Close To Danger (Westen #4)(49)

Her first week out of med school as a new surgical intern, the nurses had made sure she knew the protocol. It was her responsibility to be sure the patient was stable and all the orders written correctly before she could leave the bedside. One of her male counterparts had balked at the idea that nurses should tell him what to do, leaving the chart on the counter and high-tailing it to the lounge. The nurses called to tell him the patient’s vital signs—one phone call at a time for pulse, blood pressure, respiration and temperature. Then they’d called to have their questions answered—one phone call at a time. When they started in on the page of orders, fifteen lines long but one phone call at a time, he finally got the message. Follow the routine, treat the nurses with respect, or suffer the consequences.

“What are you grinning at, Doc?” the traveling surgical tech Steve asked, plopping his big body down on the other end of the sofa. Having been by her side for every one of the cases they’d done today, he had to be as tired as she.

“Just remembering when Cardiff got taught by the nurses who was really in charge last summer,” she said, her grin widening.

“Doctor Beautiful thought nurses were beneath him?” the big man said with a smirk.

“He wished.” Dylan laughed. Janowski made it very apparent the first day they met that he was gay and not ashamed for anyone to know it. Not the flamboyant, in your face kind of acknowledgement of his sexual preference, but during quiet moments like this, they’d had more than one talk about which male staff member made them drool and which they labeled nothing more than tools. Cardiff was a drool worthy tool.

“Yes. I believe he had one or two sleepless nights before he figured out that pissing off the nurses wasn’t in his best interest.”

“Let me guess, you learned quick enough not to get the every-fifteen-minute-calls all night long treatment?”

Dylan grinned over at him. “I was raised by two older sisters. Both practical and loaded with tons of common sense. I also hate having to learn something twice. The nurses want to teach me how to do things to make their lives easier? Figure it would make mine easier, too.”

“The minute I met you, I knew there was more to you than a pretty face,” he said with a wink.

“Speaking of sisters,” Dylan pulled out her phone and swiped to open the screen. “Bobby called me before the last case, but I couldn’t talk. She’s left a message thirty minutes ago.”

Stay safe. Still haven’t heard from Chloe. Is phone service sketchy there?

“Crap.”

“What’s up?” Janowski asked.

“She still hasn’t heard from Chloe.”

“That’s the lawyer sister?”

Dylan nodded as she hit the call button for Chloe’s number. “Crap. It went straight to voicemail.” She shoved herself up from her seat, stretched to work out some of the kinks in her muscles and slid her feet into her crocks. “Since I gave report to Cardiff, I’m off for the next two and a half days. Guess I’ll go over to Chloe’s and check on her.”

“The roads are still pretty treacherous,” Steve said, coming to his feet, too.

“Cardiff lives out near where my sister’s condo is. He said the roads weren’t too bad out that way this evening. I need to see if Chloe is okay and if she is, I need to let Bobby know. She’ll make herself sick with worry. She’s already at risk being a first-time mother at thirty-eight. Last thing we need is her getting her blood pressure up when it could be a simple problem, like Chloe just doesn’t have power to charge her phone.”

Dylan headed to the women’s locker-room to get her coat and backpack. When she came out, all bundled for the winter weather outside the hospital, Janowski was equally impersonating an Eskimo and leaning against the hallway wall.

She lifted one questioning brow his direction.

He shrugged. “It’s dark. It’s late. Thought you could protect me on the way to my car.”

Laughing, she slipped her arm through his and hung on to him out through the ER entrance.

“Isn’t it beautiful? All this white?” she asked, pausing to take in the nearly perfect winter vision before them.

“Yep. As long as you don’t have to drive anywhere,” Janowski said with a shake of his head. “Like home. Which is really calling my name, Doc.”

She laughed, squeezing his arm and they moved forward, slipping and sliding their way around the corner on the iced-over sidewalks to the employee’s parking lot. Someone, probably maintenance or the security staff, had cleaned the snow that had fallen during the previous twenty-four hours off all the vehicles in the lot. The nearly foot of snow was a lot for Cincinnati. Probably way more up north in Westen where Bobby lived.

“Which one’s yours?” Janowski asked.

“That’s me.” She pointed to the silver Toyota 4 Runner parked an aisle over and three cars in.

“I’m in the back.” He pointed to the Jeep in the far corner of the lot. “How about I stick around to make sure you don’t have any problems starting your car and you can give me a lift over to mine?”

“It’s a deal,” she said, hitting the unlock button as they neared her car. Nothing happened. “That’s not good.”

“Try unlocking manually,” he said.

The key worked fine and a moment later she was seated behind the wheel. She pushed the start button. Silence.