All of Me Read online

  “I’m Makayla, by the way.” The redhead smiled at her kindly.

  “Rowan. Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you too. I’m sorry the rest of our group is too busy ass-kissing to introduce themselves to us,” Makayla said.

  “Ass-kissing isn’t my thing.”

  “Mine either.” They laughed, and Rowan’s anxiety deflated.

  “You want to get a coffee?” Rowan asked.

  “Love to.”

  Chapter Two

  The fact was, Rowan had already been told an enormous amount about her new chief resident. Maybe Galen had forgotten, or maybe she just didn’t care, but it almost seemed a rite of passage for the outgoing interns to dump all the department gossip on the incoming ones. And Dr. Galen Burgess seemed to be prime gossip material. Everyone in general surgery knew she could sew better than most attendings. But they also knew she jumped into bed with half the hospital—the other half was men. That was the rumor, at least. Rowan didn’t know how much truth there was to this, and really, she didn’t care.

  Her hometown of Euless, Texas, just outside of Arlington, wasn’t so crazy about lesbians, but she wasn’t like all the other conservative Southerners she knew. And that included her family. Who Galen slept with really didn’t matter at all to Rowan. Besides, she was happy with Brian.

  Rowan’s boyfriend, Brian, still lived back in Texas. They knew that when she began applying for residencies, she’d be living in some other part of the country. Brian had a good job with a software company in Austin, and besides, Rowan figured she probably wouldn’t have a lot of attention left to give him over the next six years anyway. She knew they’d probably get married eventually. She loved him, after all. He was good to her. He let her be a surgeon.

  “What’s the deal with Dr. Burgess anyway?” Makayla blew the steam from the top of her coffee as they walked back up the stairs to the residents’ lounge. “Galen? Can we call her Galen? Or do we have to call her Dr. Burgess?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, obviously she’s gay. Look at her, am I right? Don’t get me wrong. I’m fine with that. If she were a guy, I’d probably be all up on that…”

  For some reason, Rowan’s skin crawled a little. “Yeah.”

  “Well, I heard she, you know, gets around. Nurses mostly. Apparently she doesn’t touch other surgeons.”

  Rowan wanted her to stop. “I just want to see her operate. I heard she was doing whipples in her second year, almost completely unassisted.”

  “Is that true?” Makayla opened the door.

  “It’s true.” A warm, unfamiliar hand landed on Rowan’s shoulder, and she turned around slowly.

  “Dr. Burgess…”

  “Galen is fine. Really.” Galen smiled softly at her, and a trace of what looked like coyness sent Rowan’s stomach tumbling. “And, for the record, it was the beginning of my second year, and the attending actually left the room for half the case. If you’re going to talk about me, at least get the facts straight.” She smiled again and gently patted Rowan on the back, breezing past them into the lounge.

  Rowan might have been mortified, but Makayla could hardly contain her giddiness. “Was it just me, or was she flirting with you?”

  “What? That’s ridiculous.”

  “I’m pretty sure she was. You aren’t—”

  “No!” Rowan snapped at her. “I mean, no. I’m straight. I have a boyfriend back home. We’re probably going to get engaged soon.”

  Makayla shrugged. “Well, either way, I’d use this to your advantage, Duncan. Think about all the surgeries you could get in on.”

  Was Makayla seriously suggesting that Rowan flirt with her to scrub in on cases? She’d heard of surgeons going to some low places to operate, but pretending she was a lesbian? Jesus. She had a conscience. “I’m good, thanks. I’ll just get in the old-fashioned way. You know, hard work?”

  “Yeah…good luck with that.” Makayla crossed the room and sat on the sofa, immediately chatting up one of the tall, handsome third-years they’d seen earlier, leaving Rowan alone.

  “Duncan.” Galen suddenly hailed her from one of the nearby computers. “Come get your OR schedule.”

  “Here?”

  “No. I have to print it in my office. It’s just around the corner.”

  Rowan swallowed hard and followed her out the door and down the hall. Her chief made her nervous. Of course she did. She was the chief. Instilling anxiety was in her job description. The problem was, no one made Rowan nervous. At least not in the way that caused her to constantly wipe her palms against her scrub pants.

  * * *

  “Shut the door.”

  Rowan’s heart seemed to be pushing its way out of her sternum, beating so hard it was almost painful, but Galen seemed to remain as cool and confident as ever.

  “Sure, Dr. Burgess.”

  “Seriously. Galen. My father is Dr. Burgess.” As Rowan laughed nervously, Galen took a seat in the expensive-looking leather office chair she’d probably had shipped from Italy. “No, but really. My father. Dr. Henry Burgess? He’s the chief of surgery here.”

  Stupid. Rowan silently scolded herself for forgetting such a crucial piece of the hospital hierarchy. Of course she knew that Galen’s father was the department head. Henry Burgess was a legend at Boston City.

  “Right. I thought you were being…Never mind…”

  “Sit.” Galen’s commands were sharp and free of suggestion, but somehow, Rowan found them more than a little endearing. Her face warmed a bit more as she remembered Makayla’s earlier accusations. Galen was not flirting with her. Wait. Was she? Even if she was, Rowan reminded herself…Brian.

  “Doctor…Galen.” She swallowed hard, strangely uncomfortable with the informality of the encounter. “Before we start, I just wanted to tell you how incredibly embarrassed I am about earlier. I promise I know my way around an abdominal cavity much better than I know my way around the halls of this place.” She quietly commended herself on such a witty rationalization.

  Galen smiled. It was a slow, kind smile laced with promises of all sorts of things Rowan didn’t understand, framed by her big, bedroom eyes. “I’ve been reading up on you, Duncan.” Rowan’s heart once again exploded into a tiny firestorm that pulsed all the way down to her feet.

  “You have?”

  “I have.” Galen angled her chair slightly and hitched her ankles together. “Top of your class at UT Austin. Made quite a name for yourself at Dartmouth too. Hatcher-Johnson Fellow in your second year of med school. Even published three times in the New England Journal of Medicine student section.”

  Rowan’s ears suddenly burned. “Four times, actually. It was four.” As soon as she heard the words leave her mouth, she immediately wanted to take them back. Fantastic. Her first real meeting with the chief, and she was not only bragging but correcting her.

  For a long time, Galen sat in silence, her eyes narrowed and fierce, looking Rowan over until sweat built around the waist of her scrubs. And then, that same enchanting smile peeked through, and Rowan didn’t know whether to be relieved or afraid. For a paralyzing moment, time had stopped, and she was overwhelmed with the inexplicable urge to stand up from her chair, walk over to Galen, and straddle her lap, burying her face in her neck and letting Galen’s hands drift up her scrub top. The burning in her ears spread over the top of her head and down her neck, and she prayed she wasn’t actually speaking these thoughts out loud. What was wrong with her? God, maybe I am a lesbian? She laughed internally at the thought, dismissing it as her composure quickly returned.

  “Huh. I like that confidence, Duncan. I hope you turn out to be as good with your hands as you are with your head.”

  Galen smirked again, and this time, Rowan had no doubt in her mind she was being catcalled. It was flattering, she had to admit. And she couldn’t help but notice the dampness that had grown between her legs.

  * * *

  “So? How’d it go?” Makayla was waiting around the cor
ner from Galen’s office when Rowan left.

  “Fine. It was fine.” Her breathing was just a little too labored for her not to notice that something inside her was off.

  “Why are you all flushed, anyway?” Before Rowan had to answer her, Makayla grabbed the piece of paper out of her hand. “Let’s have a look here, shall we?” She ran a long finger down the page and squinted hard. “Lap chole, Burgess. Lap chole, Burgess. Ventral hernia, McIntire. Overnight call…Burgess.” Makayla grinned uncontrollably as she looked up from the schedule.

  “What?”

  “What? Come on now, Rowan. You’re a Dartmouth girl. An intern scrubbing in on so many of the chief’s cases? Be smart.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” There couldn’t be even an ounce of truth to Makayla’s theory. Galen Burgess was a surgeon—a professional. No way would she manipulate the schedule so she could flirt with an intern. And a straight intern at that. Please!

  “Here. Take a look at mine.” Makayla handed her a carefully folded sheet of computer paper with tiny, pristine handwriting in the margins.

  “Umbilical hernia, McIntire. Lap chole, Conway. Lap chole, Patel. Ventral hernia, Burgess. Overnight call, Phillips…” Rowan continued to scan the page for signs of Galen’s name anywhere, as Makayla waited with a knowing twist to her brow.

  “See? I think I’m with Burgess, what, three times all month? She has you with her three times this week alone.”

  “I just can’t believe she would fix our schedules so she could…”

  “Hit on you?” Makayla chuckled wryly. “I told you she likes you. And you’ve heard the rumors about her as much as I have. She’s a playboy. Surgery is the only thing she likes more than women, and if she can have them both? Well, you get it.”

  Rowan grabbed her schedule back from Makayla’s tight grip. “You’re wrong.”

  She’d been in her residency for only six hours, and already she was making waves. Makayla was a gossip. That was becoming clear quickly. But there was something about her that Rowan liked anyway. Back in Texas, she didn’t have many friends left. The area she came from didn’t exactly tend to breed overachievers like herself.

  Most of the people she’d gone to high school with were living at home, working blue-collar jobs and having babies. Nothing was wrong with that, she told herself. But it just wasn’t her. She’d met a few girls in Dartmouth she’d become close with, but they were all in their own residencies now, scattered across the country. None of them had much time for anything else. Really, Brian was all she had.

  But Makayla seemed to have her heart in the right place, even if her mouth was a little loose at times. And Rowan got the distinct sense that Makayla was genuinely looking out for her.

  * * *

  Rowan sat in the on-call lounge for the next several hours. All the other interns had gone home for the day, knowing they’d be starting at four am the next morning and basically every other morning after that for the next five years. But Rowan stayed, pretending to be practicing her one-handed knot ties while quietly deciding whether she should confront Galen.

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know anyone else was in here.” Rowan turned, startled to see a good-looking man with a mop of wavy brown hair and a surgical mask hanging from his neck.

  “No problem. Please, come in.”

  The man, who really still looked like more of a boy, smiled kindly and moved to open his locker. “I’m Teddy, by the way. I’m a second-year.”

  “Rowan Duncan. I’m—”

  “An intern?” He took out a sandwich and began aggressively shoving it into his mouth.

  “How did you guess? Do I smell or something?”

  Teddy laughed. “It’s a small program. Everyone knows everyone here. I just haven’t seen you around.” He finished the last piece of his sandwich faster than Rowan had ever seen anyone eat and took a seat on the couch next to her. “So where are you from, Duncan?”

  “Texas.” She liked Teddy instantly. Something about him was warm and easy—a stark contrast from most of the others she’d met at Boston City so far.

  “Really? Whereabouts?”

  “Arlington. Just outside. An even smaller town called Euless. I know, I know. It’s Conservativeville, USA.” She rolled her eyes, always feeling the need to defend her hometown to everyone in the Northeast.

  “I was going to say you don’t have an accent.” Teddy laughed again, and Rowan was more comfortable than she’d been since she woke up that morning.

  “No. No, I don’t. Not everyone from Texas sounds like an episode of Howdy Doody, you know.”

  “That’s too bad, really. I was hoping I’d get to see you lasso someone in the OR soon.”

  “I didn’t say I don’t know how to work a rope.” She grinned at him. “Listen, Teddy. You said everyone here knows each other pretty well, right?”

  “Too well, actually.”

  “I know this may be way out of line, since I’m the new kid, and if it is, just stuff some gauze in my mouth or something…

  “Ask me whatever you want. Off the record. Besides, I was the new kid all of five minutes ago. I get it.”

  “The chief…You know her well, too?” Rowan felt her heart rate take off for the millionth time that day. Jesus, if this kept up she’d need to take a beta blocker or something.

  “Galen? She’s my best friend around these parts. And I’m pretty sure I’m hers. Or, maybe not her best friend, but like, definitely a really good friend and…Well, anyway, that’s beside the point. What’s your question?”

  “There’s a lot of talk about her. You know, people say that she…They say she has a…” Rowan selected her words carefully. “A history with a lot of people here. Sexually…” So much for careful.

  This time Teddy’s laugh was booming and sounded almost uncontrollable. “You mean does Galen sleep around?”

  “More or less, yes. That’s what I’m asking.” The room was suddenly hotter than a Texas summer.

  “Let me put it this way. The only thing Galen loves almost as much as surgery is women. And if she can combine the two? Well…You get it.”

  Rowan was nearly certain Makayla had read some kind of secret residency handbook she had yet to see. Maybe she was right about Galen after all.

  “Thanks. Well, I’ve got to get going. It was nice to meet you, Teddy.” She jumped up from the couch abruptly, grabbed her bag, and headed for the door.

  “Hey, wait. Why do you ask? Are you interested?”

  She kept her back to him, terrified her face would give her away. “In Galen? No. I have a boyfriend. I’m straight.”

  “I see.”

  For whatever reason, she’d found herself justifying her sexuality more in one day than she’d had to in her entire life.

  Chapter Three

  Before she could change her mind, Rowan turned the corner to Galen’s office, knowing she’d likely still be working well into the night. If she was going to make it as a surgeon, it wouldn’t be because some hotshot wanted to get in her pants. She figured she’d avoided this type of situation when she learned her chief was a woman. Apparently not.

  The door to Galen’s office was cracked, and Rowan knocked assertively, trying to stop the shaking in her knees.

  “Come in.” Galen was facedown in a pile of paper charts, cup of coffee in one hand, the other thoughtfully twirling a rogue piece of hair. For a frightening moment, Rowan’s mind shut down, and she had no idea what she was doing there.

  “Galen?” After Rowan spoke, Galen looked up and smiled as the cogs in Rowan’s head slowly started turning again. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Of course. Come in. Do you want coffee?” She gestured to a brand-new cappuccino maker on the corner of her enormous desk. It was almost ten pm.

  “No. Thank you, though. I wanted to talk to you about my schedule.”

  Galen frowned, and she closed the chart she’d been reading. “I see. Is something wrong with it?”

  “No. Well, yes. Dr. Burges
s, I’ve worked extremely hard in my life to get here. My family has next to no money. I waited tables through med school, and I’m in more debt than I care to even acknowledge. But I got here because I earned it.” She took a deep breath, hardly able to believe she was about say this. “I don’t want preferential treatment because you’re…Because you want to…Because you like me.”

  A look of surprise that Rowan found extremely uncharacteristic of what she already knew of Galen registered on her face, and she was quiet for a long time. Galen took a lengthy sip of her coffee, opened a document on her computer, and sighed. Finally, a small smile appeared. “You think I made your schedule so I could flirt with you?”

  “Well, didn’t you?” Galen didn’t answer. She just looked at Rowan with her eyes like the warm waters of the Pacific. “Besides, I’m straight. I have a boyfriend. Brian. He’s still in Texas, but we’re probably going to get married and…” She felt sillier by the second.

  “Thank you. For the rest of your autobiography, I mean.” Galen’s smile grew. “But I didn’t make your schedule.”

  “You didn’t?” Someone come kill me now. Please?

  “My father makes the schedules for the interns.”

  “Oh, my God.” Rowan was sure her surgical career had just ended before it even had a chance to begin.

  “Frankly, Duncan, I’m a little offended.” Galen’s tone was unwavering, but the small grin never left her lips.

  “I’m so incredibly, unbelievably sorry, Dr. Burgess. Please. If there’s any way you can forget I said anything—”

  “Relax. This program is a rumor mill. And I highly doubt you came up with this insane theory all on your own.”