his brother say the same? His brother had been sent home a year early, had had to leave the service.
Nick got to finish out his tour of duty.
Nick could still walk, run and keep up with the fast pace of trauma.
Marc couldn’t.
So, no, he hadn’t come back home unharmed.
Nick crushed the empty coffee cup in his hand and tossed it into the trash. Crushing the cup in his hand sated his ire, but only just. There was only one thing he could do to control this—he was going to bury himself in his work.
He was going to forget that stolen moment on Lake Tahoe with Jennifer, because he didn’t deserve that kind of happiness.
Nick was going to be the best surgeon he could be and maybe then his brother would think better of him and nothing, not even a woman, was going to distract him.
He couldn’t let it.
JENNIFER WAS GLAD to get all the paperwork and HR stuff done in enough time to head down to the ER and actually practice some medicine. She hadn’t had a chance to do any in a month, what with trying to find another job and moving across the country after her ex-fiancé had published the research they’d shared and been given a promotion at her old hospital in Boston.
She’d planned to stick it out. After all, he’d jilted her the previous year. She’d held her own and had faced him every day because she’d refused to be bullied out of the career she’d built, but then, when she’d let her guard down, he’d betrayed her.
The hospital board had backed him. After all, he’d been a surgical rock star, a god in their eyes, and he’d bring in lots of money.
Jennifer had been a nobody, as far as they were concerned. Just an easy, replaceable trauma surgeon.
So she’d given them the proverbial finger and left, leaving their trauma department to be run by a moron.
All Saints Hospital in Las Vegas had offered her everything to come and run their trauma department. And they were building a state-of-the-art facility better than that at Boston Mercy. So that was a plus. Even though it felt like she was returning home with her tail between her legs, she wasn’t. No, she was going to make All Saints Hospital shine like a star, like a supernova.
She smiled to herself as she slipped on the disposable yellow isolation gown over her dark green scrubs. The dark green scrubs marked her as an attending, while the interns and residents ran around in orange.
Jennifer shuddered. It wasn’t even a nice orange. Maybe she could have a talk with the chief about changing the color scheme of scrubs at the hospital.
Why the heck are you thinking about color schemes at a time like this?
She sighed. She didn’t need to be having this weird internal dialogue with herself. Ever since David had jilted her, people hadn’t treated her the same. They’d pitied her and she’d retreated a bit into her head.
That was another reason she’d had to get away. Though she knew the people at All Saints knew about her past. She could see it in their eyes, but she didn’t care. She was going to hold her head high.
She was not some screwball, crazy, jilted-bride-type person. She was a surgeon. A fine one.
No. A damn good one.
A neutron star.
Okay, your obsession with astronomy really needs to stop now.
“Dr. Mills, the ambulance is seven minutes out!” a nurse shouted as Jennifer walked into the triage area.
“Thanks.” She headed outside to the tarmac to await the arrival of the ambulance, craning her head, listening for the distant wail. It was a quirk of hers to know exactly how far away an ambulance was by the siren. Only with All Saints being right near the strip, Jennifer couldn’t drown out the rest of the noise to hear anything.
“What do we have coming in?”
She spun around to see Dr. Rousseau in an isolation gown standing next to her.
Damn.
“I thought you were on a break, as in napping in the on-call room?”
“Disappointed that I’m not?”
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Hardly, but I heard it’s something minor. Something coming from one of the casinos. It’s probably just a myocardial infarction. You know, too much excitement at the slots.”
Nick cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, I think it’s something a bit more than a minor myocardial infarction. Though I doubt you could call any myocardial infarction minor.”
“You know something. Don’t you?” she asked, scrutinizing him. “What do you know?”
“If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you. I want to see the look of surprise on your face when the ambulance comes in.”
“That’s unprofessional.”
Nick grinned. “Hey, it’s Vegas and what happens in Vegas …”
“Stays in Vegas. I know. I’m from Nevada.” She crossed her arms and stared up at the sky. The buildings from the strip loomed from behind the back of a casino. You could see the top of the Eiffel Tower if you craned your head a certain way.
“It’s priceless. Trust me. It’s a great initiation.”
“I’m the head of trauma. We’re not supposed to be initiated or hazed.”
Nick shrugged. “Come on. It’s fun. Think of it as a morale booster.”
Jennifer was going to say a few more choice words when the ambulance came roaring up. The paramedic jumped out and opened the back door.
“Jack Palmer, a twelve-year-old male who has a three-inch laceration to his forehead.”
As the paramedics were bringing down the stretcher, Jennifer leaned over to Nick. “How is a three-inch lac supposed to be an initiation?”
Nick just grinned. “You’ll see.”
The little boy groaned as the stretcher was placed on the ground. His head was bandaged, there was blood coming through the gauze and the boy was hiccuping between groans. Jennifer stepped beside it and heard a tinny hum of “Happy Birthday.”
“What’s that noise?”
Jack hiccuped. “It’s my birthday card.”
“Where is it? I can hold your birthday card for you.” Jennifer looked on the gurney, while a paramedic was stifling a chuckle and Nick was grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat.
“No, you can’t.” Jack hiccuped again.
“Why
