Free Steel: (#5 The Beat and the Pulse) by Amity Cross Page A

don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “This place is my whole life. The hours are long, the work is demanding, and it’s hard not to throw yourself into it completely. It’s not a standard nine to five job.”
    “I bet it ain’t.” He shifted on the bed. “I bet it takes a lot of school, too.”
    “A lot of sacrifice,” I agreed.
    “I hear you moved from New York.”
    My gaze snapped up to meet his, and I narrowed my eyes. It seemed Gunner had been weaving her magic on poor Josh. When I asked her to cover my rounds, I didn’t mean for her to stick her nose in where it wasn’t needed. She meant well but shit. Sometimes, I wish she would just chill over the boyfriend shit. Some women—aka, me—were happy enough without a man.
    Then what are you doing here with Josh, Holly?
    “Yes, I did,” I replied slowly.
    “Seems like a step down,” he murmured. “Why? Not that I’m complaining.”
    I felt my throat constrict as the image of the man I’d thought I loved entered my mind. Scrubs bunched around his ankles, and hers , as he ploughed his cock into her from behind. Their startled looks as they saw me standing in the doorway. The pain that tore through my heart. The moment I ran down the hall and vomited into the nearest toilet bowl.
    I’d been such a blind fool. The stupidest bitch there ever was. Everyone knew. Everyone but me .
    “Sparks?”
    My phone beeped loudly from where it was clipped to the waistband of my scrubs. Hospital issue for alerts—the modern-day pager. It kept ringing as I made a grab for it, my heart beating double-time in my chest.
    “Shit,” I cursed, glancing at the message. It was from Archer.
    “Emergency?” Josh asked, his brow creased.
    “Yeah, I’ve gotta go.” I fumbled with the phone, hooking it back onto the waistband of my scrubs.
    “Will I see you before I go tomorrow?” he asked as I scooped up my tablet.
    “I don’t know,” I said hastily, my mind firmly on the fucked-up tumor I was about to help Archer carve out of a kid’s spine. My gaze met Josh’s, and I regretted the fact that this was probably it. There wasn’t enough time to get to know anything about him and this silly attraction. Maybe that’s all it was. A silly crush on a mystery man.
    “Good luck,” he murmured, his gaze falling away. He was disappointed? Was I reading it right?
    “I’m sorry,” I said, my shoulders sagging. “I’ve really gotta go.”
    He nodded once, and I spun on my heel, running from the room and down the hall where I thumped my fist on the elevator call button.
    When I reached OR Three, Archer was already suiting up, and Sammy was being wheeled into the theater.
    “What happened?” I asked as the door swung closed behind me.
    Archer glanced up and grimaced. “He took a sharp turn an hour ago,” he explained. “There was too much risk trying to bring his symptoms under control with meds, not with the surgery looming. It was now or never.”
    I sighed and looked at the little boy as the anesthesiologist readied him to go under. He couldn’t hold on another twelve hours until we were scheduled to operate. The poor kid. I thought about his parents, who were probably huddled in the waiting room upstairs, and tears prickled behind my eyes.
    “Scrub in, Hol,” Archer said, turning on the nearest tap. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

11

Josh
    I sat in the waiting room down the hall from the ER, my broken arm cradled in my lap.
    My duffle bag sat at my feet as I watched the comings and goings of the Emergency Department of St. Vincent’s. Occasionally, an ambulance would scream up the driveway outside, and a gurney would be rolled in among a furor of activity from the doctors and nurses, and then things would go back to a dull roar.
    I’d been discharged over an hour ago, but I wasn’t keen to go anywhere else just yet. Something seemed to be unfinished, and it had everything to do with a certain doctor. Never in my entire life had I found myself so