End brownstone she shared with two of her sisters—her parents pampered her like a princess. In fact, she could be living the life of a princess at this very moment had she chosen, since each of the Barone siblings had collected a million-dollar trust upon turning twenty-one. But Rita, crazy as it might sound, had wanted to be a nurse instead of a princess. Now, after almost three years of employment at Boston General, she knew she had made the right choice. Princesses, she knew, hardly ever saved lives. Plus, they didn’t have nearly as good a health plan as she did.
Cold sores and ingrown toenails, here I come, she thought wryly now as she leveled an espresso-colored gaze on the wretched refuse cluttering the E.R. waiting room. The people seemed not to have changed one bit since she had been a regular staff member here.
But then, she hadn’t changed much herself, had she? she thought further. She still wore the slate-blue scrubs she preferred for work, and she still bound her dark-brown hair in a tidy braid. But then, why fix it if it wasn’t broken, right?
“Excuse me, but I’ve been waiting for more than a half hour now,” a young woman told Rita as she leaned over the counter of the nurses’ station. She seemed to be checking the desk to make sure there were no extra doctors hiding there. “How much longer will it be until I can see someone?”
Rita offered up a halfhearted smile. “It shouldn’t be too much longer, I wouldn’t think,” she said, knowing she was being optimistic, but feeling hopeful all the same. “This flu that’s going around has hit everyone hard. We’re even short a doctor this morning because of it.”
Plus, they were understandably obligated to take the most serious cases first. With a slight fever and cough, and no family doctor, this woman was in for a wait.
Now, too, they were expecting an ambulance, whose arrival they had been alerted to only moments ago. A homeless man had gone into cardiac arrest not far from the hospital. Rita had already notified the coronary care unit, and they were sending down their best—Dr. Matthew Grayson, who was something of a legend around Boston General.
Truth be told, his legendary status wasn’t due entirely to his talent as a heart surgeon. No, part of his status was less legend-like than it was fairy-tale-like. Dr. Grayson definitely resembled a certain fairy-tale character—the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. It wasn’t just because of his attitude, either, though certainly that had been described as beastly by more than one CCU nurse. One would think that as a result of working in the unit herself, Rita would have more than a nodding acquaintance with Dr. Grayson. But she didn’t think anyone in the CCU—or at Boston General for that matter—had any kind of acquaintance with the man.
Although Rita had never been put off by Dr. Grayson the way many were, she could see why others might find him difficult. At times he was gruff to the extreme. Even in his best mood, he was standoffish. His beastliness was only enhanced by the scars on the left side of his face and neck. She didn’t know what had caused those scars—Dr. Grayson never mentioned them, and neither did anyone else if they knew what was good for them—but whatever it had been had done a thorough job in marking him. It was obvious that he’d had cosmetic surgery, but even plastic surgeons couldn’t work miracles. Dr. Grayson, she was sure, would remain scarred for life.
But whether he truly was a beast, Rita couldn’t say. Yes, he could be intimidating, but he was a dedicated professional who saved scores of lives. Rita admired and respected his skill as a surgeon, and she figured he probably had a reason for his gruffness. In any event, he’d never turned that attitude on her. Come to think of it, he pretty much steered clear of her, which was just fine with her.
Besides, it took a lot more than scars and a bad mood to intimidate Rita Barone. The second-youngest of eight children from a celebrated Boston family, she’d had no choice but to learn early on to take care of herself and not let things get to her. She’d grown up with four rough-and-tumble older brothers who’d suffered every manner of injury known to humankind, not to mention their own forms of beastly behavior, especially when puberty struck them.
As if conjured by the thought, Dr. Matthew Grayson himself appeared then, rushing toward the nurses’ station. His white coat flapped behind him over dark trousers, a white shirt and a discreetly patterned necktie in varying shades of blue.
“Has our cardiac arrest arrived yet?” he demanded without so much as a hello as he came to a stop behind Rita.
“Any time now,” she told him.
Really, she thought, considering him, if it weren’t for the scars on his face, he’d be an extremely handsome man. Standing at about six-foot-three, he towered over Rita, something she wasn’t accustomed to at five-eight herself. Add to that impressive height his solid, athletic build, his dreamy green eyes and his chestnut hair with its golden highlights, not to mention the perfectly tailored, very expensive dark suits he generally opted for, and you had the makings of a Hollywood movie star. Only the scars marred his perfection.
Then again, she thought further, in some ways those scars almost added to his allure. They kept his exquisite good looks from being too exquisite, and somehow made him seem more human.
Of course, at the moment, he seemed more godlike, as he towered over her. Rita fought the urge to stand up, though that scarcely would have made a difference, thanks to the disparity in their heights. Instead, she remained seated, as if she were completely unaffected by his nearness. And she was—except for the way her heart rate seemed to have quadrupled the moment she saw him striding toward her.
But then, what else was her heart supposed to do? she wondered. They were expecting a cardiac arrest any moment, and Dr. Grayson had already surged into action in anticipation. It was normal that she be surging, too, albeit in other ways. Ways that had nothing to do with the good doctor’s presence. Especially once she heard the siren outside announcing the arrival of the ambulance. She leapt up from her chair and circled the nurses’ station with Dr. Grayson right on her heels.
In a flurry of motion and clamor, the paramedics wheeled in an elderly man who was screaming and keening and flailing his arms about. He was filthy, Rita saw as she approached, hurrying her stride to match the paramedics’ as she directed them to an examining room, and he was clearly terrified. As she strode alongside him, instinctively she reached for the man’s hand and held it, then winced a bit when he squeezed tightly enough to hurt her. He was obviously much stronger than he looked.
“It’s okay,” she told him as they came to a halt in a small room. “You’re going to be all right.” She didn’t know if that was true, but she wasn’t about to cite heart-attack survival statistics for him right now. “You’ve got the best here to help you,” she said further. “We’ll take good care of you.”
The man stopped trying to strike the paramedics then, and he stopped shouting. When he turned to look at Rita, he was breathing rapidly and raggedly, and his pale-blue eyes were filled with fear.
“Who—who’re you?” he gasped. Then he grimaced in pain.
“My name is Rita,” she said soothingly, stroking her other hand over the one he had wrapped so fiercely around hers. As discreetly as she could, she took his pulse, not wanting to alarm him again. It wasn’t quite as erratic as she would have thought under the circumstances, but it was still thready.
“You—the—doc?” the man asked with some difficulty, his voice raspy, his breathing becoming more labored.
“No, I’m a nurse,” Rita told him as she noted the activity surrounding them. It looked as if half the staff was in the tiny room, tending to the man, even though she knew it was only a fraction of those working this morning. “But there’s a doctor here,” she said
