"Pay attention, and in a few days, you'll know all the secrets to this place."

"Really?" Wynter watched Pearce's face, searching for some hidden meaning. They'd been alone for close to an hour, but they hadn't really talked about the last time--the only time--that they'd been alone together. They should clear the air. She knew they should.

But she didn't want to bring it up. She didn't want to know that Pearce had been angry with her all these years. Or perhaps she didn't want to know that Pearce had never thought of her at all.

"It's not all that complicated." Pearce turned away from Wynter's probing gaze. She didn't know what might show in her face, but she didn't want Wynter to think that those few moments years before meant anything now. So many things had happened since then, it might have been another life. She was certainly a different person. The elevator bell rang and saved her from thinking about it any longer. "Let's start at the top."

"Sure."

Several minutes later, they stepped out into a dimly lit corridor, and Pearce pointed. "Two wings on each floor. The lower numbers are to the left, the higher to the right. Main surgical floors are twelve, ten, nine, and eight. Intensive care units are on six."

Wynter groaned. "The ICU is one floor up from the OR? I hate transporting postop patients in the elevator."

"Me too," Pearce agreed. "But there wasn't enough room for them to expand the number of OR suites and still keep the intensive care units on the same floor."

"How many OR rooms?"

"Twelve general surgery, four GYN, four ortho, and a few unassigned."

"Busy."

"Oh yeah." Pearce started down the hallway on their left and indicated the first room. "This is an APR patient--"

"Wait a minute," Wynter said, frowning down at her list. "APR?"

"We tend to identify patients by their attending's initials. This one is Rifkin's."

"The colon resection from yesterday, right?" Wynter asked, still scanning the patient names. "McInerney."

"That's the one. We finished at six last night, routine case. She still has a drain, an NG tube, and an IV."

"Is it weird, working with your father?"

"I wouldn't know," Pearce said flatly. "Rifkin is the chairman.

That's the only relationship we have in here."

Wynter was surprised by the absence of anger or much of any emotion at all in Pearce's voice. Nevertheless, she recognized the finality of her tone. She wondered if it was the subject matter or the fact that she was asking that bothered Pearce. Either way, she had clearly stepped out of bounds. What was it about Pearce Rifkin that made her forget the rules? "I'm sorry. That was none of my business."

"No problem. I get asked it a lot." Pearce pivoted and walked into the first patient's room.

It took a moment for Wynter to recognize that the discussion was closed. She hastened after Pearce, and for the next fifty minutes they moved from one patient to the next, reviewing chart notes, pulling drains, updating orders, and generally coordinating each patient's care.

They didn't speak except to discuss care and treatment plans until everyone on the list had been examined. They worked quickly and efficiently. Comfortably together. Wynter wasn't surprised. From the very first they'd had a natural rhythm, even when they were sparring.

"Ready for another cup of coffee?" Pearce asked as they sat together at the eighth-floor nurses' station finishing the last of their chart notes.

"Oh yeah," Wynter replied. She hadn't had much sleep the night before. The week had been a whirlwind of activity what with packing and moving, worrying about her new position, and trying to anticipate all the difficulties inherent in her new life. She was beat. A sudden thought occurred to her as she and Pearce started down the stairwell yet again. "Am I on call tonight?"

"New residents always take call the first night. You know that."

She did, but she still hadn't planned for it. Foolish.

Pearce put both hands on the push bar of a door that sported a large red sign proclaiming Fire Door--Do Not Open. "Let's get some air." She gave it a shove.

"Why not," Wynter said, glancing at the time. She needed to make a phone call.

"Something wrong?" Pearce asked, checking the sky. The rain in the forecast was nowhere in sight. It was thirty degrees outside, a clear, crisp January day. Neither of them wore coats. The street vendors, as usual, were undeterred by the weather. Their carts, pulled into position each day behind trucks and four-wheel-drive vehicles, were lined up in front of the hospital and throughout the entire campus, dispensing every kind of food from hot dogs to hummus.

"No," Wynter said quickly. "Everything's just fine."

"Actually, I'm on call tonight." Pearce walked toward the third stainless steel cart in the row. The small glass window was partially closed and steamed from the food warming inside. "But I want you to stay and get used to how the service runs. You'll be on tomorrow night."

"Fine." Wynter had no choice, and it really wasn't an unreasonable request. She'd be expected to shoulder some of the responsibility for running the service as quickly as possible, and in order to do that, she had to be familiar with the procedures and protocols of the new institution. Even had she disagreed, it was Pearce's call. That was the nature of the hierarchy, and she accepted that. Time to claim her place in it. She edged in front of Pearce and ordered. "Two coffees." She glanced at Pearce. "Want anything else? It's on me."

"In that case, I'll take a street dog with chili and mustard."

Wynter winced. "It's ten thirty in the morning."

Pearce grinned. "Then I'll take two."

"You're sick," Wynter muttered and then relayed the order. She paid and collected the brown paper bag, turning to Pearce. "I suppose you want to eat outside?"

"Cold?"

"Not at all."

"Uh-huh, sure. You're shivering from the thrill of it all." Pearce laughed at Wynter's muffled expletive. "Come on, I'll show you my hideaway."

"Is this one of those secrets?" Wynter watched Pearce's expressive eyes turn inward, wondering if she'd once again tread on forbidden territory, but then she saw the smile flicker and flare. The tiny scar did nothing to detract from the lush beauty of Pearce's lips. In fact, the irregularity made her mouth all the more appealing, and Wynter had the sudden urge to touch the less than perfect spot with her fingertip.

She tightened her grip on the paper bag, afraid of the impulse. She'd never just wanted to touch someone for no other reason than to feel their skin.

"You never know," Pearce replied, taking one of the coffee cups from Wynter. Her fingers brushed over the top of Wynter's hand. "It might be."


CHAPTER FIVE

Wynter groaned as Pearce grasped her elbow lightly and guided her down a narrow alley between two buildings.

When Pearce pulled open a nondescript door that led into yet another stairwell, Wynter balked. "You're just doing this to torture me, aren't you?"

Pearce turned innocent eyes to Wynter as she propped the fire door open against her hip. "Doing what?"

"You know very well," Wynter grumbled, edging past her. When her arm brushed across Pearce's chest, she blushed. "How far up are we going this time?"

"Third floor."

"Fine." Wynter started up and did not look back until she reached the third-floor landing. "You just want to make sure I can never find this place again."

"Well, it wouldn't be a hideaway if everyone knew about it,"

Pearce said reasonably.

They were obviously in one of the older buildings in the complex.

The vinyl tiles on the floor were scuffed and gray with age. The overhead fluorescents flickered halfheartedly, as if they might go out at any moment. Abandoned equipment lined the walls, some of a vintage well before Wynter had even contemplated medical school.

"Where are we? This looks like where old EKG machines go to die."

Pearce laughed. "In a way, that's true. It is a graveyard, of sorts, now. This entire building housed Women's Care at one time, with Labor and Delivery on the upper floors, GYN and the outpatient clinics on the lower floors. Then, when the new buildings were built, all of the clinical services moved out. There are just a few leftover administrative offices still here and some lab space that no one uses."

"And we're here...why?" Wynter felt as if she were in a museum, not a hospital. The place had an eerie feel, as if they were in a time warp and at any moment, nurses in starched white dresses and caps would appear, trailing along behind physicians as they made their rounds.

"I told you," Pearce said as she removed a key ring from her back pocket. She unlocked a wooden door whose varnish had started to crack and peel, reached inside with a certainty born of habit, and turned on a light. She stepped aside and gestured into the room. "After you."

Wynter gave Pearce a quizzical glance, but stepped inside. "Oh,"

she murmured in surprise.

The room was small, perhaps eight by ten, and appeared even smaller due to the bookshelves that lined three walls, and the large dark green leather sofa, matching chair, and wooden desk that crowded together in the center of the room. There were books and journals everywhere, crammed onto the shelves, stacked on the desk, and heaped in untidy piles on the floor around the sofa and chair. She tilted her head to read some of the titles. Annals of Surgery, Journal of OB/GYN, Archives of Surgery, and a half dozen others that she recognized. The books on the shelves were all surgical textbooks, some of them clearly decades old. She turned to Pearce. "What is this place? It looks like an old library."

"It used to be the residents' lounge."

"But it isn't anymore?"

Pearce shook her head. "When they moved all the surgical patients into the pavilions around the corner, this was too far away to be practical. Now, no one but me even remembers it's here."

Wynter sat on the sofa and ran her hand over the soft surface, worn smooth and thin in places from years of use. A green-shaded student's lamp--an original, not a reproduction--sat on the desk. Once again, she felt like she'd stepped back in time. Even though this room was part of an era when she would not have been welcomed as a member of the club, she felt a kinship to those who had come before her. "This place is awesome."

"Yeah." Pearce flopped into the oversized leather chair and swiveled sideways, hanging her legs over one arm and bracing her shoulders against the opposite one. She dug in the paper bag and extracted a wax paperwrapped hot dog. The roll was orange from the chili sauce that had soaked into it. She took a bite, chewed quickly, and swallowed before lifting it in Wynter's direction.

"You sure you don't want one?"

"Not without premedicating with Prilosec first." Wynter sipped her coffee and watched Pearce inhale the hot dog in three bites. Her pleasure was obvious, nearly carnal, and Wynter found herself staring at Pearce's mouth as she licked a drop of mustard from her chin.

"What's the matter?" Pearce asked. "Am I drooling?"

"No," Wynter said quickly, coloring. To cover her embarrassment, she said, "So if this place is such a well-kept secret, how come you know about it?"

"I used to come here when I was a kid."

"A kid? How old?"

Pearce managed to shrug even lying down. "Eight or nine, maybe."

"With your father?"

Pearce swung her legs around and sat up, extracting the second hot dog from the bag. She kept her head down as she unwrapped it.

"Uh-huh. He used to bring me in on the weekends sometimes when he was making rounds. Then, if things got busy, he'd park me over here until he was done."

"Did you mind?"

"Nah. I could always find something to read."

Wynter tried to imagine a young Pearce browsing through the bookshelves or falling asleep on the couch. She wondered if she'd been lonely. "Did you already want to be a doctor by then?"

"Rifkins are always doctors."

"Your grandfather worked on the first heart-lung machine, didn't he?"

"Yes. His lab used to be in the building behind this one. I don't remember him all that well, because he never seemed to make it to any of the family gatherings. Always at the hospital." Pearce rose and paced in the narrow space between the sofa and the bookcases, running her fingers over the dusty spines of the now-historic tomes. She pulled one off the shelf, opened it, and leaned over Wynter's shoulder from behind, holding the book at eye level.