Dr. Grump’s Surprise Baby (Bossy Bachelors #2)

8. Dominic

CHAPTER 8

DOMINIC

T he best time to be at the hospital was late at night.

The people who voluntarily worked night shifts were a different sort. They were quieter, more willing to go about their business without trying to socialize. It was impossible not to appreciate that about them. Of course, there were also the regular day shift workers who were stuck on call for the evening, but they were few and far between, and most of them preferred to spend their nights in the on-call room getting sleep unless they were actively needed for something.

Dominic would have expected it to be easy to relax. It usually was at night. But something — something he couldn’t put his finger on — was on his mind, keeping him from letting himself unwind.

He didn’t realize what it was until he walked into the break room and saw her sitting there.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, stopping short. “You’re not on call tonight.”

Emily looked up. “I’m getting caught up on paperwork,” she said. “And I’m reviewing the cases from the last couple of weeks.”

“You’re making a habit of this. Staying here when it isn’t your shift,” he said.

“I could say the same thing about you.” She closed the file she had been reading. “You’re not on call tonight either, unless I’m mistaken?”

She wasn’t mistaken. “I like to work nights,” he said.

“But you also work days.”

He inhaled slowly. “There’s a lot of work to do,” he said. “I take this job seriously.”

“So seriously that you never go home?”

“I have a couch in my office. There are beds in the on-call room. There are plenty of places to sleep in the hospital,” he said, wondering why he was even bothering to explain this to her.”

“Okay,” she said. “Well, you can’t be shocked that I’d be emulating you.”

“You’re here because I’m here? Is that it?”

“You want me to learn how to be a good doctor by watching you, right? That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“Well, look, you can go home,” he told her. “There’s no need for you to hang around here all night.”

“I really do need to get caught up on this reading,” she said. “Sit down, though, if you want.”

“Only if you’re not going to keep talking. I came in here for a little peace and quiet, not to get caught up on gossip.”

Emily mimed locking her lips with a key.

Dominic sat down at the table next to hers and took out a file of his own.

The key must not have been very good, because she spoke almost immediately. “I just don’t see how you can be here all day every day,” she said.

He scowled. “That’s fine,” he said. “I don’t need you to understand that. In fact, I think I specifically asked you to stay out of my personal life, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but… well, don’t you have a family? A wife? Something to go home to?”

“This isn’t the kind of job that’s conducive to that kind of thing,” Dominic told her. “If you’re interested in getting married and starting a family and all that, this might not be the career for you.”

Emily shook her head. “I don’t buy that,” she said. “Doctors can have families.”

“You are never going to have the kind of spare time it would take to do something like that. Not if you stick with this,” Dominic said. “If you work for me, Emily, the job comes first. Always. I don’t want you getting into this on the misunderstanding that you’ll have time to devote to dating and raising your children.”

“Dr. Nash is married, isn’t he?” Emily said.

“Dr. Nash doesn’t work in the ER,” Dominic said. “And besides, you can see how his personal life interferes with his job. Just look at how he went away on vacation right when a patient needed him the most.”

“It’s not his fault Daniel Wilson’s treatment failed.”

“Of course it isn’t. But you said yourself that he ought to have been there to talk to the family. He left because he couldn’t predict what would happen, and he was gone at the pivotal moment. You didn’t approve of the fact that I had to handle talking to the Wilsons? Well, that’s the reason I had to do it. So if you’re going to venture an opinion about the fact that I’m here in the middle of the night instead of out taking care of a wife and a family, or whatever it is you think a man in my position ought to be doing with his time, consider that. And consider the fact that if you think patient care ought to be a priority, the way you say you do, you’re going to have to put it ahead of everything. You’re going to have to make the same tough choices I’ve made.”

“I think it’s possible to prioritize patient care and still have a personal life,” Emily said.

“And I think I came in here to get some peace and quiet,” Dominic said. “I told you I didn’t want to talk.”

Emily shrugged. She got up and went to the fridge, took out a bottle of juice, and returned to her table.

She was quiet now, and yet Dominic found that she still had his attention. That was frustrating. He didn’t want to pay any attention to her. He wanted to focus on what he had come here to do — relaxing, catching up on reviewing his cases. Maybe, he thought, he should go somewhere else.

But he wasn’t going to let her chase him out of the room. This was still his hospital. She was only an intern here.

What was it about her that was so distracting?

It couldn’t just be the fact that she hadn’t been afraid to disagree with him. Jonathan disagreed with him all the time.

Of course, Jonathan didn’t have that soft-looking blond hair, that long, graceful neck that she seemed to inadvertently show off by tipping her head to one side, that narrow waist offset by curves that made him imagine all kinds of unprofessional things…

Dominic cursed inwardly. He could not be attracted to one of his interns. That was going to pose a huge problem. And yet, every time he looked at her, he half forgot that he was at work at all.

Her body made him breathe faster. Just being in the room with her caused a physiological response, and it didn’t seem to matter that he had gotten her to stop talking. Desire coursed through him. Now that he had admitted that to himself, it seemed to hit him that much more powerfully.

Emily tipped her head to the side and scratched the back of her neck absently, completely unaware of what he was thinking.

Dominic wondered — was it possible she had asked about his personal life because she wanted to know for her own reasons whether or not he was married? Was it possible she was looking at him the same way he was looking at her?

Well, if she was, it would have to be stopped. It wasn’t any more appropriate for an intern to have those feelings for her attending physician than it was for him to have them for her. Maybe it would be better to transfer her to another department…

No, he couldn’t do that. That would be unethical. She hadn’t actually given any indication that she felt anything at all for him. Asking if he had a family was a far cry from being the same thing as hitting on him. If she’d done that, he might be justified in taking action, but he couldn’t punish her for asking questions. And she had chosen to come here to study under him, to be an emergency room doctor. There was no excuse for transferring her to another department just because he was attracted to her. He had to be better than that.

There was still a chance she would wash out at the end of the program — but more and more, he found himself torn by the thought of that. Life would no doubt be easier without Emily Swinton around, questioning his every move, making her own calls when it came to patient care, distracting him with the way she bit her lower lip when she was studying a patient file… God, that wasn’t even fair. How was he supposed to focus with that sort of thing going on?

Yes, life would be easier without her… but he didn’t want to cut her. More and more he found himself facing the fact that she was probably the best intern he had right now. She was unafraid to face new challenges. She jumped into every situation without any hesitation. He would have been genuinely glad to have her on his team if she didn’t keep challenging him at every turn.

“What are you reading?” he asked her.

She looked up. “I thought you didn’t want to talk?”

Yeah, he had thought that too. “I just want to know what it is you’re reading,” he said gruffly. “I want to know if you’re putting your time to good use or not.”

“Remember the guy who came into the ER the other day with stomach pains?”

Dominic nodded. “Turned out to be appendicitis.”

“Right. I’m reviewing his case to see if there’s something that was missed earlier, while he was still at home. Something that could have alerted him to come into the hospital earlier than he did. He put himself at risk by waiting so long.”

“The surgery was successful,” Dominic reminded her. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“It kind of does,” she said. “I mean, I’m glad we were able to help him, of course. But if we can use his case to develop a primer of warning signs, we can publish it, and then people will be aware. They’ll be able to self-monitor their symptoms a little better and get to the hospital more quickly if they’re in trouble.”

“If you do that, what you’re going to end up with is a bunch of hypochondriacs coming in with acid reflux and claiming it’s appendicitis,” Dominic told her.

“Better ten of those than one appendicitis case staying home because they don’t know what’s wrong with them,” she countered.

“You really don’t object to making extra work for yourself, do you?”

“I didn’t get into this field because I didn’t want to work,” Emily said quietly. “If that was the way I felt about it… I mean, there are plenty of careers where it’s fine to slack off and collect a paycheck, right? This isn’t one of them. I know you feel the same way or you wouldn’t be here all day every day the way you are.”

He regarded her for a moment.

“You know,” he said, “there aren’t many people at the hospital who see it that way.”

“Well, I’ve always seen it that way,” she said. “I always will.”

“You’re going to be a good doctor.”

“You think so?”

“You just need to learn how to take direction, and stop doing whatever you think is best all the time,” he said. “You’re an idealist. But you don’t know better than everybody about everything. You need to be willing to learn.”

“I am willing to learn,” she told him. “It’s just that there are some ideas I won’t?—”

She cut herself off. The alert bell had just sounded, indicating that an ambulance was on the way in. Dominic jumped to his feet.

“Come with me,” he told her.

“You want me to come with you?”

“I could use an extra set of hands. But I don’t have time to talk you into it. Come or stay.” He hurried out of the break room and down the hall to meet the ambulance.

As he ran, he heard the sound of footsteps behind him.

She was following him.

This wouldn’t be like the previous calls the interns had observed. He hoped she knew that. He was going to need her to be hands-on with this case, given that it was late at night and fewer people were here.

And she was ready for that.

He was ready to trust her with that

He was putting her to the test and he knew it, but he also felt confident that she wouldn’t disappoint him.

And at least in an emergency case, she wouldn’t have any opportunities to go rogue and spend time with the patient talking about their hopes and dreams, or whatever it was she did with them when she snuck off to socialize with Dominic’s patients. At least this time he would be able to count on her following orders.

At least, he hoped so.