Page 45 of The Hunt

She knew it, too.

Caine laughed when Chad got too distracted.

“Come into my office. Away from temptation. I have a patient I want to ask you about. There were…bruises. I could just be seeing things, but you’re listed as his only pediatrician. He’s not been seen in four years.”

“No checkups and immunizations?”

“Not that I can tell. Parents moved around a lot.”

He didn’t make it back to the ED for another fifteen minutes. When he did…his eyes met hers. And held.

Genny smiled.

And his world just felt right in every way that mattered.

39

She was flirting with him.

With that Chad Fields. Right there in the middle of the ED. And there was her bitch friend, making eyes at Genny’s brother.

Dr. Fields, Dr. Hiller, two of the most successful physicians in the entire hospital. Like they were something special.

Of course they were.

They came from wealthy ranching families; they didn’t have to work their way up from nothing the way Doug did.

He would be paying on his med school loans for decades. No one had offered him scholarships, like he’d heard Dr. Fields had been given. No. Doug had always had to fight for what he wanted.

Fields was taking everything from him.

“Dr. Hodges, is there a problem?” Dr. Fisher asked, coming around behind him. “You seem to be angry about something. I’ve had two patient complaints this evening.”

From whom? The damned emergency department was empty now. Couldn’t that worthless airheaded blonde see that? Who had she screwed to get this position anyway? Alvaro,Carrington Junior? Carrington Senior, maybe? Doug had put in for head of the emergency department. It should have been his.

He had heard it was going to behis.

But Caine Alvaro had asked her to run it instead. She was already the de facto assistant chief of medicine now.

She was bound for good things. Miss Perfect.

She’d had even more scholarships than Dr. Fields. Everyone talked about her. Said she was brilliant and should have been working at a larger hospital. Like Finley Creek Gen. But something had happened at Finley Creek Gen, gossip had said. To send her to the much smaller Barratt County Gen with her head hanging down. Probably screwed Alvaro’s identical twin brother or something. That guy ran FCGH.

Hell, maybe they’d been passing that blonde piece of ass back and forth for years.

It was the only thing that made sense. She certainly hadn’t gotten to where she was on merit. Mandy Kirby had told him that a dozen times already. He didn’t understand Justin’s fascination with this woman at all. She was nothing but a frozen stuck-up bitch all the way through.

“Dr. Hodges?”

“Fuck off, Fisher. I’m not in the mood for your bullshit tonight.” Doug slammed past her. His shoulder bumped her.

She fell into the counter, just a little.

Damn it.

He hadn’t meant to hit her that hard. She was a hell of a lot smaller than he was. She just always made him so angry. “I apologize, Dr. Fisher, I miss-stepped. Didn’t mean to bump into you.”

“Sure you didn’t.” She stepped right into his path. “Listen, Hodges, I know what your problem is. And it doesn’t have a place in my ED. You can’t handle that, we’ll call Dr. Alvaro over here and talk about it in his office, do you understand me?”