The Maverick Doctor and Miss Prim. Scarlet Wilson
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against his chest. It hit him square in the solar plexus, causing him to catch his breath.
“My haircut cost more than you probably make in a month. Now, here—read this. And it isn’t from me. It’s from Callum. He said to make sure it was the first thing I gave you—along with the instructions to follow it to the letter.”
He pulled the document off his chest. The DPA plan for a smallpox outbreak. All three hundred pages of it. He let it go and it skidded across the desk towards her.
“I don’t need to read this.”
She stepped back in front of him. “Yes. You do. You’ve already broken protocol once today, Dr. Sawyer. You should have contacted the state department before you contacted us. But, then, you know that, don’t you? You don’t work for the DPA anymore, Dr. Sawyer.”
He cracked his chewing gum. “Well, that’s at least one thing we agree on.”
She glanced at her watch. “So, that means, that as of right now—five thirty-six p.m.—you work for me. You, and everyone else in here. This is my hospital now, Dr. Sawyer, my jurisdiction, and you will do exactly what I tell you.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “And it’s all in that plan. So memorize it because there’ll be a pop quiz later.”
She kicked her navy-blue platforms beneath the desk and started to undo her shirt. “Where are the scrubs and protective clothing?” she shouted along the corridor.
“In here,” came a reply from one of the nearby rooms.
“Let’s go see these kids,” she barked at Sawyer over her shoulder as she headed to the room.
Organized chaos was continuing around him. Piles upon piles of paper were being pulled from boxes, new phones were appearing and being plugged in all around him. He recognized a couple of the faces—a few of the epidemiologists and contact tracers—standing with their clipboards at the ready.
He could hear the voices of the admin staff around him. “No, put it here. Callie’s very particular about paperwork. Put the algorithms up on the walls, in the treatments rooms and outside the patient rooms. Everyone has to follow them to the letter.”
So, she was a rules-and-regulations girl? This was about to get interesting.
He wandered over to the room. Callie was standing in her bra and pants, opening a clean set of regulation pale pink scrubs. Last time he’d worn them they’d been green. Obviously a new addition to the DPA repertoire.
The sight made him catch his breath. It was amazing what could lurk beneath those stuffy blue suits and pointy shoes. The suit was lying in a crumpled heap on the ground, discarded as if it were worthless when it easily clocked in at over a thousand dollars. He could see the label from here. Maybe Miss Hoity-Toity did have some redeeming features after all.
Her skin was lightly tanned, with some white strap marks on her shoulders barely covered by her bra. She was a matching-set girl. Pale lilac satin. But she didn’t have her back to him so from this angle he couldn’t tell if she favored briefs or a thong …
Her stomach wasn’t washboard flat like some women he’d known. It was gently rounded, proving to him that she wasn’t a woman who lived on salad alone. But the most intriguing thing about her was the pale white scar trailing down the outside of her leg. Where had that come from? It might be interesting to find out. His eyes lifted a little higher. And as for her breasts …
“Quit staring at me.” She pulled on her scrub trousers. “You’re a doctor. Apparently you’ve seen it all before.” She tossed him a hat. “And get that mop of yours hidden.”
She pulled her scrub top over her head and knelt in the corner next to her bag. She seemed completely unaffected by his gawping. Just as well really.
Sawyer reluctantly pulled on the hat and a disposable pale yellow isolation gown over his scrubs. She appeared at his side a few seconds later as he struggled to tuck his hair inside the slightly too big cap.
“Want one of these?” She waved a bobby pin under his nose with a twinkle in her eye. She was laughing at him.
“Won’t you need all of them to pull back that one side of your bad haircut?”
She flung a regulation mask at him. “Ha. Ha. Now, let’s go.”
They walked down the corridor where the lights were still dimmed. She paused outside the door, her hand resting lightly on his arm.
“Let’s clarify before we go in. How many staff have been in contact with these kids?”
He nodded. He would probably answer these questions a dozen times today. “Main contact has been myself and Alison, one of our nurses. We’re estimating they were only in the waiting room around ten minutes. One of the triage nurses moved them through to a room quickly as the kids were pretty sick.”
Her eyebrows rose above her mask. “I take it that you’ve continued to limit the contact to yourselves?”
“Ah, about that.”
“What?” Her expression had changed in an instant. Her eyes had narrowed and her glare hardened.
“There’s a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Alison’s pregnant. Eighteen weeks.”
She let out an expression that wasn’t at all ladylike. He hadn’t known she had it in her.
“Exactly. I haven’t let her go back in. She’s adamant. Says there’s no point exposing anyone else to something she’s already breathed in anyway. But I wasn’t having any of it.”
He could see her brain racing. There was the tiniest flicker of panic under that mask. “But the vaccine …”
He touched her shoulder. “I know. We don’t know the effects it could have on a fetus.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if you’ve come up with any new research in the last six years, but I wouldn’t want to be the doctor to give it to her.”
She nodded. “Leave it with me. I’ll take it up with the team.” She turned back to the room. “We need to get some samples.”
“It’s already done.”
“What?” She whipped around. “Why didn’t you say so?”
He sighed. “What do you think I’ve been doing these last few hours? I’m not that far out of the loop that I don’t know how to take samples. Besides, the kids were used to me. It was better that I did it.”
She nodded, albeit reluctantly. “And the parents?”
“I’ve taken samples from them too. They’re all packaged and ready to go. Let’s find out what we’re dealing with.”
“I want to see the kids first.”
Now she was annoying him. “You think I made their spots up? Drew them on their faces and arms?”
“Of course I don’t. But, like or not, I’m the doctor in charge here. I need to see the spots for myself. Get some better pictures than the ones snapped on your phone. I need to be clear that you’ve ruled out everything.”
She was only saying what he would have said himself a few years ago. She was doing things by the book. But in his eyes, doing things by the book was wasting time. That was why he hadn’t bothered with the call to the state department. Best to go right to the source.
And this family might not have that time to waste. Just like his hadn’t.
It made him mad. Irrationally mad. And it didn’t matter that the voices in his head were telling him that. Because he wasn’t listening.
“For goodness’ sake. Don’t you have any confidence in my abilities? I’ve been doing this job since you were in kindergarten. I could run rings around you!”
She pushed her