuable time away from her patient.

Unable to resist the gore factor, the young man had lowered his hand below his heart and tugged off the temporary tourniquet the nurse had put in place. Blood was spurting everywhere. If he hadn’t looked so pale she would have told him off, but Ben Kingston looked like he was about to—

Oops!

Without a moment to spare Katie lurched forward, just managing to catch him in a hug before he slithered to the floor.

“Can I get a hand in here? We’ve got a fainter!”

Katie was only just managing to hold him on the exam table and smiled in thanks at the quick arrival of— Oh. It was Josh. Natch.

He quickly assessed the situation, wordlessly helping Katie shift the patient back onto the exam table, checking his airways were clear, loosening the young man’s buttoned-at-the-top shirt collar and loosening his snug belt buckle by a much-needed notch or two as she focused on stanching the flow of blood with a thick stack of sterile gauze.

“Got a couple extra pillows for foot elevation?”

“Yup.” Katie pointed to the locker where they stored extra blankets and pillows. “Would you mind handing me a digital tourniquet first? I’ll see if I can stem the bleeding properly while he’s still out.”

“Sure thing.” Josh stood for a moment, gloved hands held out from his body as they would be in surgery, and ran his eyes around the room to hunt down supplies.

“Sorry, they’re in the third drawer down— Wait!” Her eyes widened and dropped to Josh’s gloved hands. “Weren’t you in the middle of...?”

She felt a sharp jag of anger well up in her. Typical, Josh! Running to the rescue without thinking for a single moment about protocol! Was simple adherence to safe hygiene practices too much to ask?

“Done and dusted.” He nodded at the adjacent exam area. “He’s going through the paperwork with Jorja.” He took in her tightened lips and furrowed eyebrows and began to laugh. Waving his hands in the air, still laughing, he continued, “You didn’t think...? Katie West—”

“It’s McGann,” she corrected quietly.

“Yeah, whatever.” The smile and laughter instantly fell away. “I always double-glove during internal exams. These are perfectly clean. You should know me better than that.” His eyes shifted away from hers to the patient, the disappointment in his voice easy to detect. “You good here?”

She nodded, ashamed of the conclusion she’d leaped to. Josh was a good doctor. Through and through. It was the one thing she’d never doubted about him. He had a natural bedside manner. An ability to read a situation in an instant. Instinctual. All the things she wasn’t.

She slipped the ringed tourniquet onto the young man’s finger and checked his pulse again. It wasn’t strong, but he’d be all right with a bit of a rest and a finger no longer squirting an unhealthy portion of his ten pints of blood everywhere. He’d need a shot of lidocaine with epinephrine before she could properly sort it out, so she would need to wait for him to come to. Being halfway through an injection wasn’t the time when a patient should regain consciousness. Especially when Josh was leaping through curtained cubicles, coming to her rescue. She jiggled her shoulders up and down. It wouldn’t happen again.

“Are you nervous, Doc?”

“Ah! You’re back with us!” Katie turned around in time to stop the young man from pushing himself up to a seated position. “Why don’t you just lie back for a while, okay? I have a feeling your finger didn’t start bleeding half an hour ago, like it says in your chart, Ben.”

He looked at her curiously.

“Is it okay if I call you Ben?”