feud. Tons of press and bigwigs down in the ER though. I bet it’s on the news tonight. Can’t talk, docs are done scrubbing. Love you.”
She disconnected before he could return the sentiment. Frustrated, he swallowed a growl as he pocketed his phone.
Then it hit him.
How many times in the past five years while on the Cincinnati SWAT tactical team had he done the exact same thing to her? Left her home worrying while he was called to a case or a situation, gave her a brief call, then hung up before she could tell him she loved him?
No wonder she’d been too cranky to live with lately. If he had to put up with this kind of worry and being cut off, he’d be cranky, too.
“Everything good?” Matt asked.
“She’s there, safe and sound.” Dave resumed his seat at the table and glanced at his cards. “Everything’s fine except this hand I dealt myself.”
That comment had everyone chuckling and more good-natured ribbing ensued. Dave joined in despite a niggling sense that Judy wasn’t all right still ate at him. Even though he’d never been a worrier, he slipped his phone out of his pocket and set it on the table, anyway.
Castello raised one eyebrow his direction and the others paused to look at him.
Dave shrugged. Call him a worrywart or overprotective, but despite the rough patch they seemed to be going through, Judy was still the center of his world. He wouldn’t rest until she was home tucked in bed beside him. Ignoring the looks of his brothers, he shrugged again. “Just in case.”
“Sneaky,” Karen, the scrub nurse, said as Judy touched the off button on her earpiece.
“I could’ve called him on my way in, but he needs a taste of the worry he puts me through.” Judy winked at her around the six-foot resident’s shoulder while she reached up to fasten the top of his paper surgical gown. “How was I to know it would be everything’s-STAT-Hodges covering for the hospital tonight?”
“Better not let him hear you call him that or see you with that earpiece or he’ll have you written up,” Smith, the third-year resident on duty for the night, said as Karen snapped his gloves over his sterile hands.
“Too late,” Karen whispered, the twinkle gone from her eyes. Judy imagined she could see her friend’s mouth twisted in a frown beneath her surgical mask.
“You know staff isn’t allowed personal electronic devices in the OR, Judy,” a rather nasally voice said behind her.
Judy rolled her eyes heavenward a moment then fixed a semi-contrite look on her face and turned to face the night’s on-call surgeon. “Good evening, Dr. Hodges. I’ll remove it as soon as the case is over. I’d truly forgotten I had it on. My husband insisted I wear it in tonight, given the roads.”
She cringed inwardly. Nothing she hated more than pretending she wanted this man’s good opinion. From the day she started work at the hospital five months ago the pompous jerk had given her nothing but his opinion about everything—from the way she tied his gowns to how she would spend a few extra minutes reassuring patients before the nurse anesthetists put the patient to sleep. Nothing she did impressed him and lately she’d quit trying. As her mama would say, you can’t fix stupid, or in this case…arrogant.
“It is bad out there. But don’t let it happen again.”
Judy couldn’t help blinking in surprise as she fastened his gown. Karen had the same astonished look in her eyes for a minute then they narrowed. Yeah, her friend had the same thought. Hodges might say it was okay, but he’d still be writing her up just as soon as the case was over.
Just what she needed, a disciplinary write-up from him. Luckily, her boss considered Hodges as big an arrogant ass as she did.
That’s one thing about Dave, despite being a cop and on the SWAT team, his ego was secure enough that he didn’t have to bully or intimidate others to make himself feel important. She’d noticed that the first day she saw him in
Carmen Caine, Madison Adler