Chapter 2
Chapter Two
“It makes no sense!” Josie said to her friend Sara as she tried to peel back the wrapper on her cream cheese packet. “I mean, why is this happening to me? I can’t go within two feet of Dr. Hayes without dropping something.”
It only happened when he was in the room.
Left on her own, she was capable and confident.
But when Houston Hayes approached her with his deep, penetrating stare and towering strength, blood pressure cuffs seemed to jump out of her hands and to the floor.
Scalpels dropped and spun like bottles. Her hands shook, her hips knocked into gurneys and surgical trays, and she tripped over intravenous tubing.
It had to stop.
She was a grown woman of twenty-seven, with a medical degree, well-respected by the hospital staff and her patients. She was starting the second year of her orthopedic residency with relative ease and competence. Except for the Dr. Hayes-induced Dropping Medical Equipment Syndrome.
Sara raised her eyebrow and stirred cream into her coffee. “It’s called sexual tension, Josie.”
All Josie heard was sex. The top pulled back with a sudden jerk and the cream cheese container went sailing out of her hand.
It skidded to a stop under the table next to her, where two male doctors were eating their dinner by the windows that boasted a view of the Florida coastline.
She sat there stricken while Sara grinned at her. Josie was not amused.
“It’s not sexual tension,” she whispered urgently, standing to retrieve the now useless bagel spread.
That was a lie. No matter what he felt, it was definitely sexual tension on her part.
For one simple reason.
Dr. Hayes was a god.
Every inch of him—from his short black hair, to his gorgeous ice-blue eyes, and all down the length of his muscular, toned body—screamed power. Control.
A man who knew what he wanted and took it without any doubts or delays. The desire to be the taken had been creeping up on her steadily until she had found herself suffering from chronic klutziness in his presence.
So maybe what Sara said did make sense. But that didn’t make it any easier.
Josie bent under the neighboring table and said to the pair of doctors, “Sorry, guys, I dropped my cream cheese.” They moved their legs while she fished out the wayward package, neither surprised nor upset to see Josie on the floor collecting fallen items. Her colleagues at Acadia Inlet Hospital were starting to expect it.
“No problem, Josie,” Mark Givens said with a grin, tucking into his hamburger.
His grin said it all. Everyone thought she was a royal idiot, incapable of holding onto a simple pack of cream cheese.
How in the heck could she expect to be a surgeon if her fingers weren’t steady on snack foods?
Eight years of education and in a matter of three months she had jeopardized all of that.
Because of sex. Or lack thereof.
She blamed a certain orthopedic surgeon entirely. If he wouldn’t stare at her with those probing ice-blue eyes, and stand way too close for comfort, she wouldn’t get nervous. And when she got nervous, she dropped things.
She sat back down with Sara and sighed. “I’m ruining my career before I’ve even gotten started. Dr. Hayes is afraid to trust me with a scalpel, and who can blame him?”
Sara pulled to tighten her blond ponytail. “You’re caught in a vicious cycle. He makes you nervous, so you act like a klutz, which makes him doubt your qualifications. Then you get more nervous, and on it goes.”
Josie knew she was right. From the first day she had met Houston three months earlier when he joined the staff, she had been intimidated by him. By his confidence, his coolness, and his surgical skill.
“So what am I supposed to do? He won’t even let me close a case, let alone conduct a surgery on my own.
And I certainly can’t go to the resident chief and complain about it.
” Josie felt even worse just thinking about it.
“I’d look like a whiner and besides, what if Dr. Hayes tells Dr. Sheinberg I’m an idiot who needs my medical degree revoked? ”
Becoming a surgeon was a lifelong goal, one she had been working towards steadily since high school. When her dad had died, himself a surgeon, she had been doubly determined to be successful.
Tripping over thin air and scrambling around on her hands and knees for X-rays wasn’t the way to do it.
Sara tossed her spoon down on the table and grinned. “You know what they say if someone intimidates you. You need to picture them being powerless. Like standing in front of you in just their underwear.”
Underwear? Josie’s face began to burn. The sudden image of six-foot-three, tanned, muscular Dr. Hayes standing in front of her in a pair of black boxer briefs sent her senses into a tailspin. “Are you trying to torture me?” Her voice was a strangled whisper.
Sara shrugged. “Or you could just sleep with him. That ought to reduce him to human status.”
While Sara made it sound no more exciting than a stroll down the produce aisle, it made Josie flushed and uncomfortable, even in the air-conditioned room. “That’s even worse! I can’t have sex with my orthopedic mentor.”
There could even be rules against that, for all she knew, never having looked into the hospital fraternization policy.
Besides, not that the guy was easy to read, but from what she could tell, Houston wasn’t all that impressed with her.
Intellectually or physically. Josie was used to men dismissing her on both counts, and Dr. Hayes appeared to be no exception.
She added, “I’m sure he would laugh hysterically at the prospect of having sex with me. He doesn’t even like me. At least I don’t think he does.”
He sure in the heck spent a lot of time frowning at her. Probably trying to determine how a clueless idiot like her had survived medical school.
And he never smiled. Not at her.
Of course there was that other look he gave her sometimes, the deep and penetrating look that made her want to glance down and check to see if her clothes were on. She had convinced herself she was imagining it, that it was the wishful thinking of a sex-starved imagination, but maybe she wasn’t.
“Sometimes, Sara, I catch him staring at me, and I swear, he has The Look in his eye. But that’s crazy, I must be wrong. I know I’m wrong.” She fanned her face just at the thought of Houston’s eyes sweeping over her body.
“What look?” Sara paused with her coffee mug halfway to her mouth.
Josie glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention to them and lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “The If-we-were-alone-I’d-rip-your-clothes-off look.”
It wasn’t a look she had seen often in her life, given that most men saw her as a cute, cheerful companion. Someone to hug and pet. Like a living Care Bear. But the few times she had seen that kind of sexual intent were burned into her memory.
Sara set her mug down. “Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not sure.” It could be a total delusion on her part, brought about by poor sleeping habits and lack of sexual release.
After all, Dr. Hayes was hot. He could have any woman he wanted, she was sure, so why would he want her, a colleague with a questionable grip?
“My life is ruined,” she wailed. It was so like her to do something as idiotic as falling for the man who held her career in his hands.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Josie.”
“Easy for you to say.” Tall and thin, with dark glasses, Sara looked studious and was taken seriously. “People respect you. I always have to prove myself over and over again before I’m taken seriously.”
It was the curse of being cute. She was embarrassingly short, taller only than the average sixth-grade boy, and for ease of styling, wore her brown hair cropped. She had also been born with dimples, which didn’t aid her cause.
Add to all of that her natural buoyant personality, and most people dismissed her as much younger than she actually was. It was Doogie Howser syndrome. Which was why it was so frustrating to be contributing to that prejudice by her own behavior with Dr. Hayes.
Sara blotted her lips with a paper napkin. “Do you ever worry that by becoming a surgeon, you’re denying your natural self? That maybe you’re meant to do something more...whimsical.”
“Whimsical?” Josie sat back and wondered how she could ever have thought Sara was her best friend. “What do you want me to do? Twist balloon animals? Make hemp jewelry? I had a 4.0 grade point average in college. I graduated magna cum laude!”
She didn’t care if her voice went a little loud. She was proud of that gold braid she’d gotten to wear around her neck at graduation.
Stirring another packet of cream into her half-empty coffee cup, Sara shook her head.
“That’s not what I meant. But you’re also a social, cheerful person who is in a profession that is made up of a lot of arrogant men who don’t go in for conversation.
It just seems to me that having to deny the gregarious and fun-loving side of your self every day has you rattled. ”
Interesting theory and not as offensive as Josie had originally thought. But she knew what had her rattled, and it wasn’t having to slow down her motormouth.
“Thank you, Dr. Phil. But I think it’s a lot simpler than that.”
She just wanted to jump Dr. Hayes’s bones. Simple. “But—
Josie shook her head and held her hand up.
“While surgery may not exactly be fun-loving, even if I wanted to I couldn’t back out now.
People would think I was insane, and I would have to be, to toss out all those years of education and money.
I just want Dr. Hayes to treat me like any other physician, like a capable and completely non-sexual physician.
” If she kept telling herself that, maybe she would start to believe it.
“But how is that going to happen if I’m falling all over myself and blushing every time he’s near me?”
“I don’t even know what you see in him,” Sara said, her brown eyes puzzled. “He’s so cold.”
What did she see in him that made her pulse jump and her hands shake? Beyond the handsome face and rock-solid body, that is. “He’s brilliant, Sara. The man is absolutely calm during surgery, confident without being arrogant. He knows what he’s doing.”
She felt her insides turn to oatmeal just thinking about him. Her hand propped her head up on the table as she continued. “He’s so focused on being a fantastic surgeon that he has this amazing tunnel vision. Nothing else around him matters.”
Josie wished she had that level of concentration.
Sara wasn’t impressed. “That sounds annoying to me. I always thought that was the nice thing about being a pediatrician. There aren’t a lot of inflated egos running around my office.”
“It’s not annoying to me.” She sighed a little, indulging in the fantasy of Houston turning those focused blue eyes on her, and placing his skilled hands somewhere between her medial thighs. Or in layman’s terms, on her hot spot.
“I really wish you hadn’t suggested the underwear thing. Now the next time I see Dr. Hayes I’m going to be picturing him naked.” Who knew what she’d drop or fall on with that image in her mind. She’d be lucky if she didn’t impale herself by accident.
Sara grinned. “It’s just jealousy on my part. At least you’re getting The Look. I haven’t had a date in a year.”
Josie gave Sara a look of sympathy. “It’s hell out there, isn’t it? On the dating apps?”
“It’s a horror movie.” Then Sara sat up straight and her eyes went wide. “Ohmigod, ohmigod, I saw it.”
Turning a little in her seat, she said, “What? Saw what?”
“Don’t turn around!” Sara hissed. “Dr. Hayes just walked in.”
Josie froze, half-turned like she was in the middle of a bizarre yoga ritual. “Why not? What’s he doing?”
“He gave you The Look. I saw it.” Flapping her hands back and forth, Sara was acting like she’d just witnessed a UFO sighting. “Whew, the temperature just shot up ten degrees in here.”
Josie felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she pinched her lips as she faced forward again, determined not to look at Dr. Hayes.
“This is crazy.” She pushed her unappealing plain bagel away. “I feel like I’m in the high school cafeteria, not the hospital. I’m fantasizing about this guy and I don’t even know him at all. The only time we talk is when he’s reprimanding me for my latest bout of idiot-itis.”
“Sometimes you just don’t need words.”
Josie pictured Dr. Houston Hayes wearing nothing but a stethoscope.
Sara had no idea how profound her statement was.
I played doctor.
Damn.
Josie sat up straight. That had been a sexual innuendo.
Was Dr. Hayes flirting with her?
In a growly, rude, alpha male kind of way?
God, she hoped so.