Wynter's stomach clutched and her heart raced wildly in her chest.

She tried to keep her expression neutral, but she couldn't prevent her hands from fisting around the wooden arms of the chair. She'd heard of residents being sent to other programs with no choice in the matter.

"It's an excellent opportunity for the kind of experience a resident needs to move into an academic position." He studied her. "I'd like you to go."

"For how..." Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. "For how long, sir?"

"Six months. Then we'll reevaluate the situation."

Wynter was aware of Pearce shifting ever so slightly in the chair beside her. "Thank you, Dr. Rifkin. I'm honored. Truly. I'm afraid I can't do that."

The room was very quiet. Ambrose Rifkin's face remained composed; his eyes, not quite as dark as Pearce's but just as sharp, moved slowly over Wynter's face.

"Why would that be?"

"I have a daughter, and there's no way I could arrange for child care up there in a reasonable amount of time. We just moved here, and I've barely gotten her settled."

"You're divorced, aren't you?"

Wynter felt her face go hot, but she held his gaze. "Yes."

"But you have a workable arrangement here for the child?"

"Yes," Wynter said quickly. "The wife of one of the anesthesia residents..." She realized he wouldn't be interested in the details. "A very good one, sir."

"And she's how old?"

"She's three." Wynter couldn't help but smile.

"Three. Well, I can't imagine that your being absent for that period of time would make all that much difference, since you have established a good child-care situation here."

Wynter heard Pearce's sharp intake of breath, but she was too busy trying to understand what Ambrose Rifkin had just said. Then a wave of heat followed by a sudden chill passed through her. "You mean leave her here while I go there?"

"Yes."

"Sir," Pearce began, her voice tight. "I don't think--"

"I'm sorry," Wynter said calmly. "That won't be possible."

Ambrose Rifkin appeared unperturbed, as if Wynter had not just told him no. "Since she's not in school, or--"

"Sir, I wouldn't care how old she was or what the situation. I'm not leaving her for six months. It's difficult enough as it is with the amount of time I have to spend away."

"I see. And what are your plans for the future, Dr. Thompson?"

"I've always planned on a subspecialty in breast surgery. I'll be looking for a fellowship after I finish general surgery."

"That's a nice field for a woman," Ambrose Rifkin said with just the slightest hint of condescension. "Not particularly demanding and very little emergency work."

Wynter said nothing. He was right, insofar as his assessment had gone. A practice limited to surgical treatment of breast disease was usually a Monday-through-Friday, seven-to-five kind of job, and it would allow her time to spend with her daughter. It was also a critical facet of women's health care, and she'd always been drawn to that.

Oncologic surgery was on the forefront of medical science, and she had no doubt that she would be challenged as well as rewarded by her choice. There was no point in mentioning any of those things, because for a man like Ambrose Rifkin, the rewards would be far too meager to satisfy.

"Starting tomorrow, Dr. Thompson," Ambrose Rifkin said, "I'm moving you to the vascular service as the acting chief."

"Yes sir," Wynter said. It was not a particularly welcome transfer, but it wasn't horrible. Vascular surgery was technically challenging and interesting. She'd miss working so closely with Pearce, but she'd also have more responsibility. It was all part of the game.

"I've decided to bring Dr. Dzubrow out of the lab," the chairman said, turning his attention to Pearce, who sat rigidly upright. "He'll take over as acting chief on my service. That will free you up to go to Harrisburg. Tonight."

v Wynter and Pearce did not speak as they walked side by side to the women's locker room. Once inside, Pearce went directly to her locker and opened it. She pulled out a handful of scrubs and piled them on the bench. She reached back inside for her lab coat, and then pulled her arm out abruptly and slammed the door so violently that the entire row of metal lockers shook.

"Fuck." Pearce leaned her back against her locker and closed her eyes.

Wynter sat down on the bench and placed her hand gently on the pile of scrubs, wishing it were Pearce she was touching. "What's going on?"

"I don't know. You heard him. I'm getting farmed out and he's moving Dzubrow in."

"Is it my fault? Because I said I wouldn't go?"

Pearce opened her eyes and gazed down at Wynter. Slowly, she shook her head. "No. I don't think so. That took balls, by the way."

Wynter grimaced. "No, it didn't. It didn't take anything at all.

There's no way I'd leave her."

"He could probably get rid of you for that."

"Maybe. It wouldn't matter. It wouldn't change my mind."

"Really?"

"Really," Wynter said quietly. It had just begun to hit her that within a matter of hours, Pearce would be gone. For weeks and months and most probably, forever. Life would carry on much as it had before their brief interlude. The sadness was swift and aching. She stood. "It doesn't mean you won't get the chief resident's job next year."

"Maybe," Pearce sighed. "Maybe not. He's grooming Dzubrow for something."

"Can you talk to him? Tell him you don't want to go?"

Pearce laughed hollowly. "Sure I can. If I want to finish up with the crappiest rotations and no shot at all of ever getting an academic job." She tried to focus on what she needed to do to keep her career on track, but all she could think was that she was going to have to walk out the door and get into her car and drive away. That she wouldn't be able to take Wynter to dinner that night, or breakfast the next morning, or spend another night in her bed--perhaps ever. She couldn't think about that now. She didn't have the luxury to worry about her personal life.

She sighed and opened her locker again. As she drew out her lab coat, she said, "If I'd known this was going to happen, I wouldn't have come over last night. I'm sorry."

"Time has never been on our side."

"No," Pearce said. She pulled a key off her key ring and held it out. "Here. To the old resident's room. Look after...it...for me."

"I will." Wynter's throat ached as she rose and kissed Pearce on the cheek. "Drive carefully."

"Yeah. I will." Pearce watched Wynter turn and leave. She ignored the pain in her chest. Loss was nothing new, and she should know by now not to let anyone in deep enough to miss. She shrugged into her leather jacket, palmed her keys, and grabbed her scrubs. Time to move on.


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Wynter came instantly awake at the sound of the door opening.

The small, windowless room was completely dark, without even a digital clock to cut the blackness.

"Occupied," she called out irritably. She'd never understand why huge academic institutions couldn't afford decent on-call rooms, but she'd never run across one yet. Whenever she'd had a rotation in a small community hospital, the residents were treated infinitely better. She'd had one rotation where she received three meals a day for free, and there'd even been a television in her private on-call room. Amazing. At the University Hospital, however, that was not the case. Everyone vied for limited sleeping space, and even though she'd heard rumors that new on-call rooms were planned for the next addition to the megalithic complex, she'd believe it when she slept in one.

"It's me," Pearce whispered as she closed the door and flipped the lock.

"Pearce?" Wynter bolted upright. "What time is it?"

"Quarter after one."

Wynter snapped on the bedside table lamp and checked her beeper to make sure it was working. When she saw that it was, she put it down and swung her legs over the side of the narrow bed. She pushed both hands through her hair and then dropped her hands to her sides, curling her fingers around the thin mattress. She looked up at Pearce, who still stood just inside the door. She was in jeans, her black boots, and a black fisherman's sweater. She held her leather jacket in her fist. "What are you doing here?"

Pearce shrugged. "I don't know."

"You're supposed to be in Harrisburg in about six hours."

"I know."

"Are you still going?"

"Yes."

"Take off your clothes and come to bed." Wynter snapped off the light.

Pearce kicked off her boots, unsnapped her jeans and pushed them off, and added her sweater to the pile. Although the room was dark once again, Wynter's figure was imprinted on the backs of her eyelids in a blaze of yellow light. She made her way to the narrow hospital-issue bed and put one hand down, finding the sheets pulled back in welcome.

She sat down and slid under, turning on her side to face Wynter. She stretched out her arm, found Wynter's bare shoulder, and pulled her close.

Wynter nestled her cheek against Pearce's chest and wrapped an arm around her waist. The bed was narrow for one, dangerously so for two, and she slid her thigh between Pearce's as much to anchor them as to be close to her.

"Is it okay if we don't make love?" Pearce murmured. She smoothed her lips over Wynter's forehead. She'd been in her car and had gotten as far as Doylestown before turning back. She hadn't felt such a chasm of despair since her grandmother had died, and her only thought as the miles stretched away behind her had been of lying in Wynter's arms that morning and how good it had felt. Even as she'd made an illegal U-turn across the median, she'd refused to question her actions. She knew any answers she might find would only frighten her.

She closed her eyes and tightened her hold, waiting for Wynter to ask.

"This is fine just like this," Wynter whispered. She kissed the hollow at the base of Pearce's throat and rubbed her face against Pearce's skin. She loved Pearce's smell, windblown and untamed. She was aware of desire, the steady pulse of flesh seeking flesh, but she could enjoy the wanting without craving satisfaction. For the moment.

She kissed Pearce's throat again, then the underside of her jaw. "Are you all right?"

"Pissed." Pearce stroked Wynter's shoulders and down her arm, slowly smoothing her fingers up and down, reveling in the softness of her skin and the steel beneath it.

"Mmm. Me too." Wynter sighed. "I know you have to go, but I want you to be angry that we're being separated. I guess I...I'll miss you."

Pearce gave a small groan and buried her face in Wynter's hair.

"Yeah. I know."

"But I'll probably see you when you get a weekend off, right?"

Wynter tried to sound upbeat, but they both knew how hard it would be to coordinate their schedules, especially long distance. "We're supposed to go running, remember."

"Sure." Pearce knew that now was the time to call things off, and if she'd just kept driving, it wouldn't even have been an issue.

No complications. They'd agreed. They'd had a night together. A great night, sure. A night like none she could ever remember. But it was just a night, like so many nights before. A few hours of frantic connection, of desperate joining, of grateful respite from loneliness. So why wasn't that enough? "I expect you'll be seeing other people."

Seeing other people. Wynter knew what the words meant, she just hadn't considered them in relationship to herself for quite some time.

Even after her divorce, the last thing she'd wanted to do was create any more chaos in her life by getting involved with someone. She'd had to take time off from the surgery residency in the midst of the divorce because moving out, arranging child care, and dealing with all the legal issues was too much for her to handle and still work the way she needed to. Getting the temporary emergency room position had been a godsend. She'd been able to work and had gotten paid. That was all she had wanted. Now she had an excellent residency position, a new home, and a great environment for her daughter. This was not the time to upset the hard-won balance in her life.

"I don't know," Wynter said. "I'm not sure I want to."

"But if you do," Pearce forced herself to say. "You know, you should."

Wynter doubted it would be long before Pearce sought company, and she could hardly ask her not to. From everything she had witnessed, let alone what she had heard, she knew that Pearce was no stranger to casual encounters. She smoothed her hand between Pearce's breasts, a movement so new to her, and yet completely familiar. Without knowing completely how she knew, she was aware that she wouldn't be with a man. Ever again. "Yes. All right."