As he pulled up to the hospital, he watched the paramedics wheel the woman inside. He followed with a confident gait, already in emergency surgeon mode. He was the king of his domain, and he didn’t hesitate as he went through the emergency room doors. It didn’t matter which hospital he was in. They were all different and all the same. And one thing was for sure—this was where he’d always belonged. That had been true from the moment he’d rescued a young boy from drowning in the local lake. That simple act had changed his entire future.
He’d known from that moment on that he would become a doctor. Maybe he hadn’t admitted it to himself at that point; he’d probably thought he’d never be good enough to wear a stethoscope. But he’d worked harder than everyone else he knew so he could be worthy.
The journey he’d had to take had been well worth all its trials. He felt that way just as much today as he had ten, even fifteen years ago.
“Ouch!”
Sage glared at the nurse sticking a needle into her arm. The woman must work for the KGB.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Banks.”
I just bet you are, Sage thought savagely. Okay, that was a bit petty, but Sage’s arm was throbbing where the ten-foot-long needle had been plunged.
She’d been poked and prodded for the past hour and she was done with it. But besides a headache, and now a throbbing arm, she felt fine. It was just a little accident. Why were these people getting so worked up?
She knew precautions had to be taken, but her scans had all come back in the clear, with no concussion and no broken bones. She was beginning to worry that this wasn’t going to be the ideal place for her to do her residency—not if the staff was secretly a bunch of bloodsucking vampires intent on destroying the human population of Sterling, Montana, one needle poke at a time.
“I’m fine. I just want to go home,” Sage said for what felt like the tenth time, though she knew the doctor had to sign her out. She was just sore and grumpy and taking it out on the staff. Perfect. She’d feel bad about that tomorrow, too.
“We’re waiting for your final test results, and then the doctor will be in to speak with you. If there’s anything wrong, this is the best place for you. He’s the only one who can sign the discharge papers,” the nurse repeated.
“How much longer until he gets here?” This waiting game was getting old.
“I’m right here.”
Sage froze as she looked at the man blocking her doorway. No way! There was no possible way the man standing in her doorway was whom she believed it to be. Fate couldn’t be that cruel.
“Here are the charts, Dr. Whitman.”
Sage’s stomach heaved when the nurse said Spence’s name as she flitted over to him. Yes, flitted. There was no other word for it. It seemed that Spence Whitman still had the same effect he’d always had on the ladies. Both young and old.
It also seemed that she hadn’t been dreaming when she woke up after the accident. Here was the man—in the very sexy flesh.
She immediately remembered when she was sixteen and she’d worked up the courage to ask him out on a date. She’d thrown herself at him, just one of many young women who had been in love with him.
After she had professed her undying love to him, he had simply kissed her on the cheek, told her she would one day be a heartbreaker, and then walked away, devastating her. Sure, she’d been too young for him to do anything more, but from that moment on, she’d avoided him. Embarrassment had eaten her alive.
“How are you feeling, Ms. Banks?”
The professional tone, the standard, distant smile that said he was interested in her only as a patient . . . the cluelessness in his eyes. Sage’s humiliation was complete. The boy she’d been in love with since she was ten years old had zero idea who she was. That was how unimportant she’d ever been to him. Not that it should have come as a shock. But still, though she was now old enough to know better, and wise enough not to care, she had to admit—to herself only, of course—that it did hurt. In the mood she was in now, she didn’t even try to be nice, sending Spence a look that could frost the caverns of the South Pole.
His false smile vanished, and he contemplated her briefly with baffled surprise. Sage was sure he wasn’t used to anything but a simpering twit when he walked into a female patient’s room. Well, her days of simpering were long gone.
She’d really hoped she wouldn’t be crossing paths with Spence when she’d accepted her residency. The last she’d heard, he was some hotshot doctor in Seattle. It was just her luck that he happened to be in town, most likely visiting his family, at the same time she was rolling home.
“I’d be feeling much better if everyone would quit poking and prodding me and would just let me go home.”
“Has her family been notified?” Spence asked the nurse, obviously not finding it very appealing to speak directly to Sage.
Only someone with an extremely small brain could have missed her obvious hostility. So he had some intelligence going for him if he could read her disdain. Since he was her treating physician, she was relieved to know he knew something, unlike everyone else around the place.
But wait. Why was he treating her? He shouldn’t be working here. He worked in Seattle. Maybe they were permitting him to treat her since he’d been the first person on the scene. She really, really hoped that was the case.
The alternative would mean . . . No. If she refused to even think the thought, then there would be no possible way it could be true. She wouldn’t ask, either. As all her other options had gone down the drain the minute she’d accepted the offer to be in this program, she had to stay at this hospital and she didn’t want to work with Spence Whitman, her childhood crush.