Without another word, Pearce pulled her ungloved hand from her jacket pocket and held it out, fingers splayed. She slowly made a fist and opened it again. Wynter pulled off her own gloves and stuffed them into her pockets. She kept Ronnie trapped between her knees so she could use both hands to examine Pearce's. She repeated the procedure from the day before, gently probing, flexing and extending each finger, and studying the scrapes and bruises. Finally she was satisfied. "It's still very swollen, but better."

"It'll be okay." Pearce withdrew her hand from Wynter's grip.

"You should get going. It's freezing out here. Have a good one--I'll see you tomorrow."

As Pearce turned toward her front door, keys in hand, Wynter blurted, "What about you? What are you going to do today?"

Pearce gave her an inscrutable look over her shoulder. "I'm going in to make rounds, see what's going on. If I'm lucky, a good case will come in." Pearce glanced down at Ronnie and smiled. "Bye, kiddo."

Ronnie waved her new car and giggled. "Bye, kiddo."

Replaying the scene in her head, Wynter continued to stare at the ceiling. She still couldn't figure out what bothered her. She knew that someone waited for Pearce upstairs, but that didn't have anything to do with her.

"You look kind of lost, honey," Mina said. "Something wrong?"

"No, not really." Wynter frowned. "I guess I just don't know what to do with myself. Too much time on my hands. If you don't mind watching Ronnie, I'll go next door and do some unpacking."

"Want some company? I'll be over as soon as Ken wakes up. He can watch the kids."

"Sure," Wynter said, wondering what Pearce was doing and wondering why she couldn't get her out of her mind. "Company would be great."

v "Where did you go?" Tammy asked petulantly the minute Pearce walked into her apartment.

"Just for a walk. How are you doing?"

Tammy sat up, the blanket falling to her waist. She was nude. "I'm still a little wasted. What time is it?"

"Just after eleven. Are you working today?"

"I'm the night float. I don't have to be in until eight."

Pearce hung her jacket over the back of her desk chair. "You want something to eat?"

"Are you on the menu?"

"Not at the moment." Pearce went into the kitchen to investigate the food situation. Knowing what Tammy was like under these circumstances, eggs would probably do. She opened the cabinet above the sink and was in the process of taking down a bowl when Tammy's arms came around her from behind. Carefully, she set the dish on the counter, ignoring the play of Tammy's fingers over her abdomen.

Without turning around, she said, "Why don't you take a shower? I'll leave some of my sweats for you in the bathroom and by the time you're done, I'll have breakfast ready."

Tammy adroitly opened the button on Pearce's fly with one hand and pulled her shirt loose with the other. "You know I'd rather fuck first and eat later."

Pearce caught both wrists and stopped Tammy's errant explorations. "Cut it out, Tam. You need something to eat, and I'm not in the mood."

Tammy stepped back as Pearce turned around. She stared, mouth agape. "You're not kidding, are you?"

Pearce shook her head.

"Since when aren't you interested in sex?"

"Since right now." Pearce leaned against the counter, wincing when she tried to curl the fingers of her left hand around the edge of the counter.

"What the hell did you do?" Tammy reached for Pearce's hand.

"Jesus. You really did a number on this."

"I jammed it up yesterday."

"How?"

"Just helping someone move." The last thing Pearce wanted to do was discuss Wynter with anyone, but definitely not anyone from the hospital. And not one of the women she used to sleep with. She wasn't exactly sure why, because Wynter was just a friend. A fellow resident.

That's all. But she just didn't want to talk about her.

"Helping someone move." Tammy enunciated each word as if it were a foreign language. "Let me see if I get this right. Pearce Rifkin, the senior surgery resident who never does anything except work and screw, spent her day off helping someone move."

"Come on," Pearce said, grinning despite herself. "I do more than that. I read a book sometimes. I've even been known to watch a movie."

"When?"

"Once. Look, aren't you cold?" It was hard not to look at Tammy's naked body, especially when her nipples were puckered and hard. She had a beautiful body, muscular and compact, her narrow waist leading to subtly curved hips and smooth thighs. Pearce recalled vividly what that firm, smooth flesh felt like in her hands. "Besides, you're not legal, looking like that."

"It's about time you noticed." Tammy slid her arms around Pearce's waist and pressed against her. "Now, where were we before you lost your mind?"

"Tam," Pearce said, embracing her gently and kissing the top of her head. "I really don't want to. It's got nothing to do with you. I've just got..." Wynter. I've got Wynter on my mind. Jesus Christ. What am I doing? Tammy tilted her chin up, studying Pearce's face. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Sure." Tammy's nipples were firm against her chest, Tammy's body warm in her arms. One kiss was all it would take. One kiss and she could lose herself the way she always had in the sounds and sensation of passion. For a few minutes, an hour, there would be no expectations other than pleasure, no goals other than satisfaction.

She could be no one--or anyone--whomever she chose. No legacy, no promises. Just the moment burning bright, and then gone. She eased out of Tammy's grip, resting her hands on Tammy shoulders. "I gotta get over to the hospital."

"I don't care if you're seeing someone else," Tammy said, her tone surprisingly serious.

Pearce's heart began to pound. "I'm not seeing anyone at all."

"You're lying. To me. Or yourself. But I can see it in your eyes.

Somebody's got ahold of you deep inside."

"No," Pearce said hoarsely.

Tammy ran her fingers down the center of Pearce's chest, then put both hands on her waist and stood on her tiptoes to kiss Pearce hard.

Even when Pearce didn't respond, she kept her mouth against Pearce's for a long moment, as if imprinting the taste of her. Then she let go.

"You don't have the slightest idea what a woman can do to your heart. You're in trouble, baby."

Pearce didn't argue.

Wynter hit the knee switch to turn on the water at the scrub sink next to Pearce's. It was the first time she'd had a chance to talk to her in over thirty-six hours. Monday had been the day from hell. They had just begun dry rounds at five thirty in the morning when Pearce had been STAT paged to the emergency room. The entire team had been racing down to the ER when Wynter had been STAT paged to the SICU.

It had been nonstop surgery and emergencies the rest of the day, and the only time she'd seen Pearce had been at sign-out rounds that evening, which were truncated because there were three scheduled cases still to be done. Those cases had been bumped from the OR schedule during the day to accommodate the emergencies, and the attendings were insisting that they be done that night so as not to back up the next day's cases. The entire service had worked until midnight, even the residents who hadn't been on call. Now it was a new day, and it looked like it might be more of the same. "How does your hand feel?"

Pearce glanced around, but the adjoining scrub sinks were empty for the moment. "It hurts like a son of a bitch. I didn't want to operate yesterday, but it held up okay. I was too busy to notice that it hurt."

"It still looks swollen."

"It looks worse than it feels today. Really."

Wynter smiled. "Good."

"You're post call, Wynter. You need to go home. Why are you scrubbing?"

"Because we've got three rooms running, the first-year is taking McMurtry on rounds, and we need someone free to do floor work."

Pearce shook her head. "Anderson can start that mastectomy by herself. When Liu is done with rounds, he can scrub in and help her out. Go home."

It annoyed Wynter that she could only see Pearce's eyes above the surgical mask, and they were flat black disks, completely devoid of emotion. "You wouldn't go home."

"That's different."

"And why would that be?"

"Because I'm the chief, and I don't have a kid waiting for me."

"You can't be serious," Wynter said, her voice laced with acid.

"Are you suddenly going to become a jerk because you know about Ronnie? Like all the male residents and attendings who think that women shouldn't go into surgery because they should be home raising children?"

"What I think," Pearce said, her voice still steady and calm, "is that you were on call last night, and you're supposed to be going home this morning. You should take advantage of that and do whatever you might like to do with your time off."

"You are being a jerk. You never tell the guys to go home."

Pearce stepped on the kick bucket and threw her scrub brush into it. "Maybe I would if they had anything to go home to."

"I'm not leaving."

"Suit yourself." Pearce turned and started for room seven and the carotid endarterectomy that awaited her, not even certain why she was pissed. Wynter looked beat, and it bothered her.

"Pearce," Wynter called.

Pearce turned around, one eyebrow raised in question.

"Thanks."

"For what?" She walked back and leaned one hip against the scrub sink, her hands held out in front of her, the water dripping from her elbows onto the floor.