Page 8 of Take Me Home for Christmas

Mia and I were both efficient and hardworking, but was he actually saying something that I couldn’t imagine in this day and age—that the group didn’t want to hire another woman?

I swallowed my shock. Half my mentors were women whom I liked and respected. Years ago, Atticus had chosen a female physician as his first partner. And if this was about balance and humane schedules—weren’t those things good for everyone? Igot an odd, churning sensation in the pit of my stomach. One that made me wish I hadn’t heard what he’d just said.

I was still figuring out how to respond when Laura and Mia walked out of the room next to Rylee’s.

“Excuse me, Dr. Brunner.” I suddenly knew what I had to do, and that pushed thoughts of my would-be job right out of my brain as I took off toward them.

I mumbled something to Dr. March about needing a minute and then, before Mia could protest, grabbed her elbow and steered her a little way down the brightly lit hall. “The lab just called with Rylee’s bone marrow results,” I said.

Mia’s breath caught. She death-gripped my arm and went pale. Her deep green eyes, the color of what I’d always imagined the hills of Ireland might be like, were filled with worry. She trained them on me, scanning my face. “It’s bad news,” she said.

She always seemed to read me, no matter how neutral I thought I’d trained my expression to be. “Not bad, but challenging. Not insurmountable.”

“She’s got cancer cells in her spinal fluid.”

“Yes.”

Her grip on my arm tightened, and her eyes got a little teary. I was suddenly glad I’d been the one to tell her.

“It’s going to be okay,” I rushed to say. Damn, why did I just say that? It was unprofessional. I didn’t have a crystal ball, and cancer was scary in the best cases. She stared up at me in a way that filled me with the intense desire to do anything for her, like pull the moon out of the sky and hand it to her on a platter just to make her smile.

She called me out. “You can’t know that.”

“You’re right, I can’t.” I blew out a breath. No human did. “But I do know she’s getting the best care. We’ll make sure of it.”

She swiped at her eyes, and I could tell that she was upset. This wasn’t great news, but it wasn’t uncommon. Finding cancercells in spinal fluid meant that the leukemia was present in the central nervous system. It meant more chemo, and more intrathecal chemotherapy, which was chemo injected directly into the spinal canal, but the odds were still very good that Rylee would come out okay.

“You can take a minute, and I’ll cover you,” I offered.

“Don’t need it.” She straightened up and took a deep breath.

“She’s got a great shot at a cure.” My words sounded weak, but I had to say something.

“I know,” she said. “I also know everything this family has to go through for the next two or three years.” She gave a little nod. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Come find me when you’re done, okay? We’ll do lunch. Maybe check out that new place with the smash burgers. What do you think?” That was the thing about Mia. I’d friend-zoned her, but I kept finding excuses to spend time with her. Which was pretty messed up, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

She managed half a smile. She cared deeply about all her patients, but I couldn’t help wondering what it was about this particular family that made her so emotional.

I walked back to the nurses’ station. Gabe was still there working. I sat down at another computer and began to chart on my patients. After a few minutes, I turned to the sound of my name. Drake Shelton, one of the pediatric surgical residents, walked up, immediately opened a box of Christmas chocolates that was sitting out on the counter, and stuffed two into his mouth. “Have you seen Mia?” he asked in a muffled voice.

“On rounds.” I gestured down the hall. He’d been coming around lately, doing what guys do when they’re interested. Pretending it was a total coincidence that he just happened to be passing by the unit when he had no patients here, complimenting Mia on what she was wearing, flirting with her. I knew his game, and I didn’t like it one bit.

I mean, the guy was a meathead. His muscles were the stuff of legend. He probably ingested a small cow daily to keep up all that bulk. Not to mention the Christmas cookies and homemade fudge, so plentiful at the hospital this time of year, that he was now carefully picking through as if he hadn’t eaten in a year.

But the real reason I disliked him was that he had a reputation. You know the kind. Like, there weren’t many female medical professionals in a three-floor radius that he hadn’t tried to sleep with.

Also, did he even like kids? There was a reason children’s hospitals were filled with nice people. They loved kids and somehow managed to balance the joy and heartbreak of daily life here. But Drake was impatient, short-tempered with the staff, and intolerant of spit-up, all no-nos in this world.

Whether I liked him or not didn’t matter because I had no claim on Mia, which meant that I had no choice but to tolerate his presence with gritted teeth. And with my hands fisted in my pockets so that I didn’t not-so-accidentally punch him.

Drake took a seat, stretching out his legs as if it were Saturday morning and not the beginning of a long and strenuous day. “I’ll wait. She texted that she needed to ask me something.”

Wait. She’d summonedhim? As if that hadn’t made my neck hairs stand up, Gabe looked up and went a little pale. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” He stood up and basically forced me to follow him down the hall until we halted right outside the on-call room door.

“I think you should know something,” he said, concern plastered all over his face.

“What is it?” As chief, half my days began with statements like that. Which could mean anything from one of my interns having difficulties dealing with the emotions of caring for sick kids, to conflicts with other residents or staff, to the fallout fromtwo residents hooking up. That was my job, stamping out fires. While making sure I didn’t engage in any drama myself.

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