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

9. Emily

CHAPTER 9

EMILY

“ M ale, mid-thirties,” the paramedic said as the gurney was wheeled into the ER. “We’re looking at broken ribs and internal bleeding.”

“What happened?” Dr. Berger asked as he began his preliminary examination.

“Car crash. Witnesses say he was driving erratically.”

“Intoxicated?”

“Looks that way.”

“We’ll get blood work on him later. Dr. Swinton, I need you here.”

Emily hurried forward.

“Hold his head,” Dr. Berger said. “We don’t know yet if we’re dealing with any spinal injuries.”

Emily nodded and braced the patient’s head between her hands.

“Was he conscious when you arrived on the scene?” Dr. Berger asked the paramedic.

“No,” the man said.

“The other driver?”

“No other driver. He hit a tree, not another vehicle.”

“Okay. That’s good. Let’s get him prepped for surgery.”

“Surgery?” Emily asked, startled.

“If he’s bleeding internally, we need to get in there and stop it, Dr. Swinton.”

“No, I know…” Emily swallowed. “I wouldn’t have thought you would do the surgery,” she said. “You’re not on shift right now.”

“We really don’t have time to debate this. I’m the most experienced physician in the hospital right now, so I’ll be handling the procedure.”

“I wasn’t trying to debate it,” Emily said, and then she realized that with every word she said, she was delaying him. “Sorry. Right. Go. Do you want me to get a nurse?”

“Scrub up,” Dr. Berger said. “You’re coming in with me.”

“What?” She hadn’t been a part of any surgical procedures yet, beyond observing during her rotations at medical school. It was something that would have happened as a standard part of their internship, of course, but it was early for it.

“I’m going to need an assist in there, and I want you to come,” Dr. Berger said. “You need to decide right now if you’re coming or going. I don’t have time to talk you into it. And once you’re in the OR, you do everything I tell you to do, exactly as I tell you how to do it. You don’t question me. You listen and you obey, and that’s it.”

“I… okay,” Emily said.

As she scrubbed up for surgery, she felt a sense of disbelief that this was happening. She was really about to stand in on a surgical procedure. She didn’t know if she was ready — but at the same time, she knew she wouldn’t consider turning down an opportunity like this one. She would just have to rise to the occasion.

And Dr. Berger was right about one thing — she would have to comply with every instruction he gave her today. There was no room for her ideas, not in a situation like this one. It wasn’t like it had been with the Wilson family, when it had been sensible for her to offer her perspective and stay behind to give them advice and consolation after Dr. Berger had broken the news. This was a surgical procedure. He objectively knew what he was doing and she didn’t, and even if she disagreed with something along the way, she would have to ignore that and fall in line.

She could do that.

She went into the operating room. Dr. Berger was already there, and so was the surgical assistant. “All right,” he said to Emily. “You’re ready for this?”

“I’m ready,” she said.

“What do we do first?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Yes, I’m asking you. If you can’t keep your head on straight and answer my questions, excuse yourself now. What do we do first?”

Emily knew the answer to that. “Locate the source of the bleeding.”

“Good. I want you to monitor his vitals while I do this.” He began to scan the patient’s body. “Okay, here. Looks like a punctured spleen. We should be able to repair this. You’re all right, Dr. Swinton?”

“I’m fine.” She wasn’t fazed. In fact, she was surprised at how easily she was taking this in stride. She hadn’t known until this moment that she was ready.

She began to monitor the patient’s vitals, as she had been instructed to do. It was a straightforward task, so she was able to watch what Dr. Berger was doing as well. He seemed as if he had done this a hundred times before, which she knew couldn’t possibly be true. She didn’t know how many surgeries he had been a part of, but she did know that every procedure was different. He had never been a part of one exactly like this.

They went through the procedure. It was lengthy, and Emily found herself amazed at Dr. Berger’s steady confidence. He moved quickly and skillfully, his hands never shaking as he handled the tools. He talked through everything as he did it, ensuring that Emily understood every step of the process, not allowing her to fall behind.

By the time they were finished, Emily felt physically exhausted, but her mind was so alert that she hardly noticed. It was exhilarating. The patient was taken to recovery, and Emily cleaned up and went to meet Dr. Berger in his office.

He was waiting for her with a cup of coffee, which he pushed across the desk toward her. “Drink,” he said.

Emily picked it up and took a sip, realizing as she did so that her hands were shaking slightly.

“It’s the adrenaline,” Dr. Berger said. “You had steady hands in the OR. I was watching.”

“I always thought I had steady hands.” She held them out in front of her, willing them to stop. “This has never happened before.”

“It happened to me the first time I scrubbed in, too,” he told her. “It’s normal. That was a lot of pressure for you to deal with. What’s important is that you managed to hold off your body’s reaction while you had to. You stayed calm and did your job. You did well in there, Dr. Swinton.” He took a drink of his own coffee. “Emily.”

“Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you for trusting me with it.”

“I wasn’t doing you any favors, you know. I needed your help,” he said. “I wouldn’t have let you in there if I didn’t believe you were up to the task. But you were.”

Emily nodded. “Do you think the patient is going to be all right?”

“He should be. The bleeding has stopped. He’s in for a hell of a recovery, and if the blood results show that he was driving under the influence… well, he’s lucky he only hit a tree, that’s all I’ll say about that. But in terms of staying alive, yes, he’s going to be fine.”

“You were amazing,” Emily said.

He raised his eyebrows. “No constructive criticism? No opinion about how I could be doing things better?”

“I’m sorry,” Emily said. “You’re right. I’ve been too critical of you. I should have been focused on learning instead of picking apart your process.”

“Well, I never thought I would hear that from you . ”

“I have my own opinions about the way I want to practice medicine,” Emily said. “And some of those things aren’t ever going to change. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to learn, and I know that. I should be making the most of my time here, learning as much as I can from you while I’ve got the opportunity — not making a fuss at every turn about how I don’t agree with the way you do things.”

“What brought this on?”

“You’re really good at what you do,” Emily said. “I always knew that. I know your reputation. But seeing you in action today… I don’t know. It really hit home for me just how amazing you are, and why people call you the best in the industry. It’s a privilege to be learning from you, Dr. Berger. Truly. I’m sorry. I can keep my opinions to myself from now on.”

Dr. Berger shook his head. “I’m glad you have that perspective, but I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk,” he said. “The truth is that interns do bring new ideas into the medical field, and we’re supposed to be able to hear you out. It’s too easy for me to forget, sometimes, that other people have useful things to contribute, and to just shut them down. You did well today.”

“Did I really?”

“Don’t start doubting yourself now.” He gave her a rare grin. “We both know you have all kinds of confidence. Stick with that.”

Emily was stunned at the way smiling changed his whole face. It was like he was a different person — no longer the irritable, impossible to please Dr. Berger that she had come to know, but someone much more pleasant and agreeable, and even… she felt herself blushing… attractive .

She hadn’t really thought about Dr. Berger this way before, but she knew that now that she’d seen it, she wouldn’t be able to un-see it. She would always think of him as this handsome man.

And really, how had she failed to notice it? Had she been so intimidated by him that she had missed that angular jaw, those brown eyes that could be either warm or penetrating, those hands that were huge and yet deft and precise? She couldn’t believe she’d failed to notice him.

He was exactly her type.

Not that anything could ever come of it, of course. He was her attending physician. She knew she had to keep her distance. Still… there was no harm in looking. And now that she knew how good-looking he was when he relaxed a little, she thought she might make it her personal mission to help him relax a little more often.

“What do we do now?” she asked him.

“Rounds, I suppose.”

“You’re not on shift,” she reminded him. “And neither am I.”

“What point are you making?”

“We should get out of here.”

“You’re not starting that again, are you? I told you, I like sticking around the hospital at night.”

“They’re not going to let you back in the OR tonight,” Emily pointed out. “You’re not going to be given back-to-back surgeries. It’s strange that they even let you have that one, given that it isn’t your shift — but I guess the great Dr. Berger can get whatever he wants around here.”

“Something like that.”

“Look, let’s get something to eat,” she suggested. “You can give me a rundown of how I did in there. Let me know what I can improve on. I’m sure there must be something.”

“You want your performance critiqued?”

“Of course,” Emily said. “Wouldn’t you, if you were me? If you had just had the chance to go into surgery with one of the best in the business? It’s the only way I’m going to learn.”

“You haven’t been that receptive to my criticism so far,” Dr. Berger said.

“Okay, well, tonight I promise to just hear you out and not argue with you,” Emily said. “I’ll just listen to everything you have to say, all right?”

Dr. Berger actually laughed. “Well, this I’ve got to see,” he said. “You just listening and not arguing… you could probably sell tickets to something like that.”

“So you’re in?”

“All right, I’m in. Let’s go down to the cafeteria.”

“No, not the cafeteria,” Emily said.

“No?”

“You must be eating cafeteria food three meals a day,” she said. “When was the last time you got out of this hospital and had a real meal?”

“Okay, maybe it has been a while…”

“There’s a great diner two blocks from here,” she said. “We could walk over and get something to eat there. They serve breakfast all day, but they’ve also got great burgers. I’m sure you’d find something you would like there. How about it?”

“Diner food?” Dr. Berger hesitated.

“I promise it’s better than the eighteen-hour-old deli sandwiches in the cafeteria,” Emily told him. “It’s my favorite place to eat around here. Come and check it out. You won’t be sorry.”

Dr. Berger hesitated for a moment. “All right,” he said at last. “We’ll go over there. Only for a little while. Then I’m going to want to get back.”

“You’ve got it,” Emily said. Inside, she was glowing with pride. She had actually persuaded him to get out of the hospital, even if only for a little while. It felt like almost as much of a victory as their success in the operating room had.