All of Me Read online

  “Thank you.” Rowan realized she’d been holding her breath.

  “I’m a lot of things, Duncan. I’m tough. I’m abrasive at times. And more often than not, I’m a little too much like my father, I think. I’m also gay. I don’t hide that fact from anyone. But one thing I’m not is the kind of shitbag that would use their position of power to get someone into bed. I don’t exchange surgeries for sex. If you want to get in on my cases, you have to earn the privilege.”

  “I understand.”

  “And,” Galen’s smile widened, and her eyes flashed a sultry shade of blue that Rowan had never seen anywhere else before, “if you want to have sex with me, well, you have to earn that too.”

  “I…” Rowan was absolutely sure she felt the blood drain from her head and settle into the bottom of her feet.

  “My father picks the intern cases based on your residency interview, your application, your USMLE scores, and about a million other little things even I don’t know about. But I can promise you that not one of them is whether I’d want to fuck you. And definitely not whether I, what did you say, I like you?”

  “Again, Dr. Burgess, I am so sorry.”

  “Galen. Not Dr. Burgess. Please. Every time I hear that I think of that cranky old curmudgeon who reluctantly helped bring me into this world.”

  Rowan nodded resolutely. “Right. Galen.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You’re hardly the first intern who thought I was trying to woo her. But being a lesbian doesn’t mean I’m ready to jump into bed with anything that doesn’t have a dick.”

  “Of course it doesn’t.” For whatever reason, Rowan found the comment oddly hurtful.

  “You’re from Texas, right, Duncan?”

  “That’s right. Outside of—”

  “Arlington. I remember now. So I’ll write this off as some small-town, Southern naîveté, as well as a downright misunderstanding, and send you away with a word of caution. Don’t believe everything you hear around this place. For a bunch of surgeons, these people seem to have nothing better to do than talk about each other.” Galen looked back down at her desk, and it became very clear to Rowan that the conversation was over.

  “I appreciate that. Thank you, Galen. It won’t happen again.” She got up and left, more humiliated than she could ever remember feeling in her twenty-six years.

  * * *

  Not many things rattled Galen. She often found herself standing in an OR for eleven hours straight, with the discipline to not even use the bathroom until she was done, and still, she remained unfazed. But Rowan Duncan had crawled under her skin just now. Even Galen couldn’t defend some of the things she’d done when it came to women and sex. She’d slept with straight women, married women, subordinates. At times, the bar hadn’t been particularly high. But she’d never dreamed of compromising her life as a surgeon, not for the sake of anyone. And, more than that, she would never degrade herself, or anyone else, by abusing her newfound position as chief. The fact that Rowan had known her for all of a day and was already accusing her of trying to sleep with her was maddening and, even more surprisingly, hurtful.

  She glanced at the clock on her cell phone, sighed, and hit Teddy’s number on speed dial.

  Teddy answered immediately. “Boss. What’s shaking?”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Sorry, Chief.”

  “Where are you right now?” Galen knew he was on call that night. It was getting on toward midnight, and she had a seven am thyroidectomy, but she needed a friend. She needed someone who could remind her she wasn’t that person Rowan apparently thought she was.

  “I’m in The Pit, why? Do you need something?”

  Galen hated the ER, better known to the surgical residents as The Pit. Something about it felt dirty and chaotic—the exact opposite of how she liked her OR. But she was desperate for a surgery, or anything to get her head right again. “What do you have down there?”

  “Not much. I got called for a car crash, but it looks like just a femur fracture on one of them. Ortho’s coming down in a little bit. Oh, and a forty-year-old drunk guy fell off his roof trying to clean his gutters. It looks like he has a small liver lac, but I don’t think it needs to go to the OR right now.”

  “Thanks.” Galen’s disappointment was almost overwhelming for a moment. But she quickly tucked it aside, stuffing a fist into the pocket of her white coat. “Keep me posted. I’ll be in the on-call room. If he ends up needing that lac repaired, page me. I want in.”

  “You got it, Boss.”

  Galen cleared her throat.

  “Sorry.”

  “Shut up.” She laughed. “Hey, Ted?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think I’m a creep?”

  “What? No! Why would you even—” Galen could hear Teddy’s pager chirping in the background. “Sorry, B…Galen. The floor is calling me. Looks like one of my post-ops is bleeding from his incision. Gotta run.” Her phone beeped three times, and the line was dead.

  * * *

  Rowan should have anticipated that sleep wouldn’t come freely that night. By the time she got back to her new apartment in Brighton, showered, and climbed under the covers, she was wide-awake. She wasn’t sure whether it was because she had her first surgery as a physician in only a few short hours or the jarring and downright humiliating conversation with her chief that had her on edge, but whatever the cause, it wasn’t good. It was earlier in Texas, and she’d briefly contemplated calling Brian. He was usually the person she wanted to reach out to when she’d had a bad day. But the thought of his monotone, often lifeless voice on the other end rambling on about how his company was no longer providing free Keurig cups for the coffeemaker irrationally irritated her, and she quickly decided against it.

  After a dinner of cheese and crackers, which she ate in bed, she read the chapter on thyroidectomies in her copy of Current Surgical Theory, not making it past the section on basic pathophysiology before drifting off with the book sprawled across her chest. Rowan was shocked to find she woke to her alarm blaring its grating tune from her cell phone next to the bed. Four am. She hadn’t needed an alarm in decades. But that wasn’t what startled her to a state of full alertness. Before she’d even opened her eyes, she noted the warmth in her belly and the tension between her legs. She reached a hand up under her T-shirt and gently stroked one of her nipples, already hard and ready.

  As her other hand drifted down under the band of her shorts, she stopped. The dream she’d had only a short hour or so ago came flooding back, flushing her skin with a juxtaposition of embarrassment and arousal.

  Galen sat behind her office door, cracked just enough for Rowan to see inside. She typed furiously on a computer keyboard, looking disheveled and tired but sexy as hell. Without a word, Rowan entered. She wore nothing but a lacy red bra and matching panties. Galen looked up from her computer, her eyes on fire with a want Rowan had never seen on anyone before. She angled her chair toward Rowan, who slowly walked toward her, straddling her so her cheek pressed against Galen’s.

  As she replayed every vivid detail of the dream, the pulse between her legs beat harder, until she could almost feel her clit pressed hard against Galen’s stomach. She allowed her hand to wander back down inside her shorts, stroking softly until the tempo built into a fury of need.

  Rowan’s alarm once again blared to life, dousing the flames that had built inside her.

  “Fucking snooze button,” she groaned.

  After the sobering ring tone once again ceased, the reality of her arousal sank in. Why did a dream about Galen have her so worked up? Why was she having dreams about a woman anyway? She chalked it up to being away from Brian, her sex life nonexistent since she left Texas. But that didn’t sit right with her either. Not when she and Brian hardly had sex anymore. Not when she could have easily left sex with him off the table completely.

  Stress. This is all just stress. She got out of bed, collected her clothes, and walked into the shower, the cold water doing a
bsolutely nothing to ease the need still painfully present.

  Chapter Four

  It wasn’t unusual for Galen to spend the night at the hospital when she wasn’t on call. Becoming the best—becoming a Burgess—meant putting in hours you didn’t have and doing work you didn’t need to do. It meant hanging around for surgeries when your shift was technically over. It meant reading up on those surgeries both before and after so you could do them better the next time. It meant three am trips to the simulation lab to operate on computer screens when the hospital was quiet and everyone else was asleep.

  Last night was no exception. Once Rowan had left her office, Galen had been irritated and more than a little turned on. People didn’t usually stand up to her. She was a fifth-year resident and the spawn of the great Henry Burgess, God of Surgery. And now, she was chief resident. Maybe that was why she seemed to sleep with women who thought she was untouchable—mostly new nurses who didn’t know any better. Then she could keep her control. She liked to be challenged at work, but not in her personal life.

  She wasn’t angry at Rowan for confronting her. After all, if she really believed that Galen had manipulated her schedule just to get in her pants, Galen wouldn’t blame her for slapping her across the face. She was angry that her reputation was catching up with her and that within twenty-four hours, someone like Rowan Duncan would think Galen was the kind of asshole who would do something like that. Maybe it was time to cut the shit? Or, at the very least, try to be a little quieter about who she took to bed…

  By midnight, no patients were waiting in the ER to be operated on, but Galen was still restless. Teddy was busy, and she couldn’t seem to sit still long enough to read up on the newest techniques in laproscopic hernia repairs. The pinging from her nearby cell phone had been a welcome reprieve from her own thoughts.

  I’m on a break. Can I come up?

  The message came through to her iPhone from “Jen SN.” SN stood for scrub nurse because Galen didn’t know Jen’s last name, or care to, really. And she needed to make sure she didn’t get her mixed up with Jen Red Hair, Jen Coffee Shop, or Jen Paramedic. She sighed, picked up the phone, and typed a reply.

  Sure.

  She tried not to put too much thought into what she was getting out of these meaningless flings. But if she’d allowed herself to put her minimal psychiatric training from medical school to use, she might say she was compensating for a lack of attention and affirmation from her father. No. That was creepy Freud psychobabble.

  Galen liked sex. She liked to get off, and even more than that, she liked to get beautiful women off. She loved it. She loved the way they writhed under her touch, the way they said her name, the way their muscles twitched when she did something just right. Sex gave her power. It gave her control. It made her feel needed and important—something she’d struggled to feel most of her life. It rarely went beyond that. She had no connection behind the lust.

  Still, what the hell was wrong with lust? A few minutes later, a quiet knock had sounded on Galen’s office door, and Jen SN entered without a word. Within seconds, she’d stripped off her scrubs, climbed into Galen’s lap, and latched her mouth onto Galen’s neck. They hadn’t talked, unless it was to tell Galen to go harder, or faster, or lower. This was exactly how Galen liked sex—quick, easy, and uncomplicated. She’d watched the last shudder of Jen’s orgasm echo through her, and they both moved to put their clothes back on. That was it. Jen kissed her on the cheek, said a coy “thank you,” and left.

  * * *

  A strong cup of coffee would help Rowan shake this funk she was in. She stopped at the hospital cafeteria after her morning rounds, filled the tallest cup she could find, and topped it off with five or six sugars. Everything in the South was sweet, and the mere thought of black coffee turned her stomach. The heat in her belly that had been there since her unsolicited dream this morning had finally cooled, and she felt like she had the mental reserves to assist in her first surgery this morning. A healthy degree of terror and humility that was expected of her as a new doctor who’d just been handed a knife replaced her arousal.

  “Well, good morning.”

  Rowan turned from the coffee station, still reviewing her thyroid landmarks as she tossed her sugar packets into the trash. Galen stood just close enough to bring every second of her dream flooding back to her.

  “Good morning.” She immediately felt her face warm and knew patchy hives were forming around her exposed neck.

  “Total thyroid at seven am, OR 2. You ready, Duncan?” Galen smiled, and Rowan felt at least four more hives erupting.

  “Looking forward to it.” Her voice was scratchy, and she was having trouble swallowing over the potato-sized lump in her throat.

  “You feeling all right?” Galen reached out and gently ran a finger over Rowan’s neck, leaving her skin burning under her touch.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re kind of flushed…” Galen didn’t wait for an answer. She grinned knowingly and turned to go. “See you in a few.”

  * * *

  Rowan filled with panic at every step she took toward the locker room. She had no doubt that Galen knew every bit of what she’d been thinking. God, how humiliating. Never in her entire life had she dreamt about a woman like that. Never in her entire life had she even thought about a woman like that! She once again reminded herself that these were unusual circumstances, and she was absolutely in uncharted waters. A new residency, a new career, a new city, a whole new vat of responsibilities…That explains it. Doesn’t it?

  She moved to the nearby storage closet and took out a set of small scrubs, her phone falling to the ground as she did. For several seconds, she just stared at it before finally picking it up and hitting the first number on speed dial.

  “Hi. Is everything okay?” Brian’s voice on the other line sounded stifled and far away.

  “Yes. Everything’s fine. I just…I just miss you.”

  “You do?” She could nearly hear him smiling from Texas.

  “Yes.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Rowan did miss him, in some ways. So what if it wasn’t in the same way he missed her?

  “I miss you too, Ro. What are you up to?”

  Rowan finally collected her scrubs and rounded the corner, kicking her heels off as she walked. “Well…I’m about to assist on my very first surgery.”

  “It’s not your first surgery. You’ve done this a million times. You’ll be great.”

  “I’ve done this a million times as a medical student, Bri. That’s like telling Alex Rodriguez at his first major league game that he’d be fine because he was a water boy once.” She groaned internally, kicking herself for forgetting just how little Brian understood of her world.

  “And I still say you’ll be great. Besides, A-Rod was a chump. What’s the surgery?”

  She knew he didn’t really care. “It’s a…” One of the nearby showers had shut off, and a strong, muscled figure wrapped in a less-than-conservative towel stepped out. Her heart ricocheted in her chest, and the sense of embarrassment that had become all too familiar to her during the last couple of days reappeared like an unwelcome guest.

  “Hello? Ro? You still there?”

  Brian’s voice did little to shake her trance as Galen finally made eye contact, smiled her shy smile that was surely manufactured, and mouthed, “Sorry.”

  “Sorry. Hey, I’ve got to go, okay?”

  “Um…okay, sure? Are you sure you’re all right?” But Rowan had already let the phone drop to her side. “Hello? Ro? Rowan?” She laughed nervously in Galen’s direction and hit the red button to end the call.

  “I didn’t know anyone else was in here,” Galen said, picking up a corner of the towel and running it over her wet curls. The top of her strong thigh peeked out, and Rowan silently reminded herself to get it together.

  “No problem.”

  “That the boyfriend?”

  “Yeah.” Rowan suddenly and foolishly wanted to prove to Galen just how solid her love life was.
“He’s the best. I really miss him, you know.”

  Galen just raised her eyebrows slightly, and Rowan swore she saw something that looked like skepticism on her face. “Huh. That’s great.”

  “How about you? Do you, you know, miss anyone?” She couldn’t believe she’d just asked her that. What an idiot! Was she twelve? Galen’s love life was none of her business. And it was of absolutely no interest to her.

  “Her name is Suzie.” Galen flashed her mischievous smile that Rowan was sure got her into all kinds of trouble. “When I get home every night, I mean, when I actually make it home, we eat dinner together. And then we watch Mary Tyler Moore reruns and fall asleep on the couch.”

  For whatever reason, a bubble of jealousy traveled up from Rowan’s stomach and settled in her throat.

  “She loves to kiss me too.”

  “Oh. That’s…How long have you and Suzie been together?”

  “About eleven years now.”

  Everything Rowan had heard about Galen suddenly came into question. Was her whole Lothario persona just an act? Or was she some kind of serial cheater? “Really?” She tried to sound unfazed.

  “Yeah. My dad got her for me when I was a teenager.” Her grin grew. “We have a date tomorrow at the vet’s, actually.”

  Rowan felt her eyes bug just for a second and then laughed. “Might this Suzie be covered in fur and enjoy playing fetch in the park?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes! You want to see a picture?” Galen was already running to her bag to dig out her cell phone. “Here she is.”

  “She’s adorable.” Rowan noted the graying Goldendoodle but couldn’t look away from a tan, smiling Galen kneeling next to her in the summer sun, wearing a baseball cap and tank top. They were on some kind of hike, and Rowan wondered what it would be like to spend the day outside, exploring the mountains with Galen and Suzie…