Late Harvest (Red Wine Supper Club #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

In case no one told you today: Your teeth look sharp.

Your visage terrifies men.

The crown of femurs atop your head is dazzling.

—From Remy’s Sinister Affirmations deck

Remy

The sliding doors to the surgical suite whooshed closed behind her, their rubber seals creating a barrier that supported the positive air pressure and a sterile field.

A very technical explanation for a very clinical design.

But for Remy, that sound represented far more than a physical circumstance. It was a mentally and emotionally edifying seal—safely securing her in a peaceful refuge, where the only things that mattered were the patient on the table before her and her own skill to heal them.

It was just after seven in the morning, and she’d knock out back-to-back-to-back surgeries before a brief stop for lunch.

Then it was quick rounds on her post-op patients followed by another round of afternoon surgeries.

On her surgical days, she flipped between two operating rooms, one being set up while she worked in the other.

Then she could just re-sterilize and move to the next patient.

She had insisted on this set up when Brinder Desai—the chief medical officer and her boss—recruited her to be Evangelist’s chief of orthopedics.

The routine and order was…satisfying…to say the least.

Remy strode toward her operating room tech with practiced, efficient steps.

This was as close to dancing as she came, this ballet of entering the OR theater with her scrubbed and disinfected hands up and away from her body so as only to touch sterile items. Her scrub tech, Shukri, spun behind her to help her don the gown.

Then the hood and ventilation system. Plastic visor.

The knee-high booties. The necessary double glove donning.

Rachmaninoff playing softly in the background, she inhaled deeply and released a sigh of contentment as a welcome chill nipped her face.

Her circulating nurse already had the temperature set to Remy’s preferred sixty-four degrees.

It got hot and stuffy under her surgical hood, even with the vent system.

The cool setting also helped if an unwelcome hot flash hit mid-procedure—though those evil visitors were fewer and farther between these days. Thank God. And meds.

She checked on her patient. He was deeply under anesthesia.

With a nod to her preferred anesthesiologist, she continued with the safety check that had begun with her patient in pre-op, both of them marking and signing the area that would have a new hip in a little more than a couple hours.

Her scrub tech called the standard time-out to confirm the patient, surgical site, and procedure, and to double check the equipment.

Remy scanned the surgical field and then froze, perturbed ire building in her chest. The drape wasn’t set up per clinical standards. She closed her eyes and counted slowly to three, then turned to her right to face the cocky physician assistant who normally supported another surgeon.

Her regular PA, Lucia, would arrive soon—after she finished morning rounds on the inpatient unit.

Remy would’ve finished the rounds herself, but it was exceptionally busy on that particular unit, and her schedule was already tightly booked.

Add to that a frustrating delay reaching one of her residents about a question on a patient, and Remy had been in danger of running behind.

There was no way she’d be late for surgery, and Remy only trusted Lucia to round on her behalf.

And, unfortunately, for now, Remy was stuck with this arrogant fuckwit until Lucia made it to the OR.

Son of a bitch.

Years of experience had taught her routine and attention to detail were critical to running a smooth OR. Patients didn’t want delays. They were hungry, scared, tired. Avoidable delays scorched a flame of frustration down Remy’s spine. They were sloppy. And she hated sloppy.

She paused, her hand on the scalpel, and blew out an annoyed breath, taking a beat to maintain her composure.

This buffoon was fucking with her peaceful OR ballet.

“You.” She pinned him with a glare she knew was visible from under the hood.

She had two decades of experience terrifying dimwit residents with a well-honed version of that glare.

Only the surgical nurses were exempt from her signature glower—simply because in her long experience, those MVPs kept the OR humming and the surgeons happy.

Well, as happy as she got.

Which brought her back to her current frustration.

The OR was her escape. Her Zen garden. A refuge.

A sanctuary. A meditative chamber where the scalpel, drills, and saws were her mindfulness accoutrements.

A spotless surgical field where she was general and queen, her word sovereign.

This also was the one place where her mind finally quieted.

Where the howling, vicious voices of her mistakes and her past were finally muted, unable to seep through and disrupt her peace.

Yes, the sterile field, chilly environs, and space suits made for a peculiar oasis of personal tranquility. But if the couple years of—mostly ineffective—therapy had taught her anything, it was that you grabbed your peace where you could. It may be the one thing keeping you intact and functional.

Until some assbasket ruins that peace.

“You,” she repeated calmly, pointing her scalpel toward the PA and then the draping, which when done incorrectly risked contamination. “Do you actually have any interest in doing your job well?”

Except for the shifting of bootied feet on the pristine floor, the room became eerily quiet.

The physician assistant—Troy—arched a brow under his visor, and she’d bet her fucking bank account he was smirking under his mask. “Not sure what you mean, Remy.”

“Dr. Remington, please.” Her tone sliced, just as her scalpel should be doing right now.

Under normal circumstances, she was more than fine if staff privately referred to her by her nickname.

What was said behind her back generally had little bearing on her feelings or her work.

But in this case, and in this environment, it was unacceptable.

“The draping is incorrect. Do better, Mr. McMasters. And if you can’t, get out of my OR.

” Everything about her tone was calm, but her displeasure was clear.

Shukri cast a baleful look at Troy and then turned to her, apology visible in her dark brown eyes. “I’m sorry, Dr. Remington. I should have checked.”

“Exactly,” Troy muttered, not quite sotto-voice.

“No. He should have,” Remy bit out. “It’s only his damn job,” she muttered under her breath, fighting to regain her Zen.

Troy stood unmoving, except for his weaselly eyes visible over his mask, narrowing at her.

“Step it up or get out of my OR.” Her voice was iron, and Troy had the wherewithal, at least, to snap to attention.

“Of course. Ma’am.” The snark in his delivery was another strike against him.

She’d already overheard him in the OR lounge grousing about having to work with ‘the bitchy chick doc,’ and had made a note to visit Brinder’s office later that day with her feedback on Truculent Troy.

She stifled an internal snicker at the moniker she’d assigned him in her head.

He’d earned it about zero-point-two seconds after meeting him, when he’d made an inappropriate comment to Lucia, referring to her as the ‘PA girl.’

Her circulating nurse, Jacob, made eye contact and reached for the phone—reading Remy’s mind to have Lucia paged to the OR stat.

Troy adjusted the draping under Remy’s watchful eye. She glanced at the clock. They were now ten minutes behind. And Troy had made it abundantly clear he didn’t have what it took to dance in her ballet.

He finally finished, and with obsequious drama, stepped to the side and motioned to the draping with a flourish. “How is that, Dr. Remington?”

Remy forced herself not to snap at the disrespect. She’d handle him later, privately. For now, they were well past start time.

Checking the draping, she nodded curtly. “Excellent. It’s important to get these things correct the first time, Troy.” She intentionally hit his first name hard. Forget catching more flies with honey. Right now, vinegar was all she had on the menu.

Remy was distinctly aware of the way others referred to her as the Ice Queen.

It was less about her chilly OR temperature and more a reflection of her demeanor.

She wasn’t there to make friends or coddle unprepared OR team members.

She had a job to do and do well. She inhaled another calming breath, fighting to regain her Zen.

Remy had known other surgeons who threw things in the OR—it was hideous and inexcusable.

She herself had a scalpel flung at her by a sexist, temperamental surgeon during her training.

No. There were better ways to get a point across.

Her OR and her span of control—meaning the entire orthopedics department—needed to be grounded in competence and respect.

And every person who worked with her or near her knew she didn’t tolerate anything but their best work and a respectful work environment.

She’d worked hard to carve out her niche, finally rising to chief this last year.

She didn’t tolerate sloppiness or thoughtlessness.

And she’d never tolerate violence of any sort—physical or verbal.

A frisson of a harsh, unwanted memory poked at the edges of her mind.

Remy quickly compartmentalized it in fluid habit.

She wasn’t giving any peace-disruptors one more moment of her precious time or mental bandwidth.

“And be respectful to Shukri,” she growled, her voice oddly warped by the hood, creating a satisfying Lord Vader effect that she wasn’t afraid to deploy.

“I hear one more inappropriate peep out of you, and you won’t get a job selling waterfront timeshares in the Sahara much less have the honor to work in a setting that changes our patients’ lives. ”

Darth Vadress. She devil. In addition to Ice Queen, she’d heard it all. Been called it all. Not to mention—especially in the early days as a female in a male-dominated specialty— sweetheart, babe, darling, girl.

It all rolled off her. She’d heard much worse.

Not letting any of that bullshit dance in my ballet. I don’t have room for fools in my life. No wonder I haven’t bothered to get laid in more than two years. Most men are fools. And dangerous.

Focus, Remy.

She inhaled deeply, taking in the soothing scents of antiseptic and sterilization chemicals.

Her heart rate settled to a steady cadence, her body shifting by rote into position.

Remy scanned her team—all but one personally trained by her.

Each was poised at the ready. Her circulating nurse had already paged Lucia.

She nodded appreciatively. He knew when Remy was going to sneeze before she did.

A quick time check, and then Remy took a cleansing breath and began.