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  All of Me

  Dr. Galen Burgess has a reputation for keeping it casual. She likes women close—but not too close. Nothing is more important to her than her budding surgical career as chief surgical resident at Boston City Hospital. After spending years trying, and failing, to please her father, Galen knows getting close enough to care is a recipe for heartbreak.

  Everything in her carefully structured life begins to change when she meets her newest intern, the disconcertingly beautiful Dr. Rowan Duncan. Sheltered doesn’t even begin to describe Rowan’s comfortable, quiet life before moving to Boston. When Rowan starts to fall for Galen, everything Rowan's ever known comes into question, including her relationship with high school sweetheart Brian.

  With her own heart on the line, will Rowan have the courage to make the cut, or risk losing Galen forever?

  All of Me

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  All of Me

  © 2018 By Emily Smith. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13:978-1-63555-322-2

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, NY 12185

  First Edition: November 2018

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Shelley Thrasher

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Tammy Seidick

  By the Author

  Searching for Forever

  Same Time Next Week

  After the Fire

  All of Me

  Dedication

  To those who tried their best to teach me.

  Mr. Clark, for always cutting out my first paragraph immediately. Professor Schofield, for encouraging me to never be afraid to tell my story. And to all the strong, smart, queer women writers who came before me and paved the way.

  Prologue

  “Oh good, you’re still here.” Teddy Thompkins, the second-year surgical resident at Boston City Hospital, barreled through the door of the doctors’ lounge and into the open chair next to Dr. Galen Burgess.

  “Where else would I be?” Galen didn’t look up from her computer screen. It was already seven thirty pm, and she had at least another couple of hours’ worth of notes to catch up on before she even thought about going home. She paid little mind when the door opened again, even when a chorus of voices sang from behind her. The residents’ lounge was like a turnstile for young doctors in any and all state of mind and body. Singing was hardly unusual.

  “For she’s a jolly good fellow…” Galen finally spun her chair around to see what the ruckus was all about, only to find three of the other residents on her team standing expectantly in front of her holding a mammoth cake with even bigger smiles on their faces.

  “Congratulations, Chief,” Teddy gushed, filling in the silence left by the decrescendo of their off-key melody.

  Congratulations? For the life of her, Galen couldn’t come up with anything she or her friends had to celebrate.

  “What are you jerks all worked up about now?” she asked.

  “You haven’t heard yet?” Carly, the sweet, mousy Intern with the world’s curliest hair, asked.

  “Heard what?”

  “Of course she hasn’t,” Teddy said. “Too busy saving lives all day.”

  “You’re such an ass-kisser.” Carly stuck out her tongue at him.

  “I really have no idea what you guys are talking about. I was in a whipple all day with Mueler and just finished an add-on lap chole that wasn’t supposed to go to the OR until tomorrow. Now, if someone wouldn’t mind filling me in…”

  “You’re chief resident!” Teddy nearly exploded, seemingly eager to be the first to share the news with his best friend of the last couple of years.

  Chief resident? The words sounded jumbled and foreign, and Galen struggled to make sense of them with a mind surviving on two hours of sleep and too busy sorting out antibiotic choices for an abdominal abscess on the floor upstairs.

  “I am?” she whispered.

  “Have you practiced sounding surprised?” Carly was teasing her.

  “I forgot they were announcing it today…”

  “Come on, cut your cake. We spent a lot of money on this thing,” Teddy said. “And then, we’re going out for drinks. Lots and lots of drinks.”

  Galen smiled, just a little at first, and then more and more until her grin felt like it might actually take over her entire face. “Anyone have a knife?”

  The group looked at each other blankly and then began patting down the pockets of their white coats.

  “A whole room full of surgeons, and not a single one has a knife?” Galen couldn’t resist badgering them.

  “Here! I’ve got a ten-blade!” Teddy pulled a scalpel out of his locker.

  “Good enough.” They laughed as Galen tried to slice the cake with the same precision she used in the OR and dropped the ragged pieces onto a brown paper towel. “And you all better keep your traps shut about these cuts.”

  Once they’d finished licking the frosting from their fingers, Galen kicked her feet up on the table and folded her arms behind her head. “That was great. Thanks, guys.” She smiled at them. “Now all of you get out of here so I can finish my notes. Go home. It’s eight thirty.”

  Teddy got up first, and the others followed. “Hey, you’re the chief.”

  Chief, Galen thought as she looked around the now-empty lounge. I could get used to that.

  Chapter One

  Nine Months Later

  Statistics have shown that more hospital complications happen in July than in any other month. Galen never let that thought get too far away from her when that time came every year.

  July 1—the day medical students suddenly become doctors. There’s no good way to transition what are usually essentially children from a position of observer to caretaker, decision maker…lifesaver. But that’s what Galen would be there for. The chief resident is expected to guide the fledgling physicians into the world of medicine with as few casualties as possible. She only hoped she would be up to the task.

  “Can you smell that?” Teddy said, pushing his mound of home fries and bacon to the register of the hospital cafeteria.

  Galen took a small sip from the steaming cup of coffee in her hand, not caring that it was hot enough to scald the inside of her mouth. She’d been on call all last night and hadn’t dozed off for more than five minutes before the trauma pager went off. A little soft-tissue burn might wake her up some. “What? Your impending heart attack?”

  “No. That.” Teddy turned his nose up to the air and sniffed dramatically. “Fresh blood. New interns.”

  “Is it July already?” Galen tried her best to sound nonchalant as she handed the cashier a five and walked off with Teddy trailing behind.

  “Oh, don’t pretend you’ve forgotten. This is the biggest day of your chiefdom. The time for you to flex your muscles.”

  “Thanks, Ted. I was doing a good job not worrying about it too.” Galen hit the button for the elevator, too fatigued to imagine her legs carrying her up the four flights of stairs to the lounge. She loved her job, but it had been a long night with hours
spent in the OR trying to repair the lacerated liver of a thirty-year-old woman who’d been hit by a drunk driver on the way home from an AA meeting.

  The elevator doors glided open onto the fifth floor, where a strikingly tall man with silver hair and a stern brow stood waiting.

  “Good morning, Dr. Burgess,” Galen said coldly. From the first days of her Internship, her father had insisted she call him Dr. Burgess at the hospital. Not that she minded. Henry Burgess was more of an attending to her than he was a parent, anyway. The brief eye contact flooded her with awkwardness, and she quickly snagged her pager off her scrub pants. “I’m sorry. I have to take care of this.”

  “Of course. See you in the operating room. And don’t forget, it’s July first.” As if summoned from the bowels of the hospital, the elevator swung back and opened its doors for her father’s always-grand departure.

  “How long do you think that fake page trick is going to work on him?” Teddy asked once they’d started walking again.

  “Oh, it doesn’t work. Dr. Burg…my father is many things, but stupid is not one of them. He knows as well as I do that there’s no page. But it gets us both out of having to talk to each other any longer.”

  “I don’t know how you manage to stand across an OR table from him for hours at a time if you can’t even make small talk in the hallway.” Teddy shook his head.

  “That’s different. There’s no small talk in the OR. He does his thing, and I do mine.”

  “And what happens when you screw up and he has to tell you what to do? He is your attending, after all.”

  “That’s easy,” Galen said, pushing open the door to the lounge. “I never screw up.”

  * * *

  Galen loved everything about being in the OR. She loved the smell of the powder from her sterile gloves. She loved the constant blips from the monitors that meant her patient was doing well under her knife. She loved the pace her pulse increased to when she made that first incision. Even operating with her father couldn’t taint that sensation. In fact, operating was about the only time she liked her father.

  “Jen, I’ll take a number-eleven blade, please.” Galen let her gaze linger on the petite scrub nurse at the foot of the OR bed just long enough to bring out the crimson around her brow. They were covered with surgical masks and caps, but Galen didn’t need more than her eyes to flirt.

  “Eleven blade, Dr. Burgess.” Jen handed the scalpel to her and glanced at the floor coyly.

  Galen’s father cleared his throat. “Are you quite ready to start, then?”

  “Yes, sir.” Henry Burgess was more than likely very aware of Galen’s flings. Everyone at Boston City was.

  Galen didn’t have to go far to find women. Plenty right there in the hospital were interested in getting to know her better. Jen had been the nurse on a handful of her cases when she asked Galen to get a drink across the street at the bar inside the Hilton one night. She hadn’t made it halfway through her first glass of rosé before whisking Galen upstairs to a room for the rest of the evening. Nights on call can be long, and if the pager remains quiet, there isn’t always a lot to pass the time. Galen never had a hard time finding company, whether it be Jen or someone else. She wasn’t after more than that, and everyone knew it.

  “Have you met the interns yet?” Galen’s father never expressed much in the way of emotion. Unless, of course, that emotion was disappointment. He was an expert at disappointment, his favorite target for which, of course, was his daughter.

  “Not yet.” Galen didn’t look up from the monitors in front of her as she watched her laparoscopic instruments maneuver gracefully through her patient’s abdominal cavity.

  “And why not? As chief resident, it’s your job now.” For just a micro-second, Galen glanced over to meet her father’s cold glare. Damn it. She corrected herself quickly, but it was already too late. “Dr. Burgess. What is the first rule of laparoscopy?”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Galen kicked herself under the operating table.

  “That’s not what I asked. What is the first rule, Dr. Burgess?”

  “The first rule,” she said, careful not to so much as blink, “is don’t ever take your eyes off the monitors.”

  “Correct. And what did I just see you do?”

  “I took my eyes off the monitors.” Galen knew arguing with her father was like sparking nuclear war. You simply weren’t going to win.

  “You’re a fifth-year now, Doctor. Chief resident. You should be setting an example as a surgeon, and as a leader. I expect better from you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They completed the rest of the procedure in near silence. So much for never screwing up.

  * * *

  Rowan Duncan had been waiting for this day as long as she could remember. Or, at least since March 15. Match Day—the day that fourth-year medical students across the country learn where they’ll spend the next three to seven years of their lives. She was a solid student who managed to graduate toward the top third of her class, but residencies are competitive. Especially surgical residencies. And Rowan wanted nothing more than to be a surgeon.

  She walked down the seemingly endless hallways of Boston City Hospital like an Amish tourist in downtown Manhattan, still in disbelief that she was actually a doctor, never mind a doctor at one of the best hospitals in the country. The novelty was wearing off quickly, though, as she glanced at her watch and realized she would be late if she didn’t figure out where the hell she was going. She had to ask someone.

  “Excuse me?” The next person to cross her path was a tall, young doctor with stern eyes and short, golden-blond hair poking out from underneath her scrub cap.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m looking for the North Elevators. Can you just…”

  The woman’s face softened a little, and she pointed to a sign directly above their heads.

  “North Elevators…Right…” Rowan’s face burned. “Of course they’re right there…”

  Without a word, the woman smiled and continued down the hall, and Rowan followed the signs to the elevator bank only a few short steps away.

  * * *

  “Don’t you have a meeting to be at, Chief?”

  Galen was trying to catch up on her morning’s worth of charting when Teddy found her in her new office. “Not until two pm.”

  “It is two pm.”

  Galen glanced at the clock on the wall, one of the few decorations she had up so far, and leapt to her feet. “Shit. Thanks, Teddy.”

  Her first day with the fledglings and she couldn’t even be at her own meeting on time. No. She could work with this. Attendings are always late. In fact, no one important was ever on time for anything. Galen could just tell them she was in surgery…an emergency surgery. As she raced down the hall, she thought of the coolest possible procedures she could—a ruptured aortic aneurysm? No, how about a massive spleen laceration from a car wreck? Hell, why not make it a multi-systems trauma? The interns won’t know the truth…

  “Dr. Burgess.” The interns wouldn’t know. But her father would. Why was it such a surprise to her that the man who so badly wanted to see her fail would be there, watching, scrutinizing her every move? “You’re late.”

  “I’m sorry, everyone. I was…” The shoebox conference room was wall-to-wall with white-coat-donning, doe-eyed new doctors, but she could only stare at the heartless battle-axe who’d helped create her. “Charting. Paperwork sucks. Get used to it now. Which brings me to my first point.” She shifted her gaze away from her father and back to the room. “Surgery is not sexy. It’s consults, and turfing, and long, grueling hours on your feet. This is not Grey’s Anatomy. You want sexy, go to plastics. You want to work? You’re in the right place.”

  She scanned the faces in the crowd, soaking in the look of horror and possible regret that was all but a rite of passage to a new surgeon, until she stopped at one she recognized. Elevator Girl…She was cute, with that long, straight brown hair and those smart little glasses. She perked u
p a little but then stopped. No. You can’t fuck the interns, Galen. Satisfied she’d scared the shit out of her new protégés, she looked back at her father, who was staring back at her with the subtlest of approving grins. He nodded once, got up, and left the room.

  “Rounds start at five thirty am. That means you better be here at four thirty to review your labs, ins and outs, events, everything. When you show up on my rounds in the morning, you better be familiar with everything about your patient. I want to know what he ate for breakfast. I want to know what his last four white counts are. I want to know what shade of yellow his pee is.” A soft chuckle broke out from the back row. “That’s not a joke. Know everything, or find yourself in clinic.” Silence. “Any questions?” After a brief pause, all ten hands in the room shot up. Galen once again found herself drawn to the shy one with the bad sense of direction. “You. Elevator Girl.”

  She liked the color the girl’s cheeks turned, and she found herself picturing her naked, flushed body sprawled out across her own bed. No. Stop that, damn it. “Rowan. Rowan Duncan. Dr. Duncan, now…I guess,” the girl said.

  “Do you have a question, Duncan?”

  “I do, actually.” Galen’s belly warmed a little at Rowan’s seemingly shifting confidence. “When do we get started?”

  * * *

  “So, that’s our chief.” A tall, redheaded woman wearing an expensive-looking pencil skirt under her white coat had moved to Rowan’s side.

  “I guess so.”

  “She’s a piece of work, huh?”

  Rowan nodded but hadn’t quite figured out what to think about her new boss. She certainly seemed tough, but Rowan had expected that. What chief resident wasn’t tough? But there was something else about her. Something Rowan couldn’t look away from. Dr. Burgess could be as mean as she wanted to be—Rowan could only hope to be half the surgeon she was someday.