Chapter 7 Chapter 7

Heat flooded her cheeks, but before she could respond, the first siren wailed in the distance.

AJ's head snapped toward the sound, his entire body shifting into a different gear—focused, controlled, lethal in his competence. Katherine watched as he rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and transformed completely into the surgeon she'd seen earlier during the thoracotomy.

"Positions!" he called out.

The ambulances screamed into the bay in rapid succession, a parade of flashing lights and urgent voices. Katherine found herself assigned to the second vehicle, but her eyes kept drifting to where AJ was already pulling open the doors of the first ambulance, his movements economical and sure.

A paramedic was shouting statistics—"Female, mid-twenties, GCS of 8, BP dropping, possible internal bleeding"—and AJ was already moving, his hands gentle despite his size as he helped transfer the patient.

Katherine forced herself to focus on her own assignment. A middle-aged man with a compound fracture and possible concussion. She could do this. She'd done this dozens of times.

But even as she worked, she remained acutely aware of AJ's presence twenty feet away. His voice cutting through the chaos with calm authority. The way he moved with absolute certainty, as if he'd been born to do this.

"Katherine!"

Her name in his voice made her look up. AJ was staring at her across the bay, his patient already being rushed inside. "I need you!"

Her heart stuttered. Professional, she reminded herself. He needs you professionally.

She quickly coordinated with another resident to take over her patient and jogged to where AJ stood beside a gurney. The woman on it was barely conscious, her chest moving in shallow, labored breaths.

"Tension pneumothorax," AJ said the moment Katherine reached him. "We need to decompress now. You did one in sim lab, right?"

"Yes, but—"

"No buts. I'll talk you through it." His hand landed on her shoulder, warm and solid and steadying. "You can do this, Kitty Kat."

The nickname in that moment—said with complete confidence in her abilities—made something crack open in her chest. Katherine nodded, reaching for the equipment a nurse was already holding out.

AJ's voice was in her ear, low and steady, as her hands moved through the procedure. "That's it. Feel for the second intercostal space. Perfect. Now—"

The patient gasped, her breathing immediately easing, and relief flooded through Katherine so intensely her knees went weak.

"Beautiful work," AJ murmured, and the pride in his voice did things to her that were completely inappropriate for a trauma bay.

Their eyes met over the patient, and for a moment the chaos around them faded. His hand was still on her shoulder, his touch burning through her scrub top. The way he was looking at her—like she was capable of anything, like she mattered—made her chest ache with longing.

"We need to get her inside," a nurse said, breaking the moment.

AJ's hand dropped away, leaving Katherine cold. "Right. Let's move."

The next two hours were a blur of blood and adrenaline and desperate saves. Katherine found herself working alongside AJ on three separate patients, their rhythm so natural it was almost eerie. He anticipated what she needed before she asked. She handed him instruments before he requested them. They moved around each other in the tight space of trauma rooms like dancers who'd practiced the choreography a thousand times.

It was intoxicating and torturous in equal measure.

Because while they worked, AJ was completely professional. Focused. The perfect colleague and teacher. But every time his hand brushed hers passing an instrument, every time he leaned close to examine something and she could smell his scent, every time he praised her work in that warm, approving voice—her body remembered.

The back seat of his car. His hands on her skin. The way he'd whispered her name like a prayer.

And he had no idea. No memory of it at all.

By the time the last patient was stabilized and sent up to surgery, Katherine was exhausted and wound so tight she thought she might shatter. She stripped off her bloodied gloves and gown mechanically, moving on autopilot toward the locker room.

"Katherine, wait."

She turned to find AJ jogging to catch up with her, his hair disheveled, his scrubs spattered with blood, looking unfairly attractive despite—or maybe because of—the gore.

"You were incredible tonight," he said, slightly breathless. "That pneumothorax? The way you handled that pelvic fracture? I know attendings who couldn't have done better."

"Thanks," she managed, wrapping her arms around herself. "You were pretty amazing yourself."

"We make a good team." He smiled, and it was that genuine smile—not the flirtatious one he used on nurses, but something real and warm that made her heart squeeze painfully. "I know this sounds weird, but it felt really natural working with you. Like we've done it before."

We have, she wanted to scream. We've done lots of things before. You just don't remember.

"Yeah," she said instead. "It did feel natural."

AJ shifted his weight, suddenly looking uncertain in a way she'd never seen before. "Listen, I know you probably have plans, but a few of us are going to grab food. Nothing fancy, just the diner on Fifth. You should come."

Katherine's traitorous heart leapt. But her mind—her rational, self-preserving mind—knew this was a terrible idea. Spending more time with AJ outside the hospital, watching him charm everyone around him, pretending they were just colleagues when her body still remembered the weight of him, the taste of him—

"I can't," she said softly. "I'm exhausted. Rain check?"

Something that looked almost like disappointment crossed his face. "Yeah, of course. Rain check."

He stood there for another moment, like he wanted to say something else. But then someone called his name from down the hallway, and the moment passed.

"Get some sleep, Kitty Kat," he said, backing away. "You earned it."

Katherine watched him go, surrounded almost immediately by a gaggle of nurses and residents, all of them competing for his attention. He threw his head back and laughed at something someone said, and the sound carried down the hallway—low and throaty and full of life.

The same laugh that had echoed in the darkness of his car two years ago.

Katherine turned away and headed for the locker room, her eyes burning with tears she refused to let fall.

She'd saved three lives tonight working beside AJ Ross. But she had no idea how to save her own heart from the man who'd already broken it once without even knowing it.