“The side in the bedroom,” he said, pulling her to their room.
She’d struck gold with him and all she wanted was her kids to find the same.
6
Some Misunderstanding
A few days later Wyatt was making his way down to the surgical wing. Who did he see? Of course it was Adriana standing around. His guess was she was waiting on the next OR to be ready to open, just like him. He hoped they were in the same room.
“So we meet again,” he said to her. She’d been standing there looking at the computer but glanced up, her almond-shaped, brown eyes focusing in on him.
Her pupils dilated, he saw it, even if she wanted to hide it. He just wasn’t sure the exact cause of it. “Yes, we do,” she said and put her head back down.
Dismissed. Damn it. He wasn’t used to that happening to him.
What the heck had he done to tick her off?
He was going to have to figure it out and now was as good a time as any.
“So how do you like it here so far?” he asked. Might as well be friendly since they both had time.
“It’s nice. It’s not much different than my last job. Well, that isn’t true. I was the scrub nurse there, circulating nurse here.”
Which had different roles for sure, but she seemed to know what she was doing from the one surgery she’d been in with him. Opening the room, making sure everything was set up the way it should be, advocating for the patient, monitoring everything going on at once. His guess was she closed the OR just as efficiently as she opened and ran it.
“I think Duke is lucky to have you,” he said.
She looked at him again, started to narrow her eyes and then seemed to catch herself. “Thank you.”
Back to the computer she went. “So I can show you around the hospital if you want. Show you all the good spots to eat your lunch when the cafeteria is packed. There isn’t always a nice accommodating doctor willing to share his table.”
“I’m good, thank you,” she said.
He was damned if he was going to drop his grin though. He wasn’t used to this. Most loved talking to him. He didn’t ask everyone out he came in contact with. It’s not that. He wasn’t a man-whore. But he liked to talk and be friendly.
He leaned on the wall a little closer to her and waited until she looked up. “Yes? Was there something else?”
“I like you,” he said. “You don’t have a problem being up front.” He lowered his voice a bit and looked around. “If you aren’t interested in being shown around the hospital, how about dinner this weekend? I can show you around the area.”
She stopped what she was doing, looked around a little, then back to him. “No, thank you,” she said. “I’m sure you know my father lives here and he can show me around if I need it.” Her computer went off and people started to exit one of the ORs. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”
It took everything he had for his jaw not to drop. What the hell? It’s not like he was asking her into his bed. Not that he would mind that at all. Maybe she’d heard rumors about him with women?
Damn Sam for busting his ass in the last surgery they were in together.
Sure, he liked to go out and have a good time, but that didn’t mean he ended up in bed with everyone he went out with. He was just looking to have dinner and show her around.
Maybe he’d explain it when he saw her again. It had to be some misunderstanding.
Forty minutes later he was in the OR, his patient having received the happy juice and not even aware of what was going on around him. Adriana was indeed the circulating nurse and moving around. Sam just came in and the two of them started to talk, but since Sam was running late, they’d been ready for him to start right up.
When the surgery was done two hours later, he finished up what needed to be done with his patient, then went to his office to deal with paperwork. Sam was moving to another surgery and he assumed Adriana was too. His just got postponed on him and he was fine with that.
As much as he hated to be alone, he had work to do and wouldn’t mind the quiet while he figured out his next step with Adriana.
When all his paperwork was done he grabbed the bag in his drawer of a shipment he’d received at home the other day and made his way to Sam’s office with a piece of paper he’d pulled off his printer.
He wasn’t in there fifteen minutes when the door opened behind him. “What do you think you’re doing in here?”
He laughed. “Nothing.”
“Yeah, right. Move away from my desk,” Sam said.
Wyatt walked back; he was done anyway. It was fine he was caught.
Sam looked down at the picture of a ball and chain on his desk, a photoshop of Dani’s face smiling over the ball.
“It’s funny,” he said when Sam shook his head. “Tell me it is. And it was Ryder’s idea.”
“Figures it’d be Ryder’s idea. As much as you bust my ass you don’t normally think of relationships as traps.”
“Nah. You’re happy and that is all that matters.”
Sam sat down and pulled his drawer open to get a file out and saw the mini ball and chain in there and laughed this time. “I should have figured the picture wasn’t the only thing you were doing.”
“That’s elementary. Come on. You know me better than that.” And Sam wouldn’t think it was so funny when he was finding little balls and chains all over his office months from now.
“So I guess this time you did strikeout,” Sam said.
“What?”
“Sit down, you’re pacing, which is
