Turn Back Time

CHAPTER ONE

The instant Wynter Kline ducked through the archway into Perelman Quadrangle she was accosted by a wall of sound so overwhelming she nearly turned around and left. The block-wide flagstone square, flanked on all sides by the Collegiate Gothic and High Victorian brick buildings that typified the University of Pennsylvania, was jammed with three hundred fourth-year medical students. With music, beer, and convivial shouts, the members of the graduating classes from Philadelphia's four medical schools boisterously celebrated the most important event of their professional careers to date. Match Day was the long-awaited day when a computer program--having factored the variables of student rankings, interview results, and residency choices into a complex formula--ultimately assigned each fourth year medical student from every medical school in the United States to a single residency position. At least 95 percent of the fourth-year students matched, and the other 5 percent were left to scramble madly for the final unfilled positions or go without a job after years of grueling study.

Early May evenings were still a little cool, and Wynter wore a pale yellow cotton sweater over a white Oxford shirt, khaki chinos, and docksiders. Terminally preppy, she'd often been told. It wasn't so much a style statement as how she felt most comfortable, so she generally ignored the good-natured, and sometimes not so genial, comments of her family and friends. She definitely wasn't in the mood for a party and hadn't bothered to change after a day spent on the wards. In fact, she barely felt as if she belonged with the revelers. Before she could dwell on the odd sense of detachment that had befallen her the moment she'd been handed the envelope containing her match results, the jostling, shouting mass of students magically shifted out of her way.

Now that she could see more than the back of the neck of the person in front of her, she made out at least a half dozen kegs of beer, all tapped and dispensing foamy brew nonstop, and twice as many catering tables set end to end and littered with half-empty bottles of liquor and soda.

Somewhere, a rock band competed with the human voices through speakers that must have been fifteen feet tall, if the blaring decibels that beat against her tympanic membranes were any indication. Everyone was celebrating, or drowning their sorrows.

Wynter didn't yet know which fate awaited her--joy or anguish.

The envelope that held the key to her future, or at least the next five years of her life, was tucked into her back pocket. She was on the verge of escaping, having decided that she would rather not share this moment with hundreds of others. Particularly when she expected to be disappointed.

"Hey!" A wiry African American man a dozen years older than her own twenty-three pushed his way to her side. "You made it. I thought you were going to bail."

"Rounds ran late, and then two packed subway cars passed me by." Wynter smiled at Ken Meru. It seemed like only days, and not three years, since they had first introduced themselves over the white plasticshrouded form of their cadaver. Although they had initially had little in common other than their desire to be physicians, the many Saturday afternoons they had spent alone in the eerie lab, bent over the desiccated, foul-smelling remnants of what had once undoubtedly been a vital human body, surrounded by death as they struggled to understand the mysteries of life, had forged the bonds of true friendship. Wynter squeezed his arm and forced excitement into her voice. "So? Tell me.

What did you get?"

"Anesthesia."

"Just like you wanted." She threw her arms around his slim shoulders and kissed his cheek. "That's terrific. I'm so happy for you.

Where?"

His smile, already brilliant, widened, and with shy pleasure, he tilted his head toward the towering buildings visible above the campus Commons. "Right here."

Wynter struggled not to let him see her reaction, which was a mixture of jealousy and disappointment. He'd gotten one of the best positions available in a highly competitive field. His dreams were about to come true. But it wasn't Ken's fault that she hadn't been able to pursue her dream with the same freedom that he had. She was truly happy for him, but her heart hurt. She forced a smile. "University Hospital. That's...that's the best news, Ken. What did your wife say?"

Ken laughed. "Mina said I better not stay too late. She wants to take me out to dinner."

"Then you should probably get going, buster." Wynter frowned and tapped her Seiko. "It's already after seven."

"I will. I will. But what about you?" He turned sideways, pressing close to allow a gaggle of excited students to shoulder past. "Did you get surgery?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

Wynter shrugged sheepishly. "I haven't looked yet."

"What? What are you waiting for?"

You wouldn't understand if I told you. I don't understand it myself.

She was saved from answering when Ken's cell phone rang. He pulled it off his belt and pressed it to his ear, shouting hello. A moment later he closed the phone and bent close to her.

"I have to go. Mina got a babysitter and says I'm to come home right now."

"Then you'd better go. Another month and you won't have that many nights to spend with her."

"Call me," Ken said as he eased away. "Call me tomorrow and tell me what you got."

She nodded, realizing as she lost sight of him that she was surrounded by strangers. She didn't know the students from the other schools and had rarely socialized with those from her own. She'd been part of the accelerated combined BS/MD program at Penn State and had begun her clinical rotation at Jefferson Medical College off-cycle with the other students. Unlike her classmates, she'd preferred to study in her Center City high-rise apartment and not the medical school library.

During her clinical years, she spent her days in the hospital, took night call every third or fourth night, and had rarely repeated a rotation with the same group of students. She had acquaintances but few friends, at least not in the medical community. Now with Ken gone, she had no reason to stay. I shouldn't have come. I'm not even a part of this.

Suddenly angry, she turned abruptly, intent on leaving. Her head snapped back as her chin slammed into the face of a dark-haired woman, and when her vision cleared, she found herself staring into stunned charcoal eyes. At almost five-eight, Wynter was used to being taller than most women, and she was as much surprised by the fact that she was looking up as she was by the sudden pain in her jaw. "God.

Sorry."

"Ow! Christ." Pearce Rifkin brushed a finger over her bruised lip.

It came away streaked with blood. "Score one for your team."

"Oh no." Wynter reached out automatically. "You split your lip."

Pearce caught Wynter's wrist and held her hand away from her face. "It's okay. Forget it."

Pearce surveyed her assailant intently. She didn't know her, because she was certain she would have remembered had they met. An inch or so shorter, wavy shoulder-length reddish brown hair generously streaked with gold highlights, and sapphire blue eyes. With her fresh features and clear complexion, she was a walking J. Crew ad. "You're going to have a hematoma on your chin."

"Feels like it," Wynter agreed, fingering the already palpable lump. "We both need ice."

Pearce grinned, then winced. "Lucky for us there's about a ton of it here." She held out her hand. "Come on. Follow me."

Wynter stared at the outstretched hand. The fingers were long, capable looking. A broad hand, strong. It suited the woman, whose athletic build was obvious beneath her tight navy T-shirt and low-slung faded jeans. Her collar-length black hair, carelessly cut and verging on shaggy, framed a bold, angular face. She looked more like a college jock or one of the gathering's bartenders than a soon-to-be doctor. Wynter took the hand, and warm fingers closed around her own. Then, she was tugged none too gently into the crowd. In order to avoid playing human bumper cars with those being forced out of her path, she pressed against the back of the woman leading the way.

"What's your name?" she shouted.

The dark head half turned in her direction. "Pearce. You?"

"Wynter."

"Stay close, Wynter." Pearce clasped Wynter's hand more tightly and pulled it around her middle, drawing Wynter near as she faced forward and kept shoving. "Wouldn't want to lose you."

Wynter felt firm muscles rippling beneath her palm as Pearce twisted and turned and forged ahead. She was equally conscious of her own abdomen pressed to Pearce's backside. It was oddly intimate, and wholly unlike her. She was neither impulsive nor prone to letting others take charge. But here she was, being led--no, dragged--along by a stranger. She hadn't felt like her usual self-sufficient self for far longer than she wanted to admit, so she told herself that was the reason she didn't resist. Plus, she was curious. Curious about the woman who so confidently cut a swath for them as if she owned the Commons.

"Hey, Pearce," a man called out. "You're bleeding."

"No shit," Pearce called back. "Brilliant. You must almost be a doctor."

Raucous laughter followed them, until Wynter jerked Pearce to a stop. "Hey! Hold on a minute and turn around."

Surprised by the strength in the arm encircling her waist and the command in the smooth voice at her ear, Pearce halted and angled around in the crowd. "What?"

"Did you ever think to ask if I wanted to go where you're going?"

"Nope. I'm a take-charge kinda person."

"Well, so am I." Wynter extracted her hand from Pearce's grip and studied her lip. "And he's right. You're bleeding pretty briskly. Do you have a handkerchief?"

Pearce laughed. "Come on. Do you?"

Wynter smiled and shook her head, then tapped a young blond woman in a scrub suit on the shoulder. "Can I have that napkin, please?"

She pointed to the paper square beneath the woman's plastic cup.

"Huh?" The blond gave them a curious look, her eyes widening as she focused on Pearce's face. "Oh, Pearce. Baby. Look at you. What happened?"

"She hit me," Pearce stated matter-of-factly, nodding toward Wynter.

"Now wait a minute," Wynter protested as she watched the blond's expression change from surprise to...jealousy. Jealousy? Wynter took a good look at Pearce--at the way she tilted her hips forward suggestively while smiling at the blond, the way her eyes unconsciously flickered over the woman's mouth, at the lazy grin. She'd seen that look before- on men. Oh. So that's the way it is.

The blond visibly bristled. "What do you mean, she hit you."

Wynter edged away. Time to get out of the line of fire.

Laughing, Pearce reached out and reclaimed Wynter's hand. "It was an accident, Tammy." She took the napkin and dabbed at her face, then looked at Wynter and indicated her lip. "Better?"

Wynter assessed the damage, ignoring the other woman. "It's slowing down, but you still need ice. It's probably a branch of the labial artery."

"Yeah, probably. Come on, almost there." Pearce was about to turn away when Tammy grasped her arm.

"Where did you match?" Tammy asked, adding almost petulantly, "As if I didn't know."

"University," Pearce replied, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

Then she pointedly slipped her fingers through Wynter's and pulled her against her side. "Let's go."

Wynter couldn't move away as the crowd automatically shifted to fill the slightest available space. "Look, I have to--"

"You're not going anywhere fast," Pearce said, "and your face is swelling."

"Fine. Go."

It took another five minutes of determined effort, but eventually they reached the tables where the drinks were being dispensed. Huge coolers lined the sidewalk. Pearce collected two plastic cupfuls of ice and handed one to Wynter. "Better hold one of these cubes against your chin. You're getting a pretty good bruise."

Experimentally, Wynter worked her jaw from side to side, noting the tightness just in front of her ears. She sighed. "It looks like I'm going to be wearing my bite block for a week or so too."

"TMJ?" Pearce wrapped the napkin around an ice cube and held it against her lip.

"Yes, but not too bad. Just every once in a while my jaw reminds me that I landed on my face too many times when I was a kid."

"Climbing trees?" Somehow Pearce couldn't see Wynter playing contact sports. She looked more like the tennis type. A good workout in a country club where you didn't get dirty, barely worked up a sweat, and had lunch in an air-conditioned restaurant after your set was finished.

She knew, because it had been her mother's favorite pastime.

Wynter laughed, thinking of how much she had wished for tennis courts and a chance to play when she'd been young. "No, ice skating. I started when I was two, and I can't tell you how many times I landed on my face while trying to do triple axels."

"Olympic aspirations, huh?" Pearce could see her on a rink, a trainer nearby, choreographed music coming through the speakers. Yeah. That fits.

Though Pearce's tone was teasing, for some reason, Wynter didn't mind. She shook her head. "Nope. Always wanted to be a doctor. You?"

"Yeah. Pretty much always." Something dark passed through Pearce's eyes, making them even darker, nearly black, and then was gone. She glanced at her free hand, which was streaked with dried blood. "I should go wash this off."

Wynter recognized when a subject was off-limits. "I'll go with you. I want to get a look at your lip once you get it cleaned up. You might need stitches."

"I don't think so."

"Well, we'll decide after we see it."

Pearce grinned, ignoring the pain in her lip. She wasn't used to letting anyone else call the shots. It was neither her nature nor the reputation she had acquired in the last four years. And because of who she was, others expected her to lead. It was refreshing to find someone who didn't seem to care who she was. "Okay, Doc, whatever you say."

"Very good," Wynter said with an approving laugh. "But since you seem to be good at it, I'll let you navigate."

Once more, Pearce clasped Wynter's hand in a motion so natural, Wynter barely gave it a thought. They stayed close to the buildings, skirting the crowds, until they reached Houston Hall. When they slipped inside the student center, the noise level mercifully fell.

"Oh, thank God," Wynter murmured. "I might actually be able to think in a minute." She glanced around the high-ceilinged room with its ornate carved pillars and marble floors. "These old buildings are amazing."

"Where did you go to school?" Pearce asked.

"Jefferson."

"Ha. We're rivals."

Wynter stopped, extricated her hand from Pearce's grasp, and regarded her appraisingly. "Penn?"

"Uh-huh."

The two medical schools, a mere twenty blocks apart, had sustained a rivalry since the eighteenth century. Over the decades, the competition had become more theoretical than real, but the students of each still claimed superiority.

"Well, then you better let me decide how bad the problem is,"

Wynter said with utter sincerity.

"I might," Pearce allowed, "if I didn't care what my lip looked like when it was healed."

They regarded one another, eyes locked in challenge, until their smiles broke simultaneously and they laughed.

"Let's go upstairs," Pearce suggested. "The bathrooms down here are going to be too crowded." After years on campus, she knew the out-of-the-way restrooms that were never occupied, and quickly guided Wynter through the twisting hallways and up a wide flight of stone stairs. "Here we go."

Pearce pushed the door open and held it for Wynter, who preceded her inside. There were three stalls, all empty. Wynter ran cold water in one of the sinks and pulled paper towels from the dispenser. She soaked several, folded them, and motioned for Pearce to lean over the sink. "I guess I don't have to tell you this is going to sting."

"I can do it."

"I'm sure. But this way I can see what I need to see before you stir up the bleeding again."

Pearce quirked an eyebrow. "You don't have much faith in my skill."

"Well, considering where you trained..." Wynter carefully loosened the crusted blood below the pink surface of Pearce's lip. "Damn. This goes right through the vermilion border, Pearce. You probably should get stitches."

"Let's get a look." Pearce leaned toward the mirror and squinted.

"It's not too deep. A Steri-Strip will probably take care of it."

"And if it doesn't, you're going to have a very noticeable scar because of the color mismatch," Wynter said pointedly.

"Jeez, you sound like a surgeon."

"I hope so. That's the plan."

"Really? Where are you going?" It was the most common question of the day, but for Pearce, the day had held little excitement. She knew where she was going. She'd always known where she was going.

Suddenly, she was much more interested in where Wynter would be going.

Embarrassed, Wynter sighed. "Actually...I don't know."

"Oh. Shit. Sorry. Look," Pearce said hastily, "maybe I can help out. You know, with finding places that still have openings."

Wynter frowned, trying to make sense of Pearce's offer. Then, suddenly, she understood what she was saying. "Oh, no. It's not that I didn't match. Oh well--maybe I didn't match, but...I just haven't looked yet."

"You're kidding. You got your envelope three hours ago, and you haven't looked yet? Why?"

Because I know it's not going to say what I want it to say. Wynter didn't want to admit the truth, especially not to this woman, and struggled for an explanation. "I was tied up on rounds. I didn't get a chance."

Unexpectedly bothered by Wynter's obvious discomfort, Pearce didn't push for further explanation. "Do you have the envelope with you?"

"Right here." Wynter patted her back pocket.

"Well, come on. Let's see it."

For the first time, Wynter actually wanted to know, and she wanted Pearce to be the one who shared the moment with her. It didn't make any sense, but she felt it all the same. With a deep breath, she pulled the envelope from her pocket and opened it in one unhesitant motion. She slid out the card, and then without looking at it, passed it to Pearce.

Pearce looked down, read the words, and hid the swift stab of disappointment. "Surgery. YaleNew Haven." She met Wynter's eyes.

"Good place. Congratulations."

"Yes," Wynter said, not surprised. Her tone was flat. "Thanks."

"Well. Let's see to the rest of you."

"What?" Wynter asked, still trying to decipher the odd expression on Pearce's face. For an instant, she'd looked sad.

Pearce handed the card back and cupped Wynter's jaw with both hands. She saw Wynter's eyes widen in surprise. "Open," she said, placing her thumbs over each temporomandibular joint. "Slowly, but go as far as you can."

Wynter was aware of a rush of butterflies in the pit of her stomach and her face flushing. Pearce's hands were not only strong, but gentle.

They stood so close that their thighs brushed.

"Feels okay," Wynter murmured as Pearce carefully circled the joints. Feels...wonderful.

Pearce slid her fingers along the border of Wynter's jaw and over her chin. "Sore?"

Wynter shook her head. She couldn't feel her chin. All she could feel was the heat of Pearce's skin. She was breathing fast. So was Pearce. Pearce's eyes had gotten impossibly dark, so dark that the pupils blended with the surrounding irises, creating midnight pools that Wynter was absoluty certain she could drown in.

"Pearce," Wynter whispered. Whatever was happening, she couldn't let it. But as she slipped further into Pearce's eyes, she couldn't recall why not. She forced herself to focus. "Don't."

"Hmm?" Pearce lowered her head, intent on capturing the hint of spice that was Wynter's scent. She slid her hand around the back of Wynter's neck as she very lightly kissed the tip of her chin where the bruise shadowed it. Her lips tingled and she tightened deep inside.

"Better?"

"Much," Wynter said teasingly, hoping to make light of the moment.

"It gets better," Pearce said, her lids half closed, her mouth closing in on Wynter's.

"I...Pearce...wait..." Wynter's cell phone rang, impossibly loud, and she jumped. She fumbled for it, unable to look away. Pearce's mouth was an inch from hers when she whispered, "Hello?" She listened, staring at the pounding carotid in Pearce's throat. "I thought you weren't coming. Okay. Fine. I'm in the bathroom. I'll be right out."

She closed the phone. Her voice was thick. "I have to go."

"Why?" Pearce kept her hand on the back of Wynter's neck and caressed her softly, tangling her fingers in Wynter's hair. She knew what she saw in Wynter's eyes. She'd seen it before, but it had never stirred her quite like this. "Got a date?"

"No," Wynter said as she gently backed away, escaping Pearce's grip, if not her spell. "It's my husband."

Standing absolutely still, Pearce said nothing as Wynter stepped around her and hurried out. When the door swung closed, leaving her alone, Pearce bent down and retrieved the forgotten white card. Wynter must have dropped it. She ran her thumb over the type, then slid the card into her breast pocket.

Goodbye, Wynter Kline.

CHAPTER TWO

Four Years Later Just as Pearce pulled her robin's-egg blue 1967 Thunderbird convertible into the parking garage on South Street next to the University Museum, her beeper went off.

"Shit," she muttered as she tilted the small plastic rectangle to check the readout. Five a.m. and the chaos was starting already. The number, however, wasn't one of the nurses' stations in the twelve-story Rhoads Pavilion, which housed most of the surgical patients. It was the chairman's office. And at that hour of the morning, it wasn't his secretary calling. It was him. "Fuck."

She pulled the classic car into the angled slot in the far corner of the first floor next to the security guard's tiny booth. It was a reserved space and one for which she paid premium rates, but she wasn't about to let some idiot dent the vehicle that she had spent countless hours restoring. She knew all the guards would keep an eye on it. She tipped them every month in thanks. "Hey, Charlie," she called as she climbed out.

"Good morning, Doctor," the pencil-thin retired cop said. He wore his security guard uniform with the same pride with which he had worn the Philadelphia Police blues for thirty years. "Might better have left the baby home today. The news is calling for rain later. Could be snow if it gets a little colder."

"I'll leave the car here until spring, then," Pearce yelled as she jogged toward the street. Her cell phone wouldn't work in the parking garage. And it wouldn't matter to her if it rained or snowed, because she was on call for the next twenty-four hours and would not be leaving the hospital for at least thirty. "You take good care of my girl, now."

Charlie laughed and sketched a salute as she disappeared up the ramp.

Once on the sidewalk, she thumbed the speed dial and punched in the number. When it was answered by the voice she anticipated, she said, "Rifkin."

"Would you stop by the office before rounds this morning?"

Although framed as a question, it wasn't a request.

"Yes sir. I'm just outside the hospital."

"Come up now, then."

Pearce didn't have time to reply before the call was cut off. Fuck.

She ran through the list of patients on the chairman's service, wondering if something had gone wrong that she didn't know about. The junior surgery resident who had been on call the night before knew that he was to advise her of any problem, no matter how small. But other than several routine questions about transfusions and antibiotic coverage, she hadn't gotten any calls of note. Despite the fact that her family home was only forty minutes away in Bryn Mawr and she could easily have had her own wing of the house and all the privacy she required, she lived in an apartment in West Philadelphia so that she could make it to the hospital in less than fifteen minutes. She did not like to be surprised by problems in the morning, and a call at this hour to the chairman's office could only be a problem. Fuck.

The elevator was empty when she got in. It stopped at the second floor to admit a bedraggled blond with dark circles under her eyes, a bloodstained Rorschach on the left thigh of her scrub pants, and a crumpled piece of paper in her right hand that she studied as if it were the Holy Grail. Pearce knew it was "the list"--an inventory of all the patients on the service to which the resident was assigned, with coded notations as to each patient's admission date, date of surgery, procedure performed, most recent lab tests, and outstanding test results. The work of the day--or night--centered around the list and, if an attending surgeon were to call for an update on one of their patients, everything the resident needed to know was on that single piece of paper. Even though every resident carried a PDA and there were computers at every nurses' station, the "list" still prevailed as the source of all vital info.

Without it, more than one resident had found himself giving incomplete or incorrect information, and in short order, had been looking for a new job. At least once a day, some frantic resident could be seen rushing through the halls asking all and sundry, "Have you seen my list? I lost my list. Has anyone seen my list?"

"Hey, Tam," Pearce said. "How you doing?"

Tammy Reynolds looked up from the page, blinking as if she had awakened from a dream. Then she smiled slowly, some of the fatigue leaving her eyes. "Hey you. I haven't seen you at O'Malley's recently.

Have you been hiding, or has someone been monopolizing all your time?"

"Neither. But I'm senior on the chief's service, and it's been busy."

"I know which service you're on." She moved a little closer in the elevator and put her hand on Pearce's waist. She circled her thumb on Pearce's pale green scrub shirt, massaging the muscles underneath. "I pay attention to where you are. And you're never too busy when you want something."

Pearce moved back out of touching range, aware that they were slowing for the fifth floor. She didn't want the doors to open and someone to see them. And she didn't want Tammy's attentions. At least, not right at the moment. "I gotta go. Take it easy, okay?"

"Call me. I'm on the onc service this month," Tammy called as Pearce stepped off the elevator. "I could use some of your medicine, baby."

Pearce lifted a hand in a parting wave, grateful that there was no one waiting in the hall who might've heard the comment. She didn't care what her fellow residents knew or thought of her, but she preferred that her private business not become the topic of conversation among the administration. Well, at least not by her own invitation.

She walked along the maroon-carpeted hallway toward the large corner office. The staff surgeons' offices were clustered in one corner of the fifth floor with the surgeons' lounge adjoining them and the operating suites taking up the rest of the floor on the opposite side of the building. This arrangement enabled the surgeons to wait in their offices, working, until their cases were ready to go. Since it was a matter of routine for cases to begin late, it prevented lost time, something that every surgeon loathed. The secretarial spaces, separated from the hallway by waist-high partitions, were all empty. The office doors were closed. The administrative work of the day would not begin until eight thirty, and by that time, most of the surgeons would already be in the OR. She enjoyed the quiet, empty warren, and likened the stillness to the calm before the storm. She glanced at the yellow face of her Luminox sports watch and grimaced. Five fifteen. If this took more than a few minutes, she would be late meeting the other residents, and that was a bad precedent to set. As the most senior resident on the service, she organized the daily work schedule, assigned the more junior residents to assist on cases, and oversaw the night call rotations. She was always on time, if not early, because her behavior set the tone for her service, and she expected everyone to be prompt. She expected a lot of things, and if she didn't get it, there was hell to pay.

She was the ultimate authority over all things resident-related on the chief's service, the busiest of the general surgery services. The only individual in the hospital with more power within the resident hierarchy was the chief surgical resident, and he was in charge of his own service and outpatient clinic--for all practical purposes functioning as a junior attending with only minimal supervision from the attending surgeons.

"I hope this is quick," she muttered as she approached the closed door to the chairman's office. An unassuming plastic nameplate next to the door announced his name. Ambrose P. Rifkin, M.D., Chairman.

She knocked on the door.

"Come in."

His desk was situated in the far corner of the room, angled so that he sat with his back to the two walls of windows, as if the outside world were a distraction or, at the very least, of no interest to him. It also allowed him to look at his visitors with the sun at his back, and in their eyes. He knew how to position himself to advantage.

"Pearce," he said, gesturing to the two armchairs in front of his broad walnut desk. The dark furniture and thick area rugs lent the room a traditional air, heavy and rich, and suited his style. Though he was in his mid-fifties, his thick hair was still midnight black, his aquiline features patrician, and his body trim from twice-weekly squash matches.

He looked--and was--a commanding presence.

"Sir," she said as she sat. The last time she'd seen him had been the previous afternoon when she'd assisted him on a low anterior colon resection. They'd said nothing to one another during the case, other than when she had provided him with the pertinent patient history and he had asked her to outline the plan for removing the constricting carcinoma that was lying in the patient's pelvis. She'd answered succinctly and accurately. He'd said nothing until an hour and a half later, when he'd stepped back from the table and said, "I have a meeting. Close her up."

He'd left without waiting for her reply. Now, the sound of his modulated baritone brought her back to the moment, and she realized she'd missed the first part of his sentence.

"...resident."

Pearce straightened, her forearms resting on the wooden arms of the chair. She was careful not to grip the armrests and allow him to see that she was nervous. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't get that."

He frowned, his piercing blue eyes raking over her. "I said, we're adding a new resident."

"In January?" The residency year ran from July to July, and it was very unusual for anyone to start off-cycle. In fact, she couldn't remember ever having seen that happen.

"We've had an empty third-year slot since Elliott decided he couldn't cut it. Now we have a body to fill it. Are you complaining?"

"No, sir, but why is he switching programs in the middle of the year?"

Ambrose Rifkin smiled wryly. "She."

Pearce flushed, knowing that he would enjoy her inadvertent confirmation that surgical residents were usually men. She knew it was his opinion, and that of most of his contemporaries, that they should be men. She was one of the few exceptions in the program, and despite the fact that more female surgeons were trained every year, the specialty remained the last bastion of male privilege within medicine. She said nothing, wishing to avoid another trap.

"She's technically a fourth-year, but she missed six months because of some...personal issues. Spent a few months working in an emergency room, apparently." His tone was both dismissive and disdainful. "But she has good credentials, and I know the chairman of her program. He says she has good hands."

Coming from a surgeon, that was the highest compliment another surgeon could receive. It was better to be the most technically proficient than to be the smartest. Brains didn't help much when you were faced with a bleeding vessel and twenty seconds to stop it before the patient bled to death. The only thing that mattered then was the steel in your spine and the skill in your hands.

"When is she starting?"

"She should be here at seven."

"Today?"

"Problem, Dr. Rifkin?"

"No sir," Pearce said quickly, reshuffling the day's priorities in her mind. Every night before she left the hospital, she double-checked the surgery schedule to make sure that nothing had been changed without her knowledge. Nothing made a staff surgeon angrier than showing up for a case and discovering there was no resident available to assist him.

Unfortunately, sometimes the secretaries canceled or, worse, added cases without informing the resident in charge, and it was the resident who paid for such miscommunication. She'd already assigned today's cases to her team, and she had no one who could orient the newcomer.

"Uh, could Connie take care of her this morning, until I'm done with the aneurysm?"

Connie Lang was the department chair's admin, and the go-to person for anything that the residents needed.

"Call Dzubrow and tell him to assist on the aneurysm. Whatever he's doing in the lab can wait."

Pearce bit back a protest. An abdominal aortic aneurysm resection was a major case, and as the senior resident on the service, it was hers.

She needed every major case she could get if she wanted the chief surgical resident's position the following year. Henry Dzubrow was her only real competition for the position among the other fourth-year residents, and he was supposed to be spending the next six months working in the shock-trauma lab. It seemed to her, though, that he was showing up in the operating room at every opportunity.

She stood, because she knew if she stayed much longer, she was going to complain about Dzubrow's preferential treatment. And that would surely doom her. A surgery resident did not complain about anything. Period. She could still remember her first day and her father standing in front of the auditorium where the twenty-five new first year residents sat nervously awaiting his instruction. His expression had been unreadable as his cold blue eyes had swept the room, passing over her face as if she were just one of the indistinguishable bodies. She could remember his words and knew that he'd meant them.

If you're not happy here, all you need to do is come to me and say so. There are fifty people waiting for every one of your positions, and I can guarantee they will be happy to take your place. Never forget that being here is a privilege, not a right. He'd looked over the room one more time, his gaze settling on Pearce just a moment longer, it seemed, than on the others. Privileges can be lost.

"What's her name?" Pearce asked.

The chairman looked down at a folder on his desk. "Thompson."

"Okay."

He said nothing, and Pearce left, closing the door behind her without being asked. She took a deep breath and let it out, forcing down her anger and the frustration that always accompanied any kind of interaction with her father. The only time they ever seemed to be comfortable together was in the operating room. She probably should be used to it by now, but she wasn't.

"Fuck."

"Having a rough day already, Pearce?"

Pearce jumped in surprise and spun around. Connie Lang stood behind her balancing two cups of coffee in cardboard containers and a Dunkin' Donuts bag.

"The usual," Pearce said. "You're starting a little early, aren't you?"

Connie nodded toward the closed door. "He's got a budget meeting at six thirty." She smiled, a predatory gleam in her eye. "He knows that the desk jockeys can't think clearly this early in the morning, and he has a much better shot at getting exactly what he wants this way."

"Doesn't he always?"

Wisely, Connie said nothing. "He told you about the new resident?"

Pearce nodded.

"She's downstairs at the admissions desk. I heard her ask for directions to the surgeons' lounge."

"Jesus. Already?"

Connie smiled. "She's eager. Isn't that what you want?"

"Oh, sure. Can't wait." With a sigh, Pearce started toward the elevators. "I better go find her. What does she look like?"

"Just a little bit shorter than you. Nice looking. Shoulder-length hair, a little bit blond, a little bit reddish brown. She's wearing navy scrubs."

"I'll find her," Pearce said, wondering just what Connie meant by nice looking. She was getting tired of dating the usual suspects--nurses and other residents. She didn't date anyone for very long and didn't have much time to look elsewhere for new prospects, so new faces, especially pretty ones, were welcome. Maybe this won't be so bad after all.

CHAPTER THREE

Pearce turned the corner toward the elevators and caught sight of a woman in navy blue scrubs at the far end of the corridor heading toward the surgeons' lounge.

"Hey, yo!" She sprinted down the hall. "Are you the new--" She skidded to a halt, her voice trailing off as she looked into the face she had not expected to see again. Wynter's face had lost the soft fullness of youth and taken on the angular lines of full-blown womanhood. She looked tired, but that was to be expected. She looked leaner than Pearce recalled, too, as if she had taken up running in the intervening years.

"Are you...Thompson? We met--"

"Yes," Wynter said quickly, not wanting to bring up the specifics of an interaction she still didn't understand. She had expected to run into Pearce at some point, because she remembered Pearce mentioning where she had matched. She just hadn't expected it to be so soon, and not this way. "Pearce, right?"

"That's right," Pearce said, trying to fit the pieces together in her mind. The match card had said Wynter Kline. She knew, because it was still stuck in the corner of the mirror over her dresser. Why she'd never thrown it away, she wasn't certain. Married name, Pearce thought with a jolt. Thompson must be her married name.

"I, uh...I'm starting today," Wynter said into the silence.

"I know." Pearce tried to hide her shock. It didn't matter who Wynter was. Didn't matter that for just a moment four years ago they'd shared...something. She needed to stay on track, needed to regain control of the situation. "I'm your senior resident, and we've got two minutes to make it to rounds. Follow me." Then Pearce turned and pushed through the fire door into the stairwell at the end of the corridor.

Wynter hurried to keep up.

The senior resident? God, we're going to be working together every day for the next four or five months. She could only imagine what Pearce thought of her. She'd practically let Pearce--a total stranger- kiss her, in the bathroom of all places. And then, to make matters worse, she'd just walked out without a word. Could you have been any more stupid, or more unkind? She'd thought of those moments often over the years. It was a night she'd regretted ever since, for a multitude of reasons. With a deep breath, Wynter put the memories of that brief interlude out of her mind. That was in the past and had nothing to do with her current situation. There were much more important things to deal with now. "We're on Rifkin's service, right?" Wynter asked of Pearce's back. "The chief's service?"

"Yeah." They reached the bottom of the stairwell, and Pearce shouldered open the door, belatedly holding it for Wynter. Reluctantly, she started her orientation spiel. It was the last thing she wanted to do at any time, but especially not right before rounds when it was going to cost her a great case. "Did Connie give you the breakdown of the services?"

"Not exactly," Wynter said, pulling even with Pearce, who had picked up her pace again. "This all happened kind of fast, and I only interviewed with Dr. Rifkin a couple of days ago. Connie walked me through getting my ID, parking sticker, payroll information, and my employee health physical yesterday afternoon. Then she just told me I'd start on Rifkin's service today and that someone would pick me up at seven."

"Did you meet with any of the residents?"

"No."

Pearce clenched her jaw. It was perfectly within her father's purview as the chairman of the department to hire anyone he wanted, but it was very unusual to interview a new resident without soliciting the input of at least one of the senior residents. He had obviously known for a few days that Wynter would be joining the service, but he hadn't said anything to her. She'd been cut out of the loop, but then, no one ever said the hospital was a democracy.

"You didn't know anything about it, did you?" Wynter said quietly.

No wonder she's peeved.

"Doesn't make any difference." Pearce stopped and turned to face her. The hospital was waking, and nurses and other personnel hurried through the halls around them, preparing for the shift change. They stood like an island in the sea of white, ignoring the passersby. "We've been down a resident since September--one of the third-year guys decided that he wanted to go into anesthesia. We carry fifty patients on the service and it's every third night."

Wynter blanched. "Every third? That's rough."

Pearce grinned and a feral look came into her dark eyes. "We do things here the way they've been doing it for sixty years or so. We don't cross-cover at night. Every surgical service has its own residents in house. I guess Connie didn't tell you that, huh?"

"I'm sure it never crossed her mind," Wynter said steadily. She'd gotten her balance back. She was being tested, and she didn't intend to show weakness. "And if it had, it wouldn't have made any difference.

I was just surprised."

"Yeah, well, like I said. It's not the norm, but it's the way we do it here."

"No problem."

"We make dry rounds every morning in the cafeteria at five thirty. That means you have to see your patients before then. We need a rundown of vital signs, I and Os, updates on lab tests, that kind of thing."

Wynter nodded, mentally doing the math. If she needed to be at the hospital by five, she'd need to be up at four. She could handle it. She had to handle it. She didn't have any choice.

Pearce made a sharp left, and they descended a set of stairs into a basement cafeteria. The round tables in one half of the room were filled with residents and students, most of them in scrubs and white coats.

"Let's get some coffee."

"Amen," Wynter murmured.

As they made their way through the cafeteria line, Pearce said, "There are five of us on the service, counting you. Two first-years, a second-year, and me."

"You're acting chief?"

"Yeah."

"The other fourth-years are either in the lab, on the other two general surgical services, or on vascular." Pearce grabbed a bagel and a plastic container of cream cheese, then filled a twenty-ounce Styrofoam cup almost to the brim with coffee. "We only have one chief resident slot. The other fifth-years get farmed out to the affiliate hospitals in the system."

Wynter could tell by the tone of Pearce's voice that anyone who didn't finish their final year of training at the main hospital as the chief surgical resident automatically qualified as a loser in Pearce's mind.

She could understand the sentiment. You didn't give up five years of your life to come in second. She'd already lost one year of training because she had to accept a third-year slot or give up surgery. She felt the anger rise and quickly pushed it aside. What was done was done.

All she could do now was go forward. "If there's five of us now, why are we taking call every third?"

Pearce handed a ten to the cashier and said, "For both of us."

"You don't have to--"

"Tradition." Pearce looked over her shoulder at Wynter. "Chief buys. And as far as the schedule goes, on this service, you and I back up the first-years--so we're on every third and the second-year fills in the blanks. The chairman doesn't trust the first-years alone with his patients."

Wynter ran the night call schedule in her head. Two first-year residents and a second-year, also technically a junior resident. Then Pearce. It didn't jive. "So who's been backing up the other first-year if you're the only senior resident on the service?"

"Me. We have to stagger the call now so I can cover one of them every other night."

"Every other?" Wynter tried not to sound appalled. Twenty-four hours on, twenty-four off could get old really, really fast. She'd only ever done it for a day or so when another resident had a family emergency or had been too ill to get out of bed. She remembered one of the first rules of surgery she'd been quoted. The only reason for missing work is a funeral. Your own. "How long have you been on every other?"

Pearce shrugged. It didn't matter to her if she was officially on call or not. She was always around. She had to be. She knew what she wanted and what it took to get it. "A while."

"Okay."

Wynter decided it was not prudent to bring up the newly instituted eighty-hour rule. In theory, house officers--all the residents in any specialty--were prohibited by law from working more than eighty hours in one week, were required to have one day off out of every seven, and were supposed to be allowed to go home after twenty four hours in a row on call in the hospital. Surgical training programs, however, often interpreted those rules very loosely. The dictum was that surgery could only be learned in the operating room, and if there were cases to be done, the residents needed to be there, no matter what time of the day or night. Residents who questioned their hours often found themselves being assigned to the least interesting cases, or worse, being cut from the program. Pyramid programs like the one at University took more residents during the initial years of training than they could finish, knowing that some would quit or be cut before their fifth and final year. Wynter couldn't afford to lose her position. If she needed to work a hundred hours a week, she would. She'd just have to make some adjustments in her personal life.

"There's the team." Pearce nodded toward a table where three young men waited. "I bring reinforcements, guys," she said as she sat.

She did not apologize for being late.

Wynter took the seat between Pearce and a rangy Asian who looked too young to be a doctor. Must be one of the first-years. She nodded to each man in turn, fixing a name with a face, as Pearce introduced them in rapid-fire sequence. Liu, Kenny, and Bruce. They acknowledged her with a range of grunts and clipped hellos. It wasn't hard to tell which one had been on call the night before, because he was unshaven and he smelled like he could use a shower. It didn't bother her, because she'd gotten used to the familiarity bred by shared stress and the camaraderie that made it tolerable. She was exquisitely aware of Pearce just to her left, radiating energy that warmed her skin. She could still remember how hot Pearce's hands had been. All these years later, the memory burned as brightly as the touch.

"Bring us up to speed, Kenny, and then you can get out of here,"

Pearce said.

Kenny, despite his weary appearance, shook his head. "I want to stay for that lap chole that Miller is doing. I'm up for the next one, right?"

"There's one on the schedule tomorrow," Pearce replied. "You can have that one. You're supposed to be off at eight. The rest of the day's light. Take advantage of it."

He didn't look happy, but he nodded. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket, unfolded it, and began his morning litany.

"1213, Constantine, fem-pop bypass, postop day four. Tmax, 101.

Temp 99.9. I pulled his drain and wrote for him to be out of bed to a chair TID."

"Pulses?" Pearce asked, making a note on the clean sheet of paper where she had written the information just relayed to her.

"Plus four in the posterior tib."

Pearce raised her head. "What about the dorsalis pedis?"

"I couldn't feel it."

"It wasn't there or you couldn't feel it?"

Pearce's expression made him squirm. "I...don't know the answer to that."

"Go back and find out. Next."

Wynter leaned close to Pearce. "Got another piece of paper?"

Wordlessly, Pearce slid a second sheet out from beneath her fresh page and passed it to Wynter, who began to make her own list.

It took another twenty minutes to go through the fifty patients on the service, the other two residents chiming in with the information on the patients assigned to them. They finished at six fifteen.

"Liu, you've got the mastectomy at eight with Frankel. Bruce, you're with Weinstein for the amp, and Kenny, you're out of here.

Thompson and I will take the floors."

Wynter noted the use of her last name and knew it was a subtle reminder that she was not yet part of the team. She had to earn that right, although none of them would actively exclude her. She simply would be invisible until she had shown that she could do the job and not make more work for them.

"What about the chief's aneurysm?" Liu asked.

Pearce carefully folded her list and slid it into her breast pocket.

"Dzubrow will take it."

The three men looked at each other, but no one said anything.

"Okay, hit the floors and get your notes done before the OR. I don't wanna have to clean up behind you."

Wynter waited until the three men gathered their paperwork and cleared their breakfast remnants before she spoke. "I guess I lost you that case, huh?"

"You didn't." Pearce slid her smart phone from the case on the waistband of her scrubs where it kept company with her beeper and the code beeper. The weight of her various electronics pulled her scrubs down over her narrow hips to the point where it seemed like she was about to lose her pants. "Got one?"

Silently, Wynter slid her PDA from her shirt pocket.

"I'll beam you my cell phone, my beeper number, and the other guys' beeper numbers. Connie can get you the departmental numbers that you need to know."

"What's the chief's number?" Wynter asked as they synchronized their data via the infrared beam.

Pearce grinned. She'd expected Wynter to be smart. That had been apparent even as a medical student. The one critical number you always wanted to answer promptly was the chief's. "3336."

"What's yours?"

The second most important number. "7120."

"Then I'm all set," Wynter said with a small smile.

"I guess it's time for the grand tour, then. Let's make rounds, and I'll tell you about the attendings."

"How many are there besides Rifkin?"

"Five, but only two are really busy."

"What about him? Most chairmen don't really do much surgery."

Pearce shook her head. "Not him. He does four or five majors, three days a week."

"Jeez. How?"

"He runs two rooms from eight until finishing Monday, Wednesday, and Friday."

Wynter groaned. "Friday?"

"Yeah. That sucks. Especially if it happens to be your only night off for the whole weekend."

"Two rooms," Wynter noted. "So a senior in both rooms?"

"You got the system down. You and I start and close his cases.

He'll bounce back and forth between the two rooms for the major parts.

That satisfies the insurance requirements because he's there for the critical part of the case."

Wynter didn't want to ask too many questions too early in the game, but it seemed that Pearce was willing to provide the kind of inside information that was going to make her life a lot easier. So she persisted. "Does he let you do anything?"

"It depends. Are you any good?"

"What do you think?" The question was out before she could stop it, and she wasn't even sure why she'd said it. First days were always tough. And now she was starting all over again in a new place and needing to prove herself yet again. She hadn't expected to see Pearce, not today, and not like this. It rattled her. It rattled her to realize that she'd be seeing Pearce every single day, and every day she'd be wondering if Pearce remembered those few minutes alone when something so intense had passed between them that the rest of the world had simply faded away. She remembered, even though she had no place for the memory.

"Well, you were right about my lip," Pearce said softly.

Wynter studied Pearce's face. A faint white line crossed the junction of the pink and white portions of Pearce's lip, and where the scar had healed unevenly, there was a notch in the border. "I told you you needed stitches."

"Yeah, you did." Pearce suddenly stood. "Let's get going."

"Sure," Wynter said quickly, standing as well.

"Hey, Rifkin," a male voice called. "It's going on seven. Don't you have any work to do?"

Wynter didn't hear the reply over the buzzing in her ears. She stared at Pearce as the pieces fell into place. She saw the nameplate by the chairman's door. Ambrose P. Rifkin, MD. Ambrose Pearce Rifkin.

"You're related to the chairman?" she said in astonishment.

"He's my father."

"Nice of you to tell me," Wynter snapped, trying to remember if she'd said anything negative about him. "Jesus."

Pearce appraised her coolly. "What difference does it make?"

"It would have been nice to know, that's all."

Pearce leaned close. "Kind of like knowing you have a husband?"

Before Wynter could reply, Pearce turned her back and walked away.

Oh God, Wynter thought, she hasn't forgiven me. But then, she hadn't forgiven herself, either.