Barbara Boswell - Bachelor Doctor

She pretended to pay no attention to his touch because she knew Trey himself was oblivious to it, as oblivious as he was to her as an individual. As a woman. His touch was automatic and unaware, definitely nothing personal. He would clasp her wrist as one might grip a pencil, she knew that his hand on her back or her elbow was akin to him resting his palm on a railing.

There were times when she wished she actually were the inanimate object Trey Weldon considered her to be. It would be so much easier—on her nerves, on her senses. The warm strength of his fingers on her skin evoked sensations that were hopelessly, girlishly romantic. And embarrassing because it was all so futile.

Sometimes, alone in bed in the darkness of her room at night, Callie pondered the irony of the situation. That she—who had always been so sensible and practical, who’d never suffered any hopeless, girlish, embarrassing yearnings, not even as an adolescent, when almost everybody else did—would be struck with this acute crush at the mature age of twenty-six.

The situation appalled her. She had a crush on her boss! Worse, she was a nurse with a crush on a doctor. Might as well throw in their class differences too; the proletarian yearning for the lord of the manor. A triple cliché, and she was living it. What unparalleled humiliation! Especially since her crush was entirely unrequited.

Callie refused to kid herself, to even pretend that Trey gave her a thought outside the operating room. Of course he didn’t. And though she continually fought her feelings for him, his touch and his penetrating stare affected her viscerally.

There didn’t seem to be anything she could do about that, but she could keep it her most-closely guarded secret. Which she had, quite successfully.

No one, especially not Trey, ever had to know about the sweet, syrupy warmth that flowed through her at his slightest touch. Nor would she ever reveal the sharp ache that sometimes threatened to bring her to her knees when his deep-blue eyes looked into hers.

Except right now those blue eyes of his were hard and cold with anger. If any stare could freeze a hapless recipient into a human Popsicle, it would be the one Trey was directing at her at this moment.

Callie met and held his eyes, a sheer act of will on her part. And not at all easy because Trey Weldon had perfected—or maybe he’d naturally been gifted with—the art of nonverbal intimidation. Not that he was a slouch in the verbal intimidation department, either.

But Callie never crumbled or froze in response to Trey’s ire, verbal or non. Because she knew that Trey expected her to be as tough and unemotional as he was himself? Because she knew he needed her to be that way?

Callie nearly groaned aloud. She was doing it again, seeking evidence that Trey Weldon thought of her as something more than merely a set of rubber-gloved hands assisting him in the OR.

“I expect better from you, Sheely.” Trey glared at her in the coldly unnerving way that had reduced other recipients to tears.

But not Callie. She had once overheard him tell Leo, “Sheely is tough. She’s the only woman I’ve ever worked with who’s never cried. Not a tear, not once.”

It was untrue, of course, further proof of how little he knew about her. She’d wept over their saddest cases, her heart breaking for the devastated families of patients unable to be saved, even by Trey Weldon’s formidable skills.

But she’d never cried in front of Trey Weldon, not a tear, not once. Callie knew Trey’s remark to Leo was a high compliment indeed, and she intended to keep her record of tearlessness in his company intact.

“The patients deserve better from you, Sheely,” snarled Trey. “They deserve your best, and when you put anything else ahead of—”

“I put nothing ahead of our patients’ well-being. They get the best that I have to give, Dr. Weldon.” Callie tried to match his cold tones but couldn’t. His particular way of expressing anger through iciness was unique to him.

Which didn’t mean she couldn’t communicate her own anger in her own way. Nothing, nothing infuriated her more than to have her commitment to her patients and to her job disparaged. To have her professionalism questioned.

And for Trey Weldon to do so…when she’d worked so hard for him, for their patients… Callie let her own fury displace the hurt that sliced through her, deep and sharp.

Her voice rose, and her dark eyes blazed, her rage as hot as his was cold. “And as for Scott Fritche, he was simply nervous today, Dr. Weldon. Fritche is in his first year of neurosurgery, he is inexperienced and he was suddenly expected to perform in front of an audience of—”

“Stop making excuses for him, Sheely!” Trey cut in. He held her glare. “It’s unacceptable.”

Neither bothered to blink. Or to move. They stood locked in their own world, anything and everyone else excluded.

Callie pulled off her surgical cap and threw it into a tall laundry bin. Her ponytail, which had been stuffed inside the cap, tumbled free, the ends swiping the nape of her neck.

If you lose your temper, you lose. One of her dad’s adages popped into Callie’s head. Too late. She’d gone ahead and lost her temper, anyway. Now she might as well go for broke.

“Unacceptable?” she huffed. “So are you going to fire me?” It was a dare, a challenge. Callie held her breath.

“Here we go again!” Leo heaved a dramatic groan. He and Quiana had moved closer, the better to listen to every word that passed between Trey and Callie. “It’s like seeing a rerun on TV for the four hundredth time—you know every word of the dialogue. C’mon Quiana, let’s get some lunch.”

“Might as well,” agreed Quiana.

The two exited the lounge, heading for the cafeteria.

“The four hundredth time?” Trey looked bewildered.

“Not even close,” murmured Callie, a pale pink flush staining her cheeks.

Okay, she hadn’t gone for broke, she silently conceded. When she felt Trey was being insufferably imperious, she would respond by getting mad and inviting him to fire her.

The first time, it had just slipped out, and she’d waited in agony, expecting him to fire her outright. But he hadn’t, and then she’d said it again—and again and again—and by now she pretty much knew Trey wouldn’t fire her. Was absolutely sure of it, in fact.

But she hadn’t said it four hundred times!

“No, I am not going to fire you, but—” Trey broke off, suddenly looking almost comically astonished. “So that’s what Leo meant when he was talking about seeing a rerun for the four hundredth time and knowing the dialogue. He was talking about that ‘going to fire me?’ habit of yours.”

“Duh,” Callie muttered darkly. Trey would have to pick right now to finally decipher one of Leo’s stupid jokes. “And it’s not a habit. Leo overexaggerates.”

“Not this time, he didn’t. It’s true. You practically dare me to fire you, Sheely. Did it ever occur to you that sometime I might say yes and just go ahead and do it?”

“Oh, maybe the first three hundred times.” Callie was sarcastic. “But the last hundred times or so, I felt my job was safe enough.”

Trey’s dark brows narrowed. “Nobody talks to me the way you do, Sheely.”

“Is that a threat?” Callie squared her shoulders and lifted her head, trying to make herself as tall and formidable as possible. Unfortunately her five-foot, four-inch frame remained dwarfed by Trey.

“Don’t go nuclear, Sheely, it wasn’t a threat. It was simply a statement of fact. Nobody around here talks to me the way you do.”

“Well, no wonder.” She folded her arms in front of her chest in classic defensive position. Just because she had a crush on him didn’t mean she would permit herself to be crushed by him.