Heart Murmurs (4 page)
Vince was happy to take credit for all of it. You didn’t get to be the best in your field by trading in humility. But, to tell the truth, he was more human than god. He had flaws like anyone else, weaknesses like any other man, and he was just as vulnerable when a maddening, bold, stubborn young woman didn’t call him when he’d hoped she would. At the ripe old age of forty-three, you’d think a day wouldn’t feel like an eternity, but after the twenty-four-hour mark, Vince had to take a brisk walk around the floor, thundering at a few orderlies and an unwitting scrub nurse just to feel remotely normal. Then, he sat with Mrs. Stevens and listened to a few halting stories about her grandchildren, gently prodding her and helping her through her aphasia. Only when she began to fall asleep did he finally leave her side. He pulled the door shut behind him before stepping into the hallway.
“Hey,
you
.” A voice stopped him in his tracks just outside 206. Feminine, commanding. So very, very welcome. “What are you doing just standing there?”
“Waiting,” he said, turning to look across the hall. He expected to see Anu in her uniform of scrubs, ponytail, and fresh face. Glaring at him. He’d begun to
crave
being glared at, knowing that, underneath, it meant “I wish I could kiss you.”
But she wasn’t glaring—no, her eyes were soft, and her glossed lips were curved into a gorgeous smile—and she wasn’t wearing scrubs. Under her open lab coat, she wore an honest-to-goodness dress. Short and red and the skirt swung, showing off a perfect length of thigh as she moved toward him. Vince nearly stumbled back a step. “Be still my heart.”
“It’s a good thing I’m going to be a heart specialist. We’ll get that started right back up again.” She reached out, put her palms on his chest like the paddles of a crash cart. “Clear!” Sure enough, he felt a jolt. All the way down to his toes.
“All right, doctor, I’ve been anticipating your report all day.” Vince covered her hands with his, squeezing her fingers. “Tell me, what’s your diagnosis?”
She took a deep breath, but her gaze didn’t waver from his. It was steady and sure. “Patient is a South Asian female in her mid-twenties, suffering from heart murmurs, shortness of breath, and occasional dizzy spells,” she recited in a perfectly clinical tone. “She frequently complains of an inability to concentrate. It all adds up to the classic signs of infatuation. Patient is apprehensive about the prescribed protocol but understands that it may be the best option to keep her symptoms in check.”
Thank you
. Vince was suddenly feeling a little dizzy and short of breath himself. “And what’s the prognosis, Anushka?” he prompted, quietly.
Here, she smiled again. Not clinical, not removed. Just completely and totally engaged. “I…I think I’ll survive.”
****
“I think I’ll survive.”
No, I think I’ll thrive
.
Anu didn’t do anything as stupid as hug him. She didn’t even reach for his hand, knowing that her little crash cart gesture—and the big romantic speech disguised as medical jargon—had been intimate enough for an open hallway. But the current flowing between them made it feel like they were already stripping each other bare. In tacit agreement, they stumbled, one after the other, into the first open on-call room they could find, barely making it until the door shut before they were kissing.
Vince McHenry was hers. He was really hers. He tasted like want and need and desperation, like days of denial, which she’d inflicted on them both.
No more
, Anu thought. Not if they could have this and have everything else.
He called her
Anushka
, which was beginning to become her favorite sound in the world, and when he linked it with the word
mercy
, it wasn’t to beg, but to tease. “I don’t need mercy, Anushka. I need
you
.”
His hands shoved up the skirt of her dress, cradling her hips, fingers stroking her flesh so gingerly that she had to whisper “more” and “I’m not going to break.” Only then did he press harder, making her gasp. She surged upward, clinging to him and meeting his absurdly sweet—no one would ever believe it, but no one else had to—mouth. He locked her legs around him, moved with her to the bunk beds, and…
Suddenly, something was buzzing. Vibrating, too. They both tensed, and she pulled away, still breathless and winded from his kisses. “Is that your pager? I think you should—”
“No. Not yet.” Vince stopped her from reaching for it, catching her hand and tugging her close once more. “Five minutes, doctor.” He grinned against her lips. “Trust me, just this once, it’ll wait.”
Just this once, it did.
And just this once—and every day afterwards—Dr. Anu Gupta was utterly and totally Vincible.
A writer, reader, and lifelong geek, Suleikha Snyder has always dreamed of being a published author…but she took the long way around and got a little lost en route, thanks to extended detours into administrative work and journalism.
After publishing her first romantic short story in early 2011, Suleikha’s finally on the path to literary bliss.
Suleikha lives in New York City with her neuroses, her sense of humor, and her menagerie of stuffed animals.
Follow her on
twitter.com/suleikhasnyder
and find her online at
suleikhasnyder.blogspot.com
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
For other wonderful stories of romance,
please visit our on-line bookstore at
For questions or more information
contact us at
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
To visit with authors of
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
join our yahoo loop at
