After the Christmas Party (5 page)

A
LTHOUGH RILEY HADN’T
been on the schedule, he still spent most of the day at the hospital.

Fortunately, so did Trinity.

He’d been able to easily maneuver her into the cardiac lab with him. Right or wrong, he wanted her near him. The panic he’d seen in her eyes that morning worried him. Plus, she was going to need a ride to pick up her car at the end of her shift. He was way too smart to miss out on the opportunity to play white knight and give her a lift.

Doug Ryker, a fifty-three-year-old, had woken up with chest pain that had increased as the sun had come up. When he’d started clutching his chest, his wife had called 911. An ambulance had brought him to the emergency room. His cardiac enzymes had been elevated and, at the minimum, he’d needed an arteriogram.

That’s where Riley came in.

He’d met the gentleman’s family very briefly while the patient was being prepped. Now Riley was scrubbed and ready to proceed. Trinity was his nurse.

He stole a look at her. If she noticed, she ignored him and focused on their patient.

Too bad there wasn’t a sprig of mistletoe around because
he’d love to pull down her mask and kiss those plump lips of hers. Did she remember their kiss beneath the mistletoe or had she blocked it from her mind along with the rest of the night? Just how much did she remember about their evening together?

’Twas the season for good tidings and cheer. Riley couldn’t think of anything that would cheer him more this Christmas than getting to know the lovely woman he’d spent the night holding and had developed a fascination for that he couldn’t quite explain, much less understand. Maybe it really was the season?

He loved Christmas, everything about it. The sounds, the smells, the spirit of giving, all of it. If someone popped a bow on top of Trinity’s head and set her beneath his tree to unwrap, he’d be a very happy man.

He glanced over at the angel monitoring Mr. Ryker’s vital signs.

She caught him looking. Instant hot pink tinged what he could see of her upper cheeks peeking out from behind her surgical face mask. He winked and her color deepened.

Something warm and fuzzy, like the smell of cookies baking, filled him. Something that just made him feel…happy.

Odd that the feeling felt strange, because he couldn’t think of anyone he’d label as happier than him. He was totally happy go lucky. Yet he couldn’t deny that the feeling felt alien.

And addictive because already he knew he’d want more when the feeling waned.

Maybe everything would go well with Mr. Ryker’s arteriogram and the man wouldn’t need anything beyond
a few stents. Then, Lord willing, Riley would ask Trinity to go to a late lunch.

“Vitals are good,” she said, probably more just to say something rather than to actually inform him.

After she’d prepped Mr. Ryker’s groin, Riley numbed the area with an anesthetic and made a penciltip-sized incision. Carefully, he threaded the cardiac catheter through the femoral artery and up into Mr. Ryker’s heart.

Mr. Ryker’s elevated enzymes had already conveyed that there was cardiac tissue not getting proper perfusion. Riley had hoped he’d find a single small blockage that could be fixed easily with a stent to restore blood flow. He found much more than that. Unfortunately.

Mr. Ryker’s mammary artery had a large area of calcification and stenosis. Plus, there were other areas of calcification scattered throughout the arteries. Riley carefully positioned the catheter tip and placed a stent, then another, corrected the blockages that he could via an artificial material holding the artery open. Unfortunately, the stents weren’t nearly enough to restore blood flow to the tissue. He withdrew the catheter.

“He’s going to need a coronary artery bypass graft,” he told another nurse, while Trinity applied pressure to where the catheter had been withdrawn. “Find an available vascular surgeon stat and let’s get Mr. Ryker into the operating room.”

So much for taking Trinity out to eat any time soon. They’d be here for several hours yet.

Trinity wasn’t sure how she’d gone from being in the catheter lab to the operating room as that wasn’t usual protocol. At least, it hadn’t been standard at the hospital
where she’d worked in Memphis, but there she was. In the operating room. With Riley.

She was working as his assistant and blowing CO2 into Mr. Ryker’s open chest. That helped keep blood from interfering with Riley being able to readily see where he was making the anastomosis in the mammary artery to loop the vessel into the right coronary artery. While keeping the CO2 blowing at just the correct angle, she watched him carefully cut away a pedicule and reroute the artery. Painstakingly, he sutured the arteries together, making sure not to damage the vessels.

Another nurse dabbed at his forehead. Trinity found herself wishing she was the one touching him. Silly really. They were at the hospital. Working to save a man’s life. Touching the cardiac surgeon while he performed a procedure should be the absolute last thing on her mind.

She’d touched him the night before.

On the lips under the mistletoe and again on the dance floor and again this morning when she’d reached out to touch his magnificent chest. Who knew where else she’d touched him during the night? After all, she’d woken up spooned against that long, lean body of his.

She swallowed back the knot forming in her throat and refocused her attention on the CO2.

After what seemed like hours she snuck a peek. His blue eyes, which were normally so full of mischief, were focused intently on the job at hand, on how he meticulously placed sutures, making sure the vessel remained patent, that every movement of his hands were precise.

He’d been full of fun and teasing The night before, and even this morning. Now he was as serious as serious could be. Which one was the real him? The mischievous player who’d stolen a kiss from her under the
mistletoe or the brilliant, intense heart surgeon attempting to save his patient’s life?

“How late do you have to stay?” Riley asked Trinity later that day, hoping she wouldn’t have to pull a full shift.

“I’m not sure. If nothing else has come into the emergency room, I expect the charge nurse will let me go soon.” She gave him a suspicious look. “Why? Do you need me to help you with something? Another procedure?”

“I do need your help with something. Have dinner with me.”

Her brow lifted. “You need help with dinner?”

“I’ll be lonely if you don’t join me.”

“I seriously doubt you’re ever lonely.”

He thought about her comment. He couldn’t really say that he recalled ever being lonely. He had a full life that he enjoyed a great deal, but the thought of not spending the evening with Trinity, as crazy as it was, did leave him feeling oddly bereft. “You might be surprised.”

“I don’t think going to dinner together is a good idea.”

Why had he known she’d refuse? “Because of last night?”

Her cheeks blushed a rosy pink and she shook her head.

“No?” One eyebrow rose. “Because you don’t want to encourage an incorrigible bloke like me?”

Looking torn, she took a step back. “That’s not it.”

He waggled his brows. “Then you
do
want to encourage an incorrigible bloke like me?”

If her cheeks had been pink before, now they were blood red. “You are incorrigible, but…”

He took her hands in his. “Then you’ll help me?”

“You don’t understand.”

“You have other plans?”

“No, but—”

“No worries, I’ll let you choose where we go. I’ll even splurge for dessert.”

“I don’t want dessert.”

He shrugged. “Okay, I’m easy. No dessert for you. If you’re nice I’ll share mine, though.”

She let out a long breath. “You really are incorrigible.”

He wouldn’t deny it.

“What time should I pick you up? You need a ride to your car and it’s my responsibility to get you there.”

“I’m not your responsibility.”

He studied her a moment then rubbed his knuckles across her cheeks. “We’re talking dinner and a ride to your car, Trinity, not for ever. Smile and say, ‘Thank you, I’d love to go to dinner with you, Riley.’”

Her face screwed up with doubts, she bared her teeth. “Thank you. I’d love to go to dinner with you, Riley.”

He laughed and tweaked her nose. “Atta girl.”

How had Riley finagled Trinity into doing this?

Going to the hospital Christmas party one night and going on a dinner date the next was just too much for her bah-humbug to digest.

Oh, yeah, she didn’t have her car, she justified to herself.

“Jingle-bells, jingle bells,” he sang, looking way too
amazing in his jeans and lightweight sweater as he maneuvered through traffic.

Urgh. The only thing worse would be if he was wearing an ugly Christmas sweater.

He glanced her way and grinned. “Penny for your thoughts.”

“You don’t want them.”

“Sure I do.”

“I was imagining you in an ugly Christmas sweater. I bet you have a closet full.”

Laughing, he arched one brow. “Ugly Christmas sweater?”

“You know, the ones that sport more decorations than a department store.”

“Oh, those ugly Christmas sweaters.” He grinned. “I might have a few prime specimens tucked away from years past. You wanna borrow one, or are you just making your Christmas gift request?”

“Hardly.” But she ruined the effect by laughing at the thought that he might really have a few. Surely not. Covering his shoulders and chest with a knit sweater with sparkly dangly things all over it would be awful.

“Speaking of department stores, do you mind if we swing by and pick up a few strands of lights for my tree before we go eat? I should have grabbed some last week but didn’t realize mine were shot at the time.”

She bit the inside of her lip. He’d been so kind to her that could she say no?

“I guess that would be okay.”

Not really, but maybe she could sit in the car to avoid the hustle and bustle. If he insisted on her going inside the store, she could surely find a happy place in her
mind somewhere for however long it took him to get his lights.

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” he teased.

She didn’t want to seem ungrateful. He’d transformed the night before into a fun memory…at least the parts she remembered had been fun. He’d not taken advantage when she’d been at his mercy. He’d been gracious and kind, offering to take her to dinner and to get her car. He made her smile. Whether she wanted to or not, she liked the man.

“Sorry, I guess I get a little cranky when I get hungry.”

Pulling into a parking spot, he turned off the ignition and reached across the car to take her hand. “If it’s okay, I’ll do a quick run for the lights while you grab us some sandwiches from the place there.” He handed her a couple of twenties and pointed to a sandwich shop. “I’ll make it up to you by taking you to my place so you can help decorate my tree. Deal?”

Before she could tell him that decorating his tree would be more like punishment, he got out of the car. “I’ll take a club loaded with everything…hold the onions.”

A sinking feeling in her gut, Trinity watched him rush toward a seasonal store in the strip mall.

Dinner and decorating a tree? Not what she’d signed up for, but apparently what she’d be doing, all the same, with a forced smile for Riley’s sake.

Trinity had to admit the sandwiches were delicious or she really had been hungrier than she’d thought. The tree decorating, well, she was still holding back her opinion on that.

Not that she enjoyed the decorating but she’d have to be blind not to appreciate the view. Standing on a stepladder, Riley leaned and made another snip from the live blue spruce tree that towered several feet over her head. After clipping a few more twigs, he inspected the tree to see if it met with his approval.

From where she stood at the bottom of the ladder, she had to admit he definitely met her visual approval. The man was hot.

“What do you think? Look good?”

Did he have a crystal ball to see into her mind or what? “Oh, yeah.”

“Now, that’s the enthusiasm I’ve wanted to see all evening. To think, if you’d had your car you’d have found some excuse to say no.”

Trinity closed her eyes and winced. He’d meant the tree, not his rear end. Duh. Of course he hadn’t meant his rear end.

“I did say no,” she reminded him. The man was persuasive. She’d better be careful or he’d have her agreeing to dress up in a red suit and climb down a chimney proclaiming, ho, ho, ho and a merry Christmas to all.

“You have to admit this is more fun than going home alone.” His forehead wrinkled as he inspected the tree and stretched to straighten a branch, giving her another great view of his rear end. “You think I need to take a little more off the top? I want this tree to look amazing when we’re done.”

What she thought was that no amount of trimming was going to make the tree come anywhere near to how amazing his bottom was. Someone should stick him at the top of the tree and her views on Christmas might
brighten more than a little. Definitely, she could get into unwrapping his package.

Urgh. What was wrong with her? Perhaps Riley had placed a spell on her beneath the mistletoe because she’d really like him to climb down that stepladder, take her in his arms and kiss her until her lungs were so deprived of oxygen she had to pull away just to keep from losing consciousness.

Then she wanted him to kiss her some more. More. More. More.

Crazy. She wanted to be kissed right now. And not because of some silly song coming over his surround-sound system about a kid seeing momma kissing Santa either. Riley’s belly could never be compared to a bowl full of jelly and the dusky five o’clock shadow gracing the strong lines of his jaw were sexy, not fluffy white tufts that would tickle her face.

“Are you hanging mistletoe?” Oops. Had she really just asked that out loud? Who needed the cozy fire that he must have also turned on to keep the room temperature comfortable? Her face had to have just sped up global warming with a single embarrassing moment.

He glanced down at her, his grin positively lethal. “Would you like me to hang mistletoe, princess?”