Page 8 of Her Desire (Pulse Medical #3)

“Because,” Holly said. “I called you twice yesterday and sent a text…” her words trailed off briefly as she wondered if she was coming off as too needy.

But then just as quickly as the thought shot into her head, she shook it away.

No, they were friends. They were close. They’d spent endless hours laughing and crying and talking in the hallways of Oakridge.

They bonded over wine evenings and early morning jogs on the promenade, though Holly much rather preferred slow strolls.

She had every right to reach out and expect some support.

“I thought you’d want to know what a complete and utter disaster my date with Brian was. ”

There was the faintest flicker of a smile on Gianna’s face, but it passed so quickly Holly wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it. And she couldn’t ask her about it either because a voice suddenly called from behind Holly.

“Rossi.”

Holly recognized the accent instantly. British.

It was Dr. Patel. The pediatric cardiologist. She walked to the table and gave Holly a tilt of her head.

“Morning, Doctor Lucas.” And then focused her attention on Gianna.

“I’ve got a patient coming in to OR two in ten minutes.

Atrial septal defect. The kid’s barely three, and his heart’s not holding up.

We’re going in to patch it. I could use your hands. ”

Gianna immediately sat up straighter. “I’ll be there.” And just like that, she was up. Coffee in hand, already moving, leaving Holly sitting there feeling like an abandoned puppy on the side of the road. A feeling she couldn’t quite understand.

“See you later,” Gianna tossed over her shoulder before heading out of the cafeteria, leaving Holly still stuck in her chair, staring at the empty seat across from her, wondering why she was feeling so bothered when clearly Gianna was just busy.

Nothing more than that. Or at least she hoped it wasn’t anything more.

But she didn’t have time to ponder Gianna’s sudden coolness when her phone buzzed with an incoming call.

Holly fished her phone out of her scrub pocket and checked the screen.

Her stomach dropped. A moan made its way to the front of her tongue.

It was Brian. The worst date in the world was calling.

She considered answering it, being polite since she didn’t want to hurt his feelings even though his feelings were clearly still bent up on Sofia, but instead, Holly hit the decline button before the call could ring again and stuffed the phone back into her pocket.

Coffee. She needed coffee.

There was no way she could get through a call with Brian or check up on her post-op patients. Especially now when she wasn’t sure what the hell was up with Gianna.

By the time Holly left the cafeteria, coffee in hand, her pager was already going off. A hip-replacement patient in post-op needed pain management adjustments and an emergency appendectomy was coming in that she might have to cover. Standard on-call chaos.

Holly experienced a glimmer of hope when she had heard about the appendectomy, hoping it was a kid—even though she immediately felt bad for hoping such a thing—and that Gianna would be the surgeon, giving her an excuse to see her again, possibly even have the opportunity to get to the bottom of her chilliness.

But she wasn’t. It was Dr. Miller, a general surgeon with the bedside manner of a brick.

The next few hours passed in a blur of surgical prep, post-op checks, and a lot of standing around waiting to be paged into an OR. At one point, she found herself in the ICU intubating a patient who had gone into respiratory distress, a task she could do in her sleep at this point.

And yet, even in the middle of all that madness, Holly’s mind kept circling back to Gianna—to the way she’d stared at her so blankly, to the way she hadn’t even mentioned the text message.

She couldn’t deny that something was going on.

After knowing the surgeon for so many years, it was only natural to notice when said surgeon suddenly stopped acting like your friend and more like an acquaintance you only spoke to in passing.

By the time things slowed down, Holly found herself leaning against the counter of the nurses’ station, staring at Gianna’s name in her messages.

She stared for so long her eyes blurred.

She wondered if she should just leave it, forget all about the fact that Gianna had left her on read and was acting distant.

But her brain couldn’t seem to do it. Her overthinking brain told her that something wasn’t right, that she wasn’t imagining things and Gianna was avoiding her.

Holly just needed to know why. Without waiting for the sense to kick in, she tapped out a quick text: You all good, G? You seemed off this morning.

Surprisingly, it took less than a minute for Gianna to respond. And even more surprisingly, Holly was holding her breath the entire time.

Sorry, I’ve got a lot on my plate today and didn’t want to be distracted…and you’re very distracting.

Holly's brain stuttered to a halt. She stared at the message and reread it again. And again. And then a third time. What the hell did that mean?