Mitch and Amanda had made a date for dinner in one of the
fancy new restaurants near his apartment. As he sat at the bar
waiting for her, he considered the night ahead. It was their first
real date. Thinking back, the last real date he had been on was
when he was single and chasing after the woman who became
his wife.
Amanda walked in, looking sexy in a short black skirt, black
stilettos, and a tight green sweater that brought out the green
in her gray-green eyes. Her hair, normally pulled back in a limp
ponytail, was down, freshly shampooed and blown dry, giving it
some bounce as it fell to her shoulders. Wow, thought Mitch. He
smiled as he watched her walk toward him.
He stood and held out his hand to escort her to their table.
They ate dinner slowly, savoring the food. They talked a little
bit about work but mostly skipped the topics of premature babies
and triage.
“You’ve told me that you’re from upstate New Hampshire,”
he said. “And I know that you are one of the best nurses I’ve
ever met. But other than that, I really don’t know anything
about you.” He laughed. “Isn’t that funny? All the time we spend
together, and we hardly know each other.”
She told him about life growing up in the back country of
New Hampshire, with a mother who hadn’t finished high school
before dropping out to have her first kid, and an alcoholic father
who drank away the family’s public assistance check. She had
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grown up ridiculed for her third-hand clothing; her greasy,
stringy hair; and as she grew into adolescence, her severe case of
acne. She spent many lonely hours in front of the TV to escape
her pathetic life. She became fascinated with shows of real-life
crimes, brutal murders, and catastrophic accidents. She imagined
what it must be like to work with people covered in blood and
suffering from life’s bad luck.
She stopped talking to take a sip of her drink. “A little TMI?”
“Not at all. I’m intrigued. Please go on.”
The one thing she had that nobody else around her had was
a high IQ. She was exceptionally intelligent, which must have
been a freakish accident, considering the genetic material from
which she had been created. Her acceptance into a Boston nurs
ing school on full scholarship was her road out of northern New
Hampshire. Her professors soon learned that she was a bright stu
dent who caught on quickly and was not the least bit squeamish.
In fact, she was quite the opposite. She welcomed the opportu
nity to work with blood and would happily help her classmates
with dissecting their cats in lab. During her clinical rotations, she
gravitated to triage and emergency room work.
“To be honest, I liked those areas not so much because I
wanted to help people but really for the excitement and adren
aline rush.” Quietly, she added, “It fed my need for real-life
excitement, filled with victims and heroes.”
Gunshot wounds, head injuries, severed limbs—it all satis
fied her thirst for the gruesome. It was kind of a sickness. But it
was what kept her going.
She looked at Mitch. “Are you horrified?”
Mesmerized, he said, “Not at all. Tell me more.”
She took a deep breath and said, “Okay, here goes. Do you
want to know my deepest secret?”
He leaned in close.
“I also believed that working as a nurse would be a way to
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meet a decent man, a man who would respect and take care of
me, something my father never did.” She lowered her head as she
spoke.
He reached over and lifted her chin up. “Hey, are you embar
rassed? You should never be embarrassed about your hopes and
dreams.” He looked her in the eye. “Never.”
Amanda sat up straight. “Sorry about that. That’s way too
serious for a first date.”
She excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. Mitch was fas
cinated. Who knew what lay at the heart of that sexy body and
brilliant brain? She returned to the table and leaned over just the
right amount to give him an eyeful of what was under her sweater
as she sat back down. After dinner and a couple of espresso martinis
later, they went back to Mitch’s apartment. They had a great buzz
going—alert and awake with espresso, relaxed and uninhibited
from the gin. He opened a bottle of cabernet. They took off their
shoes and got comfortable on the couch. Soon, with most of the
wine still in their glasses, they were fully naked, wrapped around
each other on the couch. He reached for her breasts. He kissed
her neck, making his way down, and paused at her chest. He was
beginning to lose himself between her breasts, one hand reaching
down between her legs. Too quickly, he brought her to a climax.
“Okay, your turn now,” Amanda purred in his ear.
Once they were done, Amanda got up off the couch and
wrapped herself in one of his heavy zip-up sweatshirts. She picked
up her phone and checked it for messages.
She walked around the living room, admiring the view over
the neighboring buildings out to the city beyond.
“This is one nice apartment, Mitch. Where’s your family?
You keep them stashed away in the burbs while you get to play
in the city?”
“No, I call it working in the city. I’ve got tuitions to pay and
a wife to keep happy. I keep this apartment for the month-long
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stretches when I’m on service and I don’t have time to make the
commute home.”
She carried her phone over and put it under the couch. She
lay down next to him. “So, there’s your incentive for the census
project. Keep the NICU busy and get your bonuses. Is that right?”
“Hey, you know the deal. You’re right next to me in the game.
Don’t you go judging me.”
“No judgment here. I do what you tell me to do—I’m just the
triage nurse following doctor’s orders,” she teased. “But seriously,
once you go back, are you going to keep doing it?”
“Doing what?”
“Duh, I’m talking about inducing mothers and adding to the
NICU census.”
“Yeah, I can’t exactly stop now. I’m too deep into it.”
“I’ve tried to figure out the details,” Amanda said. “Are Char
lie and Rita involved?”
“They’re just the administrative stamp of approval.” He
grabbed her ass and pulled her on top of him. “But enough of
work talk.”
Straddling him, she leaned over and gave him a long, deep kiss.
In the morning, Mitch asked Amanda if she was going in to work.
“No, not today. I’ve got a couple of days off. We can spend some
time together if you want.”
“That’s great, but this morning I need to meet with my law
yers. Can I see you later?” He tossed her a set of keys. “Make
yourself comfortable.” He walked over and kissed her on the lips,
patted her on the butt, and whispered, “Until tonight.”
He got to the street corner and realized he was missing his
phone. He went back to the apartment. Amanda wasn’t in the liv
ing room. He looked in the bedroom—not there. “Amanda?” he
called out as he walked down the hall. His office door was ajar. He
slammed the door open. “What the hell are you doing in my office?”
