NYC Angels: Tempting Nurse Scarlet (6 page)

“Thank you,” he said.

She looked at her watch. “If I don’t get back to my unit soon they’ll send out a search party.” Who would find her alone with a handsome doctor, in a quiet, cozy corridor, with a pair of swollen, red, thoroughly kissed lips.

She smoothed her hair, stepped back and spread her arms wide. “Presentable?”

He looked her up and down. “Perfect.” He did the same. “Me?”

Scarlet scanned his person, making sure to spend a little extra time on the most noticeably aroused part of him to enjoy a moment of satisfaction from her role in that arousal. “Button your lab coat.”

He did then he bent to pick up his now cold cup of coffee that he must have set down in the corner of their hiding spot at some point.

“I’ll pump Jessie for decorating ideas,” she said.

With a nod and a wave Lewis turned toward the ER and Scarlet headed in the opposite direction to see if Jessie was still waiting for her in the cafeteria.

Lewis walked back to the emergency department feeling out of sorts. In forty-eight hours he’d be dropping Jessie off at his parents’ house up in Westchester County, leaving him with four full nights and three full days to himself. To do whatever he wanted with whoever he wanted. Yet he hadn’t made one phone call or
sent one text message or one e-mail to any of the two dozen or so women he knew for a fact would jump at the chance to spend time with him—in and out of bed.

Because he wanted to fix up Jessie’s room.

Because he wanted to spend time with Scarlet, the woman who’d been occupying his mind way too often of late, the woman he’d just promised to be a perfect gentleman with. What the heck had he been thinking?

That kiss.

He adjusted his scrub pants. In his present state, one size did not fit all.

Okay, so Scarlet Miller had the good looks and trim figure he preferred. But he liked his women easy—emotionally and sexually. Did that make him shallow? Yes. But it also made him honest. With his schedule and work responsibilities, he hadn’t been looking for anything long term or challenging. And he had no doubt smart, quick, feisty Scarlet would be a challenge.

Lewis returned the flirty smile of a cute blonde woman he recognized from Respiratory Therapy as she walked toward him on the opposite side of the hallway. He considered a wink, decided against it, but glanced at her fingers anyway. No wedding ring. No engagement ring. It’d be so easy to ask her out, to do all the right things and to say what needed to be said to get her into bed.

He was, after all, a master of seduction.

Yet the idea of slipping into that role, of spouting insincere flattery, and having to tolerate uninspired, unwanted conversation for the sole purpose of getting laid no longer held an appeal. Lord help him, he’d lost his desire to play the game.

He took out his cell phone and pretended to read a message until he passed her by.

Scarlet pushed her way back into his thoughts. Her soft, plump lips. Her scent. Her taste. Her barely audible moan of surrender as she’d softened against him. He may have lost his desire to play the game, but he had not lost his desire for the opposite sex, more specifically, his desire for Scarlet Miller.

He turned the corner, getting closer to the familiar sounds of his busy department, looking forward to immersing himself in his work, of focusing his mind on something other than his daughter’s friend and confidante, a woman he could not have.

“Dr. Jackson,” one of his more experienced nurses called out when she saw him. “Your timing is excellent. The consult you requested for exam room four is being done as we speak. Dr. Griffin was able to come after all.”

Though quiet and a bit gruff with the nursing staff, Dr. John Griffin had an excellent rapport with children and was one of the finest orthopedic surgeons Lewis had ever worked with.

“And two ambulances are on the way,” she continued. “Three-year-old male fell from a subway platform. Numerous scrapes and bruises. A notable laceration above his left eyebrow. Alert and responsive.”

“What do we have open?” he asked, shifting back into work mode.

“Exam room two, bed three?”

“That works.” At the sound of sirens he hastened his pace. “And the second one?”

“Thirteen-month-old female. Possible drowning in the bathtub. Mom is inconsolable, says she got distracted by an important phone call.”

More important than her toddler? But Lewis had worked as a pediatrician long enough to know better
than to make snap judgments about parents based on limited information. “Do we have a trauma bed available?”

She looked at the white board—which looked more like a red, green, and black board with all the writing it had on it—and said, “Trauma three, bed one.”

The electric doors opened. An EMT walked beside a fast-moving stretcher squeezing an ambu bag, manually ventilating his small patient. “Unable to intubate en route,” he reported.

“Trauma three, bed one,” Lewis told the female EMT pushing the stretcher, and he set his full cup of now cold coffee on the counter at the nurses’ station and got back to work.

Two hours later, finished for the day, he took the elevator to the NICU to pick up Jessie.

“Hi, Dad,” she greeted him and actually sounded glad to see him. Lewis wanted to run up and hug her and cement the moment in his memory. Luckily rational thought prevailed. “Is it okay if I stick around for a little while? Scarlet asked if I could watch Nikki for a few minutes.”

“Sure,” Lewis said, setting down his backpack and dropping onto the soft couch. “Who’s Nikki?”

The door opened and a little girl with red pigtails, a face full of freckles, wearing a pair of eyeglasses ran to hug Jessie. She really had a way with young children. Watching her, Lewis entertained the first inkling of a hope that maybe she’d follow in his footsteps and become a pediatrician.

“This is Nikki,” Jessie said.

“I’m four.” Nikki held up four fingers on her right hand.

She looked to be closer to three. “Nice to meet you, Nikki,” Lewis said. “I’m Dr. Jackson, Jessie’s dad.”

“She’s a NICU graduate,” Jessie explained. “That means she got big enough and healthy enough to go home with her parents.”

“And two,” Nikki held up two fingers, “big brothers.”

A woman with red hair similar to Nikki’s joined them. “Would you mind telling Scarlet that Erica Cole is waiting for her in the lounge? I don’t mind talking with new parents out here, but I can’t handle seeing all the sick babies.” She shuddered. “Brings back so many memories.”

“Of course.” Lewis stood. “Keep an eye on my bag, Jessie.” She nodded from where she knelt on the floor, setting out a bunch of dolls.

Lewis entered the darkened, quiet NICU, so unlike his bustling ER, and walked to the first of two nurses’ stations. “I’m looking for Scarlet Miller,” he said to a young secretary, keeping his voice low. An older nurse he recognized from the cafeteria when he and Scarlet had met to discuss Jessie walked up beside him. “May I ask what for?” the nurse, he looked at her name badge, Linda, asked.

“Erica Cole asked me to relay the message she’s waiting for Scarlet in the family lounge,” he said.

“She’s in with Joey Doe,” Linda said with a shake of her head. “If you ask me she is getting way too attached to that baby.”

“No one asked you,” a younger, nurse said to Linda. “Room forty-two,” she said to Lewis. “Come. I’ll show you the way.”

Lewis followed her. “It’s so quiet in here.”

“Not always.” The nurse smiled. “But we try to maintain a calm, soothing environment as premature infants are hypersensitive to their surroundings.” She stopped and pointed. “There she is.”

Through the half glass outer wall he saw Scarlet sitting in a rocker beside Joey’s incubator, feeding her from a special bottle, staring down at the tiny baby girl with a loving smile, looking very much like a mother caring for her own newborn. He walked to the doorway and cleared his throat to get her attention.

She looked up guiltily.

“How’s she doing?” he whispered.

“Still not taking the bottle, but we keep trying.” She lifted Joey to her shoulder and rubbed her back.

“Any news on her family?”

“No,” Scarlet answered. “Are you here about Joey or did something else bring you up?”

“I came to get Jessie and she said you asked her to watch Nikki.”

“Shoot.” She glanced up at the clock on the wall. “I lost track of time.”

“Erica Cole asked me to tell you she’s here.”

Scarlet stood.

“I’ll take over,” the nurse offered.

“Thank you.” She handed Joey into the other nurse’s care. “I changed one wet diaper. She’s taken next to nothing from the bottle.” Scarlet removed a disposable gown, balled it up, and pushed it into a waste bin.

“I have a couple in crisis,” Scarlet shared quietly as she exited the room. “Erica Cole is a member of a group I formed for moms of NICU graduates. There are about fifty of them who are willing to come in with their children to talk to new parents who are having difficulty adjusting to the NICU and bonding with their babies.” She looked up at him. “It gives new parents whose infants are struggling to survive a little hope. Sometimes it makes all the difference.”

“Yes it does,” he said from experience. Because Scarlet
had given him that little hope that’d made all the difference with Jessie. She was a truly extraordinary woman.

He stood at the desk and watched her through the glass of a small private room as she spoke with a couple. Although he couldn’t hear her words, her small smile conveyed understanding and compassion, her gentle touch conveyed support and caring. The couple watched her as she spoke, trust evident in their eyes. The woman started to cry and Scarlet took her into her arms and hugged her while the man turned his head as if trying to hide his emotions.

“Our Scarlet is something special,” Linda said, coming to stand beside him. With such a big unit, did she have nothing better to do than hover?

“Yes she is,” Lewis said, not taking his eyes off of Scarlet as she handed the woman a box of tissues and led her out of the room.

“She deserves a good man who will appreciate all she has to offer and treat her right.”

Linda’s tone implied a better man than him.

“No argument there.”

But after eighteen years of riding the manic-depressive, passive-aggressive maternal roller coaster of emotions, Lewis had used up his lifetime supply of energy earmarked for understanding, appeasing, and striving to meet the ever-changing expectations of women. He preferred the ups of flirty banter, new acquaintances, and satisfying sex to the downs of compromise, arguments, and frustrating disappointments inherent in long term relationships.

After a childhood spent catering to the whims of a mentally ill mother, Lewis would not regress to allowing
another woman any degree of control over his life. Ever.

He was his own man. He did what he wanted when he wanted and didn’t have to get approval from or justify his actions to anyone. At least that’d been his pre-Jessie modus operandi.

Now the waters of his life had gotten unrecognizably muddy.

He couldn’t bring various women home night after night, not with an impressionable young daughter watching his every move. Most unsettling, with four days of freedom ahead, was the fact he seemed to have lost the anticipatory thrill of the chase, catch, and release. Random, meaningless hookups with generic, unmemorable women no longer appealed to him. But neither did monogamy or marriage. So where did that leave him?

Lewis left the NICU without another word to Linda, entered the lounge to get his backpack, and told Jessie to meet him in his office when she was done. He needed time to think.

It’d taken a near successful suicide attempt for his mother to get his father to lift his head out of his prestigious surgical practice long enough to acknowledge the toxic level of dysfunction in their family. With renewed attention, love and support from her husband and some long-overdue treatment his mom’s condition had stabilized.

Unfortunately for Lewis, the damage to his ability to form lasting, trusting, positive relationships with women was done.

Instead of waiting for the elevator, he took the stairs down, needing to burn off some energy.

Supportive evidence of his lack of interpersonal finesse: The past nine months of torture with Jessie.

Although things were finally turning around thanks to Scarlet, his daughter’s friend and confidante, a woman who deserved more than a man like him, a woman whose appeal extended beyond good looks. A woman he could not have, who made him want with an intensity he’d never before experienced.

A problem not easily solved.

He exited the stairwell.

One thing was for certain, having her in his condo, with the two of them alone and hot for each other, would only complicate matters. After their kiss, he no longer trusted himself, despite his promise of perfect gentlemanly behavior, which meant he needed to figure out a way to get her help in designing Jessie’s new room without her actually stepping foot into his condo.

O
N
T
HURSDAY MORNING
Scarlet fought the urge to fling her arms out to the side and twirl. She tamped down the desire to skip through the halls of the hospital shouting, “I did it!” A manager needed to maintain some degree of decorum. But nothing could wipe the grin from her face as she walked toward the employee changing rooms to wash up and change into a pair of hospital scrubs—her standard work attire.

After months of ups and downs riding the ‘I want a baby’ ‘I don’t have time for a baby’ teeter-totter, compounded by hours spent obsessing over her finances, living situation, and work schedule, Scarlet had done it. She’d taken action, the first step. True, frequent sex until she got pregnant would have been significantly more enjoyable than page after page of paperwork, but hopefully her early morning meeting with Joey’s social worker would lead to the same outcome. Motherhood.

Granted her chances of becoming a foster parent and later adopting Joey would be better if she were part of a married couple, but Joey needed a mom and Scarlet wanted a daughter, and if she didn’t try she’d have no chance at all.

Scarlet reached up to push on the door to the changing area at the same time someone from inside must
have yanked it open because her hands met air. Forward momentum sent her stumbling into a hard male chest.

How embarrassing. She’d been so preoccupied she’d tried to enter the men’s changing area.

Wait a minute. She glanced at the sign on the door: Women Only.

Whew.

“I’m sorry,” a male voice said. She looked up to see a man she now recognized as Dr. Alex Rodriguez. “I shouldn’t have…” he mumbled, releasing her without looking at her. “I didn’t plan to… Damn it.” He hurried off.

Scarlet entered cautiously, not sure what she’d find. A beautiful blonde woman, her fashionable attire covered by a white lab coat, sat on a bench, staring at a locker, looking dazed, running two fingers back and forth across her lips.

This was none of Scarlet’s business. She walked to her locker and worked the combination lock, already running late.

The woman sniffled and Scarlet couldn’t ignore her. “Are you okay?” she asked, walking over to where the woman sat.

The woman must not have noticed Scarlet’s presence because she jumped.

“I’m sorry,” Scarlet said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I shouldn’t be in here,” the woman said with a sweet southern twang, looking sad.

“It’s not like your presence is disturbing anyone.” Scarlet scanned the otherwise empty room. “I’m Scarlet Miller.” She held out her hand. “I work in the NICU.”

The woman looked up and with a small smile she
shook Scarlet’s hand. “I’m Layla Woods, new head of pediatrics.”

“I’ve heard about you,” Scarlet said.

Layla gasped and brought her hand to her heart. “Already?” She looked about to cry.

“Good things. All good things,” Scarlet hurried to add. “From Dr. Donaldson, a neonatologist who works on my unit. He said he was on your interview committee.”

Layla seemed to relax.

“He thinks you’re perfect for the position.”

“I wanted it so badly.” Layla’s blue eyes locked on hers. “It was supposed to be my chance for a new start. But I had no idea…” She stopped.

“This is about Dr. Rodriguez.”

Layla let out a breath. “It’s already spread around the hospital. I can’t do this.” She stood and reached for her purse. “Not again. I have to—”

“Wait.” Scarlet stepped in front of her. “I mentioned Dr. Rodriguez because he nearly knocked me to the ground in his hurry to leave the locker room. The
women’s
locker room, might I add.”

“We had an argument,” Layla said quietly, sitting back down. “He followed me in.” She touched her lips again. “Five years,” she whispered. “And nothing has changed.”

This was like piecing together a puzzle on a game show. Scarlet sat down beside Layla. “I’ve got a few minutes if you want to talk about it,” she lied. Because she didn’t have a few minutes, she needed to get up to her unit to evaluate two new overnight admissions, a critically ill newborn with congenital diaphragmatic hernia and a struggling little boy born at twenty-nine
weeks to a heroine addicted mother, now suffering from neonatal abstinence syndrome.

Luckily her staff, comprised of some of the highest skilled clinicians in the country, functioned competently and independently. And they knew how to reach her if they needed her. “Maybe it’d help me to understand if you started from the beginning.”

Layla nodded. “Alex and I used to work together. We had a…thing.” She looked away as if embarrassed.

“It happens,” Scarlet said. Not to her, but to plenty of her co-workers, working long hours in stressful situations, experiencing instances of wretched loss and sorrow interspersed with jubilant miracles of recovery, men and woman needing to share solace and unadulterated joy in the arms of others who understood the constant demands of the medical profession.

“A little boy died,” Layla said. “He was our patient. His parents sued the hospital and Alex.” She looked down at the ground. “My name got dragged into the case since I was the one who requested Alex as consult. Our relationship got called into question and now people at this hospital have found out. I can’t escape it.”

“I’m guessing you both were cleared of any wrongdoing if you and Dr. Rodriguez both made it through the rigorous hiring process here at Angels’.”

“Innocence doesn’t matter to the gossips,” Layla insisted. “Being found guilty in the court of public opinion can be just as damaging to one’s professional reputation as an actual ‘guilty of malpractice’ verdict in the courts.”

“Not here,” Scarlet told her. “The residents of New York City and the surrounding areas trust this hospital and its administration to employ top quality medical personnel. Hundreds of physicians apply for jobs here
every year. Only a very small percentage of them make it past the first stage of the interview process.”

“But—”

Scarlet didn’t let her finish. “People are going to talk. Don’t let a bunch of gossipers determine your future. Administration would not have chosen you if you weren’t the best person available to head up Pediatrics. If this is your fresh start, if this is the job you want, don’t be so quick to give it up.”

Layla reached out to take her hand. “Thank you.”

They sat there in silence until Layla said, “He kissed me.” She ran her fingers over her bottom lip, again, mindlessly. “We had a bad break.” She looked at Scarlet. “How is it possible that one kiss can erase five years apart like they never happened? How can one kiss make me want a man who is totally wrong for me?”

Scarlet had spent the night pondering the exact same thing. “You still care for him.”

“I don’t want to,” Layla said quietly.

Scarlet’s cell phone rang. She stood, “I’ve got to get back to work,” and held out her hand. “It was nice to meet you, Dr. Layla Woods.” When Layla shook her hand Scarlet added. “On behalf of the NICU staff, welcome to Angel’s. We’re happy to have you here.”

Layla smiled. “Thank you.”

Finally up on the NICU Scarlet retrieved her stack of messages and found her charge nurse, Deb, at the rear nurses’ station. “I’m here,” she said, pulling out a chair to sit beside her. “What can I do?”

“Our transport team is en route to St. Vincent’s Hospital to pick up a twenty-six weeker. Estimated return at ten o’clock. Labor and delivery reported a mom at thirty-three weeks with severe pre-eclampsia is on her
way to the OR for an emergency C-section. And we have another pre-term multiple birth scheduled for eleven o’clock. That’s five new admissions and we only have three incubators available.”

“Contact discharge planning and find out where they’re at with the coordination of home care nursing visits and durable medical equipment for Simms in twenty-two and Berg in twelve,” Scarlet said. “We have two more scheduled for discharge today. I’ll see what I can do to move things along. Anything else I need to know?”

Deb smiled. “I took care of baby Joey’s morning feeding, like you asked, and she took a few sucks on the nipple. She’s getting there.”

Scarlet’s day brightened considerably.

Deb looked around then leaned in and whispered, “Did you do it?”

Scarlet nodded. So far, Deb and the social worker assigned to Joey’s case were the only people to know about Scarlet’s application to become a foster/adoptive parent.

“She’s a lucky little girl,” Deb said.

“If things work out, I’ll be the lucky one.” To finally have a daughter to take care of and love, after all these years of wanting, a chance to be a mom, and she’d help an abandoned infant in the process. God willing, someone had done the same for her daughter.

“What are your chances?” Deb asked.

“They’d be better if there was a Mr. Miller and I didn’t work such long hours,” Scarlet scanned through her messages to see if any were urgent. “But Joey will likely go home requiring some level of specialized care that I am more than qualified to provide. I put down I’d take a six week maternity leave, like any new mom
would get, to stay at home to care for her. So if nothing else, they may give her to me for the six weeks during which time I will figure out a doable work schedule to convince the decision-makers that permanent placement with me is what’s in Joey’s best interest.” Exactly what Holly would have wanted. What Scarlet wanted.

Deb shook her head.

“What?”

“Six weeks,” she said quietly. “I don’t know how we’ll survive without you.”

“I’ve budgeted for an assistant head nurse but never filled the position because up until now I haven’t needed to.” She looked at Deb pointedly, hoping to relay the message she was the only person Scarlet would accept for the job. “Maybe it’s time I started taking applications.”

Deb, quick on the uptake as usual, asked, “You think I’m ready?”

More than ready. “Yes. Let’s see how things work out with Joey. Promise me you’ll think about it.”

“Oh I will,” Deb said.

With a “Thanks for holding things together until I got here,” Scarlet left to say a quick good morning to her precious baby girl, before she got to work.

Hours passed like minutes, but Scarlet found the time to feed and cuddle Joey once and rush down to the cafeteria to meet Jessie for their standing three o’clock cafeteria date.

“Hey,” Scarlet said, placing her orange tray down on the table opposite Jessie’s. “You all ready for your trip?” She pulled out a chair and sat down.

Jessie picked up her apple and wiped it with a napkin. “Yup.”

“You feeling better about the lake and the swimming
and boating?” Scarlet felt terrible that she’d missed meeting up with Jess on Tuesday so they hadn’t done much girl-talking since their Saturday outing.

Jessie chewed her bite of apple. “Grandpa Richard said everyone on the boat has to wear a life jacket—they keep you afloat if you should wind up in the water—even him and grandma.” She took a sip of milk. “And Grandma’s going to take the girls to the craft store so he can teach me to swim without interruption.”

Scarlet loved how Jessie now spoke excitedly about the trip she’d been dreading for months.

“Grandpa thinks I’m big and strong and smart enough that I should be swimming by myself by the end of the trip.”

“That’s great.”

“Then I won’t ever have to be scared of the water again.”

Scarlet hoped Grandpa Richard came through as promised.

After another bite of apple Jess turned serious. “Will you do something for me?”

Scarlet swallowed down a spoonful of yogurt. “Of course.”

“I’m worried about my dad.”

Who Scarlet hadn’t seen or heard from since their kiss.

“He’s been real quiet. And he hasn’t been eating much. I think maybe he’s getting sick.” She slid a key and a piece of paper across the table. “I’m going to call him every day. But if he doesn’t answer I’ll need someone to make sure he’s okay.”

“Jess.” Scarlet reached out to touch her hand. “I’m sure your dad will be fine. Maybe he’s sad about you leaving.”

“He’s all I have now,” she said. “What if something happens to him while I’m gone?”

Jessie didn’t say it but Scarlet heard, “What will happen to me?”

“I promise, if you need me to check on your dad, I will,” Scarlet said.

“I wrote down his telephone number so you could call him, too.” She shrugged. “If you want. And our address.” She pointed to the piece of paper under the key. “I told the man at the desk in our building that you have permission to go right up because you’re my friend.”

Scarlet smiled. “I’m glad we’re friends.”

Jessie smiled back. “Me, too.”

“I don’t want you to worry about your dad. Go on your trip and have fun. I’ll call him every day, so if you get busy and forget it’s no big deal.”

Jessie lunged out of her seat, around the table, and into Scarlet’s arms. “Thank you,” she said, squeezing Scarlet tight. “I’m going to miss you.”

“You’re most welcome,” Scarlet said, squeezing her back. “You’ll only be gone for four days, but I’m going to miss you, too.”

In the slightly more than twenty-four hours since Jessie had given her the key to Lewis’s condo, Scarlet hadn’t spent one second thinking she’d actually have to use it. Well…except for the dream where she’d snuck into his home late at night…under cover of darkness…into his bedroom…into his bed…naked.

Whoa. She shifted her bags and fanned herself, the motion futile in the stuffy elevator taking her up to the twenty-first floor of Lewis’s posh upper-east-side building. That’d been a hot one.

But since it had nothing to do with a well-being check, it didn’t count.

The elevator pinged its arrival and the doors opened to a décor of opulent elegance that mimicked the lobby. Two antique chairs upholstered in a floral maroon fabric with magnificently carved, dark-stained wooden arms and legs sat at an angle on either side of a small matching table and below a large ornate gold-trimmed mirror. Quiet and the smell of wealth greeted her.

It reminded Scarlet of her youth. The memories were not pleasant ones.

Each door she passed looked the same. Pristine. Just like the bland textured walls that surrounded them.