Page 54 of Dr. Attending

I take it as the go-ahead to begin, and step back.

“Everyone, this is Caroline Winters,” I explain to the staff gathered in the room. My lips curl into a grin, knowing what I'm about to say will ruffle some feathers. “We’d love to have her join us here for residency one day. So let’s be nice to her, okay?”

I almost add that she’s the most impressive woman I’ve ever met, but I figure that would be going a touch too far, even if it’s true.

Caroline’s cheeks flame beneath her mask, but she simply gives the team a friendly nod as she steps up to the table with me to begin the case.

As we progress through the surgery, I can’t stop myself from glancing up at her from time to time. From memorizing this moment with her.

Her dark hair is pulled into a bun and neatly tucked into my extra navy scrub cap. Her hands are steady and sure as she holds each surgical instrument, somehow anticipating each move I’m about to make, like she’s done this a million times before.

I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life—she’s the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen in my life.

Each question that I toss her on anatomy is answered confidently and without hesitation, despite the fact that some of my residents struggle with them. It’s like surgery is a language that she was born to speak. And as I watch her close the incision, a thought strikes me right through the heart—I’m the lucky bastard who got to hear her say her first words.

Chapter 20

Caroline

“Don’t you have to pick up Carter from daycare?” I ask as Weston slides into the sticky red booth across from me.

It’s nearly five in the evening, so I would expect him to have more important places to be than sitting in the middle of a busy cafeteria with me.

“They have special hours for healthcare workers,” he says as he hands me a cup of coffee from the knockoff hospital Starbucks. “Plus, I don’t usually get him until around six most days.”

I take a sip of the much-needed liquid caffeine and nearly spit it back out.

“What is this?” I sputter as I swallow down the lighter fluid in disguise.

Weston’s brows furrow.

“A coffee?” He takes a sip of his own, looking genuinely confused. “Why? Is something wrong with yours?”

I hold my tongue because I know that he was trying to be thoughtful. And to be fair, I didn’t tell him how I wanted my drink. I just assumed he would know that I’m not a sociopath who drinks my coffee black.

“I prefer a little cream and sugar for future reference.”

Weston’s lips curl into a devious smirk over the rim of his cup. “So you’re saying there’s a future?”

Ugh.

Why is he going there again? It's not like he made any effort to pursue me over the past two weeks. And even if he had, it would be pointless because nothing about my situation has changed.

I still have two and a half years of school left, followed by residency and fellowship. Even if I could figure out how to surgically stimulate that maternal muscle buried deep inside me, my time isn’t my own—it won’t be for at least six more years. And I don’t think Wes realizes that. Actually, I know he doesn’t or he wouldn’t be making comments like this.

“Thank you for today,” I say, changing the subject. “You didn’t have to do that.”

He puts his cup down on the table between us. “I figured it might be what you need.”

My heart almost stops because when Weston was grabbing our coffees, I pulled out my phone and added another item to my list of things to be happy about. I could have written any number of things to commemorate what happened this afternoon. Things like:

The sterile hue of light in the OR

Scrubbing for surgery for the first time

An unexpected distraction from studying

Getting to touch a hernia sac

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