Doctor In The House

He had a point, but so did she and as far as she was concerned hers trumped his. “Well, I don’t really have a choice now, do I?”

In response, she heard him laugh. Tired of being his source of amusement, the high she’d sustained watching him operate completely dissipated, Bailey swung around to face him. Superior or not, she was ready to give him a piece of her mind, the consequences be damned. Someone needed to take this man down a peg and it might as well be her last act at Blair.

But whatever words she attempted to hunt up died in her throat as she saw what the neurosurgeon held in his hands. Neatly folded scrubs, both top and bottoms. “You could put these on.” He raised one eyebrow quizzically. “Size small, right?”

“Right,” she murmured, surprised. The scrubs had not been there before. And the ones she’d obtained earlier for herself had come from the supply area. “Where did you get those?”

“Magic,” he informed her dryly. And then he nodded toward the closet behind him. “Scrubs for visiting surgeons are kept in there.”

Something else she hadn’t known. The list of things she needed to familiarize herself with was growing astronomically. And then she replayed his words in her head. “I’m not visiting.”

“Yes,” Ivan acknowledged with more than a tinge of sorrow, “I know.” He looked down at the scrubs. “If you don’t want these—” He raised the uniform blues up over his head and completely out of her reach.

“No!” she cried. Not knowing what the man was capable of, she made a lunge for the scrubs to retrieve them. Her body brushed up against his as she reached up as far as she could.

She felt the same way she had in physics class when she’d accidentally touched a live wire. Electrical current zapped through her body.

If her momentary panic amused him, he didn’t show it. Neither did he seem affected by the fleeting contact of her barely covered anatomy against his.

Instead, Ivan lowered his arm and very soberly presented the fresh scrubs to her. She snatched them up as if she didn’t trust him to surrender the clothes to her.

“I’m making afternoon rounds in five minutes,” he informed her as he turned on his heel. With that, he walked out of the locker room.

Bailey all but hopped into the blue scrubs while making her way to the door, grateful to finally put something on her body. Punching her arms through the sleeves, she caught up to him on the other side of the door.

“What about my locker?” she asked. She still had a problem.

His tone was completely disinterested. “What about it?”

She was beginning to understand why some residents used his picture as a dartboard. “I still need to open it.”

Passing the nurses’ station, he picked up a file without breaking stride. “Not now you don’t.”

“No,” she agreed. Bailey glanced down and saw that one of her laces was untied. She knew better than to stop to tie it. That was going to have to wait for a lull, too. “But later—”

“Is later,” he told her with finality, and it was obvious that as far as he was concerned, “later” had no place in the present. “It’ll take care of itself.”

Not without help, Bailey thought. She made a mental note to find either a janitor or a pair of bull cutters, preferably the former wielding the latter. She didn’t care about going home dressed in scrubs, even though it was chilly outside, but her locker, the locker she’d purposely left with an open combination lock hanging from it, also contained her purse, her keys and all of her identification. She couldn’t drive her car or get into her house without them.

She supposed, Bailey thought, shoving a loose pin back into her hair, she could hook up with either Adam or Jennifer and they could drive her home. But even if she did, that still didn’t solve the problem of getting her things out of the sealed locker.

“You’re panting, DelMonico,” Ivan observed, making a left at the end of the corridor.

No, she wasn’t, but she knew that arguing seemed pointless. “You’ve got on your seven league boots again, Doctor.”

His glance was just short of belittling as he slanted it in her direction. “I guess you’ll just have to get a pair, DelMonico.”

She nodded as if he’d just made a perfect plausible suggestion. She had a hunch he got a certain amount of pleasure rattling people and she refused to accommodate him. “Just tell me where to shop,” she replied without missing a beat.

Bailey thought she heard Munro mutter something under his breath but decided that she might be better off not knowing exactly what that was.

Christians, one. Lions, zero, she thought with a suppressed smile.

CHAPTER 10

“So, how is the great neurosurgeon doing?”

When the phone had rung a second ago, Bailey had debated between answering it and throwing it across the room. But because she was too exhausted to throw, she brought the receiver to her ear.

Hearing the voice made her miraculously sit up.

“Simon? Simon, is that you?” Even as she said his name, she brightened. Her older brother had always had that effect on her, bringing rays of hope into an otherwise gloomy atmosphere.

“None other. How’re you doing, kid?”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “Great now that I hear the sound of your voice.”

A tiny note of concern entered. “How were you before you heard the sound of my voice?” And then he became serious, ever the big brother. “They treating you all right?”

She didn’t want him worrying or thinking that she couldn’t take care of herself. She’d come a long way from that little girl who used to tag after him, shadowing his every move.

“By ‘they,’ do you mean the people at the hospital or my roommates?”

“Yes.”

Good old Simon, she thought, always touching as many bases as he can.

“My roommates are great. They’re both younger than I am, but I knew they would be.” She’d known going in that she would be the oldest resident there, but she couldn’t dwell on that. She was just grateful for the opportunity. “Part of me feels like I’m their den mother.”

“Can’t be that bad,” her brother scoffed. “You’re what—six, seven years older than they are? Maybe even less?”

“Something like that.”

“Honey, five, six, seven years, that’s nothing. You’re hardly in the den mother league. Or even the baby-sitter league,” he added.

She begged to differ. Bailey propped herself up on her elbows and moved back until she was resting against the pillows.

“You’re seven years older than I am and you always acted as if you were my second father. Still do, sometimes,” she added slyly.

“Rank has its privileges,” he told her, unfazed. “Really, Bay, are you okay? Do you need anything? Don’t be your proud, stubborn self. Tell me if you need something.”

“Batteries.”

“Batteries?” Simon repeated in disbelief. “Bailey, are you—”

She laughed, stopping him before he allowed his imagination to run away with him. “Batteries so I can keep going without crashing and embarrassing myself. I’m way beyond vitamins, coffee and energy drinks.”

“You don’t need batteries, Bay. What you need is sleep.”