She grimaced and sighed. “Men, I’ll never understand them.”
“Doc,” I placed my hand over hers, stilling her movement before I pitched tent. “It was a pro fight. I don’t do street fights and I’m not into bar room brawls.”
“Not much difference in my eyes when someone ends up here. Violence is violence.”
I said with a grin, “Oh, come on. You’ve never hit someone?”
“Not unless I was defending myself.” She pulled her hands back and picked up the chart from the table next to the gurney.
“Well, I was defending myself from his damn knee,” I laughed. “Ouch, f**k.”
“Did you win?” Raising her eyebrows and cocking her head, she stared at me with parted lips.
I wanted to grab her and sweep my tongue inside her mouth. Show her how a real man does it. My strength wasn’t only good in the ring, but I could hold her against the wall and make her dirty with barely any effort. “I always win.” I grinned, winking at her.
“Cocky bastard,” she muttered under her breath.
“My ribs hurt, but my hearing is fantastic, Doc.”
She ran her hands down her face to hide her smile. “I’m sorry, that was rude of me.”
“Make it up to me with dinner.” I touched her hand and saw her body twitch from the contact.
She felt it too – the connection… the spark between us.
“I don’t date men who use their fists, Mr. Gallo.”
“My hands have many other uses that you’d quite enjoy.”
She swallowed hard enough that I could hear it before she looked down at the chart and back at me. “I don’t date patients or cocky bastards,” she chuckled.
“Don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I have to go order your x-ray, Mr. Gallo, and I have other patients to see. I’ll be back to see you as soon as I get the results.”
“Just think about it, please? You’ve wounded my pride.” Pretending to be hurt I gripped my chest.
“You’re pride is just fine, it’s your lung I’m worried about. Stay put,” she said, as she started to walk away.
“Where would I go? I can’t even sit up without your help.”
“Good, then I’ll know where to find you,” she laughed and walked out the door.
Reaching down, I adjusted my dick in my shorts. Fuck, just talking to her made me semi-hard. The half-pitched tent vanished when a burly man walked through the door with an x-ray machine. Never thought I’d be happy to see a man.
His size made it easy for him to move me. After a few shots, he helped me sit up before he left.
I started thinking of all the lines I’d use on her. I wanted that date, but how could I get her to say yes.
My heart sunk when I heard, “Well, Mr. Gallo it looks like a clean fracture.” It wasn’t the sexy doctor but a man that spoke.
“Where’s the other doctor?” I asked, wanting to see her before I left.
“She’s busy and asked me to give you the good news and get you checked out.”
“Fuck,” I mumbled. She foiled my plans. I sighed, “So I’m good to go?”
“It’s going to take about four to six weeks to heal. You can tape them to relieve some of the pain if you’d liked.”
“I know. It’s not the first time I’ve cracked a rib.”
“Here’s the paperwork with instructions and make sure to follow up with your family doctor in a week or so.”
“Got it,” I said, as I grabbed the paperwork from his hand.
Grabbing my shirt, I stalked out of the room to find Izzy. The doctor brushed me off and I was pissed.
Chapter 1
Summer
Human life seemed to be worthless to most people, that’s what I learned during my time as an emergency room physician.
I wanted to help people for as long as I could remember. My mom said I raided the medicine cabinet to fix my Cabbage Patch kids as a little girl.
Each day as I stood over my patients, trying to revive their lifeless bodies, my education and training felt meaningless. Medicine is still referred to as a practice. It hasn’t perfected and even with today’s advances in medicine, not everything can be fixed.
It’s a hard fact that I don’t always want to accept, but have no choice.
The hardest part of my job, the thing I dread most is informing a family that we were unable to save their loved one, despite our best efforts.
Those words left my mouth twice today and it had been soul crushing.
“Call it, Dr. Greco,” Dr. Patel said, as he stood next to the gurney.
I couldn’t stop myself from pushing down again. Sweat trickled down my cheeks, as a lump had formed in my throat. Maybe if I pushed one more time, I could get his heart to beat again.
“I can’t. Just give me a couple more minutes.” I pushed with such force I knew that a few ribs had cracked under my palm.
His life hadn’t even begun and I would be the one that called his time of death.
“Mia.” Dr. Patel placed his hands mine, snapping my mental focus – to save the boy’s life. “He’s gone. You’ve been working on him for over thirty minutes. His injuries are too grave. Call it or I will.”
Dr. Patel had been by my side today and knew the devastation that we were unable to repair – two car accidents, a gunshot victim, and the little blond haired angel in front of me – a victim of a hit and run driver.