Radclyffe - Passion's Bright Fury Read online

"Jesus, that's inhuman."

  "I need to get some sleep and prepare a few things," Jude said with a grin.

  "Well then," Lori murmured, bending her face to Jude's neck and licking the trail of water from her skin, "you should probably leave. I can't promise how much sleep you'll get if you stay."

  Jude kissed her once, quickly, and stepped from the shower, reaching for a towel. "My very thoughts."

  They parted with the usual promise to call when their schedules allowed, and by the time Jude reached home in the taxi, her mind was already on her plans for the next day.

  *****

  July 2 nd - 6:50 AM

  Sax passed Aaron Townsend in the hall as he was leaving after a night on duty.

  "Everything quiet?" she asked, although she knew that it must be. She'd returned to the hospital in the middle of the night, even though she wasn't on call, and she knew that someone would have notified her if anything big had come in. She was second call, on back-up if more than one major trauma arrived at once. Technically she could have taken call from home, but she was just as happy to sleep in familiar surroundings.

  "Depends on what you mean," he said with a grin. "The only admission we had was some guy who lost a battle with his fan belt at two a.m. Don't ask me why he was working on his engine in the middle of the night, but he's in the OR now getting his fingers reattached." His sly expression suggested there was something else however-a secret that he found amusing.

  Sax stopped walking and fixed him with a piercing glance. "Would you like to tell me what else is going on?"

  "There are four people in the trauma bay hanging cameras and microphones from the ceiling right now."

  "Really," Sax remarked dryly, thinking that Jude Castle hadn't wasted any time getting to work. She had to admit she liked that about the filmmaker. As irritating as this entire project was likely to be, she admired Castle's persistence and perseverance. The woman was a professional, and that kind of determination was something Sax understood. "Guess I'll wander back and see what's happening."

  "Uh huh." The head nurse watched her walk away and wished he didn't have a breakfast date. He would have loved to watch the confrontation. The undercurrent of competition between the two women hadn't escaped his notice the previous day. And they said that alpha males were dangerous when you put them together. He'd worked with Saxon Sinclair for four and a half years, and he knew just how tough an alpha female could be. It's going to be a very interesting few months around here, he thought as he pushed through the ER doors into the bright morning sun and waved to the brunette in the convertible waiting at the curb for him.

  Sax leaned against the doorway at the entrance to the trauma bay, her trauma bay , and stared at the strangers fast at work. A woman in jeans and workshirt stood on the top of a stepladder adjusting a ceiling mounted camera that was directly over the patient treatment tables. Her blond hair was half concealed by a baseball cap turned around backwards with the word Sundance stenciled in bright orange letters. Her figure, at least from the back view, was neat and tidy. Two young men appeared to be stringing cable from the camera to a bank of monitors and recording equipment stacked on rolling tables pushed up against the wall near the nurse's station. Jude Castle stood observing them, intermittently referring to her notebook and then looking up to follow the progress of the equipment installation. Looking fresh and energized, she was wearing khaki pants and a tight black T-shirt, leaving her nicely muscled arms bare. For a second, enjoying the view, Sax forgot how annoyed she was at the invasion of her domain.

  "The primary shots are going to have to be with the handheld," Jude remarked to the blond on the ladder.

  "The best quality is going to come from this one up here," the woman countered.

  "There's too much action to follow with a stationary. I'll want to focus on the surgeons, especially Deb Stein, and they're moving all the time."

  The blond climbed down and pivoted to survey the area she would need to cover with her cameras. She halted suddenly when she saw Sax watching, and a small smile flickered across her face. "Good morning," she called in Sax's direction, a faint hint of flirtatiousness in her voice.

  Sax pushed away from the wall and came forward. "Morning," she responded neutrally, her glance moving quickly from the attractive blond who was appraising her to Jude. "Ms. Castle," Sax murmured by way of greeting.

  "Dr. Sinclair," Jude said smoothly, "this is my DP, Melissa Cooper."

  "DP?" Sax queried as she turned to extend her hand.

  "Director of photography," Melissa furnished as they shook one another's hand.

  "Ah, I see." Sax look back at Jude and continued, "Could I speak with you for a moment, please?"

  "Of course. Mel, would you make sure they run a sound check once they get their lines connected?"

  "Sure", the photographer replied. She watched the two women walk out into the hall, checking out Sinclair's denim clad ass. Now there is one hot item. This is going to be a very enjoyable shoot. Oh, yeah.

  *****

  Chapter Six

  "You're up early," Sax said as they walked through the still quiet corridors. "Let's grab some coffee. I'll buy this time."

  "I thought it would be a good idea if we took care of some of the construction details before things got busy in there," Jude said carefully. She knew the surgeon had something on her mind, and she half expected another skirmish.

  "Traumas don't tend to follow a schedule, unless it's lunar. There's something in that tale. Every full moon we're swamped." They reached the coffee kiosk and Sax ordered two red-eyes.

  "I just took a chance that we could get most of it done this morning," Jude agreed. "Still, the hour right around the changeover from the night shift to the day shift is always quiet."

  "Usually," Sax allowed, looking at her carefully. "You've had some experience in hospitals then."

  "Some." Jude stared straight ahead and didn't elucidate further. Those six weeks were nothing she cared to discuss. She'd forgotten it, buried it, left it behind. She shivered.

  "Cold?" Sax asked quietly, handing her a coffee.

  "No," Jude said, taking the paper cup. "I'm fine."

  Sax nodded. "Okay. Let's talk about this project of yours. Since I can't get rid of you, I'd better find out what I'm in for."

  "Okay-" Jude began.

  "Wait," Sax interjected. "Come with me."

  *****

  The view from the helipad was incredible. Like most New Yorkers, Jude was used to the kind of vistas one saw from restaurants on top of skyscrapers and out the windows of offices on the 70 th floor, but the sight of the water and the white dots of sails flickering over the surface and the majestic rise of the Statue of Liberty were still eye-catchingly gorgeous. Saxon Sinclair in profile, the wind whipping her black hair around her starkly handsome face, was pretty captivating, too. Jude wished she had a camera.

  "Nice up here," Jude observed.

  "One of the few places in the hospital where there's any privacy," Sax commented. She wasn't certain why she'd brought the filmmaker up here. It was one of the places she came to be alone, when the chaos in the world downstairs became too much or the long hours between midnight and dawn stretched too long. It was amazingly peaceful here at night, surrounded by nothing but the wind and the dark and the lights from surrounding buildings that substituted for stars in the urban landscape. Far below, the streets teamed with life and people living it, some in desperate abandon and some in unconscious ignorance. Up here, she felt both a part of it and apart from it, the watcher who on occasion ventured forth to take part in the game. She turned her back to the view, watching Jude study the rooftop with that same intent expression she'd noticed several times the day before. "Looking for a shot?"

  Jude stared at her in surprise, amazed that she could tell. She blushed faintly, because at that moment she had been thinking how much she would like to photograph that trauma surgeon. "Something like that. Am I imagining it, or is that actually a basketball hoop on the side o
f the parking ramp over there?"

  "That's what it is, all right," Sax confirmed, taking the lid off her coffee cup and tossing it into a nearby trashcan.

  "Is that for Deb's benefit?"

  Sax grinned. "Nope. It's mine."

  "Ah, that's right. Aaron said you liked games."

  "Some of them," Sax replied casually.

  For no good reason, Jude's heart skipped a beat. Forget it. That is not what she meant. You have got to get your hormones under control around her. But she couldn't prevent a brief image of the other woman in her motorcycle jacket from flickering into her mind. And that image did nothing to still the surge of blood into places she really didn't want it to be going. Not at seven o'clock in the morning at the beginning of a very long day.

  "So, are you actually planning on taking call with Deb?" Sax asked as they leaned against the cement wall that encircled the rooftop.

  "Yes. I want to be there when something happens, and you said yourself how unpredictable it can be," Jude responded, grateful for a conversation to take her mind off her body.

  "For twenty-four hour stretches?"

  "Whenever she's here, yes." As she spoke, Jude took in the huge white X stenciled on the rooftop, and the windsock snapping in the breeze nearby, and almost salivated at the thought of filming the helicopter's descent while a crowd of gowned medical personnel waited, bent low to avoid the swirling rotors. It brought to mind all those old clips from the sixties of choppers twisting wildly over the scorched earth of a far-away land, olive-garbed men racing madly forward with their wounded on makeshift litters. God, what a shot.

  "What about your crew-the photographers and sound people. Them, too?"

  "What?" Jude asked, still focused on the faint images in her mind. Battlefields and blood and Sinclair in black leather. "Oh-Mel is the main camera operator, and she'll work nights when Deb's on call. I figure that's when we're most likely to get a hit. Since I'll be here around the clock, I'll handle the cameras if she's not available. I'm not as good as she is, but I can manage."

  "For how long?"

  "Indefinitely," Jude said with a shrug. "Until I get what I need."

  "That's a significant commitment," Sax observed neutrally, wondering if the filmmaker had any idea how disruptive that kind of schedule was going to be. "In time and energy. Every third night, sometimes all night, can wear you down pretty fast."

  "You do it," Jude pointed out neutrally.

  "It's my job."

  "Mine, too."

  Sax studied her, then grinned. "Point taken. Forgive my professional chauvinism."

  "It's hard to be angry at someone who so readily admits it when they're being a jerk."

  For a moment, Sax simply stared at her. Green eyes, sparkling with challenge, met hers, and she wondered what it was about the redhead that was so damn appealing. She decided it might be the fact that she had yet to back down over anything. "Aren't you afraid that you'll offend me and I'll be uncooperative?"

  Jude laughed. "I missed the part where you've been cooperating so far."

  "I'll try to be more obvious then," Sax replied dryly, but her tone was playful.

  "Tell me something, Doctor Sinclair," Jude asked, still thinking about the battlefield images. "Tell me about the enemy."

  "Enemy?"

  "Yes-what is the enemy you face when a patient is delivered into your trauma bay?"

  "Time," Sax answered immediately, not even stopping to consider where the question had come from. "A true trauma emergency is a race against time-blood seeps away, organs die, damage becomes irreversible."

  "How much time do you have? To make decisions, to make a difference?" Jude asked softly, watching something in Sinclair's face change. The surgeon was looking past her, her gaze slightly distant, as if she were reliving something in her mind. Jude did not want to distract her; she did not want to let her know how much her expression revealed.

  "Seconds. Sometimes not even that-you act unconsciously, instinctively."

  "And if you're wrong?" Softer still.

  Sax's blue eyes snapped into sharp focus and met Jude's. "We have a saying in surgery, Ms. Castle. Better wrong than uncertain. Hesitation, for a surgeon, can be deadly. If you can't live with your decisions, you need to find another line of work." She turned to leave, saying, "I have trauma rounds in thirty minutes."

  "What about Deb Stein?" Jude called after her, not wanting to let the moment pass. She needed to understand what went on beneath the surface so she could hunt it out and capture it with her lens. "How will you know if she can make those kinds of decisions?"

  Sax stopped and faced her. "You're interviewing me again."

  "Is this year some kind of test for her?" Jude persisted, ignoring the comment.

  Mildly exasperated at the other woman's tenacity, Sax shook her head. "No. Deb has proved herself already. She's completed six years of general surgery training-six years of a system designed to wear down and wear out anyone not physically and psychologically fit for the specialty. The attrition rate is high in the first two years of a surgery residency for a reason."

  "Sounds abusive," Jude observed, still probing.

  "Some people would call it that," Sax agreed. "But better to find out before someone is set loose with a knife in their hand whether they can take it or not."

  "So what is the purpose of this year, if Deb is already a competent surgeon?"

  "I need to teach her to trust her judgment, to think on her feet, to act without all the information, to make the right decisions. If anyone is tested this year, it will be me."

  Sax stopped abruptly. Where in hell did that come from? Why is it every time I talk to this woman I end up saying things I don't mean to? She's downright dangerous.

  "I'm sorry. I'll be late," Sax said curtly, and walked briskly away.

  Jude watched her go, feeling slightly breathless. She tried to tell herself it wasn't because of the passion she had glimpsed in the depths of Saxon Sinclair's eyes, or how very attractive she found it.

  Chapter Seven

  Personal Project Log - Castle

  July 2, 7:40 a.m.

  I'm starting to get the picture now. Surgery is the medical equivalent of the Special Forces or the Green Berets or something. At least that's the way Sinclair sees it. She's the commanding officer, the residents are her troops, and the war is against death. Jesus. I never thought about that before. It takes some kind of ego to take that on. She's got it, that's for sure, but I wonder how that happens. Where does that confidence, that absolute certainty, come from? [Note: need more background on Sinclair. She and Deb are the brackets of this frame, the beginning and the end.] That's the point of this year, I guess-to take Deb, the green recruit, and turn her into a leader, a warrior. [Note: Entitle second episode 'Boot Camp']. This is the angle-the hook. This is the analogy that will get people excited, that will keep them coming back week after week. That and the human-interest aspect of following Deb through the process. She's perfect for it because she's so girl-next-door. They loved her during the Olympics, and the up close and personal interviews with her were a big hit. [Note: call Sinclair's secretary for her C. V. Arrange an on-camera interview with Sinclair regarding the necessary personality traits of a trauma surgeon. How did she choose Deb?]

  *****

  July 2- 8:15 PM

  "If I have to eat cafeteria food every third night for the next six months, I want hazard pay," Melissa Cooper groused. "It's bad enough that my social life is going to go to hell, but at this rate so will the rest of me."

  "I told you to take a few hours off for dinner…or we could have ordered take out," Jude pointed out, leafing through a surgical journal she had found under a stack of file folders on the counter. The article titles were mostly indecipherable to her, but the pictures were fascinating. She was sitting in the trauma bay in one of the ubiquitous swivel chairs, her feet propped up on the wastepaper basket. Nearby, Mel fiddled with her equipment. "Problems?"

  "No, I ran a video-sound sy
nch check earlier, and it was fine. I just wanted to make sure we had the microphone settings optimized to capture everything we could. It would be better if we had off-camera mikes, too."

  "I agree, but I don't think it's technically possible in the space that we have here. Besides, it will add to the immediacy and the atmosphere if our sound is a little rough. We want this to come across like a front line, in-the-trenches kind of documentary."

  Melissa straightened and stretched. "That's what you're going to get if I have to rely on only two cameras, and wear one of them on top of it." She pulled a chair out from under the long counter and regarded Jude contemplatively. "How are things with Lori?"

  Surprised, Jude responded automatically. "Fine. Why?"

  "Just wondering," Melissa said with a shrug. "You've been seeing her, what? Four or five months?"

  "Six."

  Melissa whistled. "Sounds serious."

  "No," Jude said slowly, realizing that she rarely gave her relationship with Lori much thought. It just was...what it was. "Not really."

  "Is she seeing anyone else?"

  "Not that I know of, but she might be. We never made any exclusivity agreements."

  "Are you?"

  Jude eyed her friend and colleague suspiciously. "No. I barely have time to keep up the one relationship I have as it is. So why the twenty questions, Mel? Are you planning on asking her out?"

  "God, no," Melissa said laughing. "She's hot, but she's way too establishment for me. Just curious as to what's going on with you. If I were going to ask anyone out, it would be Sinclair. She's got a look about her that says she could be interesting."

  "Interesting?" Jude asked carefully, trying to ignore the sudden twist of jealousy she felt at Melissa's announcement. You've got absolutely nothing to be jealous about. What's it to you if Melissa goes after Sinclair or anyone else for that matter? You already have a girlfriend and even seeing her every few weeks is work. Besides, Sinclair is definitely not your type. She's secretive and edgy and just plain difficult.

  Oblivious to her friend's reaction, Melissa continued blithely, "In case you haven't noticed, she's got a thing about control. I bet she's the same way in bed."