hallway outside the room of a patient who’d been readmitted to the hospital after developing a postoperative wound infection. The two interns had struck combative poses, hands on hips, lab coats spread open as they argued with each other. Tamara hated that Victor’s six-two frame forced her to angle her head back to meet his flashing gaze, and she hated that the dark blue color of his eyes reminded her of the most beautiful sapphire she’d ever seen.
“You’re not listening to me,” he said, the words gritted through straight white teeth. “Naphtomycin—”
“—is still in the clinical trial stage,” Tamara interrupted sharply. “So that means the jury’s still out on the drug’s safety and effectiveness. Unlike you, I don’t like hedging my bets on a wildcard. I think we need to administer another course of antibiotics—”
“Because that’s been working so well, right?” Victor countered mockingly.
Tamara bristled. “Let’s not forget that this is my patient—”
“—who’s been readmitted twice for a postoperative sternal wound that won’t heal. It’s time to pursue more aggressive treatment options.”
“Naphtomycin isn’t an option,” Tamara said unequivocally.
“Well, it should be.”
“I disagree. Until it’s been approved by the FDA—”
Victor interrupted, “German physicians are already using Naphtomycin on their patients, with proven results.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Tamara said obstinately.
“What do you mean it doesn’t—” He broke off, shaking his head in angry exasperation. “Look, St. John, you have the potential to be a good cardiothoracic surgeon one day, but if you want to be the best, you’re gonna have to start thinking outside the damn box.”
“How dare you?” Tamara hissed furiously. “I don’t need career advice from you! Last I checked, we both graduated from top medical schools, and we’re both finalists for the same research grant—”
“Me importa un carajo!” Victor swore in Spanish, striking his fist against the wall. “Why does everything have to be a damn competition with you? This isn’t about you and your egotistical need to be right—”
“My egotistical need?” Tamara sputtered in outrage.
“What about you? Every decision you make is based on the false assumption that you can never be wrong. You take risks with patients’ lives like you’re rolling dice on a craps table. Don’t you dare lecture me about my ego when you’re the one with the God complex!”
Victor scowled blackly. “I don’t have a—”
“Like hell you don’t!”
He glared at her another moment, then scrubbed his hands over his face and shook his head at the ceiling, as if he were petitioning God for a flood that would sweep her away. He needed a shave and a haircut, Tamara noted irritably, eyeing his stubble-roughened jaw and the thick dark hair that brushed his collar. He always looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, tossed on some clothes and hopped on to his Harley to ride to work. Tamara supposed that the rumpled, sexy look worked for some women. But not her. Everything about the man grated on her damn nerves.
She felt an unwelcome jolt as his strikingly blue eyes suddenly returned to hers. “Look, St. John,” he said in a low, controlled voice, “I don’t have time to stand here arguing with you, and the patient sure as hell can’t afford any more delays in her treatment. Before you rule out administering Naphtomycin, just ask yourself what you would do if Mrs. Gruener were your mother.”
“I wouldn’t endanger her life by giving her a drug that hasn’t even been approved by the FDA!” Tamara snapped.
“How do you know?” Victor shot back. “Until you’re in that situation, you have no idea what measures you’d take to help your mother.”
“I don’t deal in hypotheticals. I deal with hard, cold facts, which is something you seem incapable of—”
“Why am I standing here talking to you?” Victor cut her off. “You’re an intern just like me, so ultimately, it’s not your call whether or not Mrs. Gruener receives Naphtomycin. And thank God for that!”
Tamara’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare go over my head.”
“Think I wouldn’t? Let me tell you something. Mrs. Gruener’s recovery is more important than your stubborn need to be right.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Sure as hell could have fooled—”
Beep, beep, beep!
The two combatants glanced down at the pagers clipped to their waists. When they saw the familiar code that signaled a crisis requiring all available medical personnel, they turned and rushed downstairs to the emergency room.
They were greeted by pandemonium as several stretchers bearing injured victims were wheeled into the hospital, where a triage had been set up to evaluate the new arrivals. Those who were most seriously injured were already being tended to.
Tamara and Victor hurried over to fellow intern Jaclyn Campbell, who was examining the bloody head wound of a teenager who was moaning in pain.
“What happened?” Tamara asked anxiously.
Jaclyn grimaced. “School bus accident. At least thirty students were on board, not to mention the driver and several other motorists involved in the collision.”
“Shit,” Tamara and Victor swore in unison.
“Let’s go, people!” shouted Dr. Lucien De Winter, the new head of the E.R. at Hopewell General. He strode through the bustling emergency room, calling out authoritatively, “All hands on deck!”
Alerted by the wail of an approaching ambulance, Tamara and Victor raced outside to greet the arriving EMTs, who had just removed a stretcher bearing a teenage biracial girl covered with blood and multiple lacerations.
“She’s hypotensive,” one of the EMTs informed them as he and Victor quickly wheeled the gurney toward the entrance to the hospital. “Blood pressure’s eighty-three over forty-two, pulse is one-thirty-six.”
Moments after they rolled the new patient into the E.R., she went into cardiac arrest.
“She needs to be opened up!” Victor said urgently.
Tamara was already sprinting ahead, adrenaline pumping through her veins as she frantically searched for an attending physician to assist them. To her dismay, none could be found.
Victor and the EMT had wheeled the patient into an available trauma bay and were using a defibrillator on her. As Tamara raced in after them, Victor called over his shoulder, “We’re gonna have to open her up!”
Tamara stared at him. “We can’t!”
“Why the hell not?”
“We’re
