her number. The dancing had been really nice, too.
With head held high, she walked past him and stopped at the double-door entrance to the NICU. The cart wasn’t allowed inside. With all the sensitive equipment, electrical cords and highly skilled personnel hurrying between the isolettes, there wasn’t room to spare for the clunky cart. Housekeeping paraphernalia was necessary but not even in the same league with the pricey, sensitive and technical tools that saved the babies.
Cindy picked up one of the trigger bottles and was just about to approach the automatic opening door when she felt someone behind her. The hair at her nape prickled and her skin flushed with heat that had nothing to do with the hot suit. She could be wrong about the awareness, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t. The same thing had happened once before. Specifically, last night.
“Cindy?”
It was him. Not only that, he’d called her by name and as far as she knew he hadn’t looked at her. She turned, bracing for this unprecedented happening. And there was Dr. Charming with his meticulously mussed hair and swoon-worthy square jaw. He was dressed in scrubs, which weren’t particularly appealing, except that he was wearing them.
“How did you know it was me?” she asked.
“I recognized your perfume.”
Well, damn. Why did he have to be a smooth talker on top of everything else? “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Interesting development because last night you had all the answers.”
If he really believed that, she’d put on a pretty good performance. “About that—”
“So this is where I know you from.”
“Scene of the crime.” She’d let him connect whatever dots he saw fit to explain why she’d made him guess her identity.
“Crime being the pertinent word. It wasn’t my finest hour. I owe you an apology.”
At the speed of light he’d figured out that she was the housekeeper he’d chastised the day before. Pigs must be flying outside the window because this was an unexpected and unprecedented turn of events.
Doctors never apologized to housekeepers, partly because they were the ones who cleaned up after the high and mighty and just disappeared into the landscape.
“Excuse me, but I could have sworn you used the word apology.”
“I suppose your hostility is logical.”
“Really? You think?” She rested her free hand on her hip. “Maybe because I was found guilty without benefit of a fair trial? I didn’t touch that baby in the NICU.”
He nodded. “I saw movement. It was a peripheral vision thing—”
“NICU housekeeping 101—never touch the babies. Stifle any rogue maternal instincts and beat them into submission. It was the first thing I was taught and I learned my lesson well.”
“There’s a good reason for the rule. The babies are incredibly fragile. It’s tempting to want to hold them because the heat shield on the Giraffe is up. For a good reason. The neonates need a lot of attention and we need fast and easy access to them.”
She knew the Giraffe was the commonly used nickname for the highly specialized isolette that could move up, down and other directions just by pushing a button.
“I know how frail they are,” she said. “I understand that the goal is to keep the environment like a mother’s womb, warm and quiet. And that begs the question—If calm is what you want, why did you yell at me?”
“Technically, I didn’t yell. My tone was moderated. At best, forceful.” Her exaggerated eye roll didn’t stop him. “And I pulled you aside to the nurse’s station, away from the baby.”
“And that makes it so much better,” she said, lifting the floodgates on her sarcasm. “That way the nurses could really hear you unreasonably humiliate me.”
“It was an overreaction.” His hazel eyes turned more gold than green and went all puppy dog. “Would it help to explain that the little guy was just born? He weighs a little more than three pounds and it’s touch and go. I was worried and took it out on you.”
“That’s something I never got from the job description or orientation. Nowhere in my employee handbook does it say that my function is to absorb a physician’s deflected tension or anger.” She could tell he was listening and letting her vent, but that didn’t sit well or turn off the mad. “Housekeepers aren’t here to be stress relievers for anyone higher up on the food chain.”
He really looked sorry. “That’s not fair.”
Probably not, but she was weakening and that couldn’t happen.
“No one ever said life would be fair, Dr. Steele—”
“Nathan. Remember?”
She was trying not to. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”
“She wasn’t around much for heart-to-heart chats. I pretty much figured that one out on my own, though.” An edgy tone crept into his voice. “Look, Cindy, I said I was sorry—”
“No. You really didn’t. I heard the word apology and a detailed justification for why you went off on me for no good reason. Not once, though, did I hear you say the word sorry.”
“Well, I am.” He saw her look and added, “Sorry, that is. I was wrong.”
“Wow, the world has gone mad. The w word actually passed your lips. As I live and breathe.” Her skin started to tingle when she mentioned his lips and it didn’t help that he kept staring at her. “I’ll be sure not to spread that around. Who’d believe me anyway?”
“While we’re setting the record straight, I feel it’s only fair to point out that you were wrong, too.”
“About what?” Her whole life consisted of being wrong one too many times, so a clarification was necessary.
“Me,” he said. “I’ll admit sometimes I can be a jerk at work. After all we’ve established that I did chastise you unjustly. But I take exception to the reputation remark. Mine is impeccable. And I’m not inflexible.”
“Okay, then. Color me corrected.”
“I’m not finished.”
“Right. What else have you got?”
“People do like me.”
By people she was pretty sure he meant women. It would be far too easy to be one of them and that simply couldn’t happen. She was too close to getting what she’d worked so hard for. There was light at the end of a long, dark financial and educational tunnel and she couldn’t afford not to focus on either of those fronts now.
Eyes straight ahead. No distractions; no detours.
“There’s probably some truth to that,” she agreed. “Someone undoubtedly does like you. File
