The Temptation of Dr. Colton

Siren sounding, lights flashing, an ambulance arrived. Still holding the purple umbrella, Eric identified himself as a doctor and explained what he’d witnessed. He watched as the EMTs used the scoop stretcher to get the woman up and he informed them he would be going to the hospital with her.

Once she’d been safely secured inside the ambulance, he climbed in, too. Though careful to stay in the background and not interfere, he kept a sharp eye on them as they worked on the woman. A bruise had begun to form on one high, exotic cheekbone. Even banged up, he could tell she was pretty, maybe even beautiful.

A few minutes later, they pulled up at the ER. While the EMTs got everything ready to bring the patient in, Eric took her small, delicate hand. To his shock, she opened her eyes—they were a startling light blue.

“Walter?” she asked, her husky voice weak. Before he could respond, she drifted back into unconsciousness.

Eric strode ahead, barking out orders, as they brought the woman in. Though his shift was over and Dr. Gina Patel was now on call, he wanted to be kept fully apprised of this patient’s progress. He also figured the police would be around soon to question him, since he’d witnessed the entire thing, so he might as well hang around.

He stepped back and let the staff take care of the woman. When Dr. Patel came running around the corner, she stopped short at the sight of him.

“I thought you’d left.”

“I had. But I saw someone get run over, so I came back with her.”

Dr. Patel raised one brow. “I see. I imagine that’s the patient they’re paging me on.”

“It is.” He dragged his hand through his wet hair, surprised to see he still held the purple umbrella. “Please keep me apprised of her status.”

“Will do.” With a brusque nod, the other doctor hurried off.

As Eric had predicted, the police arrived shortly after. Since Eric’s brother Ryan was an officer for the Tulsa PD, they recognized Eric’s name. After Eric relayed everything he’d seen, which unfortunately didn’t include the license plate on the Town Car, they thanked him and left.

“Dr. Colton, you should go home.” Dr. Patel again, leaving the woman’s room and stopping directly in front of him. “You look exhausted and clearly need some rest. You’ve done your civic duty. I think this patient is going to live. We’ll let you know her status once we finish running all the tests. I’ve asked the neurologist on call to stop by as well.”

Standard protocol. Nodding wearily, Eric exhaled. “Okay, thanks. Keep me posted.” He knew he sounded abrupt, but if anyone would understand, it’d be the ER doctor.

He turned and headed toward the front door. Suddenly the process of trudging home in the rain—even with the woman’s umbrella—seemed unbearable, so he hailed a cab instead.

Once he arrived at his town house—five blocks away from the hospital—he overtipped the cab driver and dashed inside. Once there, he eyed the purple umbrella and realized he would need to return it to her.

Leaning it against the wall in his foyer, he changed out of his drenched scrubs and toweled off his short brown hair. After pouring himself a scotch—neat—he grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. Then he poured the scotch out and opted for water instead. He expected the hospital to call at any moment, telling him they were prepping the woman for surgery. He figured she probably had a traumatic brain injury, despite what Dr. Patel thought. After all, the other doctor hadn’t seen the woman get hit.

Too restless to sit, he paced in front of his floor-to-ceiling windows as dusk settled over the city.

That woman. He kept seeing the moment of impact over and over, like a video recording set on repeat that he couldn’t seem to turn off. While he dealt with traumatic injuries every day, from gunshot wounds and stabbings to car accidents, he was used to seeing the patient after.

Surely after being hit like that, she’d have some sort of issue. Hopefully not a brain injury, or something internal.

The physician in him itched to be the one to heal her. The man in him wanted to find out more about her. When she’d stepped out into the crosswalk, she’d moved with a jaunty stride, despite the rain. Her purple umbrella had white cupcakes printed all along the edge.

She’d had short brown hair with reddish highlights. Even soaking wet, it had still managed to retain its curl, framing her heart-shaped face nicely.

And her eyes... Something about them, maybe the unusual light blue color, intrigued him. Who was Walter? When she’d briefly regained consciousness, she’d managed to say his name, which meant he had to be someone important to her. A husband or lover?

Sipping the water, he rolled his neck and shoulders. Though his body felt exhausted, he couldn’t shut off his mind. He needed to unwind, somehow.

His building had a gym, but after being on his feet for the better part of twelve hours, the last thing he felt like doing was working out. Even though intellectually he knew it would be good for him, tonight he’d take a pass.

It was Friday night. He could call one of his brothers and see if they wanted to meet up to shoot some pool or drink a few beers, even though he’d have to stick with something nonalcoholic, just in case. But—no surprise here—he’d rather be alone.

Clicking the TV off, he turned on his Bose stereo, with his iPod set to play classical music—Bach, Beethoven, Mozart—and let the music wash over him. His taste in music had been the source of much amusement growing up on the family ranch, where everyone listened to Garth Brooks, George Strait, or Willie Nelson. One or two of his brothers had secretly listened to rock, but no one, not even his sister, Greta, understood Eric’s musical choices.

He didn’t care. The soaring notes and perfect melodies were the polar opposite of the often violent cases he saw each day.

Tonight though, even his favorite music couldn’t soothe him. He reached for his phone, tempted to call the ER and find out the mystery woman’s status. But he didn’t. After all, he was on call through the weekend and if anything happened with her, they’d page him. He expected this at any time. Sometimes, waiting really was the hardest part.

* * *

The woman opened her eyes, fighting back panic. Where was she? What had happened? Machines beeped, and she realized she had an IV in her arm. A hospital? She tried to remember. Had there been an accident? Had she been ill? Her head hurt. No, more than hurt. Throbbed. Pressing against her forehead with her hand, she wondered if she could make it stop.

As she struggled to sit up, she set off some kind of an alarm. A nurse came running. “You’re awake,” she said, as if being awake was something special.

The woman nodded, then winced. “My head hurts,” she said. “Actually, my entire body is in pain.”

“That’s to be expected. You were in a pretty serious accident, though you were lucky. Nothing is broken.”

Processing this, she squinted at the other woman. “Where am I?”

“Tulsa General.” The nurse bustled around her, silencing the screeching machine, checking various things. “How are you feeling?”

She had to think about that for a second. “I’m...not sure. Dizzy? Hungry? Thirsty, maybe?”

The nurse smiled. “We can fix that. But first, can you tell me your name? We couldn’t find any ID on you.”

Her name. She tried to recall, to think, battling through the pain, hating that her head felt so muzzy. Finally, with a grimace, she admitted defeat. “I don’t know. I can’t seem to remember. I just don’t remember anything.”

“That’s okay,” the nurse soothed. “Don’t worry about that right now. I’m sure it will come to you. Meanwhile, how about I see what I can do for you in the food department.”

As it turned out, not much. The attending doctor had ordered a liquid-only diet until all the test results were in. She was given some tasteless broth, and unsweetened tea. Which turned out to be okay, since an attempt to drink the broth had her gagging.

What on earth had happened to her, and why couldn’t she remember even her own name? After racking her brain, the woman closed her eyes and went to sleep.

* * *

Despite Eric’s certainty, a call didn’t come that night. He fought the urge to phone the hospital himself, well aware that he needed to force himself to have a little separation from work. His colleagues had been telling him that for months now. Heck, even the nursing staff had taken to asking him when he’d take a vacation.

Time off. Such a concept was for other people, not him. He’d worked too hard to perform his life’s work just to chuck it for a week or two. There probably existed a healthy balance between work and personal life, but for him such a thing was an abstract concept. A couple of guys he knew from back when they’d done their residencies had all complained about the eighty-and ninety-hour workweeks, but Eric never had. The more time he worked, the more he thrived.

Being a trauma surgeon was all he’d ever wanted to do. If not for his siblings’ insistence that he spend the occasional time hanging out with them, he figured he’d probably devote every waking hour to the hospital.

His three brothers, one sister and one half brother had made it their mission to ensure he saw his family. Even if Eric never found time to visit the Lucky C—the Colton family ranch—they all drove in to Tulsa to spend time with him. He appreciated this more than they knew. He valued his family connection and loved his siblings.

Their closeness helped Eric live with his parents’ distance. His mother and father never came to see him. Despite Eric’s oldest brother, Jack’s, dedication to the family business, Big J—as they called their father, John—had never gotten over his second son’s defection to another line of work. At least the man had an excuse, unlike Abra, his mother.

All through his youth, Eric’s mother had always been too self-involved, too busy with her travel and her shopping to care about her children. Only once her friends had begun commenting on how fortunate she was to have a doctor in the family did she begin to make noises of approval about his career. By then, it had been too little, too late.

Eric told himself he’d gotten used to the fact that neither of his parents had even seen his town house. He even wondered what it said about him that his parents’ lack of interest in his life rarely bothered him anymore.