Page 3 of Healing Her

It didn’t take long for Jen to realize she was a subject of heavy interest, not that she found that surprising. One pair of eyes after another met hers and bounced away, and the whisper level in the room hissed louder and louder. Jen hid behind her drink and smiled. She did love to be the cause of a sensation.

Steve got to his feet and raised a hand for silence, smiling at his surgical team. “All right, everyone, simmer down. Everyone here? Let’s get this show on the road.” He began to rub his hands together. “I’m excited about today, and I hope you will be too.”

“What’s this about?” a very good-looking guy probably in his early forties asked. He wastoogood looking, Jen thought, but in the self-assured academic way, not in the cocky over-polished way. Glasses, great hair, a look of perpetual curiosity in his eyes.Neuro, she decided.

“You all know it’s been a goal of mine to totally revamp our organ donation and transplant program here at Oakridge since I was named Chief of Surgery three years ago,” Steve began. He started to pace. “We’re LA’s top choice for surgical procedures, for everything from appendectomies and lap choles to complex brain aneurysm repairs. And that’s because of all of you.” He paused and smiled. “We’ve got a great team here, some of the best surgeons in the country. And now we’ve got a real feather in our caps to round the team off.” Gesturing to Jen, Steve’s smile got even bigger. “Jen, will you please stand and introduce yourself?”

“Absolutely.” Setting her drink aside, she got to her feet and hoped all five feet, four inches of her radiated good cheer and competence. “Hi, everyone. My name is Doctor Jennifer Colton. I’m a transplant surgeon and a lifelong East Coaster—in fact, I’m a Townie, and I feel like some of you will know what thatmeans.” Her grin got wider as some of the folks in the room cheered. “Yep. Hiya, fellow Bostonians.”

“Harvard?” the probable neuro guy asked with interest.

“Nope. Undergrad at Boston College, and then I’m afraid I committed the cardinal sin of going to UPenn for med school.” At a couple of boos, she chuckled. “I’m not sorry. Perelman treated me well and my education there was amazing. I did take all their teachings and knowledge back with me to Boston, though. I’ve spent the vast majority of my surgical career at Massachusetts General Hospital.”

Priya Majumdar squirmed her way to the conference room table and leaned forward on it. “Why did you come to Oakridge?”

Jen glanced at Steve, who nodded for her to go ahead. She took a deep breath. “I’m going to be the director of the new and improved organ donation and transplant team here. I’ll be working with all of you in one capacity or another as we do the good work of saving lives.”

Excited murmurs filled the room, but they didn’t cover the sound of the door opening one last time, hinges creaking. A striking brunette slipped through the door, her face flushing red as the room fell silent and everyone turned to look at her. “Oh.”

Jen tilted her head and looked the new arrival over. Expensive dress. Immaculately groomed hair. A pinched look on her face, mouth tightening further into a straight line by the second.Now, this oneiscardio. For sure.

“Doctor Proctor,” Steve said with surprise, his eyes wide. “You missed the start of the meeting. This isn’t like you.”

“I’m sorry, I—” Dr. Proctor’s dark eyes went round as dinner saucers as her gaze landed on Jen. “You!”

Jen recoiled back for a moment in confusion.What? I—oh.

The remembered taste of a cosmo martini filled her mouth, and her internal jukebox loaded up the song that had beenplaying when she’d shimmied backwards on the Indigo Lounge dancefloor, spun around, and collided with a tall, attractive brunette.

Thistall, attractive brunette.

She’d lost half her drink to the encounter and waved it off with an apology. But judging by the look on this woman’s face, that apology had not exactly landed.

And now they were going to have to work together.

Oh, boy.

3

Ashley could not believe her eyes. The hippie-looking dancer who was the whole reason she’d had to drop six hundred dollars on a brand-new Diane von Furstenberg dress less than an hour ago, the woman who was why she was late for this staff meeting—what was she doinghere?

“It’s nice to see you again,” the woman said with a friendly smile on her face. Her pretty face, Ashley noticed, much to her annoyance. She was older, light crow’s feet radiating from her blue eyes, and her hair was a long tumbling cloud of silver curls. But her face was open and cheerful, her cheeks dimpling as she smiled, a pert little nose a plastic surgeon would kill to replicate. Ashley had noticed none of these things in the shifting violet light of the Indigo Lounge, but in the warm lights of the conference room, she couldn’t miss them.

None of that dampened her irritation, which in fact only increased when she realized everyone in the room was looking between the two of them, naked curiosity on their faces. Chief Sundstrom was the first to speak up. “You two know each other?”

“We’ve met socially,” the woman replied, keeping things simple. At least she could be discreet. Ashley wasn’t in the closet, but she wasn’t in the habit of giving any of her colleagues gossip fodder. Her life was hers; she wanted to keep it that way. So she did grudgingly appreciate the modicum of discretion.

Chief Sundstrom looked puzzled but let it go. “Doctor Proctor, this is Doctor Jennifer Colton. She’s going to be the director of our organ donation and transplant program here at Oakridge.”

What!Disaster. “Are you serious?” she blurted out without thinking, and immediately wished she could take it back. Whispers and murmurs began to go around the room, and Chief Sundstrom’s left eyebrow nearly took flight, it arched so high.

“In fact, I am serious, Doctor Proctor. Do you have any objections to this appointment?”

Plenty, as it happened. Ashley wasn’t unfamiliar with Dr. Colton’s reputation as a pioneering maverick. It seemed like she popped up inTransplantation, the most prominent journal in the world of organ transplants, every other month. She’d been among the first to embrace the concept of animal to human transplants, of 3D printing organs based on patient cells. She frequently wrote papers proposing new ways to increase organ viability, and worked with pharmaceutical companies to try and develop new immunosuppressant drugs.

New, new, new seemed to be the mantra of Dr. Jennifer Colton. Always pushing ahead, never sticking to tried and true methods. It seemed the next new shiny thing always had to be sought. Ashley hated everything about this approach to medicine. So much had been invested in the safe methods they had now, so much careful policy was in place to protect doctors… Jennifer Colton was a threat, plain and simple. Ashley’s stomach churned at everything the woman stood for.

“Doctor Proctor?” Chief Sundstrom’s voice was loaded with concern.

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