AN ALASKAN CHRISTMAS
Author: Jennifer Snow
ISBN: 9781335041500
Publication Date: 9/24/2019
Publisher: HQN Books
Book Summary:
In Alaska, it’s always a white Christmas—but the sparks
flying between two reunited friends could turn it red-hot…If there’s one gift Erika Sheraton does not want for Christmas, it’s a vacation. Ordered to take time off, the workaholic surgeon reluctantly trades in her scrubs for a ski suit and heads to Wild River, Alaska. Her friend Cassie owns a tour company that offers adventures to fit every visitor. But nothing compares to the adrenaline rush Erika feels on being reunited with Cassie’s brother, Reed Reynolds.
Gone is the buttoned-up girl Reed remembers. His sister’s best friend has blossomed into a strong, skilled, confident woman. She’s exactly what his search-and-rescue team needs—and everything he didn’t know he craved. The gulf between his life in Wild River and her big-city career is wide. But it’s no match for a desire powerful enough to melt two stubborn hearts…
Buy Links:
Excerpt:
CHAPTER ONE
Her arms full of patient files, Dr. Erika
Sheraton tipped her head back as Darren, her premed intern, poured a double
shot of espresso down her throat. The hot liquid delivered the instant
adrenaline boost she needed to get through the rest of her fourteen-hour shift.
Dinner? A quick glance at the clock on the
wall above the nurses’ triage station revealed it was almost nine. A late
dinner.
“How are you not vibrating? That’s your third
in two hours.” Darren crumpled the paper cup and tossed it into a recycle bin
as they walked.
“Caffeine stopped affecting me a long time
ago. Now’s it’s about the taste,” she said, only half kidding. Double course
loads and all-nighters in college and then med school had prepared her for the
long hours she put in now as a general surgeon and caffeine had been her best
friend.
The twentysomething looked like he could use a
cup himself, as he stifled a yawn. His sandy blond hair poked up in the back as
though he’d crawled out of bed at the last possible minute and his hazel eyes
were bloodshot. If he was tired now after only eight hours on shift, he’d be
reconsidering this particular profession by midnight. The staff at Alaska
General Hospital never rested. The revolving doors at emergency constantly
rotated with broken bones, heart attacks and bleeding patients filing in. No
day was ever the same. Unpredictability kept Erika alert and on her toes.
“After these rounds, I’m going to need you to
check in on Mr. Franklin—he’s in recovery. His family is wondering when they
can see him.” The man’s entire extended family was camped out in the surgical
ward waiting room—fifteen or sixteen of them at least. They couldn’t see the
man, but they all refused to leave. Each one took turns driving the nurses on
duty crazy. “Make sure they know only immediate family can go in. He needs his
rest.”
Darren nodded, but a look of hesitation
appeared behind his dark-rimmed glasses.
“What?” She checked her watch.
“I just… Well, shouldn’t you talk to them? I
know his wife wanted to thank you…”
Erika shook her head. “Keeping him on the
low-cholesterol, low-sodium diet I’ve prescribed—and off my operating
table—will be thanks enough,” she said, scanning the top folder on her stack.
“Okay, but…”
She shot him a look.
“No problem. I’ll check in on him.”
“Thank you.” She continued down the hall
toward the next high-priority patient.
“Don’t forget, your dad still wants to see
you,” Darren said, struggling to keep up to her half sprint.
“I know.” And she could do without the hourly
reminders. Her father rarely requested her presence during her rounds, so
whatever it was wouldn’t be good. If she put him off long enough, maybe he’d
forget.
“Top
chart—Mr. Grayson. He’s scheduled for an appendectomy in a few hours,” she
said, approaching the man’s hospital room.
Darren nodded as he smiled. “This old guy is
hilarious. Did you know he was a stunt motorcycle driver in the circus in the
’80s?”
“No.” She knew he had an inflamed appendix and
had waited far too long to come in. She knew his vitals and that in an hour,
they’d be prepping him for surgery. Knowing personal details of a patient’s
life didn’t make her job any easier or guarantee a better outcome. She juggled
the files on one arm as she reached into her pocket for a new set of sterile
gloves.
“Hey, before we go in there, can I talk to
you?” Darren asked, stopping her outside the room. He stared at the checked
patterned floor tiles.
Damn. “You’re requesting a transfer to a
different physician.” He wasn’t the first medical student who’d gotten reassigned.
She’d made it a month with Darren—a new record.
Another intern bites the dust.
He nodded, obviously relieved that he hadn’t
had to vocalize it himself. “You’re amazing, Dr. Sheraton, and I feel so
fortunate for the opportunity to work with you, but you’re also very busy and
unavailable…”
The sharp sting of the words was familiar.
She’d heard the same speech from interns and boyfriends alike. She’d
successfully eliminated the problem in one group right after her first year of
residency…interns were hospital assigned and therefore out of her control.
“I mean I just need all the training I can get
and between patients and your research work…”
She didn’t need an explanation. She was busy.
Too busy to have someone following her around in fact. This was totally fine
with her. “I understand.”
“You’re not upset?”
“Only about having to get my own coffee from
now on,” she said.
The joke missed its mark and the intern’s eyes
widened. “I can still do that…”
Wow, was she really that scary? She was demanding
and expected the students to put in the hours she did. She may not be the
friendliest doctor on staff, socializing after work and remembering birthdays
and such, but she gave these interns a real picture of their future in
medicine. Wasn’t that what they were there for? “I was kidding, Darren.”
“Oh…right.”
“Dr. Sheraton, please report to emergency.
Stat.”
The call over the hospital intercom had her
handing Darren the stack of folders. “Please take his heart rate and blood
pressure,” she said, practically running to the elevators. “And don’t forget
Mr. Franklin.”
“Got it,” he called after her.
The quiet twenty-six-second elevator ride to
the first floor was the closest thing she got to a spa day. It was the only
time she was forced to slow to a pace other than her own usual breakneck speed.
But even that half a minute was too long. It gave her time to think. Think
about her previous surgeries and replay the details—what went right, what went
wrong, what she could do better next time. Constantly reevaluating herself made
her a better surgeon, but too often it left her feeling like she was coming up
slightly short of her potential. Her type A personality left little room for
failure or complacency.
Checking her phone in her lab coat pocket, she
scanned her schedule for the rest of the evening, evaluating what she could
push back if this emergency demanded her immediate attention. The number of
things marked urgent made her will the elevator to move quicker. She’d
be lucky to get out of there by 2:00 a.m.
A text popped up from Darren.
If you change your mind about Mrs. Franklin…
She wouldn’t. She ignored the text from her
intern—former intern—and put the phone away.
As the elevator stopped, she took a deep
breath, expecting to see a flurry of organized chaos as the doors opened.
Stretchers, ambulance lights flashing and sirens wailing outside, paramedics
and nurses… Instead, she ran square into her father.
No emergency, just his six-foot-three frame
and his usual neutral expression. It was impossible to read her father, as his
face gave nothing away. His emotions were never too high or too low, just
infuriatingly balanced no matter the circumstance. His calm presence and
rational thinking made him fantastic at his profession, but sometimes he was
irritating as shit as a father.
“Hi. I was just coming to see you.”
Eventually.
“Walk with me,” he said, turning on his heel
and nodding.
Her jaw clenched so tight her teeth might
snap. This was so like him—assuming she could drop everything at his command.
He may run the hospital, but he often had no idea how hectic her schedule was.
“Can we talk as I do my rounds, Darren is…”
“More than capable,” he said, leading the way
to his first-floor corner office. “And requesting to be transferred, I see.”
His tone made her palms sweat. He should be
happy that she was pushing these interns to their limits. What awaited them
once they graduated wasn’t for the faint of heart. Better to get used to
grueling days and nights now, performing on little to no sleep, living on
caffeine and leftover Halloween chocolate bars, than to realize they couldn’t
cut it when lives were in their hands.
Unfortunately, he didn’t always agree with her
beliefs . He wanted the interns to feel at home at Alaska General so they’d
apply here once they graduated. The hospital was short staffed and more doctors
would benefit everyone, but Erika preferred to work alongside the best.
Her father had an open-door
policy—literally—so when he closed the office door behind her, she knew the
head of General Surgery hadn’t called her in to discuss Thanksgiving dinner
plans.
She glanced at his wall calendar as she sat.
Especially since Thanksgiving was a week ago.
“Dad, this intern thing is just ridiculous…”
He held up a hand. “This isn’t about your
inability to effectively manage others.”
Kick to the gut delivered and received. She
clamped her lips together.
He opened his desk drawer and handed her a
letter as he sat in the plush, leather chair behind his oversize mahogany desk.
Her eyes widened, seeing the Hospital Foundation
logo on the top of the page. “Is this the final approval from the board for the
clinical trials?” They’d submitted the application six months ago to start
trials on a new antirejection drug after years of research, and they were
waiting on the formal go-ahead to start with a test group.
Would Darren reconsider staying with her if he
knew he could be part of a medical breakthrough? He’d been a lot of help in the
past month.
“Just read it,” her father said.
She scanned the letter from the board of
directors, feeling her excitement fade and anxiety rise with each word.
“Recommended vacation? What is this?”
“I don’t like it either, but the board is
reviewing policies and making sure we are following them,” he said, the edge
indicating he’d been outvoted in this decision. He certainly didn’t believe in
time off and had never encouraged her to take any. Her life was her career,
just like him.
“But any day now we will be starting clinical
trials on the new drug.” It had taken her father and his team almost three
years to get the experimental antirejection product approved for testing on
organ transplant patients and they’d finally gotten it. They’d worked around
the clock for a year to make sure they did. Subjects were undergoing assessment
right now to be ready for the trials.
Now was not the time to take a break.
Her father looked as though he’d made the same
argument to the hospital board. “The team will have to handle it.”
So recommended actually meant forced.
“Why now? I’m fine. I don’t need a break.” At twenty-nine, she was eager to
prove herself as one of the top general surgeons in the state. Between her
surgical success record and the research time she’d invested in this new drug,
she was close. Helping her father get one step closer to winning the Lister
Medal was high on her priority list. “Come on, Dad, you know I’m good. My last
two operations were impossible surgeries…”
“Improbable surgeries.”
Erika clamped her lips together again, forcing
her argument to stay put. It wouldn’t do any good. Three years working
alongside her father and she’d yet to prove herself. Despite two back-to-back improbable
surgeries that she’d performed successfully, he still doubted her
abilities. His micromanagement over her research team had driven her insane,
but he’d reluctantly agreed to let her run her own set of clinical trials on
the antirejection drug, and she’d foolishly believed she was making progress
with him.
Now she was being forced into taking a break.
What the hell was a break? She hadn’t
had one since starting university. She’d graduated with her bachelor’s in three
years instead of four by doubling up on courses and then had applied directly
to med school. She’d interned at Alaska General and secured a position there
shortly after graduation. She couldn’t remember the last day she had off, let
alone…she glanced at the letter. Two weeks?
What the hell would she do with all that free
time?
Excerpted from An Alaskan
Christmas by Jennifer Snow, Copyright © 2019 by Jennifer Snow. Published
by HQN Books.
Author Bio:
Jennifer
Snow lives in Edmonton, Alberta with her husband and four year old son. She is
a member of the RWA, the Alberta Writers Guild, Canadian Authors Association
and SheWrites.org. Her first Brookhollow book was a finalist in the Heart of
Denver Aspen Gold contest and the Golden Quill Award. More information can be
found at www.jennifersnowauthor.com.
Social Links:
Twitter: @JenniferSnow18
Facebook: @jennifersnowbooks
Instagram: @jensnowauthor
No comments:
Post a Comment