Cindy's Doctor Charming (2 page)

“I need a reason?”

“It would be polite.”

“Not if I had to explain about a prosthetic leg. Or a pronounced limp from a serious childhood soccer injury.”

Like almost every other man in the room, he'd watched the sexy sway of her hips as she'd glided gracefully to the table. The only imminent injury was the rising level of testosterone threatening to blow the top of his head off.

“Do you have any physical limitations?” he asked.

“No.”

“Okay.” Before she made him navigate more speed bumps, he said, “And you know how to dance?”

“See, that's the thing. Mumsy and Daddy begged me to go to cotillion to smooth out my rough edges—”

“Mumsy?”

She smiled. “Yes. My über-wealthy parents desperately wanted to be here tonight but they simply couldn't tear themselves away from the south of France.”

“Über-wealthy?” That's not what she'd told him before. “Just exactly how much did you pay for that lucky raffle ticket?”

Amusement curved the corners of her full, tempting lips. “So you actually were paying attention.”

“It's part of my charm.”

“Oh, please. Do women really fall for that line?”

“Yes. Although usually a line isn't involved.”

“It's a darn shame.” She eased away, a pitying expression on her face.

“What?”

“You should really do something about your self-confidence. Surgery. Rehab. There must be some treatment. The miracles of modern medicine—”

“Aren't miracles,” he finished.

“No?”

“It's science.”

“Really?” There was a spark of interest now.

“Absolutely.”

“You don't believe in miracles?” She rested her arm on the table as she angled her body toward him.

“I never underestimate the power of the human spirit. But a miracle?” He shook his head. “If I can't see or touch it, I don't believe it exists.”

“What about love?”

Oddly enough, he was pretty sure the question wasn't Cindy being flirtatious. If an invitation to his bed was her goal, she'd be in his arms on the dance floor right now. Instead of having her soft curves pressed against him and the scent of her skin snarling his senses, they were having an existential discussion regarding the reality of love.

“I don't believe in it.”

“You're kidding, right?” she asked.

“No.”

In the NICU he'd seen worried parents who almost literally willed a tiny scrap of humanity born too soon, a being that they'd only just met face to face, to live. Was that love? He didn't know. It hadn't existed in his life. There'd been buckets of money that his father spent copious amounts of time making. His mother got tired of trying to get her husband's attention and turned to her “projects.”

Nathan had tried his hand at love. He'd married a woman he liked and respected. But there was no doubt in his mind that if she hadn't died in a car accident, their trial separation would have turned into an amicable divorce. He missed her, as his best friend. Nothing deeper than that existed in his world. He had no frame of reference for love.

Enough with the self-examination, he thought. He was a doctor, trained to act swiftly and decisively in an emergency. Hesitation could cost lives. And as Cindy had pointed out, his self-confidence needed immediate resuscitation.

He stood, then took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “We're wasting a perfectly good waltz.”

He'd expected some rebellion in the ranks, but apparently he had surprise on his side. She didn't pull away but followed almost meekly as he led her through the maze of tables littered with half-eaten cheesecake and hastily abandoned cloth napkins.

On the dance floor he slid his arm around her waist and nestled her against him. She wasn't as tall as he'd thought. It was probably that big attitude of hers generating the illusion. He was used to willowy women, but he could rest his chin on the top of Cindy's head and somehow the fit felt just right. Despite her tongue-in-cheek comments about prosthetics and pronounced limps, she was light on her feet and had no problem following his lead. It felt as if they'd been dancing together for years.

Nathan gave brief thought to making conversation, then decided if he kept his mouth shut, he couldn't put his foot in it. The sweet fragrance of her skin filled his head, more intoxicating than any alcohol he'd ever tasted. Thoughts of her in his arms somewhere private, with the sexy, strapless dress on the floor around her feet was temptation with a capital
T
. He was already planning the strategy to make that happen because it had been hard enough to get her in his arms for a dance.

The music ended and he was about to make his pitch when she backed away. The almost stricken expression on her face puzzled him.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing. I have to go.”

“It's not late,” he protested.

“It is for me.”

“Don't tell me,” he said. “Your car turns into a pumpkin at midnight.”

“Something like that.” She did an about-face, then slipped away through the crush of bodies still on the dance floor.

“Wait.” He knew she heard, because she lifted her hand in a wave as she kept going.

The crowd was thinner than when he'd first arrived tonight, but he had trouble maintaining a visual of her. She kept disappearing because almost everyone was taller. Outside the ballroom in the wide, carpeted hall people milled around. Nathan looked left, then right and couldn't see her.

Instinct had him hurrying toward the bank of escalators leading to the ground level. When he reached the bottom, the crush of bodies parted and there she was, one foot bare and holding a high-heeled pump in her hand. The heel dangled at a dangerous angle. Literally a lucky break for him.

“Looks like you could use some help.”

She looked up, her expression rueful. “Not unless you can surgically reattach this.”

“I could carry you,” he suggested.

She made a great show of assessing him from the chest up. “You probably could. And that would be very gallant. But I wouldn't try it if I were you.” Despite the spunky words, she put her hand on his arm for balance as she removed the other shoe.

“So you're determined to go?”

“Even more now.” The look she turned on him was wry. “I have no shoes.”

“Not a problem for me.”

“That makes one of us,” she said.

“Okay. I'll let you go quietly if you give me your phone number.”

She blinked up at him, and for a split second the idea
seemed to tempt her. Then she shook her head. “I don't think that's a very good idea.”

“You don't want me to call you?”

“Give the man a gold star.” Regret flickered in her eyes although she probably didn't know it was there. “It's not that I don't appreciate the interest, but women like me don't date men like you.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“Okay, how about this? My parents aren't in the south of France or even north Las Vegas for that matter. It was the truth when I told you there's no money in my family.”

“I believe you. That's not why—”

“Look Dr. Can't-take-no-for-an-answer. I don't want you to call me. You're a jerk at work. You yell at the help. You have a terrible reputation and no one likes you, including me. And everyone thinks you're inflexible.”

He laughed. “You're going to have to do better than that.”

“No, I really don't.”

“If it's not already clear,
I'd
like to see
you
again.”

Something flashed in her eyes when she said “Yeah, well, we all want things we can't have.”

Before he could stop her, she turned and vanished in the crowd, ending his lucky streak. The most interesting woman he'd ever met had just shut him down.

At least he knew her name. It was a place to start.

T
ired and cranky the morning after her big night, Cindy and her “clean cart” rode the elevator to Mercy Medical Center's second floor. If she'd known her raffle ticket to the ball included a sleepless night because of Dr. Charming, spending the evening at home in her slippers and sweats would have won out over borrowed finery and broken heels. She still couldn't believe that Nathan Steele, the legendary NICU doc, had asked for her phone number. If he'd known she worked in housekeeping at the hospital, the fairy tale would certainly have ended differently.

The elevator arrived at her stop and the doors whispered open. She pushed the cart, holding a mop, trash receptacle and trigger bottles filled with antiseptic spray, down the hall. After rounding the corner, she came to a screeching halt. Nathan was standing right outside the neonatal intensive care unit.

He was looking at his phone, probably a BlackBerry or
whatever was the latest expensive communication technology crammed into a square case barely visible to the naked eye. She wouldn't know. Her cell phone was old, her calling plan the cheapest available on the market, only for emergencies. Which running into Dr. Steele definitely was, but nothing an old, cheap cell phone could handle.

The good news was that he hadn't seen her yet. She could turn around and hide someplace until he was gone, but there was work to do. She was already gowned in the white, paper coverall with the snaps marching up the front that the unit required. Except for the disposable blue booties over her sneakers, she looked like a bunny. If only this uniform included a bag to put over her head, he wouldn't know her because her ID badge was hidden beneath the protective clothing.

Then she got a grip and realized he overlooked her on a daily basis. There was no reason to believe that had changed because the night before he'd flirted with her outrageously and asked a woman he didn't recognize for 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 it under ‘good to know.' Now, I've got work to do—”

“As do I. It's time to check on Rocky.”

“Who?”

“The little guy. From yesterday. How could you possibly forget when you took one for the team?”

“Is that what you call it?”

“My story and I'm sticking to it.” He smiled, and the power of it was awesome. “It's what the nurses call him. Somehow the nicknames just seem to stick.”

“Rocky. A fighter.” That tugged at her heart big time and she needed her space, stat, before she bought into him being a bona fide hero even after yesterday when he'd made her feel like the lowest of the low. He fought for the most defenseless and delicate of God's creatures. How long could she sustain this weak, borderline unjustifiable case of self-righteous indignation? How did she protect herself from him?

“Okay, then,” she said, starting to turn away. His hand on her arm froze the movement. She could feel the warmth
of his fingers and it had nothing to do with the protective suit keeping in body heat.

“Wait. There's one more thing.”

There always was. How many ways did she not need this in her life? She forced herself to meet his gaze and braced to repel the reaction. “What?”

“Your phone number.”

“What about it?” That was a stall. By definition one needed a number to dial to contact someone else on a telephone.

What she didn't know was
why
he wanted hers. Surely he didn't really want to call
her.
She'd admit to having the tiniest little crush on him after last night. Sleep had finally come when she'd realized that it wasn't really something to worry about because they were on completely different rungs of the hospital social ladder. But now he knew exactly who she was and had brought up the subject again. What was up with that?

“I'm asking for your phone number,” he patiently explained.

“I don't give out that information,” she said.

“Why?”

“Why do you want it?”

Now he rolled his eyes. “I'd like to call you sometime.”

“So you can yell at me after hours, too?”

“Of course not.” His gaze narrowed. “Has anyone ever talked to you about this acute flair you have for the dramatic?
And
holding a grudge?”

“Not recently.”

“Look, I'd like your number so I can ask—”

“Don't say it.”

He moved in a completely different orbit and she existed in the real world. Under normal circumstances there wasn't
a chance in hell that their worlds would collide, but that changed last night and an alternate reality was initiated.

Now he was trying to change the order of the universe. When the last man in her life cleaned out her savings and maxed out her existing credit cards and ones he took out in her name, she learned the hard lesson that men have ulterior motives. The only unknown was how much it would cost her. She absolutely would not be a victim of whatever it was that Nathan Steele was planning.

“Why shouldn't I say it?” There was a charming, confident look on his face.

“Because yesterday you only made me
feel
like an idiot. If I gave you my number now, that would make it true.”

She walked into the NICU before he could respond. There was nothing left to do except work through the bittersweet, wistful feeling inside that made her wish a man hadn't screwed up her life. Then she might be tempted to take a chance that another man wasn't going to do the same thing.

 

Nathan wasn't sure why he cruised the cafeteria at lunch-time instead of going to the doctor's dining room. Then he saw Cindy Elliott sitting by herself and the motivation for his detour became clear. It was an excuse to talk to her. Damage control for his unreasonable behavior, he told himself. But
himself
wasn't quite buying into that story. After her over-the-top reaction to his apology for unreasonable behavior, he'd turned over the unreasonable behavior crown to her. Yet he couldn't stop his own curiosity at her response.

He grabbed a tray and stepped into line, then picked up a ready-made turkey sandwich and a bottle of water. After paying for the items, he looked around, half-expecting her to be gone. She had a way of running out on him. This time
she was still sitting alone at a table for two by the wall. Convenient.

“Here goes nothing,” he mumbled to himself.

Sunshine leaked through the windows from the hospital's dome tower above this room, allowing the light in. The hum of voices buzzed around him. Balancing the rectangular green tray, he snaked his way through the Formica-topped tables and metal chairs with orange plastic seats.

He stopped beside her and did a replay of what he'd asked last night. “Is this seat taken?”

Her eyes narrowed on him when she looked up. “What if I said I was expecting someone?”

“Are you?”

“No.”

Without waiting for permission, he set down his tray and sat in the chair opposite her. He sort of missed the “bunny suit.” Now she was wearing the work uniform of cotton pants and dark-blue scrubs top with
Environmental Services
embroidered on the breast. In this light, her eyes were even more interesting—darker brown with flecks of gold. Definitely cinnamon. Spicy. Interesting. Not unlike the lady herself.

“So, how's it going?” He unwrapped the plastic on his sandwich and took a bite.