One Night With The Army Doc

Strange as it sounded, for a person who made her living in front of the camera, she’d always seen fame as a necessary evil. Curing the incurable, solving the unsolvable medical puzzles—that was her true love, the real driving force behind why she did what she did. In fact, the thought of being able to melt into the woodwork as she saved her latest patient sounded like pure bliss, if highly unlikely. Her network’s syndication deals ensured that her show reached nearly every corner of the globe.

So much for privacy and anonymity.

Molly frowned at the digital clock on her dashboard. She’d been scheduled to meet with the chief of staff at Anchorage Mercy General Hospital twenty minutes ago, but her late-arriving flight, followed by the rental car’s faulty GPS, seemed to have other ideas.

Add in the fact that the sun was setting over Cook Inlet, which was the opposite of where it had been when she’d left Ted Stevens International Airport at least an hour prior, gave her the sinking feeling she’d been driving in circles.

Overhead, an eagle swooped through the air, its low cries eerily haunting in the autumn evening. Despite her conundrum, Molly had to admit Alaska was lovely. Too bad she wouldn’t have time to appreciate much of the gorgeous scenery, given her tight production schedule and the seriousness of her patient’s case. Work came first, as always.

The male moose huffed and shook his mighty antlers before ambling into the forest on the opposite side of the four-lane road. Molly stared wistfully at the spot where he’d disappeared into the thick foliage, wishing she could find where she belonged so easily. Then her pragmatic instincts kicked back in and she focused on her current mission—find the hospital, locate her crew, save her patient.

Determined, Molly pulled back out onto the road and continued around a slight curve—only to slam on her brakes again. Now she could see why oncoming traffic had been virtually nonexistent. Judging by the array of emergency vehicles blocking all four lanes, there had been an accident.

As a licensed physician, it was her duty to assist when needed. Critics of her show always complained that she had the bedside manner of dry toast, but her real skill was as a diagnostician. And when she was working on a case everything else fell by the wayside—friends, family, romantic relationships. She’d sacrificed everything for her patients, and success was her reward.

A twinge of loneliness pinched her chest before she shoved it aside. The last thing Molly needed was a relationship. Especially since her last one had ended without warning. She parked on the berm, cut the engine, then blinked back the unexpected sting of tears as she walked around to the rear of the SUV.

Yes, maybe she did sometimes wish she had someone to share her life with. But, as her father had always said when she was a child, “Wishes are for fools. People like us seize what they want.”

Trouble was, Molly had never felt like her father’s kind of people. Or her mother’s, for that matter. In fact there wasn’t really a single member of her family, parents or sister, that she truly identified with. So she’d learned early on to live inside herself and bide her time. Now, though, it seemed she’d gotten so good at keeping her emotions bottled up she couldn’t seem to show them at all—not even with the people she should. People like Brian.

She shook off thoughts of her ex and rummaged through the car for her emergency first aid kit. The pungent smell of spruce, mixed with a faint hint of fish and salt from the inlet, snapped her to attention.

Dressed comfortably for the nearly seven-hour flight from Chicago to Alaska, Molly didn’t pay much attention to her appearance—jeans, sneakers and one of her favorite T-shirts that read, “Back Up. I’m going to try Science”—as she approached the nearby officer guarding the perimeter of the scene.

“Dr. Molly Flynn.” She drew herself up to her full five-foot-four-inch height and held out her hand to the middle-aged guy. “Looks like there’s an accident ahead. Do they require assistance?”

The cop looked her up and down, his expression dubious. “What are you, twelve?”

“Twenty-seven, actually, thanks for asking.”

Molly adjusted her bag, undeterred. She’d put up with plenty of crap through the years because of her gifts. She’d graduated medical school at the ripe old age of twenty-four, with dual specialties in Immunology and Internal Medicine, but nothing made a girl feel less welcome and confident than having no friends and no one to sit with at the lunch table.

“Do I have to show my physician’s license or are you going to point me toward the scene, Officer...?”

“Bentz.” He sniffed and looked away. “The EMTs arrived a little while ago. Pretty sure they’ve got it under control.”

“I see.”

The man was dismissing her, but she was used to that too. Her mother had always been present, but aloof, and when her father had been home from performing amazing feats of surgical genius all over the world he’d only wanted to parade Molly around like some prize show pony instead of treating her like his beloved child.

“Molly, solve this impossible equation.”

“Molly, impress my friends with another feat of mental acrobatics.”

“Molly, earn my love by always doing what you’re told, always being perfect, always performing, no matter what.”

Her cell phone buzzed and Molly pulled it from her pocket, hoping for an update from her crew. Instead, all she found was the same dumb message that had been on her screen since before takeoff from O’Hare. The stupid text from her ex glowed brightly, its cheerful white background at direct odds with the dismal words.

I can’t do this anymore.

Not sure you’ll even notice I’m gone.

She resisted the urge to mic-drop the useless device into a nearby mud puddle and instead returned it to her pocket.

Looking back, she should’ve expected the break-up. Brian had always been complaining about her long hours and frequent trips, even though she’d been up-front with him about her demanding schedule from the beginning. And their blazing fights over the past few weeks had only served to resurrect painful memories of her father’s indifference and cruelty when she’d been a child—the day he’d called her weak for crying over the death of her pet cat, the way he’d taunted her because she hadn’t been able to make friends with the popular girls in her class, the night she’d graduated from medical school and overheard her father saying what a hopeless, awkward mess she was and how embarrassed he was to have her for a daughter because she’d been denied the membership of the Ivy League exclusive clubs and cliques her father had deemed necessary to mingle in his lofty social circles.

Even now those words gutted Molly to her core.

Brian, in the end, had pushed those same agonizing buttons, causing Molly to withdraw inside herself until they’d been basically nothing but glorified roommates. Still, she’d thought the year and a half they’d spent together rated more than a two-line text to end it all.

She guessed she’d been wrong about that too.

One more reason relationships were off her radar. Not even one-night stands. She preferred certainties to messy emotions, thank you very much. And, honestly, why bother when people left once you’d opened up and revealed your true, flawed self to them. Luckily, she wasn’t likely to find a man who’d challenge those beliefs out here in Alaska.

Ignoring the lingering sadness in her chest, she concentrated on Officer Not Budging, still blocking her path. Intimidation was out of the question, given the guy had at least a hundred and fifty pounds on her, but maybe a healthy dose of mind-numbing logic would do the trick.

Whenever she felt overstressed or insecure, random facts always popped into Molly’s head and out of her mouth. Blind dates, heated confrontations, heated situations of any sort, really. She’d ramble on and on about useless information until the poor victim’s eyes glazed over and they wandered off in a fog of utter boredom.

Considering she was thousands of miles from home, hopelessly lost, and late for a potentially career-altering meeting, Molly couldn’t get much more stressed. Plus, she’d done some light reading on the flight—facts and figures about Alaska, atlases, safety manuals, wildlife guides. Perfect for boring an unsuspecting cop to tears.

“Officer Bentz, did you know traffic fatalities in this state increased by twenty-six point eight percent from fifty-six in 2010 to seventy-two in 2011? Also, the percentage of statewide traffic fatalities related to alcohol-impaired driving decreased from thirty-four point three percent in 2009 to twenty-eight point six percent in 2010...”

Molly hid a smile. The man was fidgeting, his expression growing more uncomfortable the longer she droned. Soon the poor guy stifled a yawn and gazed skyward.

Chalk up another win for her near-eidetic memory.

“Most interesting of all...”

Officer Bentz looked at Molly again, his eyes as blank as his expression. “Go on ahead. I’m sure you can help with something. In fact, ask for Jake. He’s with the ambulance crew tonight. He owes me one anyway.”

“Thank you very much.”

She turned on her heel and sidled through the maze of squad cars and fire trucks toward what she could now see was an overturned vehicle. During her emergency medicine rotation in Chicago, Molly had treated plenty of accident victims. That had been a while ago, however, and she’d been out of the ER trenches since signing on to do her TV show.

Fresh nerves and adrenaline quickened her steps and her pulse. Amidst the bright floodlights set up around the perimeter of the scene, Molly peered past the end of an ambulance in time to see a huge metal claw rip off a chunk of twisted debris from the SUV’s side.

“Dammit.” A man stalked over, his gray eyes sparkling with fury, his impressive build only adding to his imposing presence. “The cops are supposed to keep any rubberneckers away.”

Molly looked around to see who he was scolding and realized, too late, that it was her.

“Get out.” He stood at least a foot taller than her. And from the top of his dark brown hair to the tips of his black work boots the guy looked every inch the alpha protector. “Before you get hurt.”

“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

She did her best to stand tall and forget about the fact this man was movie-star-handsome. Even with the beard. Molly had never gone for the lumberjack look before, but he made her seriously reconsider her life choices.

“The cop back there said I should ask for Jake.”