Fated Love (2 page)

Honor chose a spot one interspace above and just lateral to Quinn's incision and made a one-inch incision of her own. She guided a blunt hemostat between the ribs and into the chest cavity, then pushed a thick, rigid rube through the opening she had made. The chest tube would create suction inside the thoracic cavity, allowing the lung to re-expand. While Honor worked, Linda hung the first unit of blood.

"He's ready to transport," Honor said as she connected the tube to the Pleur-evac, a canister designed to collect blood and fluid while removing unwanted air from around the lung.

The entire resuscitation had taken fifteen minutes. Quinn and Honor pulled off their gloves, lowered their masks, and walked out into the hall, while the nurses and the medical student prepared the patient and his various monitoring devices, lines, and intravenous bags for the trip up to the operating room.

"Well, now I really feel right at home," Quinn said, rolling her shoulders to ease some of the tension.
Just like old times. Almost.

But it wasn't—not really—and might never be again.

She glanced down with a grimace, realizing that her jeans were soaked with blood. "I need to shower and change. Can you get me some scrubs?"

"Come this way." Honor strode toward a connecting corridor. "I'll show you where the locker room is. There are plenty in there."

"Thanks."

As they walked, Honor took the opportunity to study the newcomer. She'd already seen her work, and the new attending was exactly as she had been advertised. Quinn Maguire, aged twenty-eight, was a fully trained general surgeon who had just completed a trauma fellowship in New York City. Her resume had been impressive, and her performance just now matched her reputation. But of course, there hadn't been anything in her academic profile to suggest that she was, in addition to being an accomplished surgeon, a strikingly attractive woman—jet black hair, sapphire blue eyes, slightly above average height, lean and tight and boldly handsome. Cocky, too, as Honor had anticipated. Begrudgingly, she admitted that Maguire just might have reason to be.
She has magic hands.

"Here it is," Honor announced, pushing open a door marked Staff. "Take any open locker, and check with Marty, the ward clerk, when you're ready. He'll give you a key."

"Thanks again." Quinn leaned her shoulder against the door frame and regarded Honor appreciatively. Beautiful, smart, and skilled.
Things are looking up.
"What year are you? You did a really nice job in there just now."

"So did you, Dr. Maguire." Honor extended her hand. "We haven't been properly introduced. I'm Honor Blake, the chief of emergency services."

"Oops." One dark eyebrow lifted and the corner of Quinn's mouth quirked into a grin again even as she realized that she'd just spent her first half-hour on the job treating her new boss like an underling. "Not a great way to start, I guess."

She shook Honor's hand, instantly struck by the warm strength in the long tapered fingers. The contact felt good, and she wondered if she was the only one to feel the slight spark of attraction. When she searched the brown eyes flecked with gold, she saw nothing but a polite greeting, and, reluctantly, she released Honor's hand. "I didn't recognize you. Sorry."

"No need to be," Honor said neutrally, ignoring the speculative look in Quinn's deep blue eyes. "What better way to get acquainted?"

I
could think of any number of ways.
Quinn tried hard not to stare at the soft swell of breasts beneath the dark blue scrub shirt or at any other part of Honor Blake's very attractive physique. She did take note, however, of the thin gold band on Honor's left hand with a brief twinge of disappointment.
Well, that takes care of that.

"Trial by fire, I guess. At least now I understand why you're so good...for a resident." Quinn tried for a bit of humor, but the ER chief merely nodded faintly, her expression impossible to decipher.

"Come find me when you're settled, and I'll give you a brief rundown of our operation." Honor turned and walked away. She had been opposed to hiring Quinn Maguire, but it had been a fait accompli before she'd even had a chance to cast a vote. She had not wanted a surgeon on her staff, especially one she didn't know anything about. Now she'd just have to make the best of it.

Quinn watched Honor stride purposefully down the hall, wondering at the hint of animosity she'd felt from the other woman.
Usually it takes me more than half an hour to piss someone off.

Quinn sighed. This was not where she'd imagined herself being a year ago. But then, nothing in her life had turned out the way she'd expected. She was lucky to have gotten this position, and now she'd just have to make the best of it.

* * * * *

"So what's the story?" Linda O'Malley asked as she settled onto a stool next to Honor in the nurses' station.

"Huh?" Honor looked up blankly from the paperwork that she was completing on the GSW victim, presently known as UMV— unidentified male victim. "Story...?"

"Dr. Tall, Dark, and Gorgeous."

Honor stifled a sharp retort, uncertain as to why the question aggravated her. She'd known Linda for almost eight years, ever since they'd met when Honor was a medical student and could barely figure out how to start an intravenous line. She'd lost count of the number of times that Linda had bailed her out of difficult situations, and in the course of their professional association, they'd become close personal friends as well.

"I told you that we were getting a new attending," Honor replied, tapping her pen restlessly on the countertop in a completely uncharacteristic fashion.
Why am I so bothered? God, I hate feeling
off balance.

"Yeah, but she's not the usual ER doc, now, is she?"

"No," Honor admitted pensively, thinking about those talented hands, "she's not."

"How could you hire someone for my department while I was on vacation? " Honor was so incensed she could barely stay in her seat. "I never even had a chance to interview her."

Mary Ann Jones looked honestly contrite. "It came up unexpectedly, and I knew that you had a position open. I had to make the decision quickly to get the salary approved for the upcoming fiscal year."

"You could have called me to discuss it. Linda O 'Malley knew where we were."

"You know how these things go, Honor." The chief of medicine shrugged. "The chief of surgery contacted me and asked me to interview Dr. Maguire that very day. Her credentials were impeccable, and...I owed Fillmore a favor."

"Great Politics," Honor said in disgust "I need a full-time ER doc, not a prima donna surgeon who probably can't tell a heart attack from heartburn."

"It won't hurt to have a surgeon permanently on staff in the emergency room," Mary Ann pointed out. "It will be very good for the residency program, and it will cut down on the number of surgery consults you'll need to request. That will make the HMOs happy."

"Did it ever occur to you to wonder why a surgeon would
want
to be an emergency room physician ? " Honor shook her head. "What's wrong with her?"

"Nothing that I could see. Undergraduate at Duke, med school and general surgery at NYU, and one of the premier trauma fellowships in the country at St. Michael's."

"I ask again, what's wrong with her? A substance abuse problem, mental instability? " Honor leaned forward, her displeasure evident "Come on, Mary Ann. No surgeon would take this position if there weren 't some kind of problem in their background. It doesn 't offer either the status or the salary of surgery."

The chief of medicine lifted her shoulders helplessly. "I honestly can't shed any light on why she wanted this job. She comes highly recommended with absolutely nothing in her files to besmirch a stellar record. I was delighted to get her, and since she s officially a joint surgery and medicine hire,
their
department has to do all the work of credentialing her."

"More politics. I'm telling you, someone's hiding something." Honor stood, still furious. "As far as I'm concerned, she's on probation in
my
department. If she makes one mistake or steps out of line, she's gone."

"Of course," Mary Ann said. "I won't stand in your way if you have cause for dismissal. Just give her a fair chance."

That had been three weeks ago.. In the interim, Honor had reviewed Quinn's CV and made a few discreet calls to friends from medical school and residency who had contacts at St. Michael's where Quinn had trained. Unfortunately, she didn't know much more about Quinn now than when she'd first been told to expect a surgeon as the newest member of her department. All anyone could tell her was that Quinn was rumored to be a rising young star, and if her star had burned out, no one knew why.

"If there
is
a story, I haven't heard it," Honor said with a sigh.

"She was slick this morning in that trauma," Linda pointed out mildly.

"Yes."

"And she's so hot the air around her sizzles."

"God, Linda, Robin shouldn't let you out of the house without a chaperone."

The small blond laughed. "After twelve years and two kids, Robin knows she doesn't have to worry. I was just
remarking."

"You have drool in the corner of your mouth."'

Linda started to raise a hand to her lips, then snorted. "Ha ha. And I suppose
you
didn't notice?"

Honor grew very still, disconcerted when Quinn's intense blue eyes and easy grin came instantly to mind. "No."

"Honor, come on," Linda said gently, resting her fingers on her friend's forearm. "Sooner or later—-"

Abruptly, Honor stood. "Let's not go there again, okay? Please."

"I'm sorry." Linda rose and gave Honor a quick hug. "You know me, just can't mind my own business."

"It's okay." Honor forced a smile. "Now, which room did you put the guy with the chest pain in?"

"Number four. The EKG is by the bedside. The T-waves are peaked, but they're not flipped, so I think it's just angina."

"Did he respond to that nitroglycerin?"

"Yep. Felt better in thirty seconds."

"Good," Honor said absently, glancing down the hall toward the locker room. "I'll be in with him for a while. Keep your eye on Dr. Maguire. She might have good hands, but she probably doesn't know anything about medicine. Don't let her go killing anyone."

"Yes, boss," Linda murmured softly, wondering as she watched her friend disappear into one of the curtained rooms just what it was about Quinn Maguire that bothered Honor quite so much. She doubted that in the small world of the hospital and the intimate environment in which they spent much of their day that it would take very long for the answer to become apparent.

Chapter Two

Q uinn stuffed her street clothes into an empty locker, pulled on a pair of navy blue scrubs and Nikes, and, hoping to get on better footing with her new chief, went in search of Honor. She found her reading through a stack of papers in the staff lounge, a small, windowless room tucked into a rear corner of the emergency room. The space was unadorned and starkly fimctional—the only decorations were a bulletin board with the obligatory rules and regulations covering everything from waste disposal
to
bomb threats, and a large erasable 12-month calendar showing the staff's shift assignments. The furnishings consisted of a single grouping of end tables and chairs along one wall and a central table that looked as if it had been pilfered from the hospital cafeteria,

"You said you wanted to go over some things," Quinn said as she helped herself to coffee from the warmer on the counter. It was her first and only cup of the day, and she fervently prayed it would be decent. She took a cautious sip.
Not bad at all. Maybe that's a good sign.
She and Honor were alone, and Quinn waited for an invitation before sitting down. "Is this a good time to talk?"

"Any time that it's quiet for five minutes in a row is a good time," Honor said with a sort sigh, pushing the messages aside. Most of the time, she enjoyed the administrative aspects of her position, but the paperwork was never-ending. She gestured to the chair opposite her at the stained gray Formica-topped table. "I'm sorry that I didn't get to meet with you when you were here to interview in June."

"So am I." Quinn kept her voice neutral and her face expressionless, wondering if they
had
met if Honor would have hired her. At the moment, the ER chief didn't seem too happy to have her on board. She'd been lucky that her previous chief had been able to pull some strings and get her an interview at one of the few university hospitals that still had an ER handling trauma. Most hospitals, like St. Michael's, had both a trauma unit to handle acute injuries
and
a separate emergency room for the treatment of medical illness. At PMC, however, the ER docs evaluated and stabilized even the level one traumas, only calling upon the surgeons for consultation or when the patient was ready to go up to the OR. It was as close as Quinn was going to get to an operating room for a while.
Face it. Maybe forever.
She pushed away that thought as well as the faint nausea that accompanied it. "It was kind of a rush deal."

"Yes, the way you were hired
was
a bit unusual." Honor studied Quinn's deep blue eyes, searching for some suggestion of evasion or discomfort. The surgeon's gaze was direct and surprisingly serene. The tranquility was not something Honor would have expected of
any
surgeon, but particularly not of this one, especially not after having witnessed Quinn's aggressive handling of the trauma alert earlier.
What an interesting mix of contradictions she is. Or else she's a great poker player.

Annoyed to discover that she had lost her focus, Honor spoke more sharply than she intended. "I'm not sure what you were led to believe, but it's not going to be possible for you to see only surgical problems down here. We're—"

"I wasn't led to believe
anything
except that I had a job." Quinn tilted her head with the barest flicker of a grin. "Is that still true?"