Lia couldn’t look away from the other guy. The angry one who had his back to her while he got in Brown’s face.
About six feet tall, he, too, was dressed in scrubs—hell, everyone around here was—and had the broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, round-assed combination of a born athlete or a gym rat. His gesturing arms were smoothly brown and sculpted, and he wore battered running shoes, which told her they saw action outside the corridors of this hospital. A stethoscope dangled around his neck at the base of his skull-trimmed head, and she hoped he wasn’t about to whip it off and use it to strangle Brown, which seemed like a distinct possibility.
After several excruciating beats, the stammering and floundering Brown found his tongue and worked up an answer. “I didn’t think—” he began.
Dr. Pissed Off snorted. “That much is clear.”
“—that we needed a chest X-ray,” Brown continued. “So I—”
“So you didn’t order one.” Dr. Pissed Off swelled with indignation, somehow taking up more than his fair share of the air and space around the nurse’s station. “And now we’ve got a patient with a raging case of pneumonia, which should’ve been diagnosed yesterday. Does that about sum it up?”
Everyone within a twenty-foot radius was listening now. Oh, they kept up the pretense of working, sure, but the personnel behind the counter had their ears cocked as they tapped on their keyboards or spoke on the phone, and even the passing orderly and the patient he was wheeling on his gurney turned their heads to gape. Beside Lia, Dudley was watching with rapt attention, which, she figured, gave her permission to keep watching.
Brown had the good sense to keep his mouth shut. But if he’d hoped that would shorten his time in the dunce chair, he was sadly mistaken.
“I don’t think you have the chops for this,” said Dr. Pissed Off, whom she was beginning to think of as Dr. Jackass. “I really don’t. Any third-year medical student would have ordered the film. Hell, anyone’s who’s ever watched half an episode of Grey’s Anatomy would’ve ordered the film. I’m thinking you should’ve gone to law school, Brown.”
Ouch. Low blow.
Brown seemed to think so too, because he jerked his chin up, grew a pair and tried to defend himself. “Look. I made a mistake. It won’t happen again. I’m sorry.”
Dr. Jerk was not impressed. “I don’t want your apology,” he said. “I want you to do your job. Now get out of here.”
Brown wavered for a second, his humiliated and defiant gaze flickering between his tormentor and their avid audience. A couple of the nurses gave him an encouraging smile, which seemed to give him courage. He looked like he wanted to return to the battlefield and maybe fire off one last salvo, but he couldn’t seem to find the guts.
Instead, he ducked his head and hurried off around the corner, heading for the elevators and, probably, a long day spent beating himself up for his honest mistake.
Poor guy. Lia’s heart squeezed with sympathy as she watched him go. Was this kind of abuse dished out to the beleaguered residents on a daily basis? And did Dr. Pissed Off think he was God?
Dumb question. Yes, of course he did. Didn’t all doctors?
“For God’s sake,” Dr. Evil muttered to no one, continuing his ridiculous little temper tantrum by slamming the patient’s metal file on the counter as he strode off. Everyone jumped and then hastily resumed their busywork, as though they’d been so engrossed in minding their own business that they’d missed the whole interlude. “How am I supposed to teach these clowns?”
Something possessed Lia. She’d been accused, on more than one occasion, of being a crusader, and right now she felt the strong urge to find a cape and a sword and fly to the rescue of young Dr. Brown.
Idiotic, yeah, especially considering that she didn’t know the guy, who could well be the worst student to ever claw his way through a sub-par medical school, but she couldn’t just stand quietly by while his boss the jerk tore into him. Injustice of any kind, real or imagined, made her face burn with anger. And why was no one else standing up to the ogre and speaking out against his reign of terror?
“For God’s sake.” She kept her voice loud and clear as she spoke to Dr. Jackass’s departing back. “How are residents supposed to learn when they’re being bullied?”
A ringing silence bloomed like a nuclear explosion, giving her time to wonder if she’d gone too far.
And … yeeeeeaaah. She’d probably gone too far.
Jaws dropped. Heads swiveled in her direction. Wide-eyed looks were exchanged. Even Dudley raised his brows and gave her an are-you-crazy glance.
She waited with a growing sense of foreboding.
The bully paused, cocked his head as though he wanted to make sure he’d heard right, and then wheeled around, facing her for the first time. His attention zeroed in on her, the big mouth, and she’d almost swear that everyone else ducked and scurried away so as not to be caught in the oncoming path of destruction. In that pregnant moment, she had a wild image of the indigenous people tying Ann Darrow to her sacrificial post and then sprinting back to the other side of that primitive gate, where it was safe from King Kong.
Only this was no King Kong. Not by a long shot.
Oh, man. The breath leaked out of her lungs in one quick whoosh, and she found herself caught in the fierce gaze from a pair of furious but extraordinary brown eyes. He had long lashes and straight brows that showcased a burning intensity and a keen intelligence. His dark skin was flushed. One edge of his full lips pulled back in a disbelieving sneer, which revealed a hint of both white teeth and a bracket of what would be dimples, if and when he ever smiled.
He was, in a word, stunning.
Shock hit Lia like the leather thong of a cracked whip.
In two long strides he was on her, right in her face. “What did you say to me?”
Locking her knees in place, Lia stood up to him because no one else had. “I said that if a student isn’t learning, it’s generally the teacher’s fault.”
A collective gasp, quickly stifled, rippled through the crowd of avid onlookers, all of whom were probably wishing they had an ICEE and a large buttered popcorn to go along with the show.
His eyes—his unforgettably amazing eyes—widened with shock, probably because no one had challenged his arrogance in the last decade or so. Recovering quickly, he looked her up and down with cool disdain.
“Are you a licensed physician?”
“No,” she admitted.
Triumph gleamed in his expression. “Then you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, do you?”
With that, he gave Dudley a curt nod and strode off, sucking all the air out of the area with him. His departing back posed a real challenge to her. She wanted to hurl just the right comeback and prevent him from having the last word, but her mouth was dry and her brain was empty.
Best to just leave well enough alone. For now.
“In case you were interested,” Dudley told
