Compromised, page 32
part #1 of MetroGen Forbidden Love Duets Series
“The other arsonist. She set the fire at the Siren Bar.”
“Oh. I guess I missed a lot. Let’s go home.”
“Not so fast.” Angela added her hand to Erin’s on Noah’s chest. “You’re not out of the woods yet. We need to get you back to MetroGen. The Haldol revealed an accessory pathway in your heart, and the beta blockers put you at risk for sudden cardiac death.”
“I’m okay, don’t worry. We can go home and fix that later.”
“You’re not in your right mind, so I’m gonna overrule him on this. I’ll consent whatever you need as his wife. And, Perkins, if you ever need a kidney, I’m the one.”
Chapter 57
The police took possession of the arsonists, and the combined Fire-MetroGen Team peeled rubber to MetroGen. The Chief was clearly quite confused, though very much in love.
Angela explained to Erin her husband needed a cardiac ablation to prevent the events from recurring. She consented, provided Angela was doing it.
Michael sat up front with Theo, radiating unhappiness. Watching her confront the gunman must have been incredibly difficult for him. They didn’t have time to talk before they arrived at MetroGen and its welcoming committee.
Word must have traveled because several police cars were holding back a crowd of reporters. Angela recognized news vans and cameras from local, national, and international media. She’d been busy, so she hadn’t thought through how huge of a news story this was.
It wasn’t the only welcoming committee, because when they rolled the gurney through the double doors, they were immediately pounced on by Eliza, Kayla, Pegg, and a mixed bag of highly ranked firefighters and police. Angela skimmed their badges as they rolled the chief through the ER.
“You found the Chief. Thank God,” Chief McClunis said. “He disappeared from my office.”
“And then the ER,” Pegg said, sounding like he blamed Angela for this.
Police Reyes said, “We need your testimony as soon as possible. My officers and the next ambulance are bringing the arsonists for evaluation. I understand you were held hostage.”
Captain Williams said, “My two are off shift, so they’re all yours.”
They kept moving right through the ER to the staff elevators. Angela pressed the button and filled out a clipboard the ER had passed them en route. “The Chief is still unstable, so this will have to wait. Only the transport team and clinical personnel.”
The pointed comment made Reyes excuse herself to meet the arsonists. If only Pegg got the hint. “Which means you’re staying down here, Perkins.”
Erin said, “Dr. Perkins will be present at the procedure.”
“It’s not her choice,” Pegg sneered.
“It’s my choice. Not only will she be there, as far as I’m concerned, she can perform it solo. She’s already saved his life twice today.” Erin matched his sneer and raised it a grin.
“Your choice?” McClunis asked.
“She’s his emergency contact,” Theo hedged.
“No,” Williams denied. “His sister Abby is his emergency contact. Call her. She lives in Wisconsin.”
“Not anymore. It’s Erin,” Noah said at the most inopportune time. “I love her.”
“Umm.” Erin mumbled, “We’re kind of married.”
“Kind of married?” Captain Williams flung his arms wide in frustration and almost hit Angela.
Michael deftly caught her and pulled her out of the way, but didn’t release her right away. His arms trembled, like he didn’t quite believe she was safe. Despite his black eye and swollen cheeks, Michael’s glare could have turned Williams to stone. “Watch what you’re doing!”
“Sorry, and what the hell happened to you?” Williams asked Michael.
Theo reached over and pressed the button again. “Wow, the elevators sure are slow.”
“He must have been slow, because someone beat him up,” Noah said, helpful. “Probably a baseball bat or crowbar.”
“You beat him up,” Erin said. “You mistook Angela’s rowhouse for mine and broke in with Baby Yoda. When he got home from his ICU shift, you thought he was a burglar and used Baby Yoda on him.”
“I did? Baby Yoda was busy,” Noah observed.
“Who is Baby Yoda?” Kayla asked.
“It’s a Halligan bar. Like a crowbar,” McClunis said, staring at Erin and the Chief with increasing hostility.
“I don’t remember any of that. Sorry,” Noah said.
“Did you say he was at Angela’s?” Pegg accused Angela.
Everyone’s eyes shifted to Michael, who only then realized his arm was far too comfortably draped around Angela’s shoulders.
Eliza squeezed between them and also pushed the elevator button. “This weird. I think the elevator must be broken. Bradley, it might be best if you took the stairs.”
“This isn’t over.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“We’ll come with you. Won’t we, Dr. Varma, the head of the division of critical care?” Eliza said pointedly.
“Of course, you two would have that slut’s corner,” Pegg said.
Williams had his hands full when Michael lunged for Pegg. He caught him before Michael got his hands close to Pegg. “Not going to help her, man.”
Michael didn’t say anything, simply stared at Pegg, murder in his eyes.
Erin smiled harder. “If I wasn’t clear, you are not on my Fire Chief approved doctor list, and if you lay a hand on my husband, I’ll whistle the Police Chief back and get your ass arrested.”
“And there’s the elevator,” Eliza said calmly. “Mr. Jefferson, why don’t I take your spot? That way you can return to the firehouse and fill your bosses in on today’s events.”
“Dr. Pegg, come with me,” Kayla said, her voice full of fake nonchalance. Her grim expression told Angela the jig was up. “Guess you won’t be on this case.”
Only Erin, Eliza, Michael, Angela, and the Chief on his gurney got on the elevator.
The doors closed, and Eliza asked, “How stable is he?”
“The pacers working well, so pretty stable,” Angela said, wondering how Eliza was going to respond to the forbidden hospital sex whammy bombshells.
Better than she expected.
“Okay, good.” Eliza punched a sequence of buttons. “Attending override. We’re going to have a brief pause so two people in a forbidden relationship might work out their problems before we stick needles in someone’s heart.”
“Oh,” Erin said. “Which of us are you talking about?”
“If you’re married, you don’t count as forbidden anymore. Not that I would know.” Eliza nudged Erin forward to stand next to the head of Noah’s bed and faced away from Angela and Michael.
“What were you thinking? You stood in front of a gun?” Michael tried not to scream, enfolding her again, the same trembling present.
“I expected he’d think I was small, blonde, and harmless. Succinylcholine works really well IM. I figured it would paralyze him for ten minutes,” she admitted, leaning into his body.
“You confronted a freaking gunman and your plan was spunk and a syringe of sux? Why?”
“I had to save the Fire Chief. I couldn’t save Tiffany, but I could save him,” Angela named the shadow stretching off them that finally had a ray of light.
He rested his forehead on hers. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again. I cannot lose you.”
“You never will.”
“I love you.”
“I know.” She would have thrown in a Latin quote after the Han Solo one, except Michael had other ideas.
He grabbed her and kissed her with the pent up energy of a near death experience, sudden exposure, and understanding her drives as well as his own.
The Chief’s heart monitor beeped an extra time, as it must have fired a paced beat.
“Okay, break it up, everyone. His heart can’t take another declaration.” Eliza punched a new sequence of buttons. “The elevator’s on the move again.”
Angela and Michael tried to straighten their clothes. Forbidden hospital lover sex whammy was clouding her thoughts. She wasn’t alone, because Michael seemed to be on the verge of starting again.
Erin cleared her throat. “Dr. Perkins, are you ready for your battlefield?”
Angela took control of her emotions again. They weren’t out of the woods yet, and it was time to be the cool professional again. Her job was to save the Fire Chief. Everything else could wait. “Incepto ne desistam. May I not shrink from my purpose.”
The elevator doors opened. Game on.
Chapter 58
Michael had nowhere else to go and found he’d ended up at the ICU. His last shift of this rotation was supposed to be tonight.
In retrospect, he was too exhausted to think straight and consider Dr. Varma would have taken Bradley Pegg to her office in the ICU.
Unfortunately, Michael arrived right on time to see Pegg slam the door and storm out of her office, ready to spit nails.
“You!” Pegg roared, pointing at Michael. “What are you doing up here?”
Out of nowhere, Nora and Raj appeared and stood in front of Michael. Nora spoke, “He’s on our ICU rotation.”
Pegg cut his hand through the air dismissively. “Oh, he’s on the ICU rotation, is he? Likes to be on top of doctors? You’re about to get what’s coming to you. You and your whore.”
Beating Pegg bloody for the slur would do neither Michael nor Angela any good. Michael shoved his hands into his scrub pants pockets. “I don’t know what you think happened.”
“What I think happened? Was she good? Was she worth the quick fuck? You must be dynamite in the sack because I thought she’d be too smart to screw around with a med student.”
“Shut up,” Michael fought to keep his hands in his pockets and not around Pegg’s neck.
“I’m going to tell the Department. I’m going to tell the Dean. They’ll throw you out on your damn ass.”
“You will do no such thing, Pegg.” Dr. Varma came out of her office. “There is a protocol for this, and we will adhere to it. You brought up a professionalism concern to a superior, who also witnessed the event in question. I have already informed the Dean of the Medical School in writing. As soon as the Fire Chief’s procedure is complete, Dr. Perkins will be on leave pending the results of the investigation and her professionalism hearing.”
Pegg’s jaw worked like he had more to say, but he held it in.
Varma continued calmly. “Mr. Harper, you are not welcome in my ICU. It is the last day of your rotation, so you will leave posthaste. Until the investigation is complete, you are not to associate or approach any of the members of the Department of Internal Medicine at MetroGen Hospital.”
“At least it’s something,” Pegg smirked.
The ICU boss turned her gaze on Pegg. “If I hear a whisper from you about this, thus compromising our investigation, I will also report you for professionalism concerns. Bullying the medical students in my ICU and calling another doctor a whore in front of myself and critically ill patients would warrant an evaluation of your fitness.”
“My apologies, Dr. Varma. I was upset,” Pegg said.
“Since we have a busy ICU today, I trust you can find your way back to your own duties. Do not approach Dr. Perkins. The Chair and I will meet her in person shortly.”
Every word exchanged gave Michael a worsening sense of dread. They’d been exposed and released the tempest in the teapot. It rendered the friendship between Varma and Angela meaningless.
“We’ll escort Mr. Harper outside,” Nora said.
She and Raj flanked Michael out the doors of the ICU. In a grip which would have made Raj’s jiu-jitsu instructor proud, Nora dragged him into a nearby supply closet.
“What is going on and why are you beat up?” Nora asked flatly.
“And what do you have to do with getting the Jessica Rabbit cardiologist suspended?” Raj said.
“Don’t call her that,” Nora and Michael barked at him.
Michael massaged the bruise on his face. “Long story. I got off the ICU shift, mistakenly got beat up by the confused Fire Chief. The Fire Chief escaped the hospital, and then we got held at gunpoint.”
“You got held at gunpoint? By whom?” Raj waved his hands.
“The arsonist standoff at the sci-fi restaurant. It’s been on the TV.”
“You participated in apprehending the arsonists the police were searching for?” Nora shook her head. “Alone?”
“I was with a group of firefighters and Dr. Perkins. We didn’t mean to get in a hostage situation. We were trying to find the Fire Chief and keep his heart from stopping,” Michael explained.
“Which leads to a professionalism issue of a personal relationship with Dr. Perkins, how?” Nora said.
“I might have platonically crashed at her place on Doctor Row after the awful shift last night. The Fire Chief went to the wrong house and thought I was a burglar.”
“The Fire Chief has a place at Doctor Row? I am totally moving there!” Raj said.
“It wasn’t his house either. It was his… never mind. The point is, Dr. Perkins wasn’t even home, but since I was there, assumptions were made.” Michael stuck with the literal truth here.
“But you and Dr. Perkins… I didn’t think you even liked each other. You two had issues on OB over Tiffany Wickwire,” Nora remembered.
“Obviously, he got over them. Or under her?” Raj said.
Nora whacked him on the arm. “Not helping here. Michael, they’re accusing you of having a relationship with a doctor on staff. It’s forbidden in our code of conduct. What were you thinking?”
Michael kept his mouth shut.
“Michael, are you saying this is true? You and her? You risked everything!” Nora sounded horrified and betrayed. “How could you?”
“How could I? I’m older than her. I have an MBA. I am NOT a child, and neither is she. If we have a… friendship, it’s our business, not the hospital’s,” Michael bit back. “Judah Weiss lives on Doctor Row. If I’d slept at his place and this happened, would everyone assume he and I were in an elicit relationship?”
“He is single now,” Raj said and answered Nora’s glare. “What? His boyfriend decided to take a job in California fixing knees of the rich and famous. Navarro’s leaving by the end of next month.”
Nora was furious. “Who cares about Judah right now? The problem is Michael and Dr. Perkins.”
“She’s right. Tell us the details. Don’t leave anything out!” Raj chimed in.
“No! No! Of the awful, horrible decisions you could have made, you did this? They’re going to fire her. If they don’t expel you, they’ll make sure you don’t match.”
“They can do that?” Raj asked.
“There are plenty of ways to make someone fails without actually failing them,” Nora said. “When you apply for residency, you need letters of recommendation from the medical school and, typically, department chairs.”
“Oh,” Raj said. “Well, don’t ask internal med. Or plastic surgery.”
“And his test scores aren’t high enough to make up for it,” Nora stated.
“He could study more,” Raj offered somewhat lamely. Michael’s struggles with tests had never been a secret. He was at a permanent disadvantage, which had nothing to do with his intelligence or hard work. When it came to the tests, he was average to good compared to medical students who were beyond stellar test takers.
“I don’t care about me. I can find a job not in medicine. It’s Angela… Dr. Perkins I’m concerned about saving.”
“The best thing you can do is avoid her like the plague if you want her to have any chance of salvaging her career,” Nora said.
“I can’t do that. The ship has long sailed.”
“How long?” Nora asked.
“Long enough.”
He could see Nora’s perfect memory working overtime and scrutinizing everything she’d witnessed. She reached a conclusion. “No. The coffee in October. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Michael’s silence was his answer.
Raj watched their ping-pong match in confusion. “What?”
“October. We bumped into her at the coffee cart. They both were super flustered,” Nora said, each word growing louder.
“I didn’t know who she was until then,” Michael said.
“It was months of a deliberate, calculated deception, and now the consequences are a shock?” Nora raged. “I am not getting involved with this. You ruined her life!”
“Nora.” Michael didn’t have a defense.
“Stop talking. They’re going to investigate, including everyone on our team. We’re going to be on trial beside you.”
“I didn’t mean for you to ever be involved.” Michael hadn’t thought about what position this would have place his teammates in.
“Too late. Raj and I have to get back to our shift. Come on.” Nora cut off the conversation and stormed out.
“Umm.” Raj kicked an imaginary piece of dust on the supply room floor. “I’m not opposed to dating hot women, but she had good points.”
“I love Angela, and we thought we could keep it quiet until I graduated.”
Raj stuck his head out the door and checked the hallway for eavesdroppers before closing the door again. “That sucks. Not the love part. Or maybe love does suck when this happens. Point is, you had my back when I was a dumbass, and I said I’d have yours. I’ll talk to Nora.”
“Thanks. You’re a good friend.”
“No problem. But whatever you do. Keep your head down. We start ER tomorrow. Don’t defy anyone, pick a fight over patient care—be on your best behavior. And stay away from her!”
Chapter 59
Angela pushed the door open, noting it had been forced open.
The living room showed evidence of an attempt to clean it up. Still, there had certainly been a struggle based on the smashed coffee table.
She set her messenger bag down and hung her useless keys on the hook. The hospital badge, equally useless at the moment, automatically got placed next to it.
