"He wants to make rounds." Pearce handed her credit card to the hostess and then punched in the extension on her cell phone. After a second, she said, "Rifkin. Yes sir. Five minutes. See you there." She met Wynter's anxious gaze. "Yep. He wants to see patients."

"Now? Does he usually make rounds this late at night?"

Pearce shrugged. "He makes them whenever he wants to.

Sometimes if he's been out of the country and gets in at three in the morning, he'll show up here and want to go around. He calls, we go."

They sprinted across the street, dodging traffic without even giving the taxis, limos, and cars a second glance, then jogged through the fairly deserted lobby to the elevators. They made a quick stop at the locker room to shed their outerwear and grab their lab coats. As they rode the rest of the way to the twelfth floor, Pearce said, "When we get up there, you run the list for him."

Wynter wanted to object. The fastest way to make a bad impression on her very first day was to screw up on attending rounds. She'd taken the extra time to get to know the patients on her walk-through right before sign-out rounds, but there were still fifty new names to assimilate, and many of the cases were complicated. Plus, she didn't know the physical layout all that well. The last thing she wanted to do was lead the chairman of the department into a dead end somewhere.

Still, she couldn't object. It was Pearce's call.

"Okay."

They stepped off the elevator and Pearce led the way to the nurses' station. Ambrose Rifkin was already there, studying a lab report. He wore a perfectly pressed, spotless white coat over dark trousers, a white shirt, and a blue tie with thin red stripes. He turned to watch Pearce and Wynter approach, nothing registering in his face. When they were a few feet away, he said, "Everything quiet?"

"So far," Pearce said. "Do you want to see everyone, or just make spot rounds?"

Ambrose shifted his gaze to Wynter. "Since we have a new member of the team, let's see everyone."

Wynter hid her surprise. It would take close to an hour and a half for them to see all fifty patients, but apparently, time of day had no meaning to the chief of surgery. She took out her list and stepped up to his side. "Mr. Pollack is in room 1222. He's four days post abdominal hernia repair and..."

As Wynter and her father started down the hall toward the first patient's room, Pearce detoured to the storage area adjacent to the nurses' station and began gathering the supplies they would need. She automatically sorted through the rows of plastic bins stacked one on top of another from floor to ceiling, grabbing sterile gauze pads, tape, Steri-Strips, suture removal kits, and all the other supplies required for changing bandages and anything else that the attending might want done.

"Who's the new resident?" a female voice said.

Pearce turned slowly and faced the small brunette in the tight black skirt and scoop-necked beige Lycra top. A good deal of her cleavage was showing, and the outfit would undoubtedly fail to pass an "appropriate outfit for work" check, but Andrea Kelly was a ward clerk, and a very good one, and no one was going to complain about her style of dress.

"Don't tell me you don't know," Pearce said teasingly. "You who know all?"

Andrea stepped closer, running her bloodred nail-polished fingertips along the edge of Pearce's lab coat. "I heard there was a new third-year, but no one mentioned that you were going to be escorting her around personally."

"Just doing my job."

Andrea stepped even closer, sliding her hand inside Pearce's coat and around her flank to her ass, which she squeezed. She swiveled her hips as she insinuated herself tightly between Pearce's thighs and looked up through lowered lashes. "I can think of some other work to keep you busy."

Pearce was bombarded by images of Andrea writhing beneath her, her arms and legs wrapped tightly around Pearce's body, her nails digging into Pearce's back as she clawed her way to a screaming climax. The visceral memory, coupled with the pressure of Andrea's body undulating against hers, made Pearce close her eyes with a groan.

With her free arm she twisted her fist in Andrea's hair, her mouth against Andrea's ear. "You gotta cut it out, babe. I'm working here."

"That never stopped you before," Andrea gasped, her teeth raking down the side of Pearce's neck.

"I wasn't in the middle of ro--"

"Oh! Sorry," Wynter exclaimed as she pushed through the door and nearly stumbled upon the two women locked in an embrace. "I...I need some four-by-fours."

Pearce backed away from Andrea and indicated the supplies cradled in one arm with a tilt of her head. "I've probably got everything you're looking for right here."

Andrea smirked as she edged around Wynter and disappeared into the hall. "Don't you just always."

"Thanks. We're in 1215," Wynter said curtly as she turned her back and walked out.

Pearce sighed. "Perfect. Just perfect."


CHAPTER NINE

During the rest of rounds, Wynter directed her conversation to the elder Rifkin, speaking to Pearce only when it related to one of the patients. It was after ten p.m. when they were finished, and Ambrose Rifkin left with a short good night.

"You should probably take off too," Pearce said as soon as her father was out of earshot. "You're on call tomorrow."

"Good night, then," Wynter said, starting down the hall.

Pearce debated letting her go. The air had been decidedly chilly for the last hour, and she wasn't in the mood to apologize. Hell, it's not like she had been committing a crime. She had nothing to apologize for. Fuck.

Wynter disappeared into the stairwell. Pearce debated for another second and then jogged after her. On the landing, she leaned over the rail and called down, "How're you getting home?"

Startled by the question, Wynter craned her neck to peer up to the floor above. "What?"

"I know you weren't expecting to be on call tonight. Did you drive to work?"

"No. I took the trolley."

"Well," Pearce said as she clambered down the stairs, "you can't ride the trolley home alone at this hour."

Wynter was still too annoyed to be gracious. She'd been embarrassed and uncomfortable walking in on an intimate encounter.

"Pearce, I took the trolley the entire time I was in medical school. I'm used to it. I'm only going out to Forty-eighth Street."

"Yeah, but West Philly isn't all that gentrified yet, and it's late."

She reached into her back pocket and extracted her keys. "Here. Take my car. I'm not going to be using it."

"I'm not taking your car."

"Look, you'll get home sooner and be well rested for tomorrow.

I just wanna make sure you're up to speed so you can carry your share of the work."

"You don't need to worry about that." Wynter turned away.

"It's not safe, Wynter, God damn it."

"Then I'll take the security van if it makes you feel better. I'll see you tomorrow." Without looking back, Wynter hurried down the stairwell. Reluctantly, she acknowledged that Pearce's concern was touching, but she was still too disturbed by the unexpectedly erotic image of Pearce with her fingers possessively entwined in another woman's hair. She didn't want to think about her own reaction to the sight. She didn't want to think about Pearce Rifkin at all.

Thirty minutes later, Wynter climbed out of the security van, one of a fleet of vehicles provided by the university to ferry students and employees to off-campus locations, and waved to the driver as he pulled away. She hurried up Cedar Avenue to a Victorian twin in the middle of a block of similar structures and let herself into the kitchen through the side door. The house was dark and she switched on a light over the sink.

A chocolate Lab padded into the room and nosed her hand.

"Hey, girl," Wynter murmured, leaning down and patting the dog's head absently. She took a battered white teapot with yellow painted daisies on the side and filled it in the sink, then set it on the stove to boil.

She was searching in the unfamiliar cabinets for a mug when a voice behind her caused her to jump.

"Honey, if you wake up the kids, I'm gonna have to shoot you."

Wynter spun around, contrite. "Oh my God. Was I making a lot of noise? I wasn't even thinking about it."

"Well, it sounded like you were putting on an addition to the house," the comfortably round, warmly attractive, and very pregnant African American woman said. She pulled out a chair at the table and settled heavily into it with a grateful sigh. "And if you're making tea, I'll have some."

"I was actually thinking of cocoa," Wynter said, taking down an extra mug.

"Even better."

"How were the kids?"

"Everyone's getting along just fine."

"I'm glad someone is," Wynter muttered.

"I figured you were having a rough first day when you called to say you'd be late. I told you to go into anesthesia if you didn't want to work so hard."

Wynter smiled at Mina Meru. "Tell that to your husband. I'm sure his opinion is very different."

"I keep telling him he should stay at home with these two children if he wants to see hard."

"And here I've added to your burden with mine." Wynter spooned cocoa into the thick ceramic mugs as they talked. "I promise, as soon as I have time to find an apartment, we'll be out of here."

"Don't you worry about little Miss Ronnie. She's the best three year-old I've ever seen. She keeps up with my four-year-old, and it gives him someone to play with."