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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 interns, Victor! We’re not supposed to be operating on patients!”
“If we don’t help this girl ASAP,” he barked, “she’s going to die!”
Tamara knew he was right. The teenager had suffered blunt chest trauma during the traffic accident, so time was of the essence. Surely she and Victor wouldn’t be punished for taking matters into their own hands in order to save the girl’s life, she reasoned.
After casting one last glance around the chaotic emergency room, Tamara sprang into action, setting up the ultrasound machine as Victor hurriedly unpacked a tray containing the necessary equipment for an emergency resuscitative thoracotomy. They didn’t have time to get the patient transported to an operating room. They’d have to perform the procedure right there in the E.R.
After intubating the patient and donning protective equipment, Tamara and Victor went to work cutting open her chest cavity to gain access to her heart. With the hospital’s medical staff stretched perilously thin that morning, she and Victor had to rely on each other’s training and instincts to ensure a successful operation. Like a precisely choreographed ballet, they passed the scalpel, scissors and forceps back and forth, and moved out of each other’s way without being told. As Victor massaged the patient’s heart with his gloved hands, Tamara murmured encouragements to him.
Suddenly their personal differences and grievances didn’t matter. All that mattered was the single goal they shared—to save a young girl’s life.
So that’s what they focused on doing until an attending physician arrived to take over.
Later that evening—after their young patient had been transported to the intensive care unit for recovery, and the other accident victims had been stabilized or discharged—Tamara and Victor found themselves alone in the interns’ locker room. It had been a long, exhausting day. All Tamara craved was a hot shower and a soft bed, though part of her was so wired from today’s events that she wondered whether sleep would elude her tonight.
She was tying her sneakers when the deep, masculine timbre of Victor’s voice came to her from the other side of the lockers. “You did a great job today.”
Tamara straightened slowly from the floor. She was surprised by the unexpected compliment. And undeniably pleased.
“Thanks,” she said. “So did you.”
“Gracias.” Victor paused for a moment. “We make a good team.”
Something foreign fluttered in her belly. “Yeah,” she agreed softly, “we do. Shocking, isn’t it?”
He gave a low chuckle. “Yeah.”
A long silence fell between them.
Tamara found herself holding her breath, waiting for him to say more. When he didn’t, she rose from the bench, grabbed her backpack from the locker and swung the door shut. As she started from the room, she tossed over her shoulder, “I’ll see you tom—”
“Wait up. I’ll walk you outside.”
She turned to watch as Victor emerged from behind the row of lockers. He’d changed into a blue T-shirt and dark jeans that rode low on his hips and clung to his strong, muscular thighs. His duffel bag was slung over his back, while a gleaming black helmet was tucked beneath his arm.
He sauntered toward her, exuding such raw magnetism that Tamara’s mouth ran dry.
When he reached her, she noticed two things at once: the color of his T-shirt brought out the piercing blue of his eyes, and his hair had gotten tousled when he’d put on his clothes. She had an overwhelming urge to reach up and slide her fingers through the thick, wavy locks to see if they felt as soft as they looked.
“Ready?” Victor asked her.
She glanced away quickly. “Sure. Let’s go.”
They left the locker room and headed down the corridor toward the nearest exit. The hospital was so quiet, the chaos from that morning’s school bus accident almost seemed like a distant memory. But Tamara knew she’d never forget it. She and Victor had saved a sixteen-year-old girl from dying today. No matter how many years she practiced medicine, or how many more lives she saved, Tamara hoped she’d never take a single miracle for granted.
As she and Victor neared the sliding glass doors that led to the parking lot, they saw that it was raining outside. No, not just raining. Pouring.
“Oh, no,” Tamara groaned, dreading the fifteen-minute walk to her studio apartment in the torrential downpour. “I didn’t bring my umbrella to work this morning.”
“I don’t think it’d do you much good,” Victor muttered grimly, his heavy brows furrowed as he observed the slanted sheets of rain falling from the night sky. “You’d be soaked to the bone by the time you got halfway home.”
“I know.” Tamara frowned, eyeing the helmet under his arm. “You probably wouldn’t fare much better on your bike.”
“Probably not.” But he looked like he wanted to try anyway.
She heaved a sigh. “This really sucks. I don’t even remember the forecast calling for rain.”
“I wouldn’t know. I never listen to weather forecasts.”
Tamara’s mouth curved wryly. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Victor cocked a brow at her. “Meaning?”
“Meaning that you—” The rest of her reply was drowned out by a sharp clap of thunder that rattled the building and made the overhead lights flicker.
She and Victor stared at each other.
“Looks like we’re gonna have to wait out the storm,” he said.
Tamara nodded reluctantly. “Looks like.”
Victor glanced around the quiet reception area, then said abruptly, “Come on.”
Tamara frowned at him. “Where?”
“Just follow me.” He started off down the hallway.
When she remained where she was, he glanced over his shoulder at her. “If anyone sees that we’re still hanging around the hospital, we’re gonna get drafted into pulling another shift.”
He was right.
“Say no more,” Tamara muttered, hurrying after him.
Chapter 2
They rode the elevator to the tenth floor, where they disembarked onto a vacant wing that was undergoing construction. The long corridors were dimly lit, and plastic tarp covered the dusty linoleum floors. With rain lashing at the windows and forks of lightning streaking across the sky, the empty ward had a decidedly gloomy atmosphere.
“We probably shouldn’t be up here,” Tamara said, her voice hushed.
Victor chuckled softly. “What’s wrong? You afraid that some bogeyman is lurking in the shadows?”
“Of course not.” A wry grin tugged at her lips. “But you have to admit that this would be the perfect setup for some cheesy horror movie. In fact, I’m pretty sure that Michael Myers has slaughtered more than his share of victims in deserted hospital wards.”
Again, Victor chuckled. “Don’t worry, cariño. I’ll protect you.”
Tamara forced herself to ignore the way her pulse skipped at the term of endearment, which he’d undoubtedly used without conscious thought.
As they walked down the empty corridor, their footsteps crunched against the plastic tarp, the sound echoing loudly in the silence. “Where, exactly, are we going?” Tamara asked.
“To find an open room.”
“What if there aren’t any?”
He slanted her an amused look. “Think positive.”
They rounded a corner and tried the first door. It was locked, as were the next twelve doors they approached.
Weary and frustrated, Tamara was about to give up and suggest that they head back downstairs. And then they came to an unlocked room near the end of another hallway. Laughing softly, they slipped inside like a pair of vagrants relieved to find shelter on a brutal winter night.
When Tamara automatically reached for the light switch, Victor warned, “Don’t turn it on, or someone might see us.”
“Oops, that’s right. I forgot.”
Not that they really needed the light. Since the curtains were open, rooftop lighting from an adjacent building poured through the window to reveal a small room occupied by a single bed, a night table and a chair tucked into the corner.
It wasn’t until Victor closed the door behind them that Tamara felt a moment’s pause at being alone with him. Not because she was attracted to him or anything, she told herself. She just didn’t want to be caught in a compromising position with him. Their chief of staff, Dr. Germaine Dudley, frowned upon intra-hospital relationships. The last thing Tamara needed was to be disqualified from receiving the research grant because she’d violated the hospital’s nonfraternization policy.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Victor told her.
She hesitated, then sat stiffly on the bed and shrugged out of her backpack.
Victor set his helmet on the table and dropped his duffel bag to the floor, then crossed the room to retrieve the lone chair. He dragged it over to the bed and plopped down with a grateful groan.
“Damn, it feels good to be off my feet,” he said, stretching out his long legs and rubbing his hands over his face. “Thank God one of these rooms was open.”
“Yeah.” Tamara glanced out the window. “The rain doesn’t appear to be letting up.”
Victor followed the direction of her wistful gaze. “Nope. Looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while.”
She sighed heavily. “Looks that way.”
Victor chuckled dryly, bending to remove his black boots. “Don’t sound so depressed, St. John. I’m sure we can get through a couple more hours without killing each other. Especially if we’re both asleep—which I intend to be pretty damn soon.”
Tamara grinned. “Good point.” After another hesitation, she toed off her sneakers, loosened her ponytail, then stretched out on the bed facing Victor. “We should probably set an alarm so we don’t oversleep.”
“Good idea.” Victor pulled out his cell and quickly programmed some numbers, then stuffed the phone back into his pocket. “All set.”
“Thanks,” Tamara murmured.
“De nada. Sweet dreams.”
“You, too.”
She watched as he propped his big feet on the table, folded his hands across his flat abdomen, leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes.
Tamara rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, willing sleep to come. But she was too keyed up to take a nap, and Victor’s proximity didn’t exactly help. It had been eons since she’d last gone on a date, let alone shared a bedroom with a man. And this wasn’t just any man. This was her nemesis, her archrival, the only person who could derail her chance at landing the research grant she’d worked so hard to receive.
Gnawing her lower lip, Tamara cautiously turned her head on the pillow and looked at Victor, allowing her eyes to trace his features. Even she had to admit how ridiculously gorgeous he was, with thick dark brows, strong cheekbones, a square jaw and a deep, olive-toned complexion that was a gift of his Colombian heritage. But the feature Tamara found most distracting—next to his hypnotic blue eyes—were his lush, sensual lips. Watching those lips move had caused her to lose her train of thought more often than she cared to admit.
But she knew better than to indulge an attraction to Victor Aguilar, no matter how unbelievably hot he was. According to the rumor mill, he’d secretly dated over half the hospital’s nursing staff, as well as one of their fellow interns, Isabelle Morales. Even if Tamara weren’t a stickler for following rules, she wouldn’t have allowed herself to become involved with Victor. Her sense of self-preservation was too strong for that.
So why are you lying here ogling the man when you’re supposed to be sleeping? her conscience mocked.
Heat stung her face, and she quickly averted her gaze. As thunder rumbled outside the window, she squeezed her eyes shut and silently began counting sheep.
Several moments later she felt a light, prickling awareness that made her reopen her eyes and turn her head. Her heart thumped into her throat when she discovered Victor watching her from beneath the thick fringe of his dark lashes.
She stared at him.
He stared back.
After a prolonged silence, she whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Can’t sleep?”
He shook his head slowly. “You?”
She shook her head. “The thunder’s too loud,” she lied.
“Yeah.” But he didn’t sound very convinced.
“I think I’m too wired to sleep,” she added, sitting up and folding her legs into a half-lotus position. “No matter how exhausted I am at the end of the day, it usually takes me a while to come down off an adrenaline rush.”
Victor smiled a little. “Me, too.”
Tamara hesitated, then said with soft wonder, “We performed an emergency thoracotomy today.”
“We did, didn’t we?”
She nodded. “Even though we were taught how to do the procedure in med school, we were always told that the survival rate is so low, less than two percent. But we beat the odds, Victor. We defied the experts, and Bethany Dennison lived. Isn’t that amazing?”
