Steel: (#5 The Beat and the Pulse) Read online

  My lips thinned, and I shook my head. “I can give you all the professional advice I want. You’re the one who has to decide if you want to take it or not.” I pursed my lips and shook my head. “I strongly suggest you take it.”

  His upper lip curled slightly.

  “The nurses downstairs tell me your therapy is going excellently. I expect you’ll be discharged soon. Two days at most.”

  He grunted, which wasn’t the reaction I was expecting, but none of the things Josh Caplin did were. I wasn’t sure why I was surprised. Maybe that was the wrong word. Perhaps disappointed was more apt.

  I stared at him for a moment, trying to work out why he was so hell-bent on not giving a crap about his life. He certainly cared about going to the gym, but why? Anger issues, probably. But more importantly, why did I care so much about it? He wasn’t some lost puppy. He was a fully grown man who didn’t need some woman he didn’t know telling him what to do. I was his doctor, and my advice should stick to his health and nothing more.

  He blinked once, breaking our mini staring competition, and I sighed in defeat. If he wanted to be a child, then he could stamp his foot all he liked. I wasn’t going to entertain it anymore.

  Turning on my heel, I threw back at him, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Caplin.”

  I continued my rounds, positively fuming. Mostly at myself for developing a crush on a patient. There were professional lines you didn’t cross, and getting involved with the people you treated was one you just didn’t mess with. From now on, it would be professionalism all the way.

  I so didn’t need another guy messing with my heart. It’d been messed with enough to last a lifetime.

  Striding into Mr. Simons’s room, I brought up his information on my tablet.

  “Mr. Simons,” I announced as I entered the room like a whirlwind, still zinging from my verbal slanging match with Josh. “How are you feeling this afternoon?”

  “Look out,” he declared. “She’s all wound up like a two bob watch. Whoever was on the receiving end of that wrath, I pity the poor bastard.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Simons,” I said with a sigh.

  He winked. “Got a live one, huh?”

  Leaning close, I whispered, “Kicking and screaming.”

  He laughed, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Tell me about it.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You want to hear about my grumpy patients?”

  “Look around you, lass,” he said, waving his gnarled hands about the room. “The most exciting thing that happens in this joint is when the pretty doctor comes to visit. Make an old man with a broken ass happy and tell him a story.”

  “Your ass isn’t broken,” I retorted.

  “May as well be.” He gestured for me to lean in, and when I was in reach, he whispered, “I promise to keep it a secret.”

  “What?” I asked, playing along.

  “Your story! Give me some gossip. I’m fading away to a shadow.”

  I laughed. “You’re worse than an old woman.”

  “Who’s the grumpy one? A handsome fellow?”

  Unfortunately, he was right on the money, and at the thought of Josh, I felt my heart do a somersault. I didn’t need it, but I was drawn to the mysterious bad boy and any mention of him had me spinning.

  “Yeah… He was found out on the footpath outside of Emergency,” I explained. “He was out for a few days and couldn’t walk for another three.”

  “Sounds like he was done over pretty bad, lass. Lucky you found him and fixed him up.”

  I sighed and shook my head. ”It’s just…nobody comes to see him.”

  “You’re a good girl,” he declared, looking pleased. “You’re worried about him.”

  “He doesn’t seem to appreciate the notion.” I grimaced, thinking about the way he’d snapped at me.

  “Is he handsome?” Mr. Simons asked, and I instantly turned red. “I knew it!”

  “I’m not meant to get involved with patients,” I replied, using the tone in my voice to tell him off. “It’s my fault for butting in where I wasn’t needed.”

  Mr. Simons didn’t seem to be convinced. “Sometimes you can’t help it.” He thumped his weathered fist over his heart.

  I chose not to incriminate myself further even though he was only trying to cheer me up. Instead, we went through the same routine we did every day during rounds. I checked his lungs and his heart before checking his surgical incisions. Everything was healing nicely. There were no abnormal sounds in his chest, and pending his therapy and home visit, Mr. Simons would probably be headed home soon.

  “All good,” I told him as I gathered my stethoscope and tablet.

  “You can’t make him tell you anything, lass. He will or he won’t. We can be a stubborn lot.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I retorted with a half-hearted smile.

  “Give him some time. Grease him up a little.”

  I gasped in shock, but a laugh burst out at the end. “Mr. Simons!”

  He gave me a wicked wink. “Men aren’t complicated, lass. I might be an old bastard, but I was young once, you know.”

  “You’re a bit of a Casanova, Mr. Simons.” I arranged his blanket around his waist and pulled the table back into position.

  “If he don’t try when he sees you’re only caring for him, then he ain’t worth a thing. In my day, a man protected his woman above everything no matter what. These young bucks don’t know a damn thing about treating a woman with respect. They’ve all got tiny penises.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Mr. Simons, I think I’m going to have to wash your mouth out with soap.”

  He began to laugh, and it was this big bellow that had me giggling right along with him.

  “Thank you,” I said once I’d calmed down. “I needed that. Same time tomorrow?”

  “It’s a date,” he replied cheerfully.

  As I left his room, I felt the familiar buzz my job usually gave me rush through my veins. The rush of being a surgeon and fixing broken people.

  “Any more trouble, you send him to me,” Mr. Simons called out after me. “I’ll box his ears.”

  Laughing to myself, I went about finishing my rounds. If only Mr. Simons were about fifty years younger.

  8

  Josh

  I’d had a lot of time to think about my life the last few days.

  I’d been training flat out for seven years and fighting for five. Almost two of those being at The Underground.

  Guys and girls showed up wanting to draw blood at the rundown warehouse in Abbotsford for a lot of reasons—to forget things, for the money or the glory, sometimes it was just for kicks, and then other times it was just wanting to feel powerful. Dangerous people crammed into that place, making it a hotbed for trouble. If you kept your head down and did what you went there for, no harm no foul. Fuck with the ecosystem and you’d be dealt with.

  Thinking about Charlie and her double life as a cop, I wondered how she could do it knowing so much illegal shit was going down. Gambling, violence, threats, money laundering, drugs, solicitation… All kinds of fucked up shit.

  After the way they had left me to rot in the street, I wasn’t surprised. All things considered, they’d gone above and beyond to make sure I at least didn’t kick the bucket. Didn’t matter the condition I came out in on the other side.

  Despite all of it, the injuries and my dented pride, could I go back and fight? Did I want to? I didn’t have anywhere else to go after they let me out of here.

  I’d spent almost every day of the last seven years training for a fight that was already over—like the harder I worked, the more I could redeem myself. Like muscles turned back time or some shit.

  Don’t you move, boy.

  Closing my eyes, I decided I hated being in the hospital more than I hated not knowing where I was going to go after they let me out. There was too much time to think. The only time the tirade of bullshit rolling around in my brain was quiet was when Sparks came to visit—even when she was pok
ing around where she wasn’t wanted. Her minion Harper didn’t count.

  The sound of footsteps echoing in my room prompted me to open my eyes and look up. My chest tightened, and I held my breath, but I didn’t recognize my visitor at all. It wasn’t Sparks, and I scowled like a pissed off teenager.

  A woman in blue scrubs and a white coat stood by the end of the bed and began flipping through my chart. She was tall and slender, her olive skin and big brown eyes making her look exotic and beautiful. Her long brown hair was tied up in a tight ponytail, every strand combed to perfection. Probably too perfect if you asked me.

  “Who are you?” I asked, giving her the once over.

  “I’m Dr. Gunner,” she replied, looking pleased that I’d taken the time to check her out.

  She was pretty and all—the kind of pretty any guy would go for and the kind I’d played with in the past—but she wasn’t Sparks. The realization that I’d been thinking about that little firecracker more than I should made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

  “Dr. Walsh is indisposed today and asked me to come make sure you were doing okay,” she explained, placing the chart back in its place. “I’m usually manning the ER downstairs.”

  “Is it the kid with the tumor?” I asked, and she paused, glancing at me like I’d told her a dirty little secret. “What?”

  “Nothing.” She shrugged in that infuriating way women did when they knew more than they let on. Like when they wanted you to do something for them, and they told you it didn’t matter but it really fucking did.

  “Well?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “Is it the kid?”

  Dr. Gunner nodded. “She’s working on a surgical plan with Dr. Archer.”

  Dr. Archer… The name was familiar, and I realized it was the guy who’d been assigned to check out my spine. Clean-cut dude who instantly rubbed me the wrong way. Guys like him never got along with guys like me. He was from the right side of the tracks. On paper, he was the right kind of man for a woman like Sparks.

  “Can you sit up for me?” she asked, and I maneuvered myself so my legs dangled over the side of the bed. “How is the sensation in your legs?”

  “Pretty great,” I replied. I watched her closely as she stood in front of me, making no effort to hide the fact she was taking in every inch of me. Probably filling the female version of her spank bank with fodder.

  “Walsh has done an excellent job patching you up. She was the one who found you, did she tell you?”

  I shook my head. No, she hadn’t, but there was no reason to think that made me special.

  “I thought she was a bone doctor,” I said. “Do they work in the ER?”

  “Yeah,” Dr. Gunner replied. “I specialize in Emergency Medicine, but it’s hospital policy that all doctors and surgeons on staff do a rotation in other departments as part of their residency.”

  I had no idea how all that doctor shit worked, but after watching all those episodes of Grey’s Anatomy when I was younger, I knew at least a little. I was pretty sure it went medical school, intern, resident, attending. I didn’t know if it was just an American thing or not.

  “So you’re both residents?” I asked as she made me go through some of the exercises I’d been using to get my legs moving again.

  “Yep. Final year, then she can apply for an attending role. With her qualifications, she could go anywhere.”

  It didn’t escape me that Dr. Gunner was trying to talk up her friend, but all it made me feel was inferior. Her whole ‘visit’ was an excuse for her to check me out. She wasn’t fooling anyone, but I let it go so I could see what else I could find out about the illusive, shy, and petite Dr. Holly Walsh.

  “Is she American?” I asked, taking advantage of Dr. Gunner’s loose lips.

  “Nope. She’s Australian, but she lived there a long time. She was working in a big-time hospital in New York City before she came here.”

  New York? Shit, I’d never been outside of Australia. The more she talked about Sparks and how wonderful she was, the smaller I felt. The big-time doctor would never fall for the small-time underground fighter.

  “This joint seems like a bit of a step down if you ask me,” I drawled. “No offence.”

  Dr. Gunner grinned. “None taken.”

  Why the hell would she do that? There were probably better jobs in bigger, shinier hospitals than this hunk of junk. Was she running from something she wanted to forget? I was reading too much into it.

  “What does your girlfriend think about you asking all these questions about another woman?”

  I almost choked on my own spit, and I lowered my gaze. “There is no one,” I replied, the words spilling out before I could stop them.

  “A guy like you with no girlfriend?” Dr. Gunner slow whistled. “I’ll have to tell Walsh.”

  I narrowed my eyes but didn’t bite any further.

  “So when can I get out of here?” Sparks had said a couple of days, and I wanted to make sure she wasn’t fibbing. Why she would was beyond me. If she wanted to get together, all she had to do was ask, and I’d come running. I was into danger like that.

  Shit, if Sparks were interested, it was just to slum it. I should just keep to my own kind because a woman like her would ruin me if she chucked me back after her fling. I was already too interested for my own good.

  “They’ll do a final assessment tomorrow and put you through your paces,” Dr. Gunner replied. “Then they’ll probably keep you in overnight to make sure your body can take it.”

  “So another two nights in the hotel?” Same as Sparks’s timeline. Dammit.

  She laughed and batted her eyelashes. “At least.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yay.”

  She put her hands on her hips and said, “Well, you’re all good here, Mr. Caplin. I’ll leave you to it for now.”

  “The cross-examination’s over, huh?”

  Her lips curled into a smile, and she started to giggle. “Caught red handed.”

  “Dr. Walsh is great and all,” I began, but she held up her hand to stop me.

  “She’s top shelf.”

  I didn’t know what I was going to say to convince her to stop meddling, but I clamped my mouth shut because some stupid fucking part of me wanted to drag this stupid flirtation out for another two days.

  She smiled, letting me know she understood that I was interested. “I’ll see you around, Mr. Caplin.”

  As soon as Dr. Gunner left me to my own devices, I began thinking about Sparks’s tits. So what if she just wanted to fuck a couple of times? Was that a bad thing?

  Then I thought about her tight, little ass and how smooth her legs would feel wrapped around my waist as I fucked her against the wall. Dammit, as I fucked her on this hospital bed. I thought about how she would taste, how her lips would feel on mine, the sounds she’d make, and how slick she’d be when I slip my fingers inside her.

  Shit. Her pussy. My cock in her. If I weren’t sitting on a hospital bed with an entire building of people outside my door, I would’ve given myself a hand job.

  Who was thinking about conquests now? It’d been a couple of weeks since I’d had my dick in something. That was all.

  As my cock calmed down, I thought about all the things Dr. Gunner had revealed. Asking questions about Sparks behind her back when I wouldn’t answer any of hers to her face?

  I was such a hypocrite.

  9

  Holly

  “He’s not responding.”

  I let my head fall into my hands and sighed, tension tight across my shoulders. Fuck it all to hell.

  Sammy, the kid with the impossible tumor, had been undergoing an aggressive regime of treatment over the past week, and by now, something should have been happening. I wasn’t expecting a miracle, just a little shrinkage around the spinal cord so we could slice that fucker out without causing permanent damage to the little boy’s body.

  “We might have to bite the bullet and operate,” Archer said from the seat next to mine. “It’s not
ideal. I’d have liked to have shrunk the tumor a little more before attempting it.”

  “It was never going to be ideal,” I retorted, staring back up at the new lot of scans that had just been rendered. “A millimeter or two at best. Any advantage…”

  I hated cases like these. Ones that seemed to have no good outcome no matter what cutting-edge technology or treatment was available. You just couldn’t fix everyone, and when it was a kid with their whole life ahead of them…it just broke my heart. Shattered it.

  “I’m scheduling the surgery for tomorrow,” Archer said. “I’d like you to assist.”

  “Tomorrow?” I asked, my mouth dropping open. “So soon?”

  “His parents want it, and there’s no point putting it off. It’s now or never, Hol.”

  He knew the score better than anyone else. How he could work in neuro, I’d never know. Bones were clean-cut. They broke and I set them back in place or reconstructed them. The human brain was another beast entirely. There was so much we didn’t understand about the organ that drove our whole bodies, the same organ that made us who we were. Without the mind, the body couldn’t live.

  I nodded. “I’ve come this far. Let’s give this kid the best shot we can.”

  Archer smiled despite the dire straits we were in. “That’s what I like to hear.”

  I shrugged. “Fight till the end or not at all.”

  “Is that some kind of New York Yankee motto?” he asked with a lopsided grin.

  “It’s a Dr. Walsh motto,” I retorted, rising to my feet. “Let me know when you schedule the surgery, and I’ll make sure my patients are looked after.”

  “No worries.”

  Leaving Archer to pine over his scans, I ventured back upstairs to continue my rounds. I was in a daze, flipping through patient charts when the report from Josh’s physical appeared. Shit. That was this morning, and I’d forgotten, what with all the chaos around Sammy.

  Scanning the report, everything looked fine. Better than fine. Josh Caplin was the image of health…apart from the broken arm, busted jaw and ribs, and the cuts and bruises still healing on his face and torso. Heart rate was fine, blood pressure was A-OK, physical strength was excellent. He was walking well and could run without pain in his back. He was ready to go home.